Category Archives: history

history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

Our monthly collection of links to items you may have missed. It’s the usual miscellaneous collection.

Science, Technology, Natural World

That big explosive volcano in Tonga is still surprisngly intact although the caldera looks to be a huge hole.

On the curiosity of organ pipes apparently violating a rule of sound.

And now for something completely different, for which I see many new applications … Apparently female mice release banana-scented urine when pregnant to deter males. [£££]

You all know by now that wasps are one of my favourite subjects. Here are two articles from Seirian Sumner, who’s book on wasps Endless Forms is out this week. First a piece in the Observer Magazine, and then her take on five facts about the gruesomeness of solitary wasps. [Prof. Seirian Sumner is the academic who runs the Big Wasp Survey which I’ve contributed to over the last several years.]

Back to more mundane(?) animals, researchers have been looking at the domestication of the horse. [LONG READ]

Jackdaws are democratic and use noise to make decisions.

Health, Medicine

Medicine in particular, and all of us in general, need to reassess and update our knowledge and the history of the female body.

Having said which, here’s a piece on how sex affects our immune systems and our brains.

Sexuality

The UK’s Office for National Statistics has found that for the first time ever over 10% of young women identify as “lesbian, gay, bisexual or other”.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

On the issues around making conscious software, why we should an why we shouldn’t. [£££]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

Historian and mythographer Marina Warner visits the British Museum’s exhibition Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic, which explores the volcanic power of goddess cults.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

New research on human coprolites reveals parasite eggs which suggest the builders of Stonehenge ate undercooked offal.

Workers at Osuna in southern Spain have uncovered an important, and hitherto unknown, Phoenician necropolis.

The Romans used silphium for just about everything: perfume, medicine, aphrodisiac and condiment. But in trying to cultivate it and increase yields they killed it.

Researchers have managed to successfully sequence the genome of a Pompeii victim. Turns out he was “Italian”!

Melting ice on an alpine pass in Norway has revealed a 1500-year-old shoe amongst many other artefacts.

The Amazon appears to be full of lost pre-Columbian settlements and urban sprawl.

A short item on Ragged Schools, and especially the one for girls in Hastings.

Modern purple dyes were invented in London in the 1850s and initially manufactured close to where I now live.

Two short articles on the eccentricity that is Winchelsea Beach in Sussex.

IanVisits goes to look at the de Haviland Aircraft Museum on the edge of North London.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Now here’s a real first world problem if ever there was one … should we embrace a cashless society? But one thing the author overlooks is that in a cashless society everything becomes electronic – which is fine until there’s a computer or power outage (accidental or sabotage).

Our favourite zen master, Brad Warner, is another one with a new book coming out.

And finally … they’re generally hated, but we should really like them: stinging nettles. Eat them, make fabric from them, or just let them be to grow butterflies.

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

So here’s this month’s selection of links to items you missed the first time and will wish you hadn’t. And of course it’s the usual mixed bag, starting with the hard stuff.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Researchers think they’ve worked out the origin date for the ancient Antikythera mechanism – although they don’t all agree. I find this whole artefact just mind-boggling.

Antikythera Mechanism

A different set of researchers think they’ve uncovered the fossil remains of a dinosaur and some other creatures killed and entombed on the actual day the Yacatan asteroid hit 66m years ago.

First humans and animals, then trees, and now it seems mushrooms talk to each other.

Health, Medicine

Derek Lowe, our favourite pharmaceutical chemist, looks at why phenylephrine is useless as a decongestant.

Vagina Obscura, a new book by Rachel Gross, reviews the biology of female organs, including the vagina, uterus and ovaries, and how scientists are filling in the gaps in knowledge.

Maybe sometime, maybe soon, medicine will be able to “fix” menstruation.

Here’s a young lady with a very rare and disturbing visual condition.

Sexuality

If you fancy a trip to Italy you have until 15 January next year to see the current exhibition of Pompeii’s sex scenes and erotica.

Environment

It seems that peregrine falcons have have made my local (Ealing) hospital their base – well the appalling building has to be good for something!

