via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Our pals at Two-Bit circus have designed this paper craft robotic owl, to give kids a "taste of basic mechanical principles, electronics and programming." It looks really cool.
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via Lone Wolf Librarian
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via 3 Quarks Daily: Thomas Pakenham in the New York Review of Books
Quiver Tree Forest, Namibia; photograph by Beth Moon from her book Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time (2014). A collection of her color photographs, Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees, has just been published by Abbeville.
In 1664 John Evelyn, diarist, country gentleman, and commissioner at the court of Charles II, produced his monumental book on trees: Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees. It was a seventeenth-century best seller. Evelyn was a true son of the Renaissance. His book is learned and witty and practical and passionate all by turns. No later book on trees has ever had such an impact on the British public. His message? A very modern one. We are in desperate need of trees for all kinds of reasons. Get out there with your spade and plant one today.
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via the Guardian by Rafia Zakaria
Practical utopian ... Louisa May Alcott. Photograph: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis/Getty
The author of Little Women grew up among idealistic transcendentalists – and the book itself was a practical sacrifice to sustain those dreams.
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via Big Think by Derek Beres
Attempts to unite religion and science are not new. A big part of the challenge is finding the right language to draw parallels with, and physicists have been especially willing to walk this line.
The first of such physicists, Fritjof Capra, was aided with psychedelics. When Capra published The Tao of Physics in 1975, publishers were skeptical of relating theoretical physics with Eastern mysticism. But the book became a best-seller, catapulting a framework for discussing spirituality and science into new light – even as critics doubted whether Capra understood quantum field theory.
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via OUP Blog by David Stowe
Psalm 137 is the only one out of the 150 biblical psalms set in a particular time and place. The vivid tableau sketched by the opening lines has lent itself to visual representations over the millennia.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept,
when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord‘s song in a strange land?
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via Big Think by Philip Perry
There is an old saying in education that girls cry tears while boys cry bullets. In other words, females are allowed in our society to express their vulnerability and less pleasant emotions such as sadness. While boys must remain stoic and shoulder the burden quietly or else get angry, and express their pain not through outbursts of emotion, but instead through action. Might there be a biological phenomenon behind these culture-based roles? A study published online in the journal Depression and Anxiety suggests so. It found that boy’s brains react differently than girls in the aftermath of a highly stressful event.
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via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Line and Colors decided today would be a good day to feature “Hell”, the right panel from the tryptich, The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch. It was painted between 1480 and 1505.
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This takes me back to my weekend in Madrid with my daughter (birthday present) when I sat on the floor in front of this painting for what seemed like ages.
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via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Primitive Technology is a YouTube video channel produced by an Australian guy who goes into the jungle with nothing but the clothes on his back, and makes things like shelters, tools, and weapons. There are no words or text in the video, only the sounds of nature for a soundtrack. In this episode, he weaves a trap to catch shrimp, which he puts in an earthenware jug, and then cooks them over a fire he starts with friction.
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via The National Archives blog by Clare Horrie
A new online collection offers people interested in history unprecedented and extensive access to Queen Elizabeth I in her own words. It contains 40 unique documents from The National Archives’ collection, each transcribed and available to read in high definition.
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via OUP Blog by Eleanor Barraclough
The viking image has changed dramatically over the centuries. Romanticized in the 18th and 19th centuries, they are now alternatively portrayed as savage and violent heathens or adventurous explorers. Stereotypes and cliches run rampant in popular culture. Vikings and their influence appear in various forms, from Wagner’s Ring Cycle to the comic Hägar the Horrible, from History channel’s popular series Vikings to the Danish comic-book series Valhalla, and from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to Marvel’s Thor. But what is actually true? Eleanor Barraclough sheds light on and dispels ten common viking myths.
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