English red

Evidence from archaeological sites in the medieval English city of Winchester shows that English red squirrels once served as an important host for Mycobacterium leprae strains that caused leprosy in people, researchers report May 3 in the journal Current Biology.

The WCS was the work of anthropologist Brent Berlin and linguist Paul Kay, who identified 11 color categories in English: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, white, brown, and gray.

Made by hand from English red clay, they draw as much from the traditions of Odundo’s native Kenya and other African cultures as from Greco-Roman, Indian and Chinese methods of making ceramics.

“It seems to me the biggest collapse of yesterday is the support of the English squad. They were very unlucky not to win at Lord’s, and if not for the will of the best batsman in the world, may have won at Edgbaston despite losing their strike bowler. Yesterday was a disaster, not the cataclysm of English red ball cricket.”

In the 1730s, a group of Marylanders went a step further and imported a boatful of English red foxes.