10 stories and links I found educative, interesting or just weird

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Saturn’s Moon Titan Could Host Life in New Methane Lakes
via Big Think by Orion Jones
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected what may be lakes of liquid methane near the equatorial regions of Saturn’s moon Titan, which astronomers say would expand the potential for carbon-based life forms. Titan is known to have methane lakes at its poles but its midsection was previously considered a desert, where evaporation outpaces precipitation.
On going to the "read more" link I found "read the full story at ‘Scientific American’. In for a penny, in for a pound I move on and discover “as published in ‘Nature’”. At this point I stopped – stunning pictures here.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Nica de Koenigswarter, the Peggy Guggenheim of jazz, devoted her life to Thelonious Monk. Was she using him? Was he using her?... more

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Naval Maneuvers: 1901
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive - Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Annapolis, Maryland, circa 1901
“Cadets at residence of superintendent, U.S. Naval Academy”
8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co.
View original post

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Portrait of a Cross-Dresser, 1792
via Retronaut by Amanda

Chevalier d'Éon: Thomas Stewart (1792)

Before living publicly as a woman, Charle d’Éon de Beaumont was a famous French soldier and diplomat who had a key role in negotiating the Peace of Paris in 1763, ending the seven years war between France and Britain
Guardian 

Source: The Guardian, National Portrait Gallery

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Gertrude Stein: playful, radical, pre-postmodern, Jewish, lesbian. In short, a target in German-occupied France. But Stein survived just fine. How? She had a soft spot for fascism...more

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Screenland magazine covers, 1941
via Retronaut by Chris

You can view the rest5 of Chris’s selection here.
Source: Magazine Art [worth exploring in its own right – there’s some stunning images]

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Psychopundits: A Consumer Guide
via Big Think by David Berreby
Right after my recent post on “psychopunditry”, I came across signs of this kerfuffle between the writer Jonah Lehrer and the psychologist Christopher Chabris (not to be confused with this other kerfuffle). Short version: Chabris thinks Lehrer exaggerates the reach and meaning of research findings, distorting the science.
Read More

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Susan Gubar knows about suicide. Three grandparents killed themselves. Her father did, too. Hollowed out by cancer, she’s been tempted... more

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Dark Matter & Dark Energy the Prize for Future Space Telescope
via Big Think by Orion Jones
The European Space Agency has committed itself to funding the construction of a new space telescope whose sole purpose will be to unravel the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
Read More

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Treading the boards with Shakespeare
via Prospero by C.S.W.
Elizabethan theatre remains a somewhat elusive world to scholars. Limited records have left wide gaps in our knowledge. So the recent discovery of the remains of a theatre in Shoreditch, east London, is a big deal. Built in 1577, before the more famous Globe, the Curtain playhouse hosted the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s theatrical troupe, for two years in the 1590s, performing Henry V and many other famous plays, including Romeo & Juliet.
You can read the intervening text here but the most important, and, to me extraordinary, part of the story is contained in the final paragraph.
The developers of the site have torn up their original plans, and now hope to highlight the old theatre at the centre of a new development with a “performance space”. Shakespeare wrote in Henry IV Part II: “Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?” When it can elucidate our understanding of an unknown world, certainly not.

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