EU are not amused

The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.

Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet in the art work.

He said the image, at the European Council building in Brussels, would be removed if Sofia insisted.

David Cerny, the Czech artist behind the work, admits misleading officials over his intentions with the project.

He said he had "wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself".

That he found out. . . .

From the BBC, with video.

ADDENDUM: slideshow of the work, Entropa, via the FT..

Michael Levey obit

Sir Michael Levey, a prolific and wide-ranging art historian who presided over the expansion of the National Gallery in London as its director from 1973 through 1986, and who acquired important paintings by Caravaggio, David and Monet for its collection, died on Sunday. He was 81 and lived in Louth, Lincolnshire, England. . .

Mr. Levey, who spent his entire career at the National Gallery, was a writer whose beautifully shaped phrases made his studies for the general reader, like his "History of Western Art" (1968) and "High Renaissance" (1975), a pleasure to read and enlivened specialist works like "Giambattista Tiepolo: His Life and Art" (1987) and his catalogs of Italian paintings in the Queen's collection.

From the NY Times.

Didier Aaron obit

Didier Aaron, the Paris antiques dealer whose gallery on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré became the center of a mini-empire of fine French furniture, died in Paris on Jan. 3. He was 85. . .

Mr. Aaron, a pillar of the world of French antiques dealers, was one of the last of the specialist dealers of so-called fff, for fine French furniture, who went into business right after World War II. He set up branches in New York, Los Angeles and London -- unheard of in the 1980s -- and is perhaps the first antiques dealer to ask a decorator to work under the same roof, which proved a lasting benefit to both professionals.

From the NY Times.

I (don't) wanna be sedated

For years, doctors thought they had done their jobs if patients came out of an intensive care unit alive.

Now, though, researchers say they are alarmed by what they are finding as they track patients for months or years after an I.C.U. stay. Patients, even young ones, can be weak for years. Some have difficulty thinking and concentrating or have post-traumatic stress disorder and terrible memories of nightmares they had while heavily sedated.

While patients may be suffering lingering effects from illnesses that landed them in the I.C.U., researchers are increasingly convinced that spending days, weeks or months on life support in the units can elicit unexpected, long-lasting effects.

From the NY Times. With all the usual criticism of American medicine as being insufficiently holistic, I wonder if ICU management is significantly different anywhere else. In any event, please pass the ounce of prevention.

Oldest tree

Somehow I missed this story back in April, but ran across it in one of my daughter's science magazines' recap of 2008 discoveries:

The world's oldest known living tree, a conifer that first took root at the end of the last Ice Age, has been discovered in Sweden, researchers say.

The visible portion of the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) "Christmas tree" isn't ancient, but its root system has been growing for 9,550 years. . .

So the bristlecone pines are still the planet's oldest standing trees. But when it comes to oldest living plants, the Swedish spruce may eventually be dethroned:

Research suggests that stands of Huon pines on the Australian island of Tasmania possibly date back more than 10,000 years.

More meteoric extinctions?

At least once in Earth's history, global warming ended quickly, and scientists have long wondered why.

Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling -- which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age -- may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.

That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Belatedly posted from the New Year's Day NY Times.

Lobster liberation

A giant lobster named George escaped a dinner-table fate and was released Saturday into the Atlantic Ocean after a New York seafood restaurant granted him his freedom, according to a statement from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

George the lobster was a "sort of mascot" for City Crab and Seafood in New York.

The lobster, which PETA said was 140 years old and weighed 20 pounds, had been confined to a tank at City Crab and Seafood restaurant in Manhattan when two customers alerted the animal group.

From CNN. Other giant lobsters haven't fared well under parallel circumstances: a 22-pounder nicknamed "Bubba" died a few years ago shortly after being taken in by the Pittsburgh Zoo, which was noted along with some other similar cases in a CBS article which also noted the likely exaggeration of Bubba's -- and, by extension, George's -- age:

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size -- about five to seven years to grow to a pound -- some observers estimated Bubba was about 100 years old. But marine biologists said 30 to 50 years was more likely. . .

Bubba's not the largest lobster on record. Guinness World Records reports the heaviest marine crustacean as 44 pounds, 6 ounces. That lobster, more than twice Bubba's size, was caught off Nova Scotia in 1977.