In the 15th and 16th century acting companies used pageant wagons to travel from one venue to another. The wagons were mobile stages that doubled up as a costume, props and baggage stores.   Another form of pre Elizabethan theatre was the 'place-and-scaffold' theatre.  A more permanent form of theatre, it consisted of a quantity of scaffolding erected around a central playing area.  The most straightforward venue was; the village green, square or street, where local amateurs would perform traditional folk dramas.  It was customary to provide some form of theatrical entertainment at court for festive season celebrations and for special occasions.  Richard III, Henry VII and Henry VIII had their own small companies to perform the interludes for these occasions.  The reinstatement of the 1572 Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds obliged performers to find a patron if they were to remain on the right side of the law.  Patrons provided actors with protection from the Vagabond Act but had no input into the day to day running of the company.  These companies were not obliged to remain at their patron's residence, but were forced to travel around the country searching for their next audience as they received no financial contribution from their patron.  The huge population growth in London and the restoration of the 1572 Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds culminated in the creation of the first London playhouses.  Elizabethan theatre was seen as unwholesome, so much so that plays could not be performed within the boundaries of the city of London. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, feared the gathering of large, possibly riotous, crowds within the city, the potential risk of the spread of the plague and the possible disruption to normal business and the disapproval of the Puritans.  The first public theatre (known as the Theatre from the Greek for 'a place for seeing') was built in 1576 in Shoreditch, it remained open for a further 22 years and various companies performed there until 1579 when it was demolished and rebuilt on Bankside in 1599 when it was renamed the Globe.  The Globe only remained open until 1613 when a cannon shot fired during a performance of Henry VIII set fire to the roof, burning the building down.  While the new playhouses dominated, companies still used every available playing space. Inns, noblemen's houses, animal baiting rings, market squares etc were turned into performance spaces by erecting a raised platform with a curtain.  Elizabethan theatres held an audience of several thousand.  While the nobility watched from chairs at the side of the stage the majority of the audience stood for the duration of the play in an open pit in front of the stage.  No artificial lighting meant that plays had to be performed in the afternoon, until the introduction of the indoor Playhouses, when performances would have been lit by candles.  The Playhouses also ensured that plays could be put on during the winter when the cold weather meant audience numbers dropped.   Elizabethan playhouses had the following elements:   Playhouses were either round or polygonal in shape. There were relatively small by modern standards; the Rose the outside diameter being 74 feet the inner diameter 50 feet, the Globe might have been up to 100 feet wide with an internal diameter of 75 feet.  There would have been 3 levels each with their own gallery built around the central area where those able to pay extra could sit.  One of these 3 galleries would have been where members of the nobility would sit with other gentlemen being seated on the stage.  Those only able to pay a penny would have to stand in the pit.  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_were_Elizabethan_theatres_round  There is a funny scene in the film Shakespeare in Love when The Lord of Revels, an official of the Queen, learns that there is a woman in the theater company at the Rose playhouse.  He orders the theater closed for this violation of morality and the law.  The Lord invokes the name of the Queen to arrest all there for indecency.  Suddenly, Elizabeth I's voice rings out from the back of the theater:  "Have a care with my name - you will wear it out!  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/synopsis

Toledo Zoo news 

((1)  Raccoons, skunks and opossums are mesopredators (mid-level predators) that would normally have a larger predator species preying upon them and maintaining their numbers.  Many of these animals use zoo grounds during the evening and spend days sleeping in sewers, garages and abandoned homes nearby.  The zoo studied an adult male raccoon who, in one month, moved through a space of over 100 acres.  In just one evening, he traveled 1.4 miles.

(2)  Biologists estimate that 80 percent of the world's food plant species depend on animal pollination, and almost all of these are insects.  The zoo has identified four species of native bumble bees in their 74 acres of trees, flowers and prairie habitat.  Safari, the official magazine of the Toledo Zoo  Spring 2014

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago of five inhabited islands and numerous other small rocky islets (around 140 in total) off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain.  Scilly has been inhabited since the Stone Age and until the early 20th century its history had been one of subsistence living.  Farming and fishing continue, but the main industry now is tourism.  It is likely that until relatively recent times the islands were much larger and perhaps joined together into one island named Ennor.  Rising sea levels flooded the central plain around 400–500 CE, forming the current islands.  Evidence for the older large island includes:  A description in Roman times describes Scilly as "Scillonia insula" in the singular, indicating either a single island or an island much bigger than any of the others.  Remains of a prehistoric farm have been found on Nornour, which is now a small rocky skerry far too small for farming. 

