Category: interesting
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The Impact of Facial Disfigurement
Alison Rich works for Changing Faces, a charity supporting and representing people with facial disfigurements. In advance of her talk at London’s Wellcome Collection as part of their Welcome to my World series, she invited the BBC’s Dan Bell to follow her daily commute to witness the reactions of fellow passengers to her own disfigurement.…
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The Evolution of Language
Bartleby, the free (as in beer) ‘Internet publisher’, has available a fascinating graphic depicting the evolution of language (all those stemming from the single Proto-Indo-European language, anyway). Now I know the historic route of my native tongue (as opposed to my cradle tongue), Welsh: it’s closest ‘relatives’ are Cornish and Breton (in that order) as…
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The Correlation Between Swearing and Violence
Can it be that swearing is a signal of a ‘civilised’ society? In Seed, Steven Pinker suggests that it may be so. What does [the increasing incidence of swearing] have to do with violence? Contrary to the popular belief that we are living in horrifically violent times, rates of homicide in the West have plummeted…
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Maps of Great Journeys: From Magellan to Kerouac
Interactive maps of history’s greatest journeys, with details. Some fictional; others not. There’s Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, Kerouac’s Sal Paradise traversing the US, Livingstone’s explorations in Africa, and many more. via Kottke
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Visualising Four Dimensions
Need help in visualising four dimensions? Étienne Ghys has now created a series of videos for ‘teaching’ others how to visualise objects in the fourth dimension (the spatial, not temporal, fourth dimension). How on earth can we visualize such a thing? [The] challenge in visualizing four dimensions is very similar to the one that would…
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Last Place and the Changing Olympic Spirit
The DFL blog rounds up the Beijing Olympics with some great data visualisations on last place finishes and some wise words on how the Olympic spirit has changed. It’s part of a larger problem: media coverage can be so overwhelmingly focused on the home team that the big picture is missed. Events in which your…
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Celebrating Last Place
Every year, the cyclist who finishes the Tour de France in last place gets awarded the Lanterne Rouge. In 2008 Wim Vansenenant was the first person to win the accolade more than twice. [Winning the Lanterne Rouge means you] outlasted those who abandoned the Tour through illness, injury or simple exhaustion; those who were eliminated…
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Our True Ancestors
Based on molecular genetic sequence analysis, as a human our nearest relatives are—in order—primates, flying lemurs (colugos), treeshrews and then rabbits and rats. These are the Euarchontoglires, or Supraprimates.
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Losing Your Sense of Balance
After a hysterectomy, Cheryl contracted a post-operative infection and was given the antibiotic gentamicin; a known side effect of which is a loss of the sense of balance (equilibrioception). When it was overprescribed to her the inevitable happened. The Telegraph follows Cheryl’s story on losing her sense of balance and enlightens us on neuroplasticity in…
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Olympic Motivation
Coming into the 400m semi-final at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Derek Redmond was the favourite to win the gold medal. However 150m into the race, Redmond’s hamstring snapped and his Olympic dream was shattered… but Redmond was determined to finish the race. The Guardian takes us through the emotional race, with commentary from…