environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

This month’s collection of links to items you may have missed the firs time around.

Science, Technology, Natural World

A new theory suggests humans might not be that special in the universe after all.

A new asteroid has been found and it might hit us in 2032, but the odds keep changing as it’s orbit is refined by new observations.

A different asteroid has been found to possibly contain the building block of life.

At the other end of the size spectrum … There’s a whole world of tiny “organisms”, smaller than viruses, out there; but do they constitute life? [££££]

This is a few months old, but the Asian Southern Giant Hornet (Vespa soror) has found its way to Europe. That’s a third species: it’s not the Yellow Legged Hornet (Vespa velutina) now widespread in Europe; nor the Northern Giant Hornet (Vespa mandarinia) which has hit NW USA. [££££]

Studying babies’ minds [££££] [LONG READ] is prompting a rethink of consciousness, and maybe explains why we can’t remember our lives as babies or toddlers.

Health, Medicine

Contrary to the naysayers, we know exactly what’s in vaccines because we put it there.

Researchers using mice have found a surprising link between menthol and Alzheimer’s Disease.

It seems that it may be possible that aching joints really can predict the weather.

Sexuality

I thought we already knew that, although still taboo, masturbation really can be good for you.

Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics

Following a recent spate of accidents, it looks as if planes are crashing more often. But are they really?

Art, Literature, Language, Music

Amongst his other achievements Leonardo da Vinci made some incredible studies of human anatomy, but they are still not getting the recognition they deserve. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

In Egypt, archaeologists have found the 3,500 year-old tomb of a missing pharaoh.

New research suggests that most Europeans had dark skin until less than 3000 years ago. [££££]

Thanks to ever-improving technology, researchers have got the first glimpse inside a 2000-year-old scroll from Herculaneum.

In London some of the earliest parts of the Roman city’s basilica have been found in an office basement.

Meanwhile a new study has found evidence suggesting the ownership of Scotland’s Viking-age Galloway Hoard.

The Oakington Women: A collection of extraordinary female burials in sixth-century Cambridge is evidence of a matriarchal society.

In West Sussex the discovery of a medieval toilet has helped uncover lost home of the England’s last Anglo-Saxon King.

What we choose to remember from the past can give a radically different picture from the contemporary reality.

A potted biography of Samuel Pepys. [LONG READ]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

And finally (yes, pun intended) … knowing the common signs that someone is dying can help in their final days.

history

What Happened in 125BC, 25BC, AD25, AD125

Here’s our next instalment of things that happened in ..25 years of yore.

Some Notable Events in 125 BC

Unknown Date. In Rome, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus proposes the extension of Roman citizenship to the northern Italians, but the Senate reacts by sending him off to deal with disturbances around Massilia – and in so doing, commences the conquest of Transalpine Gaul.

Unknown Date. Completion of Aqua Tepula aqueduct in Rome.Aqua Tepula aqueduct

Some Notable Events in 25 BC

Unknown Date. Imperator Caesar Augustus becomes Consul for the ninth time. His partner is Marcus Junius Silanus.

Unknown Date. The temple to Neptune on the Circus Flaminius is built.

Unknown Date. Rome, capital of the Roman Empire, becomes the largest city in the world, taking the lead from Chang’an, capital of China.

Some Notable Events in AD 25

Unknown Date. Emperor Tiberius settles a dispute between Messenia and Sparta over the Ager Dentheliales on Mount Taygetus.

Unknown Date. Died. Lucius Antonius, grandson of Mark Antony (b.20 BC).

Some Notable Events in AD 125

Unknown Date. The Pantheon is constructed (in Rome) as it stands today, by Hadrian.

Unknown Date. Emperor Hadrian establishes the Panhellenion.

Unknown Date. Hadrian distributes imperial lands to small farmers.

Unknown Date. Plague sweeps North Africa in the wake of a locust invasion that destroys large areas of cropland. The plague kills as many as 500,000 in Numidia and possibly 150,000 on the coast before moving to Italy, where it takes so many lives that villages and towns are abandoned.

Unknown Date. Zhang Heng of Han dynasty China invents a hydraulic-powered armillary sphere.

Unknown Date. The Satires of Juvenal intimate that bread and circuses (panem et circenses) keep the Roman people happy.

Unknown Date. Pope Telesphorus succeeds Pope Sixtus I as the eighth pope according to Roman Catholic tradition.

personal

This Month’s Two Tiny Changes

Each month during 2025 we’re offering two tiny changes which may help improve your life. This month …

  1. Put your head under the bedcovers. Life can be overstimulating, but you can reset your brain in just 10-15 minutes by cutting out the world completely.
  2. Get hearing aids. Struggling to hear what’s being said? Get your hearing checked and if needed accept you need hearing aids. It’s so much easier for everyone, and safer, when you can hear well.
quotes

Monthly Quotes

Here’s this month’s selection of recently encountered quotes.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Without religion, everything would be permitted.
[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there and finding it.
[Oscar Wilde]

He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.
[Chinese Proverb]

Be careful. When a democracy is sick, fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.
[Albert Camus]

Consciousness is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to.
[DH Lawrence]

First, they fascinate the fools. Then, they muzzle the intelligent.
[Bertrand Russell]

You can view life as a comedy or a tragedy, but … Socrates thought there’s a third possibility. That is, you can refute things. You can investigate them, never settle on an answer. There’s an inquisitive mode of living, in which you’re living your life at the same time as not assuming you know how to live it.
[Prof. Agnes Callard]

I’m not answering your question, but I’m telling you how difficult a “why” question is. You have to know what it is that you’re permitted to understand and allow to be understood and know, and what it is you’re not.
[Richard Feynman]

Had it with these
dollar store philosophers
selling me
someone else’s advise
and a makeup tutorial
I want a freak flag and
a peace pipe
and a revolution I can
feel in my hips
[JK Kennedy]

If all religious knowledge and texts disappeared, new religions would eventually form, but they’d be different from what we have now.
If all scientific knowledge and texts were lost, it would come back the same, because we’d still be rediscovering the same reality.
[unknown]

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.
[Mark Twain]

medical, memes

February Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Medicine

  1. What is dermatophobia the fear of? Skin disease
  2. How many teeth do adult humans have? 32
  3. In 2015, which country started thanking people via text message when their donated blood was used? Sweden
  4. An absence of the SRY gene means what for a human being? It means the human is a female. The presence of the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene is the specific factor which leads to maleness in mammals
  5. In which part of the body would you find the atlas and axis bones? Neck
  6. First developed by John Salk, the vaccine for which illness was first tested in 1952? Poliomyelitis

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.

books, memes, quotes

This Month’s Poem

No Man Is An Island
John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Find this poem online at All Poetry

amusements, memes

Ten Things

This year our Ten Things column each month is alternating between composers and artists a century at a time from pre-1500 to 20th century. As always, there’s no guarantee you will have heard of them all!

Ten Artists Born Before 1500

  1. Albrecht Durer
  2. Leonardo da Vinci
  3. Fra Angelico
  4. Jan van Eyck
  5. Hieronymus Bosch
    Hieronymus Bosch
    Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights
  6. Giotto
  7. Donatello
  8. Filippo Lippi
  9. Piero della Francesca
  10. Sandro Botticelli