A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
Note: Curiosity Weekly has been merged with Aspiring Generalist! Which is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages—the projects have always been two facets of the same concept.
If you’re a paid subscriber to AG you’ll now receive bonus content for both publications, and if you were a paid subscriber to CW the balance of your payment has been refunded and you’ve been comped some free time here on AG (after which you can decide if you want to become a paid subscriber once more).
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The Mathematically Correct Way to Tie Your Shoes
“One area of interest within topology is known as knot theory, which studies various types of knots that relate to the geometry of position. But knots themselves, such as in rope and shoelaces, date back to prehistoric times: well before any formal mathematical study took place. While humans have been interested in knots for aesthetic and spiritual purposes, as well as for recording information, their most common use is simply to tie objects together.”
The Coolest Library on Earth
“The bag of ice contains the transition from 1 BCE to 1 CE, he says. “That means we have the real Christmas snow.” This piece of ice, a bit longer than his arm, doesn’t visibly look different from modern ice. Yet bubbles trapped in it preserve the chemistry of the air in Greenland from more than two millennia ago. “But we can’t find any traces of reindeer, or magical dust,” Steffensen quips. In this freezer facility in Denmark, Steffensen’s team at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen stores some 40,000 segments of ice cores, long cylinders of ice from polar regions that preserve the history of past climate. Beyond cataloging frozen treasures, Steffensen collaborates on research that chisels out historical secrets hidden in ice, and runs logistics for an international drilling project in Greenland to retrieve even more deep-core samples.”
In the Dead of Night, a Deafening War
“Bats hunt using echolocation. They emit intense clicks that are too high-pitched for the human ear to hear. These bounce off of targets and back towards the bat’s ears. Remarkably, they are born with an innate sense of the speed of sound, which means that they can estimate a target’s distance based on the time it takes for an echo to return. That allows them to home in on prey even on the darkest of nights. For bats, moths are convenient prey because they fly and are active at night. Meanwhile, for moths, the worst possible outcome is to get eaten before they can mate. That intense evolutionary pressure for bats to eat and for moths to fly under the radar have joined the two groups at the hip.”
In the Misinformation Age, Believing In Bigfoot Is Harder Than Ever
“Craig Woolheater has held the annual Texas Bigfoot Conference for 23 years, often in Jefferson. His parents bought a bed-and-breakfast in town in 2000, and Woolheater hosted the conference’s early iterations there, with his parents catering—the first year, there was a pancake breakfast. Back in 2001, Woolheater recalls, there were only about three or four Bigfoot events nationwide each year. Now, he says, it seems like there’s one every weekend, some drawing thousands of visitors. His conference is more modest, typically accommodating between 200 and 250 guests in previous years.”
Christmas on the Moon
“I have enjoyed many happy Christmases and plenty of disappointing ones, like the one I spent eating alone at a Waffle House due to an ice storm, or the Christmas my father accused all the unmarried relatives of being gay. But of all the sad Yuletides of my life, the one I spent guarding $100,000 worth of explosives on the surface of the moon tops the list. The year was 1996. I was 21 years old and, in a way, quite homeless. Home is one of the enduring themes of Christmas, the joy of being in its midst and the thundering melancholy of longing for it, wondering if you can ever really get that feeling of belonging back—if you ever had it in the first place.”
Just Your Handyman
“However tricky the diagnosis, fixing the problem is always its own complicated puzzle. And then there is an inescapable intimacy to the work. I have to be mindful of the fact I’m inside someone else’s home, in their living space, maybe even standing on the kitchen counter, holding a drywall saw, carving a hole in the ceiling. These customers have had to admit a vulnerability, and they’ve asked me to come and help. The problem is mechanical, structural, or technical, but my work is every bit as much relational as it is physical. The repair problem is always tangible, but it’s always people I’m working for. I can fix the leak, I’m sure. But how quickly do they need it done? Can I work here in the kitchen while still allowing them to do what they need to do? Am I working quickly enough for them? Am I making more of a mess than they’d anticipated? And how perfect will they expect the drywall patch to look when I’m done?”
Stunning Stem Cells and Starlink Trails: November’s Best Science Images
“A tiny island measuring just 100 metres across has emerged in the Pacific Ocean near Iwoto Island, about 1,200 kilometres south of Tokyo, after a series of underwater volcanic eruptions began on 21 October. Plumes of gas and steam were spotted rising from the water every few minutes during the volcanic activity, as magma came into contact with seawater. Researchers say the new island could carry on growing if the eruptions continue.”