Tag Archives: zenmischief

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links for April

This month’s links to items you maybe didn’t want to miss …

Science, Technology, Natural World

It’s fairly superficial, but here are 15 common science myths debunked. [LONG READ]

Robin McKie reflects on over 40 years as the Observer‘s science editor. [LONG READ]

Pharmaceutical chemist Derek Lowe takes issue with the idea that we could kill off all disease within 10 years.

Meanwhile Corey S Powell discusses why it is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence … [LONG READ]

… And Prof. Seirian Sumner outlines the how we might best create a more nature-literate society.

Somewhere hiding in Britain the government has a collection of deadly fungi.

The tiny and mysterious hominin Paranthropus lived alongside early members of our Homo genus. [££££]

After which it is maybe no great surprise that intelligence evolved at least twice in vertebrates. [LONG READ]

No wonder scientists have recently created the largest mammalian brain map to date. [££££]

Going back down the size scale … just how do insects and the smallest animals survive in Antarctica.

Still with insects, it turns out that flies are masters of migration, travelling huge distances.

Back up in size, a group claims to have de-extincted the Dire Wolf, but have they? Two articles (amongst the many in recent weeks): a blog post from Bethany Brookshire [LONG READ] and an op-ed from Michael Le Page in New Scientist [££££]. Spoiler: No they haven’t.

And now for something completely different … new work is finding that astronomers were wrong about Uranus and it resolves some mysteries.

Much more interestingly, astronomers are trying to work out what’s happening inside Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io.

Health, Medicine

Researchers are now beginning to understand the actual role of carbon dioxide in airborne disease transmission, and this should be a key to safer indoor spaces.

Professor of Mathematical Biology, Kit Yates, asks whether the risks of brain injury in contact sports is being overstated. [LONG READ]

Drinking urine is an ancient practice to improve health, but are the risks worth it?

Sexuality & Relationships

Dani Faith Leonard writes a review of the medical discovery of the clitoris, and takes a sideswipe at DOGE incels in the process.

Here’s a history of (not just pubic) hair removal through the ages. [LONG READ]

And then there’s a pictorial history of the “full bush”. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile a different sex writer talks about her approach to “self-pleasure”.

Now over to you boys … First off, just what is the relation of penis size to monogamy?

And when you’ve got over that shock … apparently you need to wake up to your declining fertility. [££££]

All together now … Here are some thoughts on why some marriages last while others fail.

Which brings us to various ways to improve a sexless marriage.

Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics

Following which, this seems an opportune time to consider nine ways to spot falsehoods on the loose.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

So from a linguistics point of view apparently “she” is a very weird word. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists have uncovered a huge horad of Iron Age metal work; everything from cauldrons to horse harness fittings.

If you’re a Roman, how do you get a lion from Africa to York? Because a skeleton (presumably of a gladiator) in a Roman York cemetery has bite marks made by a lion and is the first physical evidence of gladiators (well people) fighting lions as sport.

History is sometimes hard to understand and interpret, but it seems Christopher Marlowe tackled the problematic Edward II.

Archaeologists in Barcelona have uncovered the remains of a wrecked medieval boat.

Mercury and weasel balls … medieval treatments so often make one doubt the sanity of ancient medicine.

Newly discovered wall paintings show off the tastes of wealthy Tudors.

And finally for this month … there’s a brouhaha over the display of a book bound in the skin of a 19th-century Suffolk murderer.

personal, photography, ramblings

World Pinhole Photography Day

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Bah! Humbug! to the London Marathon. Much more interestingly today is World Pinhole Photography Day – always the last Sunday in April.

Before we had lenses for cameras, and indeed before we had photographic film, it was possible to view a scene, and project it onto a wall, using a tiny aperture. This was the camera obscura used by artists since ancient times.

Pinhole Dandelion
(Click all the images for a larger view.)

Once cameras and the photographic process were available, it became possible to do this trick with a tiny pinhole instead of a lens. Needless to say the results are not sharp, as they would be with a lens, and because of the tiny aperture exposure times are much longer than we’re used to these days. But the smaller the pinhole, the sharper the image and the longer the exposure needed.

