Omniglot is an intimidatingly complete site devoted to cataloging every writing system that ever existed. As JoshP says, “If you ever need to transliterate Punic… this is the place.”
Omniglot – the guide to languages, alphabets and other writing systems
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Queen Anne knew heartache, enduring 16 failed pregnancies in 17 years. Deserving of pity, of course, but remember: She was a loathsome, unscrupulous lady... more
Hybrid sharks in the south Pacific via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
The Australian blacktip shark lives in tropical waters. The common blacktip shark prefers its water subtropical and temperate. Because of the difference in habitat, these two animals have become separate subspecies with distinct physical differences.
However, there are some places where their habitats overlap. And here, along the eastern coast of Australia, there is interspecies nookie. And hybrid baby sharks.
Read more and discover that the hybrids have distinctive genetic differences from either of the neighbouring species.
Via Mo Costandi
Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse: 200 foreskins as a wedding price for a bride via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
(Image of 1 Samuel 18:27 used with the kind permission of Brendan Powell Smith, from his book The Brick Bible, available on Amazon.com.)
Dan Kimball is one of my oldest friends. We went to college together, moved to London, and played in a band in the 1980s. He's an excellent cartoonist, an amazing drummer, and one of the funniest people I've ever met. He runs the Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz and has written a number of books on Christianity.
Last week, Dan launched Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse on his blog, in which he discusses one of the “hundreds of very strange sounding, weird, sex descriptive, bizarre and even violent verses in the Bible”.
The first weird Bible verse he tackles is 1 Samuel 18:27: “David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.”
In reading this story straight from the Bible, it even states how after David brought the forsekins back to Saul that they counted them to show how many there were. What an incredibly weird image of David standing there counting out 200 foreskins. I have beeen fascinated with the life of David lately having studied through his story in the Hebrew Bible/First Testament (I try not to say "Old Testament" as that can subtly indicate it isn’t valid or important. So I use the term “First Testament” or ”Hebrew Bible” instead).Read the rest on Dan's blog.
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The mystery of mirth. Comedy is the brain's way of correcting our mistaken assumptions. But does that explain the pleasure of a punch line?... more
Mad, bad and dangerous to know via Prospero by The Economist online
A new biography of Vincent van Gogh casts light on a lonely, bad-tempered alcoholic, who bit the hands that fed him.
Its authors discuss their controversial findings. See the video here
IBM tracks pork chops from pig to plate via PC Advisor News by Patrick Thibodeau
IBM is deploying technology that allows meat suppliers to track a single pig all the way from farm animal to pork chop.
Full story here
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
We will get over the notion of free will, says the neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga. Moral agency comes from living in social groups... more
Behind the scenes at Planet of the Apes, 1967 via How to be a Retronaut by Chris
Thank you to Voices of East Anglia and Vintage Everyday
More pictures here
Lucky iron fish persuades Cambodian women to cook with iron, stave off anemia via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Image: Christopher Charles
Canadian’s lucky iron fish saves lives in Cambodia (Thanks, Marilyn!)
Marilyn sez, "University of Guelph student Christopher Charles worked on a project with scientists in Cambodia three summers ago. They were trying to persuade women in poor villages to put chunks of iron in their cooking pots in order to lower the risk of anemia, but the women weren't interested. Then Charles hit upon the idea of fashioning the iron into the shape of a local fish the villagers considered lucky."
It was an enticing challenge in a country where iron deficiency is so rampant, 60 per cent of women face premature labour, hemorrhaging during childbirth and poor brain development among their babies...
The people they worked with – “the poorest of the poor” – can't afford red meat or pricey iron pills, and the women won’t switch to iron cooking pots because they find them heavy and costly. Yet a small chunk of iron could release life-saving iron into the water and food. But what shape would the women be willing to place in their cooking pots?
“We knew some random piece of ugly metal wouldn't work … so we had to come up with an attractive idea,” he said. “It became a challenge in social marketing.”
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