Here’s the final round for 2017 of monthly links to articles you may have missed the first time around. Despite the holidays there’s a lot her, so let’s get straight in …
Science & Natural World
Scientists have managed to recover, from some amber, ticks from the era of the dinosaurs. Two reports, first from BBC and second from New York Times.
Zoologists have discovered six (yes, six) new species of tiny anteaters which had been hiding in plain sight in the forests of Brazil.
Health & Medicine

Here are a pair of items of flu vaccination. First, why you should get your flu shot every year. And second on why flu vaccine may not be as effective as it should be. And no, the second does not excuse you from the first!
Environment
We all have our own, differing, perceptions of the world even when seen from the same position. And each generation perceives the state of the world from its childhood as the norm. So over the generations we gradually normalise the degrading of the natural world. It’s an interesting idea.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
With fewer people needed to do real work, but more jobs, huge numbers are doing little except continually reworking and reworking business bullshit. [LONG READ]
Art & Literature
The original of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom was due to be sold at auction but has been saved by the French government as a national treasure.
The Japanese have an interesting take on broken things, especially broken pots: they celebrate the breakage by repairing it with gold.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Amateur explorers have found a vast, partly flooded, underground passage beneath Montreal.
Still on a watery note, new underwater discoveries in Greece are revealing the wonders of ancient Roman engineering.
DNA mapping of the Irish has shown that they are, well, distinctively Irish – mostly.
Historians are getting increasingly inventive and adept at uncovering the lost texts on palimpsests. [LONG READ]
A number of Elizabethan letters have been donated to the British Library, amongst them one from Elizabeth I stating her suspicions to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Merton Priory in south London was destroyed during th dissolution of the monasteries, and has latterly been over-flown by a motorway. Now the remains are being uncovered and made accessible.
Why do renovations on old houses often find hidden shoes.

Postboxes. They date from the early 1850s, they weren’t always red, and there have been many designs over the last 160+ years. The Postal Museum has an extensive collection.
London
Industrial accidents in Silvertown (in London’s docklands) have been a relatively common occurrence. Here’s the story of one of the earlier and lesser known explosions.
So just how many London Underground stations are there? Diamond Geezer investigates.

Squawking, bright green and feathered … London is home to a huge number of non-native Ring-Necked Parakeets. Many people hate them, but we regularly have them in our garden and I love them both for their colourfulness and their cheeky antics.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have free will. We make fewer decisions than we think because politicians set out to make us feasrful so they can manipulate us for their own interest.
Life is not fair. And it is a parent’s job to ensure their children understand this other wise they’ll not cope with life as adults.
There’s generally a lack of trust in male touch (and that’s not new). This is why men keep demanding sex from their partners over and over.
Should we be surprised that in the wake of #MeToo women fear a backlash?
In an increasingly noisy world full of smartphones, conversation is dying. So how do we recover it? Shut up and listen!
Food & Drink
And finally … Just what fruit should be kept in the fridge, and what shouldn’t?

More next month. Meanwhile have a happy New Year!