Recommended Links of the Week (No. 719)

Strategy games, science fiction prophets, a star devouring a planet, glass bodies, and Stone Age bacteria. All fascinating, full of science and curiosities, with viral videos and much more. Welcome to the Recommended Links of the Week! Enjoy!

Monstrous guide to video games on ZX Spectrum: "At the age of fourteen, the British Clive Sinclair designed a submarine in his spare time and his mind began to entertain the idea that he probably didn't share too many hobbies with the classmates who kicked a ball around at recess. That brilliant math kid decided at eighteen that he didn't want to waste time at university and, after high school, set out to sell electronics kits by mail on his own and with relative success. (...) The boy would eventually launch, through his company Sinclair Computers Ltd, the first home computers at a price accessible to mortals."

Some strategy games for two players: "And in our childhood, my father and mother taught my sister and me to play the game called cats and mouse, which is also known as the dog and the cats. The game board is the chessboard and the pieces are four equal pieces or figures, for example, four dark checkers (or four black pawns), representing the cats, and one light piece or figure, for example, a light checker (or a white pawn), representing the mouse. Obviously the colors can be changed, four white pieces and one black one."

Documentaries "Profetas de la Ciencia Ficción": "The documentary series Profetas de la Ciencia Ficción, directed by Ridley Scott, invites you to uncover all the secrets of one of the most complex genres of all time: science fiction. What was once only imagination is now real, what was once a distant future is now around the corner. The science fiction of the past has now become simply science. And the science of the future was strangely prophesied by a group of visionaries whose dreams have come true but who in their time were considered renegades and mad scientists."

Astronomers witness a star devouring a planet, a possible harbinger of Earth's final fate: "When a star runs out of fuel, it swells to a million times its original size, engulfing all matter—and planets—in its path. Scientists have observed signs of stars just before, and shortly after, the act of consuming entire planets, but they had never caught one in the act until now. In a study in Nature, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Caltech, and other institutions report that they have for the first time observed a star swallowing a planet."

Reviving Stone Age bacteria using dental tartar from humans and Neanderthals: "A transdisciplinary team of researchers led by the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, both in Germany, together with Harvard University in the United States, reconstructed previously unknown bacterial genomes dating from the Pleistocene. Using an innovative biotechnology platform, they managed to revive the ancient microorganisms, thanks to material collected from dental calculus of humans and Neanderthals."

Operating on a fetus's brain for the first time in history: "Surgeons from Boston Children's Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US achieved a milestone in medicine: operating on a human fetus with a brain condition. To do this, they used a surgical technique called embolization. The condition the fetus suffered is known as vein of Galen malformation, which causes blood to flow dangerously fast in the child's brain after birth. This is the first time a similar operation has been performed before the baby leaves the womb, which involves a major challenge."

The story of the mysterious math teacher who won the lottery 28 times: "If it's already hard to win the lottery once in a lifetime, it seems impossible to think that a person could win it 28 times. However, that's what happened to Joan Ginther, a math teacher known as 'the luckiest woman in the world' and also as 'the best player in history'. Her mathematical specialty is calculation, but since she doesn't grant interviews, we don't know if this has anything to do with her winning the lottery more than twenty times or if it's simply a matter of great luck."

How Philips stopped being the electronics and technology giant we knew: "However, Philips also strongly bet on losing technologies, such as a VHS competitor or the CD-i, an interactive CD format. But of course, when new formats were born, like MP3 or streaming, they were left behind. It is rumored that there was an engineer who talked about developing an MP3 player before the competition did, but they laughed at him for not having a doctorate. Although it is true that they had many other attempts like PCs or even a phone with almost a touchscreen, though few in the right direction."

Are there differences in cognitive ability between women and men?: "Defining people's intelligence is not simple. Even less so is quantifying it, lacking a simple metric. Other physical magnitudes of individuals, such as height or weight, are easy to measure. But by cognitive ability we usually mean the result of an intelligence test, a statistical abstraction. Despite these limitations, most studies indicate that intelligence is similar in both sexes, with no significant differences observed. But if aspects such as linguistic abilities or spatial skills are analyzed separately, things change."

Glass bodies? The mystery of a mental illness that only affected the nobility: "This curious ailment became a unique and perplexing mental condition because it seems to have plagued only the upper classes of medieval society and the beginning of the modern era. What exactly caused it? The firm belief that one was made entirely or partially of glass and, therefore, likely to break with a simple gesture or, of course, with a simple touch. Kings, princesses, men and women who roamed the halls of European palaces assured that their skin was made of this material, but why only them?"

The Great-Grandfather, the oldest tree in the world, was born before the Egyptians built the pyramids: "The title of the oldest tree in the world is in dispute. It is claimed by the Great-Grandfather, also called the Millennial Larch or Grandfather Larch. An analysis of its rings estimates it to be more than 5,400 years old. Until now, the oldest officially documented tree is Methuselah, a bristlecone pine in California that is 4,850 years old. The Great-Grandfather is a larch, a tree similar to a pine. It measures 28 meters long and has a trunk of 4 meters in diameter. It is located in a forest in the Los Ríos region of Chile."

ChatGPT marks the end of programming as we know it: "Programming, as a job, has long been considered a safe haven against the advance of technology. When new inventions replaced other jobs, programmers felt untouchable. Universities rushed to expand their computer science programs. Policy makers rushed to deliver an unwavering message: 'Learn to program! Learn to program!'. But in recent weeks, behind closed doors, I've heard many confess their anxiety about the sudden arrival of generative AI."

Videos

All the Enterprises, Star Wars by Wes Anderson, how NASA reinvented the wheel, John Wick but with Seagal, how welding was done in 1944, otters amazed by an illusion, musician plays songs backwards, itinerant filmmakers and the most filmed movie of all time, puppy fresh from the groomer straight into the mud, how to pick locks, how aluminum foil is made, Legendary Scenes: Hans Landa's introduction, bad dog, a coffee cup for zero gravity, another AI-made commercial, comparison of the size of big cats, ChatGPT in Skyrim VR, a cat's reaction time is approximately 20-70 milliseconds, from text to 3D environments, a snake in the vacuum cleaner, the Stroviol (the rarest violin), cakes in cinema, children controlled by AI in China, the one-man band from Argentina, 1,000 musicians performing 70s tunes and comparison of vehicle sizes.

Galleries

80s nerds and their computers, growing hamburgers, from fantasy to real life, cake that looks like a comic strip, ideas for science fiction, Insect Photography Awards, the Talbot Lago T150 CSS car, real kittens illustrated, creative flowerpots, colorful landscapes, retro dogs, The Simpsons if they were real, ballet by drones, Vertedero Animado and the Tiradero Visual.

I finished so late today! I was fooling around. What can you do? These things happen. See you next time!