On 3 September 1821, Faraday observed the circular rotation of a wire as it was attracted and repelled by magnetic poles. In 1820, the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted had noticed the peculiar behavior of a compass near a charged wire. Building …
The Kraken Busters
The Kraken Busters [via mefi projects] is a deep dive (apologies for the pun) into the US response to the sea monster threat post WW2. The host has really done their research, drawing from first person accounts right from before the first sighting of E…
All God cons: camping in churches has a record year as UK staycations boom
As conventional campsites fill up, more holidaymakers are discovering the joys of ‘champing’ – and silent nightsPenny Thomas has always favoured adventure holidays over lying on a beach. But this year, with UK destinations in such demand during the pa…
“Barbie Career of the Year as a Window on Centrist Feminism”
“I am not, nor have I never been, a Barbie collector, but I find the Career of the Year series fascinating as a metric of public attitudes toward feminism. …. Generally Mattel’s team wants to present Barbie as a feminist trendsetter but in a centrist…
New evidence shows this uranium cube is likely relic of Nazi A-bomb program
New methods could eventually be used to track illicit trafficking of nuclear material.
A history of Google messaging apps
Ron Amadeo of Ars Technica walks down memory lane and covers Google’s various messaging app offerings over the past decade and a half. It’s even more of a mess than you think.
The Hope
Hatikvah: Conceptions, Receptions and Reflections “Untangling these stories behind the story of Hatikvah is the core of this essay. For Hatikvah both is and is not what you think. It does not derive from Smetana nor from a Sephardic prayer. And an earl…
25 Playwrights and their Plays, 1700-1799
Mary Pix (1666-1709): Manchester Metropolitan University recently posted a complete performance (production credits) of Mary Pix’s comedy, The Beau Defeated (1700). The play was also adapted by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the title The Fantasti…
Intrepid brewer risks scalding to recreate recipe for long-lost medieval mead
The recipe for bochet was lost for centuries, until it was rediscovered in 2009.
“archival practices have not changed much in over 4,000 years”
Ebla, the Official Site of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Syria gives details about the excavation of Ebla, the capital of a bronze age empire in what is now northern Syria which flourished in the third millennium BCE. Archaeologist Paolo Matthi…