via the OUP blog by Anne-Emmanuelle Birn
A street during the plague in London with a death cart and mourners by Edmund Evans.
CC-BY-4.0 viaWellcome Collection
What do we think of when we hear the word “plague”? Red crosses on boarded-up doors? Deserted medieval villages? Or maybe the horror film-esque cloak and mask of a plague doctor?
Unsurprisingly, the history of plague and its impact on health regulation is more complex and far-reaching than many assume. This extract from the Textbook of Global Health looks at the medical and environmental legacy of pandemics, which range from the Plague of Justinian, to the infamous Black Death and beyond.
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via About History by Alcibiades
The Battle of the Marne was a major battle between the German and Anglo-French armies, which took place on September 5-12, 1914, on the Marne , during the First World War, ending in the defeat of the German army. As a result of the battle, the German army’s strategic plan for the offensive was foiled, intended to be a quick victory on the Western front causing the surrender of France.
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via the New Statesman by John Burnside
Training an animal, Pavlov-style, to do human-designed tricks is one thing, but to have it come, voluntarily, to music practice is quite another.
When I first heard about it, I assumed it was a gimmick; which says much about human prejudice, I suppose. Still, I like to think that my initial scepticism was founded, not on some anthropocentric impulse, but upon its precise opposite.
Of course, I know that animals make music, but an elephant orchestra, complete with drums, gongs and harmonicas? Playing pieces that humans would consider pleasing to the ear? That proposition took me back to the early nature programmes, where the animals had distinctly human personalities. The grumpy pelican. The shy hedgehog. The mischievous chimpanzee. When humans argue about whether, or to what extent, animals have feelings, what they usually mean is: do animals have human feelings? To which I think the answer is: no – and why should they?
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Legacy Woodworking Machinery has a great series of videos on how they program CNC machines to cut a hollow spiral candlestick.
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via About History Alciblades
The Battle of Manzikert occurred on August 25-26, 1071, in the territory of the Byzantium Empire, near the city of Manzikert, between the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantine Empire. The Seljuk Turks, under the leadership of the Sultan of Alp-Arslan, defeated the Byzantines and captured Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, who bought his freedom back at great expense for his country. The victory of the Turks accelerated the establishment of permanent population transfers of Seljuk Turks to Asia Minor. The battle of Manzikert is the decisive battle between the Byzantines and the Seljuks. After this battle, the Byzantine Empire did not recover its former strength. It managed to continue for four centuries, but it never regained the power it once had.
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via Interesting Literature
On one of American literature’s forgotten poets
The American poet Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) is not much remembered now, but she left one mini poetic legacy: the cinquain. The word ‘cinquain’ had existed before her miniature verse innovation, but Crapsey co-opted it to describe the five-line unrhymed form which she used in her finest poetry.
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via the Big Think blog by Philip Perry
When the past and future are no longer connected, some pretty weird stuff happens.
What’s inside a black hole? In most, there’s something called the singularity—an area of such density and intense gravitational force that not even light can escape. Don’t venture too close. Once you enter the event horizon—the outer rim—it’s all over for you. You’d be shredded to ribbons of atoms that’ll be sucked down into its depths. But there may be one exception. Mathematicians have recently unveiled a scenario even more mind-blowing.
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via the OUP blog by Patricia Fara
Pierre and Marie Curie in the laboratory, circa 1904. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
It must top the list of famous misquotes: Shakespeare’s Juliet did not say “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But she did ask “What’s in a name?” thus pinpointing a problem that still vexes women today. When I turned 40, I rebranded myself from Pat to Patricia, a shift that was personally gratifying yet had no serious effects. But some women have had to contemplate more serious consequences.
There is only one female scientist who is famous throughout the world, but she had several names to choose between and has been represented in various guises. Most commonly celebrated as the double Nobel Prize winner who dedicated her life to science and invented the word “radioactivity,” she has also been castigated as a Jewish whore, a steely obsessive, and a savvy media manipulator. When she visited the United States in two whirlwind trips, she showed the President that she could act as a hard-headed negotiator.
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Xiaohan Wang was driving near Keluke Lake in Qinghai Province in China, but stopped to snap this lovely image of airglow bands framing the Milky Way.
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WOW. That is all I can think to say.
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via Interesting Literature
On Clare’s great poem about the self
‘I am—yet what I am none cares or knows’. As opening lines go, it teeters on the edge of self-pity, and it’s a brave poet who will risk that charge – and a fine poet who can pull the rest of his poem back from the brink of such self-indulgent wallowing that might be expected to follow. John Clare’s ‘I Am’ manages this, making it a fine and especially interesting example of Romantic poetry, exploring the individual self and the poet’s own place in the world. Before we offer a few words of analysis, here’s a reminder of one of John Clare’s best-known poems.
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