via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Joshua E Brown in UVM Today [University of Vermont]
First-of-its kind study pinpoints where truly wild places still exist from Norway to Italy
Along the border between Ukraine and Romania, Bill Keeton (center) trains Ukrainian forest rangers in forest measurement techniques during an expedition he led to a remote primeval forest in the Carpathian Mountains. (Photo: courtesy Bill Keeton)
Though you might read about deep, dark woods in fairy tales, the prevailing story today is that very little European old-growth forest remains. But now a new study—and map—shows that a surprising number of these primary forests still stand.
“What we've shown in this study is that, even though the total area of forest is not large in Europe, there are considerably more of these virgin or primary forests left than previously thought—and they are widely distributed throughout many parts of Europe,” says Bill Keeton, a forest ecologist at the University of Vermont. “And where they occur, they provide exceptionally unique ecological values and habitat for biodiversity.”
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via Interesting Literature
What is the meaning of the tale of Bluebeard?
via Wikimedia Commons
Is the story of Bluebeard based on a real person? Perhaps more so than any other fairy tale, we want to know whether the chilling tale of the serial killer and wife-murderer (and perhaps the example par excellence of toxic masculinity in children’s literature) is based on historical fact. Certainly, since it was first published in Charles Perrault’s collection of fairy tales in 1697, the tale of Bluebeard has exercised a peculiar fascination over readers, both young and old. A studied analysis of the horrific capabilities of corrupt masculinity (as suggested by the uber-masculine sobriquet of the central, murderous character), ‘Bluebeard’ is one of the most perennially popular of fairy tales – though far from the most typical. Here, there are no prince and princess destined to live happily ever after, no kindly woodsman, no evil stepmother.
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via the New Statesman by Adrian Woolfson
CREDIT: GETTY
The Queen’s annual Christmas speech provides an opportunity to trace the evolution of a voice: hers has dropped one semitone each decade.
Unlike the mineralised structures of bones and shells, human voices do not fossilise. As a result we may only imagine the “Half-penny half-pint!” cries of the milk-sellers of Victorian Billingsgate, the articulations of early hominids or the clamour of ancient Roman audiences in the Colosseum. Such ephemera form the intangible and unknowable dark matter of human cultural history.
It is perhaps unsurprising that having drawn our awareness to the richness of the unusual and esoteric sounds generated by the physical world in his book Sonic Wonderland, the author, broadcaster and professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford, Trevor Cox, should now turn his attention to the nature, history and future of human speech and conversation.
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via the Guardian by Patrick Barkham
Dozens of fast-flying butterflies released in a secret location in Northamptonshire forest after disappearing in 1976
The chequered skipper butterfly has been reintroduced in a secret location in a forest in Northamptonshire. Photograph: Sandra Standbridge/Alamy Stock Photo
It mysteriously vanished from England after the long hot summer of 1976, but the chequered skipper butterfly is taking to the skies again as part of a bid to revive 20 endangered species.
Several dozen mostly female butterflies have been collected in Belgium and released in a secret location in Rockingham forest, Northamptonshire.
What sounds like a simple operation has taken months of meticulous preparation by Butterfly Conservation scientists, who have surveyed suitable habitat, advised on how forest rides are mown, and identified the ideal region of Europe that best matches the climate and vegetation in Northamptonshire.
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via the OUP blog by Abigail Wickes
“network-3213667_1280” by geralt. CC0 via Pixabay
Librarians have been rising to the challenge of helping users discover content as long as libraries have existed, and evolving discovery solutions are an interesting byproduct of the information dissemination challenges of the time. Before the printing press, medieval libraries were typically geographically isolated with a small number of hand-copied texts. Discovery tools included handwritten omnibus catalogs listing collections from the libraries of other nearby cloisters or monasteries, so the limited number of books could be more widely discoverable. The medieval library itself could also double as a discovery tool via stained glass windows and paintings, which were arranged to correlate with the subjects of the books found around them.
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via Arts & Letters Daily: Noah Charney in AEON
Photo courtesy Tajan.
The drawing certainly looks right. In pen and ink and lightly shadowed, an anguished-looking Saint Sebastian is tied to a tree, wide-eyed and wild-haired, and about to be shot through with Roman arrows because of his Christian faith. (Miraculously, he will survive the arrows, though later, according to The Golden Legend, a medieval encyclopaedia of the lives of the saints, he was clubbed to death.) Aside from a loincloth, the saint is naked, his neck craned toward the heavens, arms bound behind the twisting tree trunk, awaiting the bite of the first arrow. The flip-side (the verso, as opposed to the recto, or front side, of the drawing) contains some optical studies (lines and planes), some sketches of light and shadow (crosshatching), as well as text that appears to be in Leonardo da Vinci’s hand.
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
UK-based artist Lisa Lloyd has been getting lots of well-deserved notice for her intricate papercraft animals, birds, food, and other earthly delights.
Originally an animator, she moved to papercraft later
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via About History by Alcibiades
Following the Predynastic period (c. 6000-3150 BC), the Early Dynastic period began with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. The rulers of unified Egypt took the title king instead of pharaoh. According to the chronology of Manetho (3rd century BC) and the Turin King List, a king named Menes unified Egypt. However, no archeological finds support this claim. The Narmer Palette shows that a king by the name of Narmer was the one who unified Lower and Upper Egypt. These two names overlap each other, so historians can’t be sure who actually unified Egypt and started the first dynasty. Menes actually means “he who endures”, opening the possibility that this is not an actual name, but a title. Menes and Narmer could be the same person. The name Menes is found on an inscription associated with Hor-Aha, which could mean that the title was taken by other kings as well.
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via the Big Think blog by Eric Schwitzgebel
Down goes HotBot 4b into the volcano. The year is 2050 or 2150, and artificial intelligence has advanced sufficiently that such robots can be built with human-grade intelligence, creativity and desires. HotBot will now perish on this scientific mission. Does it have rights? In commanding it to go down, have we done something morally wrong?
The moral status of robots is a frequent theme in science fiction, back at least to Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, and the consensus is clear: if someday we manage to create robots that have mental lives similar to ours, with human-like plans, desires and a sense of self, including the capacity for joy and suffering, then those robots deserve moral consideration similar to that accorded to natural human beings. Philosophers and researchers on artificial intelligence who have written about this issue generally agree.
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via Interesting Literature
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle revisits Conan Doyle’s best tales of terror
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the rare and peculiar ability to make fiction seem real. When he killed off his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, in 1893, many of his devoted readers donned black armbands as a sign of mourning. He got letters from real people asking if he could pass their requests on to the great sleuth, in the hope that he might take up their real-life case. Many people have heard the mysterious story of the Marie Celeste, the ship which was found abandoned with everything perfectly preserved. In truth, there was no Marie Celeste: the actual ship was the Mary Celeste, which was found abandoned but was severely waterlogged. Its one boat was also missing, providing a clue as to how the ship’s crew had not-so-mysteriously disappeared. But it was the fictional version of events – with the story of the pristine ship – that took hold of the public imagination. And this version was the product of one man: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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