From George RR Martin’s vast, warlike realms to Neil Gaiman’s London Below, these paracosms are bound only by their authors’ rules, not those of reality
via the Guardian by Samantha Shannon
An immense imagined realm … George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones. Photograph: PR
When it comes to top-notch fantasy, we’re spoiled for choice these days. JK Rowling, China Miéville, Ursula K Le Guin, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson are just a few of the juggernauts of this ever-growing category of fiction, which has spawned endless sub-categories. Fantasy is the realm of possibility, where imagination knows no limits and we see ourselves reflected in a house of mirrors.
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via OUP Blog by Tom Lambert
Replica of the helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship burial. Photo by IH (40), CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
How would the Anglo-Saxons react to the threat of terrorism if they had access to Facebook? It’s a bizarre question, I admit, but I’ve been immersed in England’s pre-Norman Conquest legal system for over a decade now, and it’s been playing on my mind. The answer makes me uncomfortable.
Continue reading and find out what makes both the author and me very uncomfortable indeed.
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via the Guardian by Vanessa Thorpe Arts and media correspondent
Nikolas Lauer’s portrait of Antonie Brentano with two of her children, painted in 1810. Photograph: De Agostini/Getty Images
Towards the end of his life, in the depths of introspective melancholy, Ludwig van Beethoven created some of the world’s most intensely emotional music. The ninth symphony, the Missa Solemnis and some of his greatest piano sonatas are works that still communicate a uniquely concentrated darkness of thought. Now a British Beethoven scholar believes she can explain the German composer’s motivations – and help solve a puzzle that has troubled musicologists and biographers for almost two centuries.
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via OUP Blog by the Oxford Reference marketing team
‘Bled, Slovenia’ by Ales Krivec. CC0 1.0 via Unsplash.
Fairy tales have been passed down through communities for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and have existed in almost all cultures in one form or another. These narratives, often set in the distant past, allow us to escape to a world very unlike our own. They usually follow a hero or heroine who comes up against some sort of obstacle (or obstacles) – from witches and ogres, to dwarves and (as the name suggests) fairies.
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via 3 Quarks Daily: Brent Simpson, Robb Willer and Ashley Harrell in Nature
The threat of free-riding makes the marshalling of cooperation from group members a fundamental challenge of social life. Where classical social science theory saw the enforcement of moral boundaries as a critical way by which group members regulate one another’s self-interest and build cooperation, moral judgments have most often been studied as processes internal to individuals.
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via The National Archives Blog by Dr Helen Wilson
I have been a heritage scientist at The National Archives for four and half years now. During this time I have identified materials, studied the condition of the collection, tested preservation methodologies, and advised on scientific matters. The evidence from these activities has impacted how we look after our collection whether it be how an adhesive is best removed from a paper or how best to clean the collection.
One of the projects that I have found most interesting involved the analysis of a series of wallpaper samples for the book, Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper and Arsenic in the Victorian Home by Lucinda Hawksley (Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2016). This book explores the history of the use of arsenic-containing compounds throughout the 19th century home, particularly in wallpapers, and the impact that this had on people’s health.
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via Boing Boing by Futility Closet
Fingerprint identification and lie detectors are well-known tools of law enforcement today, but both were quite revolutionary when they were introduced. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe the memorable cases where these innovations were first used.
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via 3 Quarks Daily: Victoria Jaggard in National Geographic
Creatures that thrive on iron, sulfur, and other chemicals have been found trapped inside giant crystals deep in a Mexican cave. The microbial life-forms are most likely new to science, and if the researchers who found them are correct, the organisms are still active even though they have been slumbering for tens of thousands of years.
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via The New Statesman by Glosswitch
Whether it’s Simon Baron-Cohen on female brains to Richard Dawkins patronising feminists, I’m glad I read (and hated) these books.
If I was ever going to instigate a purge of books containing ideas I find offensive, sexist or just plain incoherent, I know where I’d start: my own living room. Fact is, I’ve got loads of them. So much so that were I of a similar persuasion to those who recently attacked the volunteer-run Vancouver Women’s Library, I’d never leave the house.
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A surprisingly large number of animals kill each other after sex
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Katherine Ellen Foley reports on the curious phenomenon of sexual cannibalism in the animal kingdom.
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via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Katherine Ellen Foley reports on the curious phenomenon of sexual cannibalism in the animal kingdom.
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