Russia Doesn’t Want To Liberalise
Monica Sobchak | Palladium | 3rd May 2024 | U
It is a mistake to think that Russia is engaged in the same nation-building project as the West. Putin is an authoritarian despot with his own take on Russian history and it is this that informs his state's trajectory. "Every time Russian people attempt to emulate the West, everything goes terribly wrong, and a period of darkness and humiliation follows." Democracy is not that appealing, therefore (2,500 words)
Nature’s Oldest Mandolin
Maria Popova | Marginalian | 5th May 2024 | U
Observations on cicadas, every line a joy. “Homer’s highest praise for orators was to compare them to cicadas. Lord Byron — otherwise blind to the grandeur of smallness — rhapsodised about these tiny “people of the pine” that “make their summer lives one ceaseless song”. Their kettledrums are perhaps the only musical instruments now in use that have remained unchanged through a thousand centuries” (1,200 words)
Sweet Fingers
Kyle Rosen | Van Magazine | 2nd May 2024 | U
Legacy of Persian pianist Morteza Mahjoubi, whose fingerwork earned him the moniker Panjeh-ye Shirin: Sweet Fingers. Western instruments first came to Iran via the French military. “Force-fed marching band tunes by Verdi and Bellini, musicians had no choice but to react. It was here, then, that counterpoint and the radif crossed paths, where the chromatic scale came into contact with the dastgāh” (2,100 words)
Professor Megalow’s Dinosaur Bones
Richard Fallon | Public Books | 2nd May 2024 | U
Why did Victorian naturalists despise Richard Owen, who coined the word "dinosaur"? His "egotism and inscrutability" didn't help, but it was his insistence on "theistic evolutionism" that really riled agnostic scientists. Still, his assertion that he could identify any animal from a single bone made him a source of wonder to the public. Novelists loved this "scientific wizardry" (3,000 words)
Leaf Venation Networks And Simulated Damage
Luke Mander & Hywel T. P. Williams | Royal Society Open Science | 1st May 2024 | U
Trees began to grow branching veins in their leaves about 340 million years ago. Then, around 20 million years ago, a new "loopy" vein pattern evolved in some plants. Why? By inflicting hypothetical damage to fossilised leaves, the authors of this paper posit the plausible answer that, in between, insects evolved that eat these leaves, and so the trees developed veins that resist the damage (5,500 words)
Podcast: Resetting The Body’s Internal Clocks To Cure Jet Lag | Ideas From The Trenches. The human body’s circadian rhythm is closely tied to light exposure; manipulating light using AI could fool our bodies into adapting to time zones faster (54m 9s)
Video: Food That Time Forgot: Pemmican | YouTube | Townsends | 8m 9s
How to make Pemmican, the survival food that sustained North American voyagers on long riverine journeys in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Afterthought:
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”
— George Carlin