Giant Orchid (Himantoglossum robertianum)

Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, Giant Orchids (Himantoglossum robertianum) have been found growing wild for the first time in the UK.

It’s being reported that new government rules will provide extra protection for adders and slowworms; which will be good if it happens.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

A farmer in Gaza has uncovered a 4,500-year-old statue of Canaanite goddess.

Archaeologists at Uruk in Iraq have unearthed, and are trying to recover, an ancient Sumerian riverboat.

Meanwhile in the Assam region of India archaeologists have found more than a few ancient and mysterious giant stone jars.

Still in the ancient world, the grave has been found of an ancient Peruvian who was buried with tools for cranial surgery.

Nearer to home, and to our time, Dr Eleanor Janega, of Going Medieval, looks at the old moneymaking trick of selling indulgences.

Eleanor Janega also writes about a favourite saint: St Sebastian.

In 1580 there was an earthquake, with an epicentre in the Dover Straits, which damaged London’s (Old) St Paul’s Cathedral; needless to say this spawned a flurry of pamphlets – the Facebook of their day.

And almost right up to date, IanVisits looks at a new exhibition about the history of the UK’s postcodes.

London

On another track, IanVisits takes a look behind the scenes at the huge upgrade project nearing completion at London’s Bank Underground station.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Dungeness (Image: IanVisits)

Oh no! Not again! Yet another item from IanVisits! This time he takes a day trip to Hythe and Dungeness – to explore both and also ride on the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally for this month Tom Lamont in the Guardian takes a look at a day in the life of (almost) every vending machine in the world. [LONG READ]


environment, history, links, medical, science

You May Have Missed …

Here’s this month’s selection of links to items you may have missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Would you like to fly round the moon? If so, then NASA are giving away free flights for your name on their upcoming Artemis I mission.

Image NASA. Click for larger view.

Cosmologist Katie Mack talks about spotting and combating physics falsehoods online.

Researchers have found the huge and mysterious Hiawatha crater in Greenland to be 58 million years old.

Zoologist Lucy Cooke is waging war on Darwin’s prevailing view of the dominance of males and their benefit from promiscuity. Two articles, the first from the Guardian, the second from New Scientist [£££].

Palaeontologists have described a ten-limbed ancestor of modern octopuses, and named it after Joe Biden.

The largest ever family tree of humanity reveals our species’ history, where we originated and how we spread across the world. [£££]

The Eden Project in Cornwall have succeeded in getting their nutmeg tree to fruit for the first time since planting in 2001.

Image Eden Project

There’s a new drive to produce the red dye cochineal industrially without having to squash thousands of insects.

Health, Medicine

Here’s an interesting article about the work to identify which flu strains to put in this year’s vaccine – and some of the people who spend their lives trying to spot the emerging strains. [LONG READ]

And now another pair of articles, this time looking at the long-term, but haphazard, effect of Epstein-Barr virus, which is responsible for glandular fever. Again the first is from the Guardian, and the second from The Atlantic. [LONG READS]

Environment

One American academic has demonstrated that by just redesigning both homes and industrial processes it is possible to use almost no external power – and overall it is the cheapest solution! And yes, he has actually done it, and lives in the house.

An iconoclastic letter in New Scientist suggesting that as we’ve paved over much of our world we would do well to rip it up and plant trees instead. [£££]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

1700 years ago a Roman boat sank in shallow waters just off Mallorca on the Spanish coast. Archaeologists are now retrieving the amazingly well preserved cargo.

In what shouldn’t be a surprise the teams restoring Notre Dame in Paris have found early tombs and a lead sarcophagus under the cathedral’s floor.

Medievalist Dr Eleanor Janega goes looking at non-written communication in Norwich.

And here’s Eleanor Janega again, this time looking at medieval attitudes to semen and female sexuality.

Despite our misogynistic view, there were female composers in the Renaissance. Now more of the ground-breaking work of Maddalena Casulana has been pieced together and performed.

Now not quite up to date … An expedition has found the surprisingly intact wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance off coast of Antarctica.

Image Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/NatGeo

London

IanVisits takes an opportunity for a look inside London’s Ukrainian Cathedral.

