Word: hippos
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...what-if frame of mind, dreaming up systems. Two of Plato's works, The Republic and The Laws, have recognizably Utopian elements. One of the most charming items in this show is a Renaissance miniature from Florence by Zanobi di Strozzi, circa 1470, showing St. Augustine of Hippo dreaming up the City of God, taking dictation (so to speak) from an image of Florence itself, complete with Brunelleschi's great dome, which floats in the blue air before...
...alive was a short-necked giraffe relative that had huge "antlers," some with a span across the horns of close to 8 ft. (almost 3 m). There were buffalo-size antelopes with massive curving horns, carnivores that must have looked like saber-toothed lions, two distinct species of hippo and at least two types of elephant, one of which had tusks that protruded downward from the lower jaw. We may never know the full extent of this incredible mammalian diversity, but there were probably more than twice as many species a million years ago as there are today...
...prize specimen, they acknowledge, is a partial skeleton found by Berkeley graduate student Yohannes Haile-Selassie (no relation to the Emperor). Alas, the back of the skull is badly crushed. A hippo or elephant probably trampled it soon after the creature died. "It looks like roadkill," quips White. Given the small skulls of A. afarensis and other later australopithecines, however, this specimen undoubtedly had a pint-size brain. At this point in evolution, says White, "we're in the minor leagues of brain development...
...rampant sports mania. At the height of the empire, the stadium was the centerpiece of every Roman town, dwarfing mere housing and temples. Loyalty to the chariot-racing leagues, with their colorful banners, eclipsed all political passions. When the barbarians attacked the gates of the Roman city of Hippo, no one much noticed because the groans of the dying soldiers on the wall were almost drowned out by the roar from the stadium...
NORFOLK, Virginia: Nyla, the Virginia Zoo's only hippopotamus, died of a bowel blockage on Sunday after she ate a racquetball tossed into her pen by a visitor. Zookeepers were mystified by Nyla's death until an autopsy of the 4,300-pound hippo showed that she had a 2-inch rubber ball blocking her intestinal passageway. Though authorities knew the hippo was suffering some kind of obstruction, they did not perform surgery, fearing she would die during the procedure. Nyla, 31, had lived at the zoo for more than 20 years after spending her youth as part...