Category Archives: links

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

Monthly Links

Well then, guys & gals, it’s time for our monthly round up of links to items I thought interesting, and you might too. And having missed last month’s collection we have a lot to catch up on!

Science, Technology, Natural World

The latest research suggests that we Brits are not descended from a single group. Apparently the UK had at least two genetically distinct human groups at end of last ice age.

whiskered cat

We, like all apes, have lost our whiskers, but for those animals that still have them they are incredibly important. Here are five things you didn’t know. [VIDEO]

Palaeontologists have been looking at some ancient fish fossils and found they highlight the strangeness of our vertebrate ancestors.

Still with things watery, scientists have discovered living specimens of a clam thought to have gone extinct 40,000 years ago.

Also in the oceans, the denizens of the deep near the Cocos Islands have a array of glassy fangs and glowing fins.

Back on dry land, entomologists are also finding things they thought they’d lost. This time they’ve been searching in Indonesia for surviving colonies of Wallace’s Giant Bee, Megachile pluto. Two stories, first from the Guardian, second from the Smithsonian.

Here’s another oddity … A UK cat charity is looking to find a home for a kitten which is neither male nor female (and no, not intersex either!).

Do we all experience colour in the same way? It’s an intriguing question. Initially you’d say “yes”, but on reflection that would probably change to “no”. So where is the truth?
And here’s another take on colour perception. [LONG READ]

Finally, away from biology … On Saturday 19 November 2022 – yes, that recently! – a tiny asteroid fell from the sky over Ontario, Canada. What’s so special, is that it was spotted just 3½ hours from touchdown, but in that time NASA were able to compute it’s exact impact location.

Health, Medicine

Bird flu (H5N1) is already a huge problem for the poultry industry across Europe with millions of birds being culled. But worryingly a small number of key mutations would make it more easily jump from birds to humans, and to spread between us. And we have no protection beyond lockdown.

Quietly, in their labs, scientists are still working on new Covid-19 vaccines, and they may urn out to work very differently. [LONG READ]

Another approach to controlling Covid-19, and indeed many other infectious diseases, is to use UV light – and scientists think they’ve found a UV wavelength which kills germs but is save for us. [LONG READ]

Now to an old disease … the Black Death of 14th Century is still affecting our health today.

Environment

Conserving the environment and economic progress are not mutually incompatible and dismissing environmentalists as “anti-growth” is wrong. [££££]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

Harry Mount (Editor of The Oldie) takes a look at the importance and joy of rude Latin graffiti.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists working to reconstruct the ancient Mashki Gate in northern Iraq have unearthed beautiful rock carvings that are about 2,700 years old.

Here’s the latest article looking at the Antikythera Mechanism and what it is. [LONG READ]

Two stories on an exceptional collection of 24 ancient bronze statues found immersed in a Tuscan spa.

Analysis of gold coins found in Transylvania in 1713 suggest that the “fake” Roman Emperor Sponsian was actually real.

Now here’s our favourite medieval historian on the maintenance of monarchical succession. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile the Mediaeval Mythbusting blog looks at sex, stonemasons and the sacred. [LONG READ]

Just slightly more up to date, History Today takes a look at Tudor beds.

London

It seems the defunct Whitechapel Bell Foundry is up for sale as the American developers cannot fulfil their development plans. The London Bell Foundry are trying to acquire the site and restore it as a bell foundry.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

At times we all hesitate to be kind when opportunity knocks, but psychologist Claudia Hammond maintains we should all be much less hesitant. [LONG READ]

Still on the psychological, British Naturism looks at the role of nudity in improving mental health.

And finally … Two looks at the work of Architect Peter Barber who is designing some extraordinary housing developments which get right way from the “bloody boring brown Lego architecture” (to quote an acquaintance) and high-rise.

Edgewood Mews, Finchley

arts, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

2 Comments

Here’s this month’s collection of links to items you may have missed – with minimal reference to last week’s state funeral.

Science, Technology, Natural World

It’s that time of year when we celebrate the Ig Nobel Prizes. [LONG READ]

In yet another round of modelling calculations, based on detailed measurements, scientists are suggesting that Saturn’s tilt and its ring system may be down to a missing moon.

Palaeontologists have studied growth lines and elements preserved in fossil teeth of Pantolambda bathmodon (a sheep-sized mammal and one of the first to expand into large-animal niches left vacant by the extinction of the dinosaurs) to reconstruct its day-to-day life.

Image: Smithsonian

There really are some strange creatures in the ocean depths; here’s one with eyes for a head.

