Ships of the line, Nazis, giallo, samurai, the shortest time ever measured. Fairies, lightning, and hallucinations in rock art. All that and more in this week's Recommended Links, which are practically vintage by now.
Why Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' is one of the most influential films in history: "And it is true: the most visually refined Kurosawa does not allow a single static shot in the entire film, culminating in the final battle, extremely modern in terms of editing and planning. It is not surprising that "the most Western of Eastern directors" claimed as great influences in his cinema Ford, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, or Dashiell Hammett."
Giallo cinema, murder as a fine art: "It is usually difficult and unrealistic to pigeonhole, because limits are normally diffuse and categories are artificial constructions. In this case, it is difficult and unrealistic to reduce diverse films and authors to a specific label, genre, or subgenre, but we can settle for approaching, for delimiting them in space and time. Thus, in the mid-sixties, during the seventies as its peak and part of the eighties in which it declines, a cultural phenomenon called giallo cinema occurs in Italy."
The best movie soundtracks. Film music: "Film music has always given much prestige and even awards like Oscars. However, in this list of songs we are not going to take into account exclusively the awards they have received but how good they are (in our opinion) and how famous they have become over time. In this article we have compiled the best and most well-known songs from movie soundtracks of all time."
USS Vermont, the ship of the line that was born too late: "Ships of the line were the masters of the oceans for two and a half centuries, their life extending well into the 19th century. As the middle of the century approached and the Second Industrial Revolution took hold, the age of sail saw a new type of navigation appear on the horizon that would replace it."
Linguistic engineering, how public discourse influences thought: "In an exercise of arrogance, we have attributed reason as the singular quality of our species, because unlike animals we are rational beings. That is the axiom that underscores the split between them and us, or so we believe. But the truth is that we are above all passionate beings, in which impulse predominates. And this characteristic that every entity within the animal kingdom shares (all, without exception), is our greatest weakness. It is from this weakness that linguistic engineering took advantage."
Record for the shortest time, they manage to measure sextillionths of a second: "The time it takes a photon to cross a hydrogen molecule is the shortest time interval ever measured. This process takes place in 247 zeptoseconds, which is equivalent to sextillionths of a second, according to atomic physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt in a study reported last Friday by the journal 'Phys'."
Himmler, searching for the Holy Grail and Thor's hammer: "Apparently, Himmler came to believe that the Germans were related to the survivors of Atlantis, who would have founded a powerful civilization in the foothills of the Himalayas. Likewise, he was obsessed with the Grail, understood as tablets inscribed with mysterious knowledge. It was from the reading of Crusade against the Grail (1933), a book by Otto Rahn that supposed that the mysterious object was located somewhere in the Cathar country."
Nazi medical experiments: "During World War II, some German doctors performed painful and often fatal experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent. Given the inhumane conditions, the lack of consent, and the questionable research standards, the overwhelming majority of modern scientists reject the use of the results of such experiments carried out in the camps."
Mr. Tritium, the mascot trying to convince us that dumping radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific is not bad: "Ten years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan announced this week that it will pour contaminated water from the nuclear plant. The government will release more than one million tons of water with radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean, and to gain public acceptance it used a Pokémon-like mascot."
Hallucinations from hypoxia and sensory deprivation in caves created the wonderful cave art: "The origin of art, and first shamanism and then religion, have been deeply linked since our beginnings as a species, and according to a recent study, art is also the result of hallucinations due to brain imbalances induced by extreme situations."
Lightning, the spark that could have ignited life on Earth: "Lightning generated by storms and volcanic columns frequently strikes volcanic rocks. Lightning creates fulgurites that contain phosphorus in a form that can dissolve in water and concentrate in waters such as volcanic ponds. Here, phosphorus can form biomolecules that help lead to the emergence of life."
The deceptive world of fairies: "Fairies are uniformly presented as small humanoids with insect or butterfly wings that live in the forest, among the flowers, in perfect harmony with nature. With few exceptions, they are examples of pure goodness and also, like bees and ants, they live in a mostly female society governed by a queen. However, this has not always been the case."
VIDEOS: "The Lord of the Rings" Soviet version from 1991, robot dog urinating beer, rotated a building with people inside, "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" Game Boy Color demake, 36 years of human influence on Google Earth maps, the largest Rubik's cube in the world, a day in New York in 1930 (restored in color and 4K), Sankt Clemens Bro (Aarhus) in Denmark in 1902 (restored in color and 4K), Steven Seagal runs weirdly, comparison of asteroid sizes, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by "The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain", cat motion capture, volcano erupting, time-lapse of mushrooms growing, the Soviet Walkman, two puppies chase a bear, scammer shows his own camera, and the shorts: "The Chase", "Mimic" and "Russian Spacetrain".
GALLERIES: Actresses without makeup in their movies, animals with a threatening aura, Miles Johnston's drawings, Soviet winter, creatures under the microscope, Disney characters vs. horror icons, dogs and cats photographed under glass, more photos of Tatum O'Neal and, to wrap up, the Animated Dump of the Week along with the Visual Dump.