IanVisits has also managed a sneak preview of London’s new Elizabeth line railway (aka. Crossrail).

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Comedian David Baddiel talks about his life-long love of cats. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile a forensic pathologist wishes that a legacy of Covid lockdown is that we change the way we talk about death.

Japan may also need a new narrative as their so-called “killing stone” has split in two, releasing superstition and allegedly a nine-tailed fox. In two stories there’s the usual media-hyped look in the Guardian; however the Japanese think the media have the story wrong as Hiroko Yoda writes on Twitter.

And finally one of the great British train journeys which is high on my bucket list … the longest journey on a single train from Aberdeen to Penzance. I actually want to do Thurso/Wick to Penzance, with Kyle of Lochalsh, Fort William and Mallaig thrown in. I’m not holding my breath in the hope of ever doing it.


environment, history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

Here are my monthly links to items you may have missed, but didn’t know you didn’t want to.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Despite extensive studies, scientists still can’t agree on Chernobyl’s impact on wildlife. [LONG READ]

Try putting your ear to the ground … scientists are discovering that life in the soil is unexpectedly noisy. [LONG READ]

So can melting permafrost release ancient pathogenic microbes? [£££££]

It seems that magpies care! They’ve outwitted scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices.

But an even bigger problem … Do birds have language, at least in a way we would recognise? [LONG READ]

Finally in this section … a very short piece on the curiosities that are Britain’s pipefish.

Health, Medicine

A very worrying look at how the GP’s job has changed in the last 30 years. [LONG READ]

Researchers are discovering that bones are a lot more than bits of scaffolding.

How does what you eat affect your sleep, and vice versa?

What happens when depression collides with the menopause and perimenopause? [LONG READ]

Oh dear! Apparently everything we thought we knew about posture is wrong. [LONG READ] [£££££]

At last some good news … Apparently dark chocolate (at least in moderation) is good for your health, and for the microbiome.

Sexuality

So here’s a relationship therapist on how to have better sex.

Environment

Cranes were reintroduced to Britain in the late 1970s, and now they’ve had their best year for 400 years.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

A fossil of a large pterosaur has been found on the Isle of Skye.

Recent research is suggesting that the meteor which killed off the dinosaurs fell to Earth in the Spring.

Palaeontologists are coming to the conclusion that the extinction of the Neanderthals was not caused by the brutal domination of Homo sapiens.

Remains of woolly mammoth, and some other Ice Age remains have been found in Devon.

Some important prehistoric chalk sculptures, thought to be childhood artefacts, have been uncovered in Yorkshire.

Trousers are one of those wonders of civilisation in that their construction is not overtly simple or logical. So it’s astonishing that the oldest known “pants” seem to have originated in Asia, and a pair is survived around 3000 years. And the weaving is absolutely amazing.

Back at home, Museum of London archaeologists have found an 8m Roman mosaic floor in Southwark, just south of the Thames.

Here’s our favourite Medieval Historian on the power and influence of women in medieval times. [LONG READ]

Still with the medieval, researchers have found what appears to be the earliest known account of ball lightning in England, dating from 1195.

London

Just one London item this month … the Museum of London will close this December for 4 years, while it moves to its new home in the old Smithfield Market.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

And finally in this issue … British Naturism has, again, pointed out that it is not illegal to go naked in your back garden, and that it is not a matter for the police.

history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

Here be my monthly collection of links you may have missed …

Science, Technology, Natural World

Herman Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine was built for the 1890 US census, and led to the first data processing company (which was to become IBM).

So just why did cat-like animals disappear from North America for 6 million years? [£££]

The curious ways of the fishing cats are being revealed by scientists.

Two stories on the discovery of new to science, or rare, species. First a variety of previously undescribed plants. And secondly the hunt for the saloa an almost never seen Asian antelope.

Health, Medicine

A review of the book Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence by Dr Gavin Francis. It turns out that proper convalescence is a hugely key stage in getting better.

Worldwide there are a very small number of people who cannot forget anything. One young woman describes what it is like to be medical exception.

