China — 2012 — The 21st Century Matriarch

Many years ago I started collecting headlines/news blurbs as a way of honing my reading of news. Over the years, the headline collection has been warped by the sources of news I was reading…increasingly online. Reviewing the April 2002 headline gleanings - I forced myself to pick 10.

Wildfire scorches parts of New Mexico
A new census in the solar system doubles the number of large asteroids thought to lurk between Mars and Jupiter.
Despite decades of legal protection, the billion or so monarch butterflies that overwinter in Mexico are losing the cloudbelt forests they depend on
China tops list of world executioners
Thousands of mummies, most of them from the Inca culture five centuries ago, have been unearthed from an ancient cemetery under a shantytown near Lima in Peru,
Huge colonies of Earth microbes are living off of hydrogen gas released by common rocks, raising the possibility of similar life forms on Mars
Adventurer Thor Heyerdahl dead at 87
Cooking tomatoes -- such as in spaghetti sauce -- makes the fruit heart-healthier and boosts its cancer-fighting ability
Four whooping cranes taught to migrate by human trainers have completed the return trip to Wisconsin from Florida on their own
Being the firstborn child in a family may make a person more likely to develop coronary disease

As usual, my interests are reflected in these top 10: space exploration (2 and 6), earth systems and exploration (1, 3, 5, 7 and 9), food/health (8 and 10).

So, before the eyes of history has come a nation, from whence is unknown; nor is it known how it scattered and disappeared without a trace. – Nicholas Roerich, 1926 as quoted in Elizabeth Wayland Barber in The Mummies of Urumchi

~~~~~

We challenge ourselves to learn about a nation from the artifacts they left behind. It is a mystery we set for ourselves to unravel. How like us were they? Were they healthy and long lived or did their bodies wear out very quickly? We overlay our values onto the artifacts and tell their story. It is the best we can do - but not enough. The artifacts are only a snap shot and the hole in our knowledge that implies that ‘it scattered and disappeared without a trace’ means that there is still something we have not found or do not understand.

Knowing there are unknowns means we have the opportunity to be discoverers.