It’s been quiet round here recently. Nevertheless we’ve been collecting our usual list of links to items you missed the first time. And this month we have an edition packed with some good (long) reads …
Science, Technology, Natural World
Astronomer Martin Rees looks at how we’ve discovered that the universe is much bigger and weirder than anyone thought … [£££] [LONG READ]
… or as our favourite theoretical physicist, Katie Mack, points out: space is big and our planet a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea.
Whoops! We didn’t see it coming and it nearly got us. [£££]
Flat Earthers’ “science” may be wrong, but they aren’t entirely stupid.
Now to more mundane matters … here are two articles, one from the Conversation the other from the Guardian, on how vets identified Coronavirus in a cat.
A few weeks back, when the weather was nicely tropical, Diamond Geezer took a look at the technical definition of a heatwave – and it isn’t as simple as you might think.
apparently the only animal that can photosynthesise.
The Somali Sengi (a species of elephant shrew) is a really cool critter: it mates for life, can race around at 30km/h and sucks up ants with its trunk-like nose – and having been thought extinct ecologists have recently rediscovered it in Djibouti.
Health, Medicine
A view from inside the NHS on what it was like trying to cope with a sudden deluge of Covid-19 patients. [LONG READ]
Covid-19 is here for the long haul: here’s how scientists predict the pandemic might play out over the next months and years.
Ed Yong looks at the totally non-intuitive complexity of the immune system, and why trying to understand it is so important. [LONG READ]
Here’s one doctor who avoids soap (except for hand-washing) and says we’re showering all wrong.
[TRIGGER WARNING] Unlike in animals, we know that around 25% of all pregnancies end in an early miscarriage, but do we really understand why? [£££] [LONG READ]
Then again, we’ve only just discovered that human sperm swim differently than we thought they did.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
For two decades scientists and officials played pandemic war games, but they didn’t factor in the effects of a Donald Trump. [LONG READ]
Be concerned; be very concerned. A lawyer looks at the government’s current review of Judicial Review.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
Pace Richard Dawkins, it is suggested that humans aren’t inherently selfish, but hardwired to work together. (Until the ship gets overcrowded that is.)
The origins of modern humans get more complex with every new twist of DNA analysed. I have to ask whether we’re actually sure that Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, H. erectus (and maybe others) aren’t actually just one species with some very well-defined sub-species. [LONG READ]
Archaeologists believe they’ve found the source of Stonehenge’s giant sarsen stones.
It turns out that our medieval friends had a thing about sex with demons. [LONG READ]
And now to almost modern demons of a different kind. Here’s an old article about a potentially huge explosion lurking in a wreck off the Kent coast. [LONG READ]
London
Archaeologists have uncovered the lost medieval Great Sacristy of Westminster Abbey.
The history and workings of the Port of London in Tudor times. [LONG READ]
On the dissolution of London’s monasteries.
And another piece from The History of London on the building of Regents Canal.
A short history of the London Hackney Coach and the Horse Cab.
Food, Drink
At long last someone is waking up to the ideas that dieting per se doesn’t work and that we all have different food and metabolic requirements.
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
There’s a Zoroastrian centre not far from here, so I’ve always wondered what they’re about. Here’s a look into the very closed world of a strange religion. [LONG READ]
Here are nine common myths about naturism which are totally wrong.
Postcrossing has been around for a while. It’s an interesting idea involving swapping postcards with unknown people around the world as a way of building global friendship.
Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!
And finally … Only the Japanese could invent a public toilet with transparent walls. They’re quite pretty really.
