~metafilter | Bookmarks (935)

Vulnerable bird builds ingenious nests to survive bushfires. A vulnerable population of ground-dwelling malleefowl survived bushfires that tore through one of its few remaining refuges in Victoria, but the remaining hatchlings now face a new challenge.

"Elaine May set out to use her genius and the overlapping brilliance of Cassavetes and Falk to articulate brutal, profound truths about the joy, horror, and complexities of human experience, as illuminated by the strange codes of a certain subset of insecure, violently overcompensating, crime-prone American men, and a tortured conception of friendship as a messy combination of hatred, love, and everything in between....

Fragments of a rare Merlin manuscript from c. 1300 have been discovered and digitised in a ground-breaking three-year project at Cambridge University Library. A fragile 13th century manuscript fragment, hidden in plain sight as the binding of a 16th-century archival register, has been discovered in Cambridge and revealed to contain rare medieval stories of Merlin and King Arthur.

There is folklore about the sounds of auroras, but auroras occur about 80-100km above the surface of the earth, too high for any sound to reach the ground. Finnish Aalto University Professor Unto K. Laine has determined that there are auroral sounds, but their source is only 70m above the ground. His paper: Sound producing mechanism in the temperature inversion layer and its sensitivity...

Ellmann saw Wilde's shift from female to male lovers as a 'reorientation'. I would argue that a more accurate term to describe Wilde's sexuality was that he was bisexual. Interviewed in Marjorie Garber's Vice Versa (1995), the academic Jonathan Dollimore reflected similarly: 'My feeling about Oscar Wilde is that he was certainly bisexual, and there is a sense in which I do deplore that...

"Is there another part of the bar I don't know about—a V.I.P. section?" you ask, hearing your sadly engrained millennial thirst for hierarchy and ostracism. "Oh, yes," he replies. "Your party is right this way." from The Millennial Exit [The New Yorker; ungated] by Laura Steinel

"Blues drenched and rhythmically compelling, Wes Montgomery's approach has attracted me ever since I first heard The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery in 1960. Using his right thumb rather than a pick, he generated a unique sound and almost always employed octaves in his solos. He also incorporated harmonic modifications that beautifully complemented his conception." - Noal CohenHe had the smile of a...

[Original post removed at poster's request. Topic was: https://forward.com/culture/707599/bintel-brief-advice-antisemitism-gaza-war-israel/Advice column "A Bintel Brief" responds to a Jewish student worried about antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus]Other links: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bintel_Brief https://slate.com/culture/2014/06/liana-fincks-a-bintel-brief-reviewed.html# https://www.myjewishlearning.com/2014/04/23/the-beginnings-of-a-bintel-brief/ https://www.leshp.org/blog/bintel-brief/

CocoRosie have released their 8th studio album, Little Death Wishes Comprised of sisters Sierra Rose "Rosie" and Bianca Leilani "Coco" Casady, their music is a heady mix of lo-fi avant-pop, freak folk and hip-hop with an often strident political, radical feminist messaging.Beginning with 2003's La Maison de Mon Rève, composed in a Paris apartment bathroom using traditional instruments and various improvised instruments such as...

This extraordinary little looseleaf binder — undated, though one page makes reference to 1965 — may be among the the most revealing items in the collection. It's a (seemingly but not really) random collection of quotes, thoughts, observations, and other bits of prose, mostly likely just Didion's "I might want to use this" file. (They're mostly typewritten, though one bears the handwritten addition "what...

The trailer for the Encampments - a documentary produced by Watermelon Pictures and Breakthrough News, following student organizers at elite universities as they take a historic stand against their institutions' investments in the Gaza genocide. The documentary features currently detained activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is currently facing deportation. Hip hop star Macklemore is executive producer, and he explains to Democracy Now! why he got...

"Like electric sparks": Sharks recorded making sounds underwater. Sharks were thought to be silent, but scientists have recorded a New Zealand species making a clicking noise.

God's Angry Man is a 1981 documentary film directed by Werner Herzog about Gene Scott, a U.S. pastor and Stanford PhD who served for almost fifty years as an ordained minister and religious broadcaster in Los Angeles.*

Jitsuvax gives the 11 main psychological reasons (so-called attitude roots) why people believe in misinformation about vaccination. It guides you on what to say when confronted with misconceptions. You will find examples of responses to over 60 misinformation themes. Back to the Vax is a website started by two former anti-vax moms. Their free information booklet.Former anti-vax parents on how they changed their minds...

Survey shows trans adults fear losing health care, concerned about being too open about their gender-identity. Which, considering current federal policies, is probably a rational fear.On the first day that Trump took office, he signed Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government", whose purpose was to declare that the official policy of the United...

' "It's a monster from folklore!" The voice from the forest that calls out for help, or that sings a song that's seductive and sweet? But don't you go there... Yes, if sparrows could talk, the shrike would be their Dracula, their Grendel. 'This, an essay on shrikes from Crooked Timber. Or previously, a particular shrike.

The wildness also made me sentimental. Or: in need of something, and it showed. I didn't know the drink the person in front me had at the Café Allegro. A new astringent concoction, espresso, seltzer, ice, tinctures, cream. I felt a surge of wild gratitude, to be alive in this year, after everything, to have survived to see this. I think she understood. "You...

Start here, because everyone knows about the Wii Shopping Channel, and everyone loves to shop on it every Wednesday. Nirvanna The Band The Show is a project by comedians Matt Johnson (perhaps known more widely as the co-writer and director of BlackBerry ) and Jay McCarrol. It started as a web series in 2007, and then was picked up by Viceland and expanded into...

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student and Fulbright Scholar, was taken by ICE agents Tuesday and transferred out of state to an ICE Processing Center in the town of Basile, LA. Thousands turned out last night to protest her abduction.Like Mahmoud Khalil, Ozturk was targeted for her political work. Ozturk helped author an op-ed that appeared in The Tufts Daily last March where...

You like design blogs? You like the word of God? (Allegedly.) Have I got something for you.

Spooky the OG. Spooky is originally an instrumental song performed by saxophonist Mike Sharpe (Shapiro), written by Shapiro and Harry Middlebrooks Jr, which first charted in 1967 hitting No. 57 on the US pop charts and No. 55 on the Canadian charts. Its best-known version was created by James Cobb and producer Buddy Buie for the group Classics IV when they added lyrics about...

In 17th century Mughal India a unique set of spectacles were crafted from an approximately 200 carat diamond. Named the Halqeh-e Nur, or Halo of Light, the now 25 carat lenses are flat and set in a frame that is set with multiple rose cut diamonds. Another set of spectacles, Astaneh-e ferdaws, meaning "Gate of Paradise", was made with slices of an emerald instead...

Because much of this book hinges on the idea that there is no urgent need to settle space, here we'll try to convince you that most of the pro-settlement arguments are wrong. Some of these arguments may be unfamiliar to you, but all of them have at least some powerful advocates in government, military, or business settings. Elon Musk is probably too busy wrecking...