James' World 2

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These days, more than 30 percent of Americans sport tattoos—but there’s nothing new about our fascination with body art. As tattoos take over contemporary culture, scientists are looking to the past and uncovering the secrets of centuries-old ink.

By examining mummified remains using a technique called laser-stimulated fluorescence (LSF), researchers are unveiling body art from the Chancay culture, a group that lived on the Peruvian coast between roughly 900 and 1500 C.E., according to a study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“LSF technology lets us see tattoos in their full glory,” says study co-author Thomas G. Kaye, a paleontologist at the Foundation for Scientific Advancement, in a statement. “The Chancay culture, known for its mass-produced textiles, also invested significant effort in personal body art. This could point to tattoos as a second major artistic focus, perhaps carrying deep cultural or spiritual significance.”

Tattoos fade over time, making them difficult for scientists to study centuries later. But with the help of LSF, experts are able to uncover the original lines of the body art.

The technique involves shining a laser onto the mummy so that the skin glows, creating a sharp contrast with the ink that can be seen by taking long-exposure photographs. The team studied tattoos with a variety of patterns on more than 100 mummies.

“To some extent, ancient Chancay tattoos show a lot of parallels to the variation in design and significance we can observe among tattoos today,” study co-author Michael Pittman, a paleobiologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, tells New Scientist’s James Woodford.

Some tattoos were geometric, featuring shapes like triangles and diamonds. Others included vine-like patterns and depictions of animals.

The researchers were especially intrigued by the thinness of some of the lines that made up the intricate designs, finding the level of precision to be “higher than associated pottery, textiles and rock art,” per the study.

“We were most surprised by just how detailed the Chancay tattoos could be,” Pittman tells Popular Science’s Laura Baisas. “The 0.1 [to] 0.2 millimeter lines we discovered are finer than any line a standard #12 modern tattoo needles can produce, so the level of skill and effort that was required from the Chancay artist really blew our minds.”

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Researchers studied tattoos on this mummified hand. Michael Pittman

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On Friday the Supreme Court affirmed that it would be legal to force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the immensely popular app to a non-China-based company or to ban it in the U.S. Last week an attorney for TikTok had argued before the Supreme Court that a bipartisan law that mandated the sale or ban infringed on the company’s First Amendment rights. The Court disagreed. In an unsigned opinion, the justices wrote that the U.S. government’s security concerns—“countering China’s data collection and covert content manipulation efforts”—were “compelling” and that the law “was narrowly tailored to further those interests.”As a result, TikTok—which about 170 million Americans use to watch short-form videos and shop—is likely to close in the U.S. as soon as next Sunday. (TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Scientific American.) TikTok’s attorney told the Supreme Court last week that when the law goes into effect on January 19, the app will “go dark.”

What’s Going to Happen to TikTok?

Reuters reported this week that TikTok plans to formally shut down in the U.S.: it will greet users with a message about the ban and give them an option to download their own data from the app.

If TikTok were to remain active in the country, the law would penalize Internet service providers for permitting access to the platform on a browser. Although the law does not make it illegal for people in the U.S. to have TikTok on their phones, it fines app stores, such as Apple’s or Google’s, whenever people download or update TikTok. Because the fines are up to $5,000 per user (which, multiplied by millions, would add up extremely quickly), app stores are expected to remove TikTok next Sunday. If users cannot update TikTok, the app will eventually stop working anyway.

What Might U.S. TikTokers Do?

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. TikTokers have joined other apps. These have included a newly popular China-based app named RedNote.

Additionally, there are potential work-arounds for the U.S. ban—namely, virtual private networks, or VPNs. In India, which banned TikTok in 2020, users have accessed the blocked app via these networks; they can make traffic appear as though it’s coming from a country where TikTok is allowed. This is not necessarily an easy solution, though. People in the U.S. may need a foreign billing address to access TikTok, one popular VPN service has pointed out, and their other apps or subscriptions could stop working.

Will Elon Musk buy TikTok? Will enforcement of the law be delayed? And can incoming president Donald Trump halt the ban—as he asked the Supreme Court to do—to negotiate a deal?

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The first and only phone message I’ve gotten from my kid’s elementary school this year was about parking lot safety reminders: “Please listen to the directions of our staff that are in the parking lot to help direct traffic and keep children safe.” The welcome meeting for new parents was dominated by a discussion of drop-off and pick-up concerns. Last year, at his previous school, the weekly newsletters from the principal always included a note about the same. And I’m guessing if you’re a caregiver in the US, this sounds all too familiar.

I’ve come to see that the inherent chaos, inefficiency, and safety risks of school drop-offs by car mirror the paradox of car dependency more broadly: the more that people who have the choice or the privilege of driving are incentivized to drive, the more difficult, less comfortable, and less safe it becomes for people who don’t. As a parent who can’t drive, I’m reminded of this catch 22 almost daily as I navigate getting my kid across a busy intersection.

While children under the age of 16 make up about 10% of the population, nondrivers— a term that refers to everyone who doesn’t have reliable access to driving themselves in an automobile— all together make up around 30%. That 30% includes people like myself who have disabilities which prevent us from driving, like vision disabilities, developmental disabilities, mobility disabilities, neurological disabilities, mental or chronic health conditions. It also includes people who wouldn’t identify as disabled, but aren’t able to safely drive, or safely drive in all conditions — like seniors who are aging out of driving or people with anxiety or PTSD that prevents them from feeling comfortable getting behind the wheel. And it includes people who are unable to afford vehicles or afford gas, insurance, and maintenance, many of whom are also disabled and from Black, brown, immigrant, and tribal communities. Nondrivers include people whose licenses are suspended, young people who haven’t had the resources to go to driver’s ed, and people who choose not to drive or own vehicles. And of course, children are also nondrivers.

What if, instead of thinking about transportation access for nondriving children and youth as requiring unique and separate interventions, we develop solutions that work for all nondrivers?

For instance, all nondrivers benefit when we invest in safer routes to schools by reducing car speeds, shortening crossing times, and building better sidewalks and protected bike infrastructure. Giant cracks or uplifts in the sidewalk prevent wheelchair access, they also make it really hard to push a stroller, or if you’re a kid, you’re probably going to wipe out if you hit one of these on a bike or scooter.

For children who are fortunate enough to live within walking, rolling, or biking distance to school, it’s wonderful to encourage this “active transportation,” as it’s known. But it’s also important to consider whose work schedule allows the time to bike your kid to school, who has the physical ability to bike, not to mention access to one and somewhere to store it.

I’m particularly excited about some of the programs that exist in Washington state to make biking more available and inclusive. Our state has recently begun to fund statewide in school bike education, which offers adaptive bikes for children who need them. And while bike buses have gained some momentum, I’m more excited about initiatives like the Major Taylor Program at Cascade Bike Club that offers bike instruction and afterschool biking activities to middle school students in under-resourced communities, with the option (with state funding) to earn a bike to keep at the end of the sessions.

At the same time, when schools or after school activities assume or require a driving parent, we are also excluding many of the same families, families with the least resources, and most barriers to participation. For many children, school may not be located close enough for active transportation, especially in rural areas. Many children need to attend a more distant school that offers specialized programs or resources. Access to school buses and access to public transit networks for older children and for children traveling with caregivers can make all the difference between being able to access a school with more resources or a special activity, and not having that access at all.

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We need better transportation options

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From

Neon

There are approximately 76 million Baby Boomers out there, even though there are now more Millennials!

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What is a Baby Boomer and Why Does it Matter?

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Platforms for Baby Boomers

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