At certain low tides the sea becomes shallow enough for people to walk between some of the islands.  Ancient field walls are visible below the high tide line off some of the islands.  The islands' position produces a place of great contrast—the ameliorating effect of the sea, greatly influenced by the North Atlantic Current, means they rarely have frost or snow, which allows local farmers to grow flowers well ahead of those in mainland Britain.  The chief agricultural product is cut flowers, mostly daffodils.  Exposure to Atlantic winds also means that spectacular winter gales lash the islands from time to time.  This is reflected in the landscape, most clearly seen on Tresco where the lush sub-tropical Abbey Gardens on the sheltered southern end of the island contrast with the low heather and bare rock sculpted by the wind on the exposed northern end.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isles_of_Scilly

The first of the International Mathematical Olympiads (IMOs) was held in Romania in 1959.  The oldest of the International Science Olympiads, the IMO has since been held annually, except in 1980.  That year, it was cancelled due to internal strife in Mongolia.  Because the competition was initially founded for Eastern European countries participating in the Warsaw Pact, under the influence of the Eastern Bloc, the earlier IMOs were hosted only in Eastern European countries, gradually spreading to other nations.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Mathematical_Olympiads

An Oxford University study has concluded that our ancient ancestors who lived in East Africa between 2.4 million and 1.4 million years ago survived mainly on a diet of tiger nuts.  Tiger nuts are edible grass bulbs still eaten in parts of the world today.  The study, published in the journal PLOS One, also suggests that these early hominins may have sought additional nourishment from fruits and invertebrates such as worms and grasshoppers.  Study author Dr Gabriele Macho examined the diet of Paranthropus boisei, nicknamed 'Nutcracker Man' because of his big flat molar teeth and powerful jaws, through studying modern-day baboons in Kenya.  Her findings help to explain a puzzle that has vexed archaeologists for 50 years.  Scholars have debated why this early human relative had such strong jaws, indicating a diet of hard foods like nuts, yet their teeth seemed to be made for consuming soft foods.  Damage to the tooth enamel also indicated they had come into contact with an abrasive substance.   Tiger nuts, still sold in health food shops as well as being widely used for grinding down and baking in many countries, would be relatively easy to find.  They also provided a good source of nourishment for a medium-sized hominin with a large brain.  This is why these hominins were able to survive for around one million years because they could successfully forage – even through periods of climatic change.   Read more and see image at http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2014/140109_1.html

The Kirkbride Plan refers to a system of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-19th century.  The establishment of state mental hospitals in the U.S. is partly due to reformer Dorothea Dix, who testified to the Massachusetts legislature in 1844, vividly describing the state's treatment of people with mental illness:  they were being housed in county jails, private homes and the basements of public buildings.  Dix's effort led to the construction of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, the first asylum built on the Kirkbride Plan.  Kirkbride developed his requirements based on a philosophy of Moral Treatment.  The typical floor plan, with long rambling wings arranged en echelon (staggered, so each connected wing received sunlight and fresh air), was meant to promote privacy and comfort for patients.  The building form itself was meant to have a curative effect: "a special apparatus for the care of lunacy, [whose grounds should be] highly improved and tastefully ornamented."  The idea of institutionalization was thus central to Kirkbride's plan for effectively treating patients with mental illnesses.  The asylums tended to be large, imposing, Victorian-era institutional buildings within extensive surrounding grounds, which often included farmland, sometimes worked by patients as part of physical exercise and therapy.  While the vast majority were located in the United States, similar facilities were built in Canada, and a psychiatric hospital in Australia was influenced by Kirkbride's recommendations.  By 1900 the notion of "building-as-cure" was largely discredited, and in the following decades these large facilities became too expensive to maintain.  Many Kirkbride Plan asylums still stand today.  Most are abandoned, neglected, and vandalized, though several are still in use or have been renovated for uses other than mental health care.  See images , including one of a partially renovated building in Traverse City, Michigan used as condos and businesses at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkbride_Plan

Issue 1101  January 24, 2014  On this day in 1848, James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento, California.