Returning from the depths, Japanese scientists have found that tweezers modelled on a crow’s beak outperform our traditional design. [£££]

It might surprise you to know that bees and ants are both descended from primordial waasps. While we like bees, we mostly dislike ants and wasps. But ants are interesting, and incredibly useful in their own right.

Health, Medicine

Good grief! Archaeologists in Borneo have discovered the remains of a youngster who had a successful foot amputation 31,000 years ago!

I think we’ve been told about this before, but there is a Scottish woman who can smell if people have Parkinson’s disease years before they have symptoms – and she’s helping scientists develop a test.

Good news for some of us! A study has found that drinking tea may be linked to a lower risk of early death.

Sexuality

Scientists in Japan appear to have shown that significant female emission at orgasm is release fluid from the bladder. I cannot get my head round who would do this experiment, and who would willingly consent to being one of the guinea pigs. [£££]

Environment

A camera trap in south west London appears to have captured images of a wild pine marten; the first spotted in London for over 100 years. And it’s a damn good walk from the nearest known population.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

We’ll have just these two items on the Queen’s funeral, both about The Queue. They’re from Prof. Steve Reicher, a specialist in crowd behaviour from St Andrew’s University.
First: Don’t be fooled that everyone queueing in London is mourning the Queen.
Second: How the wait to see the Queen’s coffin transformed people.
Expect a lot more sociology on this in months and years to come.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

Actually, I sort of fibbed to you! Here’s another item related to the late Queen. Five photographers recall what it was like photographing Her Majesty.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

A fairly thin history section this month with just two items on the medieval.

Medieval pilgrim badges were not always entirely wholesome: it seems the pilgrims often used bawdy badges as talismen to protect against plague an the like.

DNA analysis suggests that a significant find of Jewish remains in Norwich are the victims of a medieval pogrom.

London

Here’s one about my childhood stamping grounds. Bell Common, Upshire, Essex which is the alleged site of Boadicea’s last stand – except it isn’t; that obelisk is a conceit.

London blogger Diamond Geezer has been trying to set foot in every one of the 1463 1km grid squares within Greater London. And he’s down to the last few.
First he visits square TQ1575 and the Mogden Sewage Works in Hounslow.
Then he reported that he was down to two unvisited squares – no, make that one, and that last one was unvisitable as it’s in the middle of airside at Heathrow.
Oh but wait! Apparently it isn’t entirely airside, and you can legally set foot in that last square. Result: every one of the 1463 squares visited!
It’s nerdy perhaps, but that has to be some achievement!

Exeter Road

history, links, medical, science, topographical

Monthly Links

This month’s collection of links to items you didn’t know you’d missed, and probably didn’t want to.

Science, Technology, Natural World

The universe is stealing our time! The days are getting shorter as Earth spins faster.

In an incredible feat of computing, the AI system Deep Mind has worked out the structure 200 million proteins in all the species whose genome has been sequenced.

Who first thought up the concept of zero? It seems the origins are somewhat elusive, but it looks like it may be in Sumatra. [£££]

Apparently the US regulators are imminently to certify the first small nuclear reactors. Now if they’ll just use the molten salt reactors then it will solve the problem of further high risk waste.

In more watery news a rare coloured sea slug has been found in UK waters for the first time.

The other side of the world, an incredible new jellyfish has been found off the coast of Papua New Guinea

Back on dry land, a group of scientists is planning to resurrect the extinct Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine). Hmmm … good luck with that one!

So how are large migratory moths able to fly in incredibly straight lines for miles? Scientists are trying to find out.

Health, Medicine

There are times when I struggle to believe what scientists and medics can achieve, and this is one of them … they’ve managed to change blood type of donor kidney – if this stands up then it will be a major breakthrough in transplant surgery.

There’s an outbreak of the previously unknown “tomato flu” in India. Except that it isn’t; it’s actually viral hand, foot & mouth disease which not uncommon amongst children across the globe. (Hand, foot & moth disease is NOT related to foot & mouth in cattle etc.)

Sexuality

Something else what always amazes me is the breadth of Benjamin Franklin’s interests. For instance, who know he extolled the benefits of banging MILFs?

One far-sighted mother (in Australia) got help to give her autistic sone some confidence – she booked him a session with a sex worker! Now tell me again why sex work shouldn’t be legal.

Environment

Hedges. Britain excels at them, with a greater length of hedge than roads. And farmers are coming to realise they provide vital habitat and corridors for wildlife. [LONG READ]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

A short item from History Today on the way our expletives change over the centuries. [£££]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Researchers have been retrieving DNA from ancient teeth and estimated that the “cold sore” herpes virus (HSV-1) is a recent evolution.