Sexuality

It turns out that female dolphins have a clitoris very much like humans, which suggests they too experience sexual pleasure.

Environment

Electric cars and the like may be the way forward, but there are huge problems with their lithium batteries, especially at the end of their lives. [LONG READ]

Art, Literature, Language

There is undoubtedly a joy in rediscovering and reclaiming long-lost words, as Susie Dent extols.

So why are ministers (and educationalists) so obsessed with teaching children to read using phonics?

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists have suggested that some ancient metal tubes unearthed over 100 years ago might be the oldest surviving drinking straws.

The body of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I is so well preserved that after 3500 years it is still able to revel much about the man, thanks to modern scanning and that it has never been unwrapped.

The remains of a huge Roman fort, built on the orders of Emperor Caligula, has been discovered near Amsterdam.

A huge mosaic floor has been found in a Roman villa in Rutland, and was featured on the BBC’s Digging for Britain.

New research is suggesting that medieval warhorses no bigger than modern-day ponies, and not huge carthorses as we thought.

London

IanVisits discovers the unexpected history of the stone benches outside Kensington’s museums.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Another of our favourite bloggers, Diamond Geezer, takes a look at the curiosities of sleep.

Meanwhile Caroline’s Miscellany discovers the old tradition of Molly dances.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

There’s sad news as the landmine-hunting hero rat Magawa has died at the age of 8 after a stellar career.

And finally something to bring joy … here’s a video of an amazing automated LEGO factory that builds miniature log cabins from cucumbers. Enjoy …

arts, history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

So here for the last time in 2021 is my compilation of links you may have missed the first time.

Science, Technology, Natural World

The simplicity of Occam’s Razor was seen by a medieval monk. [£££]

Chemists are finally beginning to get to the bottom of marijuana’s skunky scent.

It has become recognised that plants are interconnected via a network of underground fungi, and now there’s a project trying to map that network.

Scientists investigating a restored coral reef in Indonesia have recorded many sounds (not yet tagged to specific species) to a backing of snapping shrimp.

Still with fish, the tiny Batman River Loach* (Paraschistura chrysicristinae, above), long thought extinct, has been rediscovered in SE Turkey. [* It’s named after the Batman River!]

Meanwhile back on dry land, scientists working on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi have identified 14 previously unknown species of shrew.

Between 2014 and 2018 there were many cats found dead especially around south London, and the perpetrator was long thought to be some warp-headed human. However research by the Royal Veterinary College has shown the cats died due to a variety of causes and were subsequently scavenged by foxes. This had long been suspected by some of us, despite being vilified by vigilante groups.

Art, Literature, Language

Artists have long been doing battle with the censor (in many forms) over the depiction of pubic hair and nudity, and photography is no different. [LONG READ]

Those much-loved kids TV characters The Clangers were not a anodyne as we all thought.

Here’s a video about an incredibly fragile instrument: the Glass Armonica, invented by Benjamin Franklin. [VIDEO]

Writer Alan Garner talks about books that have been important to him.

This lady makes a living folding paper: it is sculptural, absolutely incredible and way beyond origami. [VIDEO]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Palaeontologists have found some ancient footprints which suggest that there were at least two hominid species living alongside each other in East Africa around 3.6m years ago.

Really quite modern by comparison, a 5700-year-old tomb in the Cotswolds has revealed a surprising family history of the occupants.

Around 700 years later a start was made building Stonehenge, the subject of a 2022 exhibition at the British Museum.

There is now evidence that some while after the building of Stonehenge there was a mass migration into Britain which accounts for around half of British peoples’ genetic make-up.

Still in Britain, and gradually coming closer to our time, archaeologists believe they have now found physical evidence of Roman crucifixion in Cambridgeshire.

Lastly in this section, Historic England present highlights of captivating historic site listed in 2021. [LONG READ]

London

London blogger Diamond Geezer reminds us quite how big London actually is. Well it needs to be to accommodate almost 10m people!

Food, Drink

Clare Finney in the Guardian explodes some of the biggest myths about cheese.

