Is Chicago Union Station Redevelopment Soldier Field 2.0?

The company redeveloping the headhouse of Chicago Union Station just unveiled renderings of the project that are not exactly earning rave reviews from the critics. The proposal involves plopping a modernist box addition top of the existing station. Here’s the rendering.

To give you a sense of this, here’s a photo of the existing station.

Photo Credit: Thshriver, CC BY-SA 3.0

This sort of combination is reminiscent of the much-maligned renovation of Soldier Field, in which a contemporary “space saucer” bowl of seating was added on top of the neoclassical colonnades.

Photo Credit: Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0

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http://www.urbanophile.com/2018/06/26/is-chicago-union-station-redevelopment-soldier-field-2-0/

All Men May Not Be Brothers, But We Are Cousins

'Most recent common ancestor' of all living humans surprisingly recent

New Haven, Conn. -- In this week's issue of Nature, a Yale mathematician presents models showing that the most recent person who was a direct ancestor of all humans currently alive may have lived just a few thousand years ago.

"While we may not all be 'brothers,' the models suggest we are all hundredth cousins or so," said Joseph T. Chang, professor in the Department of Statistics at Yale University and senior author on the paper.

Chang established the basis of this research in a previous publication with an intentionally simplified model that ignored such complexities as geography and migration. Those precise mathematical results showed that in a world obeying the simplified assumptions, the most recent common ancestor would have lived less than 1,000 years ago. He also introduced the "identical ancestors point," the most recent time -- less than 2,000 years ago in the simplified model -- when each person was an ancestor to all or ancestor to none of the people alive today.

The current paper presents more realistic mathematical and computer models. It incorporates factors such as socially driven mating, physical barriers of geography and migration, and recorded historical events. Although such complexities make pure mathematical analysis difficult, it was possible to integrate them into an elaborate computer simulation model. The computer repeatedly simulated history under varying assumptions, tracking the lives, movements, and reproduction of all people who lived within the last 20,000 years.

These more realistic models estimate that the most recent common ancestor of mankind lived as recently as about 3,000 years ago, and the identical ancestors point was as recent as several thousand years ago. The paper suggests, "No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu."

The results can also work backwards, into the future. According to Chang, "Within two thousand years, it is likely that everyone on earth will be descended from most of us."

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Other authors are Douglas L.T. Rhode of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Steve Olson of Bethesda, MD. The National Institutes of Health supported this research.

Citation: Nature 431: (September 30, 2004). For solicited commentary on this paper, see News & Views and supplementary material in the same issue.

http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/NatureAncestorsPressRelease.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/07/science/la-sci-european-dna-20130508

Sabbatical Around the World 2003

From a Previous Trip.
The Chinese enjoyed the Blue Eyed Empress
Scoop at:
http://sabbaticalruhu.blogspot.com/

Angkor Wat Sunrise

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Around the World in 40 Days and 40 Nights

Sept - Oct 2015

We made this trip up as we went along. Why Plan, When you can react? We left Sarasota, Florida to visit our daughter in Washington State - Seattle and the western mountains. Very nice visit there. We then had options to fly space available on military planes - I am retired military - Space A to Europe, Hawaii, Alaska and Korea. We chose Korea and had a nice time there.

Beth and I have always loved Hong Kong and since it was not to far from Korea we thought we would go. Hong Kong was the first international trip that Beth and I made 30 years ago. We have visited there 5 more times. Fun to see this dynamic city again.

Then we were close to Angkor Wat, Cambodia so we flew there. And then we were close to Bangkok, another city we love, so we went there. We were then about 1/2 way around the world.

Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland and Sarasota, Florida are considering becoming Sister Cities. Beth is President and I am a Vice President of Sarasota Sister Cities. Rapperswil wanted us to visit, so we flew there via Helsinki, Finland. Met some very nice people there. Then on to Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany for a Space A flight to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. We drove home from there.

Cities we visited.

Sarasota, FL
Seattle, WA
Misawa, Japan
Osan, Korea
Dragon Hill, Korea
Hong Kong, China
Angkor Wat (Seam Riep)
Bangkok, Thailand

Helsinki, Finland
Zurich, Switzerland
Rapperswil, Switzerland
Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany
McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey
Philadelphia, PA
Tampa, FL
Sarasota, FL

More photos at: http://ruhuaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/