The Cool Blue Blog

Cave bling

Something often associated with symbolic thinking is jewelry. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps because animals without higher mental functioning don't adorn themselves. In any case, scientists have found that this practice among humanoids dates back further than originally thought.

Archaeologists have evidence that people were behaving like thoroughly modern humans 100,000 years ago, decorating themselves with status-defining jewellery - the earliest known shell necklaces....

A team of archaeologists, writing in the journal Science, reported on an analysis of small shells with distinctive perforations that appeared to have been strung together as beads. Chemical studies showed two shells from the Skhul cave in Israel were 100,000 years old, and a single shell from Oued Djebbana, in Algeria, was 90,000 years old.

I wonder what a shell necklace went for back in the day?

Kevlar Shorts

Marines testing new Kevlar shorts in Iraq

Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20047845011
Story by Cpl. Paula M. Fitzgerald

CAMP RAMADI, Iraq(July 5, 2004) -- Marines here from 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment are currently testing lower body armor developed by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Va.

The Kevlar shorts were designed to repel razor-sharp shrapnel from improvised explosive devices detonated by anti-Iraqi fighters along transportation routes throughout the country.

According to Lt. Col. Lance A. McDaniel, battalion executive officer, the artillery unit received ten pairs of the shorts from the Warfighting Lab. The shorts arrived nearly a week ago and were distributed amongst the battalion's batteries.

"The gunners in our vehicles seem to be the most exposed to shrapnel," McDaniel said.

"We've had a lot of Marines receive injuries to their buttocks and upper thighs."