Nevertheless it is a fun, and often instructive, technique to try – and these days it’s very easy with (digital) SLR cameras. All one needs is a pinhole – and you can make that yourself! (If you hunt online there are people who will make a pinhole for your camera; or even sell you a bespoke pinhole camera.)

Pinhole Red Deadnettle

There are a number of “how to” sites on the internet. Basically you need only a spare camera body cap and bits and pieces you will already have lying around, like an empty drinks can.

A couple of years ago I made a pinhole for my Canon dSLR following the instructions on wikiHow. It was a bit tricky for me, with my ten left thumbs, but after three or four attempts at making the actual pinhole (in a piece of drinks can) I made something which works adequately if not brilliantly.

Pinhole Lilac Bush (from below)

Setting up and taking pictures is easy enough. Fit the pinhole (body cap) to the camera and mount the camera on a tripod.
Set the camera to manual and ISO 100 (or slower). You can’t adjust the aperture of the pinhole, which will be tiny, so you then have to experiment with exposure times of 10-30 seconds (compared with the normal 1/100th or faster) in good light; longer in poor light or night. Use a remote control (or the camera’s timer delay). Now experiment.

So today I found my pinhole, and had a wander round the garden to see what looked likely to make a decent photograph. The images here are the best results (slightly colour enhanced). For comparison the following final two images are of the garden with a pinhole and with a normal lens on the camera – I reckon for a piece of crude homemade old technology the pinhole doesn’t do a bad job.

Pinhole View of Our Hairy Garden
The same view of our garden with a proper camera lens!

Of those four pinhole images, I think the first, the dandelion, has worked the best. What does anyone else think?

history

What Happened in 525, 625, 725

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

Some Notable Events in 525

Unknown Date. King Theodoric the Great sends Pope John I to Constantinople, to negotiate a withdrawal of Byzantine emperor Justin’s edict against Arian Christianity.

Unknown Date. The Daisan river floods Edessa. The Shroud of Turin is allegedly discovered during the rebuilding of the city.

Unknown Date. Cosmas Inidicopleustes, Alexandrian explorer-geographer, travels up the Nile. He will venture as far to the east as Ceylon, become a monk, and write “Topographia Christiana” to vindicate the biblical account of the world.

Unknown Date. Dionysius Exiguus, Scythian theologian-mathematician, inaugurates the practice of using AD (Anno Domini) in Rome for calendar dates after the birth of Jesus Christ. Dionysius also produces his tables for computing the date of Cyclus Paschalis (Easter Tables).

Some Notable Events in 625

25 October. Died. Pope Boniface V dies at Rome after a 6 year reign. He is succeeded by Honorius I as the 70th pope.

Unknown Date. King Edwin of Northumbria marries Æthelburga of Kent. As a Christian, she brings her personal chaplain, Paulinus, and encourages her husband to convert to Christianity.

Unknown Date. Born. Hasan ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad (d.670).

Some Notable Events in 725

23 April. King Wihtred of Kent dies after a 35 year reign. The kingdom is divided between his three sons: Æthelbert II as overking, Eadbert I in West Kent and Alric.

Unknown Date. Muslim forces under Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi capture Carcassonne, which has been under Siege, as well as Nimes.

Unknown Date. Vi Xing, Chinese Buddhist monk and astronomer, applies a clockwork escapement mechanism, to provide rotating motion to his astronomical armillary sphere.

Unknown Date. Bede, Northumbrian monk-historian, writes The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione), explaining how to calculate medieval Easter.Manuscript Bede on Easter

natural history, science

Nature’s Legs

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A few days ago I spotted a mosquito on the bathroom wall. Now we’ve all seen mosquitos before but on this occasion I was fascinated by it’s size and anatomy – especially its incredible legs; thin as the finest silk thread.

Culex mosquito
Culex mosquito

How does Nature make such structures – and make them functional? Scientist though I am, it baffles my brain and I can quite see why some people believe in “intelligent design”.

Surely those legs cannot be anything more than stiff supports. Insects have an exoskeleton in contrast to our endoskeleton. The legs need nerves, muscles and circulation to make then more than fixed supports. Legs can move, allowing their owner to walk, clean itself, and even jump. The muscles have to attach to the inside of the exoskeleton, and there have to be nerves – and a method of supplying energy – to trigger them into action.