And in a similar vein (ouch!) Alison George in New Scientist looks at how microbes create the flavours of cheese. [£££]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

It seems that in these plague-ridden times there’s a thriving cottage industry in dream analysis.

And finally, I leave you with the magical and restful miniature world of the terrarium.

history, personal

Eleanor Crosses

As regular readers will know I was brought up in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire – an area of huge historical interest some of which I’ve blogged about before (see, inter alia, here, here and here).

Waltham Cross – the first stop for stage coaches from London going north to Cambridge and beyond – got it’s name from the Eleanor Cross which still stands in the centre of the town. As a kid one often doesn’t think a great deal about such historic artefacts. However my father was interested in the Crosses and it has rubbed off on me (along with much else of the local history) despite not having lived there for 45+ years.

Waltham_Cross
Waltham Cross
from a watercolour by W Bailey, 14 November 1889

The Eleanor Crosses were built between 1291 and about 1295 at the behest of King Edward I as memorials to this wife Eleanor of Castile, who died at Harby, Nottinghamshire in late November 1290. Her body was brought south to be buried in Westminster Abbey on 17 December 1290; a journey which took two weeks.

Wherever the procession stopped for the night, usually at a monastery, Edward had a memorial cross erected. There were 12 crosses in all, of which only Geddington and Hardingstone (both in Northamptonshire) plus Waltham survive.

(No, not including Charing Cross. The cross which stands outside Charing Cross Station in London is a Victorian recreation and is a couple of hundred yards from the site of the original cross.)

I have a fragile typescript of a talk on the Eleanor Crosses which my father (Bob Marshall, 1920-2006) gave to the Cheshunt WEA in the mid-1950s. I never managed to convince him that (despite its age) the talk should be published – which is one reason it has not been fully referenced. Nevertheless I’ve bitten the bullet, had the text transcribed, and make it available here as a PDF file:

RE Marshall; “The Eleanor Crosses: their history and their meaning”

In reading the text do bear in mind its age and that historical research will have moved on, so current knowledge may differ from what my father presents. However I feel the talk is worth preserving as part of my father’s legacy and as an introduction to the Eleanor Crosses.

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

OK, so here we go with this month’s link to items you may have missed …

Science, Technology, Natural World

I don’t understand why it is that many people are afraid of spiders, because they’re much smarter than we realise.

Do you know what a wasp smells like? No, nor me. But scientists are now beginning to work it out. Oh and Vespula germanica used in tis study is one of the two common wasp specie in the UK.

While on Hymenoptera, apparently the old undisturbed woodland at Blenheim in Oxfordshire has colonies of heirs of the long lost British Honeybee. At first I found this so unlikely I had to check it wasn’t 1 April.

Researchers are now beginning to eavesdrop on embryonic/foetal animals to understand how they respond to sound. We’d known for some time that there was communication between between adults and embryos, but mostly not what it meant.

Health, Medicine

Apparently the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has cut the rate of cervical cancer by around 87%.

In other research, medics are now trying to understand “immune amnesia”, where a disease (usually a virus) turns off or supresses the immune system even after recovery. Measles is especially good at this, and it could go some way to explaining why some recover especially slowly from some diseases (Covid and glandular fever come to mind). [LONG READ]

Sexuality

So here’s yet another look at ways to achieve great sex. Doesn’t it all come down to what works for you?

Environment

A new way of looking at climate change has been developed: a map showing where carbon needs to stay in nature.

As Jane Dunford in the Guardian finds out, beavers are having a significant impact on the environment where they’ve been reintroduced. Oh and just get their names!

Apparently Europe has lost almost 250 million House Sparrows in the last 40 years – that’s roughly the current UK population of sparrows every year for 40 years. Many other species are doing this badly as well, although some birds of prey are doing well.

Art, Literature, Language

The origins of “Transeurasian” languages appears to have been traced to traced to Neolithic millet farmers in NE China.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Glass is an everyday substance for us, but there’s still a puzzle over where it was first discovered.

As well as having high class glass, Ancient Egypt had sacred baboons although they are not indigenous to the area. Where and how were they acquired? [£££] [LONG READ]

There are a lot of large pits near Stonehenge, and it turns out they’re Neolithic and man-made, rather than natural.

