A compendium of news/articles/videos/pictures/events/stories that triggered the “Oh my god alarm!” Omygdaily – May 16 2016 will discuss:

• This isolated tribe has rejected contact for centuries and remained hostile toward outsiders. The curious case of Sentinelese and the isolated life they lead. I wonder why they avoid human contact.
• Florida woman taken to hospital with shark attached to her arm
• Celestial navigation: Dung beetles navigate by ‘snapshot’ of the stars

Omygdaily – May 16 2016

Anthropology

This isolated tribe has rejected contact for centuries and remained hostile toward outsiders. (Read More)

Does anybody remember a movie about a group of people leaving behind their modern life and moving to a wildlife preserve to escape violence? After moving to the “safe place”, the elders of the group concocted an elaborate lie about monsters to prevent the young ones from ever leaving their abode. Remember that movie; yes, it bombed at the box office. Funny though, I found the movie quite entertaining.

What has an isolated tribe got to do with a movie? What if the Sentinelese are the real-life equivalent of the characters in that movie. As we learn from the article, there has been little to no contact with the group, no close-up photographs of them exist, they are still hunter-gatherer, they don’t want any contact with the outside world and anybody who got too close to them did not make it back alive.

A theory…

Hear me out now, and maybe laugh a little, too. What if the Sentinelese are a group of very rich people who decided to give up everything and move to a remote island. They have paid a huge sum of money to the Indian government to disallow any flights over their island and any attempts at uncovering their real identity, basically asked the government to leave them alone. The Sentinelese do not make any contact with the outside world, as that would give their secrets away. That little island is their “village”; it is far away from prying eyes, where they grow their own food, live in complete isolation to preserve what they hold to be most precious—complete freedom from the corrupting influence of the modern word.

Could you imagine a world without 9 till boss leaves schedule, traffic, pollution, war, disease, pestilence, greed, hatred and mindless violence. Imagine no smartphones, no constant pinging from bosses about deliverable status, no keeping up with the joneses, etc. Now, imagine living with nature, surfing, fishing and skinny dipping, drinking margaritas and having a great time, all the time. Maybe that’s what Sentinelese are doing, and to us they are an “uncontacted tribe”. Or maybe not.

Say what now?

Florida woman taken to hospital with shark attached to her arm (Read More)

Are we trespassing sharks world or are sharks trespassing our world? Sharks are the apex predators of the marine world, and humans are the apex predators of the land-world. Now, there is bound to be trouble when two apex predators collide. But, then, we have guns, harpoons, bombs and big s**t and can blow the ocean world into smithereens. Careful now, Mr. Shark!

Science

Celestial navigation: Dung beetles navigate by recording a ‘snapshot’ of the stars (Read More)

Who knew that the process of dung transfer will involve referring to the celestial bodies. Smart beetles!