Our packed monthly round-up of links to items you may have missed …
Science, Technology, Natural World
First up we have to highlight this years Ig Nobel prizes.
Palaeontologists have discovered several new species of extinct bone-crushing Tasmanian Tigers.
At the other end of the size scale, researchers looking in a Tibetan glacier have found over 1700 different frozen viruses.
Still with research reported in Popular Science magazine, the social white-browed sparrow weavers varying nest shapes demonstrate that birds have “culture”. Mind I thought we already knew that from the dialects of Meso-American parrots.
And while with “culture” apparently marmosets have individual “names” for each other.
Grief is well documented emotion in humans, and it seems some other species, but do cats grieve?
Scientists continue to unravel the meaning of our dreams.
So how do you know what that smell is? How does our sense of smell work? [LONG READ]
Leaving the animal world for the geological, in September 2023 something made Earth ring like a bell for nine days. [LONG READ]
Back in the early life of the solar system, it seems that Jupiter’s moon Ganymede was struck by an asteroid bigger than the one which wiped out the dinosaurs.
The asteroid Apophis is due to fly by very close to Earth in 2029, and now an astrophysicist is predicting a very slightly higher chance it may hit us.
Meanwhile, way out in the universe, researchers have discovered the largest jets ever from a black hole – and they make our galaxy look miniscule.
Health, Medicine
So how much proper risk assessment was done around Covid? And by whom? [LOMG READ]
OB/GYN Dr Jen Gunter shares some takeaways from the recent (American) Menopause Society Meeting.
Our bodies are full of nerves, but the longest one orchestrates the connection between brain and body.
While on brains, within the billions of neurons they contain there are trillions of typos – some good, some bad. [LONG READ]
And still on brains, it’s being suggested that many older people don’t just maintain, but actually increase, their cognitive skills. [££££]
And finally with things mental, a Stanford-led research group has identified six different types of depression each of which is likely to respond differently to various treatments. [LONG READ]
Sexuality
Sex historian Dr Kate Lister tries to explain exactly why women masturbate. [££££]
Environment
Nature is like art in many ways as for many humans both are subjective.
Art, Literature, Language, Music
Loughborough has installed a new memorial bell as a tribute to those who died from Covid, and a thank you to NHS and other key workers. And unusually for the UK, it’s a campanile. We need more campaniles.
In which David Hockney stimulates an academic epidemiologist and mathematician to think about four dimensional chairs.
Philip Curtis, the director of The Map House in London, talks about mapping Antarctica.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
We reported previously that Stonehenge’s altar stone had been identified as originating in NE Scotland. Now it seems that the front runner locations, Orkney, has been ruled out.
Further up into the cold lands, archaeologists are shedding light on a little known ancient culture in northern Greenland. [££££]
In Britain we are generally pretty ignorant about the way in which ancient India shaped science and mathematics.
Archaeologists in Spain have used DNA to uncover some of the secrets of a Christian cave-dwelling medieval community.
Meanwhile in Poland archaeologists have found the burial of two children suspected of being vampires.
Henry VIII did many notable things including accidentally changing the way we write history.
London
Our favourite London blogger, Diamond Geezer, visits Theobalds Grove (one stop outside Greater London). This is my home town; I was brought up just three minutes walk from this station! Needless to say it’s changed quite a bit since I last lived there in late 1970s.
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
So just why do men bother with depilation?
Emma Beddington set out to see what it’s like to spend a day as a dog, and finds it impossible.
People
A German mathematician who lived in France as a hermit, left thousands of pages of work. Now there’s a debate over whether he was a mathematical genius or just a lonely madman. [LONG READ]
Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!
And finally some pictures of the first UK Hobby Horse Championships.
