Our usual round up of links to items you may have missed the first time.
Science, Technology, Natural World
Let’s start with a mind-boggling look at just how big solar flares can be. [LONG READ]
How and why have geologists have lost a billion years from their records. [LONG READ]
Kew Gardens is one of my favourite places and now they’re in the record books for having the largest plant collection at a single site.
Now this is weird. If you thought luminescent platypuses were odd, then how about wasps’ nests that glow green under ultraviolet light.
Ancient Egyptian mummified cats are helping to unravel the mysteries of ancient textile dyes.
On the problems of people who take aliens seriously.
An interesting item on the work of the detectives untangling fraud and counterfeiting in the global supply chains. [LONG READ]
Health, Medicine
Lingering post-illness symptoms like long Covid are likely to be much more common than we think. I certainly had symptoms which lingered for many years after I had glandular fever.
Environment
There’s a 30-year project planned to rewild a huge area of the Scottish Highlands.
This has to be a candidate for headline of the year: “Old Irish Goats return to County Dublin to protect hills from wildfires”. Who knew that Old Irish Goats were a thing?
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
Researchers excavating a cave in Gibraltar have found a sealed chamber which may contain undisturbed relics of Neanderthals.
Work on dating some ancient footprints in New Mexico suggests they’re the oldest evidence of humans in the Americas.
Experts in southern France are doing a giant jigsaw puzzle to piece together the remains of a Roman fresco.
This is an old piece in which our favourite medievalist, Dr Eleanor Janega, points out that there is no such thing as the “Dark Ages”.
Eleanor Janega again examines ancient ideas on semen retention.
More genetic studies are revealing how humans island-hopped to settle remote Pacific, taking their statues styles with them.
London
“Downing Street was first built in 1680 by Sir George Downing: an unscrupulous, brutal, and miserly man – which is rather fitting, given that the street which bears his name has been the home to so many politicians.”
Historic London looks at the “menagerie” of Downing Street.
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
A look at how nihilism (at its simplest, a declaration that life is meaningless) can help make you happier, even in these troubled times. Hmmm – Yeah – Maybe.
An interesting theory on what ancient money can tell us about the future of computers. [£££££]
It keeps being tried, and succeeding, but always ignores it. A look at the case for a shorter working week. [LONG READ]
Photographer Eric Kim looks at 12 lessons he learnt from the work of Japanese cult street-photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.
People
It’s surely very British that 30 after his death the lone figure of Alfred Wainwright is still a cult figure looming large over the Lake District. [LONG READ]
Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!
Finally, earlier this month it was time for the 2021 Ig Nobel awards, which included an award for the investigation which found sex can relieve nasal congestion.