What's in this week's selection? Things like Nippur de Lagash, evolutionary advantages of masturbation, drilling into the depths of the Earth, and a squirrel that fakes its death, among many others. There are plenty of videos and galleries. All this and more in this week's Recommended Links — enjoy!
Mars and Science Fiction: "No wonder that in our beloved science fiction genre, Mars has traditionally been a planet from which dangerous warlike invasions have come (The War of the Worlds, Wells, 1898) or that it presents warrior societies (A Princess of Mars by Burroughs, originally in 1912 under the title Under the Moons of Mars, with a magnificent reinterpretation by Alan Moore in the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), although perhaps also because of that duality between Eros and Thanatos, it has served as a space to explore the inner workings of the human being."
The San Marino coins of 1983, or when we narrowly avoided a nuclear war: "The circulating coins of San Marino from 1983 are especially chilling, and not only because of their design. They inadvertently foreshadowed what almost happened at the end of that year: a nuclear war. In 1983, the world was closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And it was just as dangerous. Today, we use San Marino's coins to examine one of the most harrowing and least explored episodes of the Cold War."
Nippur de Lagash, the most famous character of Robin Wood and Lucho Olivera: "Men who must face a reality they don't know, armed only with their courage, their sense of humor, and their ability to approach even the most complex situation with a very personal philosophy that blends pragmatism, cunning, and principles they never abandon, including the decision to question the discourse of all those who build their power by subjugating others—traits they share with their creator. Robin Wood was very clear on that theme, which appears in all his creations."
More power and fewer diseases, the evolutionary advantages of masturbation: "In the animal kingdom, masturbation is very common, although it clearly prevails among primates, including humans. Historically, this behavior was considered pathological, a pernicious vice that had to be eradicated or, at best, a byproduct of sexual arousal. However, the studies on this topic are too scarce and fragmented to understand the evolutionary history of masturbation and its true adaptive meaning. Nature does not usually preserve habits or traits in species that do not provide a clear evolutionary advantage."
The engine invented 70 years ago that could change spacecraft forever: "Polaris, a German aerospace start-up, has just obtained funding from its country's army to resurrect a space engine design from the 1970s called 'aerospike'. This type of engine reduces the total weight of rockets while increasing the payload they can carry, making them ideal propulsion for the next generation of spaceplanes."
Scientific milestone: geologists manage to drill into the Earth's interior and extract rock from the mantle: "For decades, geologists have tried to penetrate the Earth's crust to take samples of what lies beneath: the mantle is that lower layer of the Earth responsible for the dynamics of tectonic plates. The movement of these plates and, above all, their collisions give rise to mountains and valleys, and of course, volcanoes and earthquakes. Now, a group of scientists has managed to reach this underground level."
Lights in the deep ocean: five animals that glow in the dark: "Although the best-known example of bioluminescence is the firefly, the truth is that few terrestrial organisms exhibit it. On the contrary, it is in the vastness of the oceans, in the marine depths where light does not penetrate, that this phenomenon manifests itself in all its splendor. It is estimated that more than three-quarters of the living beings that inhabit this environment glow in that perpetual darkness. And some of them with surprising adaptations."
Scientists 'revive' Stone Age molecules: "In a new study published in Science, a transdisciplinary team of researchers led by the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Harvard University reconstructed bacterial genomes from previously unknown bacteria dating back to the Pleistocene. With their genetic blueprints, they built a biotechnological platform to revive the natural products of the ancient bacteria."
Why you can't transplant a brain (and what experiments have been done to try): "Despite the incredible advances of science, we still have not been able to transplant a brain. The problem lies in a not-so-minor issue: no one has managed to connect the new organ to the recipient's spinal cord. In fact, in White's experiments, the monkeys were paralyzed from the neck down. This would explain why his candidate was a quadriplegic: in that sense, he had nothing to lose."
Were these ape-men the first to bury their dead?: "An extinct human species that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago could have deliberately buried its dead and carved meaningful symbols in the depths of a South African cave: advanced behaviors that are generally considered exclusive to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens. If confirmed, the burials would be the oldest known to date, with a difference of at least 100,000 years."
The surprising (and forgotten) way people slept in the Middle Ages: "In the 17th century, a night of sleep went something like this: from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM, those fortunate enough to afford it lay down on mattresses stuffed with straw or rags—or feathers, if they were very rich—ready to sleep for a couple of hours. (...) The nocturnal waking period usually lasted from about 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM, depending on what time they went to bed. The ensuing waking period was known as 'the clock', and it was a surprisingly useful window of time to get things done."
A brief history of long movies: "Scorsese's highly anticipated film, which cost $200 million and will be released in theaters next October 23, premiered at Cannes with a runtime of 186 minutes. It was originally said that this film, an adaptation of David Grann's eponymous essay, a 2017 bestseller, would last nearly four hours, but even if it had, the new feature directed by Scorsese at age 80 would still fall short compared to the longest films premiered at Cannes"
VIDEOS: The Sun Is Green, whales vs. whales, lighting a cigarette in the cinema, a chocolate red dragon, the butt score of Bosch, AI learning to play Minecraft, not suitable for sensitive people, LEGO astronauts in space, pressure underwater, robbing a store with a box on his head, a bridge collapses in China, albino panda, producing oxygen from a leaf, the magnetic 'free energy' engine (watch until the end), magnetic levitation, the soup nazi and Elaine are Arnold Schwarzenegger, how to do a magic trick, the vacuum robot that climbs stairs, world record testicular power, robot octopus interacting with a real octopus, the affectionate bat, bison doesn't want a selfie, stalked by a black jaguar, Heavy Metal (the animated gem that defied limits), defecating into the past, and Wally the friendly alligator.
GALLERIES: Polish movie posters, retro gas pumps, interesting historical photos, organizing classical art, the best landscape photos, hair clips, turns his son's drawings into illustrations, which AI extends photos best?, strange foods of the past, more photos of Carole Bouquet, rare photos from the first Antarctic expeditions, the ice men, The Animated Dump of the Week and The Visual Dump.
That's it. That's all the links for this week. Come back next week, and with luck we'll have more. Thanks for visiting!