Las Vegas is nothing new: the ancient Romans had a party town all their own but it is now submerged in the sea

Nearer at home Roman Britain is still producing a stream of archaeological discoveries.

The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold coins to be found in England has been declared treasure at an inquest.

Meanwhile historians are revealing the secrets of the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral

When an antiques dealer bought a dirty wooden bird little did he realise to has and important artefact from the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

Still with the Tudors, some unsuspected, and almost pristine wall paintings have been uncovered at Calverley Old Hall in Yorkshire.

So just why is it that the Gunpowder Plot has continued to be remembered and celebrated for over 400 years?

You think we (in the UK) have a corrupt government? It has nothing on the parliaments of the 18th century. [£££]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Why is body hair still a no-no, especially in the world of dance?

And now three items on modern witchcraft. First from a Scottish hedge-witch. Second on the myth of the Halloween Hag. Lastly on the witch as a modern feminist icon.

And stay right there as we’ll end on the esoteric … The sentimental celluloid fairy is essentially a product of Disney as fairies were originally rather malevolent.

Have a good Christmas everyone; the Fates permitting we’ll be back with the next edition to enliven those dreary days between Christmas and New Year.

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

Welcome to another action packed edition of our monthly collection of links to items you may have missed the first time around.

Science, Technology, Natural World

On the uselessness of useful knowledge – or how AI is developing.

Do you have an inner voice that chatters away to you? Most people do in some form, but some don’t and some have bizarre inner voices.

So just why is 42 the answer to everything? [£££] [LONG]

And why is it that some organisms throw away large amounts of DNA during early development? [LONG]

It appears that our modern domestic horses originated in southwest Russia.

Recent years have produced a deluge of dinosaur fossils in China, and they’re totally changing the dinosaur history. Like T. rex with feathers?! [£££]

If that worried you, then go hide now. Because jumping spiders’ remarkable senses capture a world beyond our perception.

Health, Medicine

MessangerRNA is behind some of the very successful Covid-19 vaccines, but it is also now beginning to transform the way we treat many illnesses. [£££]

Sexuality

Yet more on the forbidden erotica of ancient Pompeii. [VIDEO]

And now for three items on the (hopefully normalisation and) liberation of female genitalia …
Labia liberation!, the movement to end vulva anxiety. [LONG]
Viva la vulva, ignorance about the basic biology is shockingly high. [LONG]
An interview with Jamie McCartney, creator of The Great Wall of Vagina.

Environment

We’re running out of fish shit, and it matters. [£££]

We’re also running out of species, as apparently almost half Britain’s biodiversity has gone in the last couple of hundred years.

Forty Hall in north London has been chosen as a site for a beaver release project.

Meanwhile it is important we learn to live with, if not love, our house guests.

It seems that volcanic ash and lava enriches the oceans far faster than it does land.

The Campaign for Better Transport has called for a ban on domestic flights and subsidy for rail travel.

One photographer has made it her mission to photograph the plastic in our seas.

Art, Literature, Language

On the origins and setting of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Some Chileans are living on top of a hoard of some of the earliest known mummies.

Archaeologists have uncovered a remarkably rare, painted Roman amphitheatre at Richborough in Kent.

It s now well established that the Vikings got to America almost 500 years before Columbus, with their Newfoundland site now firmly dated to 1021AD.

On the development of the medieval Westminster Abbey. [LONG]

Staying with ecclesiastical sites, archaeologists have discovered the unexpected site of the tannery at Fountains Abbey.

On menstruation and how men developed a horror for it in the middle ages.

And so, coming up to Halloween, three items on witchcraft …
First a look at how the historic witches are beginning to receive justice.
Secondly a Twitter thread about witch bottles.
And thirdly on the long and underappreciated history of male witches

London

London’s Underground system had a very early spiral escalator; unfortunately it seems never to have fully commissioned and working.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Here’s a recently released, but old, interview with our favourite Zen Master, Brad Warner.

The tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan cares for its happiness more than for its GDP.

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

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.