North Dakota hit the news again today, twice.  The first big yippee that came to my attention was the birth of White Cloud’s calf.  Newcomers to North Dakota may not know how much White Cloud, an eleven-year old albino bison, is celebrated here.  The museum in Jamestown is full of paintings and photographs depicting white buffalo.  In some Native American cultures, the white buffalo is considered sacred.

So imagine North Dakota’s excitement when White Cloud gave birth to another white bison.  While it’s possible–and maybe even probable–that the calf will turn brown eventually, the birth of a white bison calf is still rare.

The second yippee came when I was granted an interview slot with NDSU’s Heather Gill-Robinson, an anthropologist whose work is featured in September’s issue of National Geographic.  The article, entitled Tales from the Bog, highlights Gill-Robinson’s discovery that a European peat mummy called the Windeby Girl could actually be a guy.

Gill-Robinson has been studying the mummification factors in peat bogs that preserve bodies.  An interesting ingredient for a peat bog mummy seems to be water.  

My immediate thought, upon reading that, was one more reason to drink lots of water!