Insect circulation doesn’t work the way ours does as they do not have hearts: basically they use haemolymph which can diffuse around their small bodies, or be pumped by, for instance, muscular membranes. Some insects use this as a system of hydraulics, in combination with the muscles, to move legs etc. – apparently muscles to move a joint one way, and hydraulics for the reverse. All of which must be under some form of nerve control – and they don’t have that many nerves running from their tiny brains.

Even more weirdly, some insects (eg. jumping spiders, plant hoppers) have a system of gears which work their legs. Crazy or what?

two rice brown plant hoppers
Rice brown planthopper

Just how can these structures be created? You would think they’re so tiny they cannot be even one cell thick – but they have to be many, many cells thick. Which just goes to show how tiny our cells are.

I know evolution has had billions of years to achieve its designs, but I still struggle with how any living thing works or has evolved. Yes, I know the theories, and I can understand it as abstract pieces of mechanics and chemistry. However I really struggle coming to terms with how it all evolved, how it all works – together – and the sheer complexity of living organisms. When you think about it, it really shouldn’t be possible.

quotes

Monthly Quotes for April

Here is this month’s selection of recently encountered quotes …

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
[JRR Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring]

Intricacies of social life make English habits unyielding to simplification, while understatement and irony – in which all classes of this island converse – upset the normal emphasis of reported speech.
[Anthony Powell; The Acceptance World]

There were a lot of fools at that conference – pompous fools – and pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are alright; you can talk to them, and try to help them out.
[Richard Feynman]

What’s the difference between prose and poetry? The most parsimonious explanation is this: a poet dictates where the lines end.
[Simon Barnes; Anthony Powell Society Newsletter; Spring 2025]

A Naturist is simply a human being without “Artificial Additives”.
[Leah Crowley]

I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunization. So what on earth are you worrying about? It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunized.
[Roald Dahl]

Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.
[Fyodor Dostoevsky]

Politicians sometimes have trouble believing in the reality of things that can’t be intimidated, co-opted, or bought off. Fools, as I say.
[Derek Lowe, Science.org]

I hate small talks. I wanna talk about atoms, death, aliens, sex, magic, intellect, the meaning of life, faraway galaxies, the lies you’ve told, your flaws, your favourite scents, your childhood, what keeps you up at night, your insecurity and fears. I like people with depth, who speak with emotion, a twisted mind. I don’t want to know “what’s up”.
[unknown]

What if plants are actually farming us, giving us oxygen until we expire and turn into manure (their food) which they can consume?
[unknown]

If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat, and re-assert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.
[Abraham Lincoln]

By the numbers, the tariffs are less an expression of economic theory and more a Dadaist art piece about the meaninglessness of expertise.
[Derek Thompson; The Atlantic; 03/04/2025]

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.
[Edward R Murrow]

memes, science

April 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.

Geography

  1. In what country would you find Mount Kilimanjaro? Tanzania
  2. What is the largest desert in Asia? Gobi Desert
  3. Which river flows through the Grand Canyon? Colorado River
  4. Which country bordering India measures it’s success in terms of “gross national happiness”? Bhutan
  5. Which country makes up more than half the western coastline of South America? Chile
  6. There’s a town in the Peloponnese region of Greece with a namesake food item known for its purple colour and smooth meaty texture. What is this fruit? Kalamata Olive

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.

books, memes, quotes

This Month’s Poem

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The Hunting of the Snark (opening)
Lewis Carroll

“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.”

The crew was complete: it included a Boots –
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods –
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes –
And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
Might perhaps have won more than his share –
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck
Though none of the sailors knew how.

Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation

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 in 16th Century

  1. Pieter Bruegel the Elder
    Pieter Bruegel the Elder
    The Peasant Wedding
  2. Nicolas Poussin
  3. Gian Lorenzo Bernini
  4. Anthony van Dyck
  5. Giuseppe Arcimboldo
  6. El Greco
  7. Nicholas Hilliard
  8. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
  9. Frans Hals
  10. Hendrick Avercamp