Category: interesting
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Following the Diamond Trade
Foreign Policy presents A Trail of Diamonds – a photo essay following the diamond trade from mine to bride. It reminds me of a Janine Roberts interview (author of Glitter and Greed) where she discusses how the manipulation of supply and advertising created the myth of the diamond wedding ring and made Ernest Oppenheimer (who…
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Two Stories of Escaping WW2 POW Camps
The fascinating story of how Waddington’s Monopoly sets were used to help captured Allied soldiers escape from Nazi POW camps: In 1941, the British Secret Service approached Waddington with its master plan, and before long, production of a “special edition” Monopoly set was underway. For the top-secret mission, the factory set aside a small, secure…
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The Population Decline
At Long Bets, a project of The Long Now Foundation where he is a board member, Kevin Kelly has predicted that “by 2060 the total population of humans on earth will be less than it is today“. The biggest driver of the shift from large families to small families is communication technology and education. As…
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The Negawatt Unit of Power
Seed Magazine highlights the word Negawatt: \né-gə-wät\ n: A measure of the avoided use or the conservation of a unit of energy. Wikipedia goes into more detail: By investing to reduce electricity demand instead of investing to increase electricity generation capacity, this “virtual generation” method can supply growth of supply by improving the efficiency of…
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2001: A Google Search
In celebration of their 10th birthday, Google have temporarily opened up their 2001 index for searching. Some interesting searches: 9/11, YouTube, iPod, Ubuntu, flickr. via Link Banana
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Observing Primate Behaviour on Monkey Island
In order to study the many facets of primate behaviour, scientists have populated a small island near Puerto Rico with a thousand rhesus monkeys. Access to the island—dubbed ‘Monkey Island’—is granted only for research purposes, creating a vast and unusual outdoor lab. As the researcher interviewed for the National Geographic video on the island says,…
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Earth’s Last Uncontacted Tribe?
When photographs of an uncontacted and unknown Brazilian tribe were released in May 2008, the world went a bit nutty with the photographs making front pages everywhere. Now, however, it seems the story was quite different to what was reported. The photos of grass-roofed shelters and hostile, body-painted Indians brandishing bows and arrows spread like…
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Lost and Found (The Red Queen and Tri-X)
On the 14th August I travelled from Cardiff to London on the first leg of my journey to Dijon. Once in London I mislaid a book of mine: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley – one of the most enthralling pieces of non-fiction I’ve read in a long…
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The Asexual Couple
As part of The Guardian’s First Person series, Paul Cox, 24, explains how he and his wife found love and happiness as an asexual couple, despite not being physically attracted to each other. In a fascinating post touching on many topics in her area of expertise, Dr Petra Boynton—a psychologist specialising in sex and relationships…
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Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Earth
Bad Astronomy compiles a list of ten things you don’t know about the Earth. You probably (hopefully?) know a few of these already. The Earth is smoother than a billiard ball The Earth is an oblate spheroid The Earth isn’t an oblate spheroid The Earth is not exactly aligned with its geoid Jumping into a…