It is being suggested that the reason many medieval monks has a high parasite load was because they were using their own excrement as fertiliser.

The first of our two articles this month from Going Medieval‘s, looks at sexual assault in the medieval world. [LONG READ]

And our second of Going Medieval‘s articles is all about rocking chicks what brew beer. [LONG READ]

Only 350 years after it sank in the Bahamas, the wreck of the cargo of treasure aboaud the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas is being discovered and recovered.

Bills of Mortality, basically early equivalents of death certificates, often in church registers, are an invaluable resource. A London Inheritance blog takes a look at what they can tell is abut early modern life in London. [LONG READ]

Guédelon Castle

They said it is impossible to rebuild Notre Dame, using medieval carpentry and building skills … but France’s medieval carpenters are doing it!

London

A potted history of the London Taxicab.

A review of a book on origins of the more curious and interesting of London’s pub names.

Food, Drink

It seems there are some (natural) products which are able to interfere with your body’s ability to use the nutrients you consume – known as antinutrients.

food+drink, history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

Here’s another edition of our monthly guide to items you may have missed the first time around.

Science, Technology, Natural World

We’ll start off with one of my favourite subjects: wasps. We need to take sting out of our fear and loathing of wasps and welcome their importance to ecosystems

One of these days scientists will make up their minds. Unlike a while back, they’re now saying dogs arose from two populations of wolves, study finds

In good news, three Sumatran tiger cubs have been born at London Zoo. And they’ve released the usual cute cat pictures.

Scientists at London’s Kew Gardens, with many others, have found that the world’s largest waterlily is in fact a new species, now named Victoria Boliviana. That means there are now three giant waterlily species.
One of the lead scientists, Lucy T Smith, has written a blog item about the discovery. [LONG READ]
And James Wong writes about how the giant waterlilies changed architecture.

While we’re on engineering and architecture, Transport for London engineers have designed and are testing a totally new idea for cooling the London Underground.

Sexuality

In an unsurprising discovery many specialists have pointed out that male sterilisation (aka. vasectomy) isn’t going to solve (America’s) problem with abortions. [LONG READ]

Environment

While on things sexual, researchers are suggesting that grey squirrel numbers could be reduced using oral contraceptives. However I see the law of unintended consequences coming into play if this is tried.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

A look at the way our brains cope with speaking more than one language.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Some scientists are now reckoning that early human ancestors are one million years older than previously thought. It’ll be interesting to see if this holds up.

The mysterious Mycenaean and Minoan civilisations were a bedrock for much of Ancient Greece. [LONG READ]

An important hoard of Roman gold coins has been found near Norwich.

Here’s a review of Janina Ramirez’s new book Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages Through the Women Written Out of It.

Dr Eleanor Janega at Going Medieval provides a reading list on medieval abortion.
Meanwhile Scientific American takes a look at abortion and contraception in the Middle Ages. [£££]

Cavers have found a mineshaft in Cheshire which has been completely undisturbed for 200 years and is a useful time capsule.

Clandon Park House was gutted by fire in 2015. The National Trust which owns it has decided it will be mainly conserved as a ruin rather than restored to its former Palladian glory.

If you were a Victorian or Edwardian peer, what would you put in your vampire hunting kit? Well there was one for sale recently at Hanson’s Auctions; it sold for £13,000 (plus fees) some some five times it’s estimate!

London

On the interestingly named Pickle Herring Stairs.

Did you know that London had a naked Routemaster bus?

Apparently there are plans to un-culvert a stretch of the Gores Brook in Dagenham. A move which should be applauded, and repeated elsewhere.

It’s not quite London, but in our fourth item from IanVisits, he goes to Saffron Walden in Essex – a delightful small market town.

Food, Drink

The French authorities, like WHO, have now concluded there’s a definite link between charcuterie and colon cancer, due to the high level of nitrates and nitrites contained therein.

In better news, French scientists think they’ve cracked the puzzle of cultivating prized white truffles.

How safe is it to eat mouldy cheese?

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

The Guardian goes to meet a handful of the country’s more unusual master craftsmen.

One of my favourite places is the Dungeness and the Romney Marsh. Caroline Reed in Kent Life looks at some of the best of the area.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally, here’s a list of the rarest boy’s and girl’s names in the UK – 50 of each.

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

Monthly Links

This month’s collection of links to items you maybe didn’t want to miss.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Let’s start with one of the hard questions … What is Life? [LONG READ]

New observations from the Gaia telescope have provided the most detailed picture of the Milky Way to date (above).

At the other end of things, there is much we don’t yet know about the ocean depths and what lives there. [LONG READ]

This is amply demonstrated in ever detailed mapping of the depths of the Southern Ocean …

… current investigations of, and hunts for, underwater volcanoes [LONG READ] …

… a flourishing hidden world of marine life discovered under the Antarctic ice …

… and the mysterious sea creatures which surface at night but spend the day in the depths. [LONG READ] [££££]

Back on dry land researchers have proposed a new story of the origin of the domestic chicken 3500 years ago in rice fields.

And now two items on one of my recurrent themes: wasps …
What would happen if all the wasps disappeared? [VIDEO]
And secondly how not to let wasps spoil your picinic.

On a totally different tack, apparently trees around art galleries provide the art works with significant protection from pollution.

It turns out dandelions are more interesting that most of us knew. As a kid I learnt that the petals could be used to make very agreeable wine, the leaves could be put in salad and are a diuretic, and the roots could be roasted and used as a coffee substitute. What I didn’t know is that dandelions can be used to make rubber.

Finally in this section, scientists have discovered the world’s largest bacterium – and it’s the size of an eyelash.

Health, Medicine

Here’s the inside story of RECOVERY, the largest Covid-19 clinical trial, which transformed treatment. [LONG READ]

It is estimated that at least 1 in 7 people worldwide have contracted Lyme disease. [££££]

More surprising news is that 1 in 500 men carry an extra sex chromosome, being either XXY or XYY rather than the normal XY – and most don’t know.

[TRIGGER WARNING] From the “I thought we already knew this” file, a large study has confirmed that most miscarriages are caused by genetic errors. [££££}

Monkeypox may not mutate very quickly, but it still does mutate and adapt.

After some scientists object, the WHO is proposing to rename Monkeypox, but the placeholder name “hMPXV” (human MonkeyPoX Virus) doesn’t seem to me to be so much better.

There are tiny mites living in our hair follicles, and they have sex on our faces at night. And you thought your cat was a furry pervert!

Which brings us nicely(!?) to …

Sexuality

Yet more thoughts on how us geriatrics can still have great sex.

An interview with Julia Shaw about Bi, her new book on bisexuality.

Environment

A pair of peregrines have hatched three chicks on the roof of (my local) Ealing Hospital, which is slightly bizarre as the hospital no longer has a birthing unit.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

I’m not quite sure where these next two items should really belong, so I decided they’re “business” …

Cargo vessels are getting ever larger, but how can you rescue one when it gets into trouble?.

What do you do with an unwanted supertanker?

Some thoughts on Artificial Intelligence and the patent system from our favourite drug research chemist.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

I’ve defined this as art, because, south of Brussels, Charleroi has a truly surreal metro system. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

You’ll remember that 5300-year-old mummified corpse found in the Alps some years ago … well it seems that he’s told us a lot about ancestral diet, compared with modern diet. [LOND READ]

There’s an Iron Age site near Cambridge where archaeologists have found the burial of a huge number of frogs – and they don’t know the reason for the burial.

The remains of over 140 people have been found at an Anglo-Saxon burial site on the route of the HS2 rail line.

Another from the annals of the “thought already known” … researchers say that the Black Death almost certainly started in Central Asia.

Here’s Dr Eleanor Janega (our favourite medievalist) on drag, femininity and sexuality in the before times.

Queen Elizabeth I commissioned the pirate Sir Francis Drake to chart the west coast of the Americas, disrupt the Spanish colonisation, and naturally bring back booty. In the process Drake, in the Golden Hind, became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world, taking 1017 days.

And from the same era, here’s a stunning piece of French interior: La grande cheminée du manoir de Coëtcandec, exposée au château des Rohan à Pontivy. [It’s in French, but the images are stunning.]
[LONG READ]

A century later HMS Gloucester was wrecked off the Norfolk coast. It was carrying the future James II at the time; and I seem to recall Samuel Pepys was involved somewhere. The wreck has been located and is being investigated.

London

Here we have three items from IanVisits …

There are 13 green huts dotted around London; they’re the remaining Cabman’s Shelters (originally there were at least 61). Now another two have been given listed status, making 12 of the remaining 13 protected.

In Pinner churchyard there’s a strange coffin floating in mid-air (well, sort of!).

And here’s Ian’s report of a recent tour of Harrow School.

Food, Drink

It seems that climate change is altering the chemistry of wine, and not always in a good way. [LONG READ]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Finally an number of items on one of my core beliefs: naturism and nudism …
12 reasons to be a nudist.
On the many benefits of naturism.
No, nudity is not sexual – unless you make it so.
Three reasons why nudity is not better accepted.

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 …