Now, we are happy to report, human intellect has at last triumphed over the dark shadow of ignorance and solved the conundrum lurking within one of our lowest-tech kitchen appliances. After years ensconced in the ivory tower of the University of Cambridge in in the United Kingdom, a team of researchers has emerged with an accurate mathematical model of a teakettle’s whistle.
Now, a team of researchers led by Evershed is shedding light on the embalming processes used to create these so-called meat mummies. The work fills a gap when it comes to studying mummies from ancient Egypt, says Andrew Wade, a bioarchaeologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada…“We’ve done quite a bit on human Egyptian mummies and even a fair bit on animal mummies,” he explains. “But the meat mummies … they’d been sort of left on their own.”
How to Feed Your Mummy - Science
Until recently, large-scale human genome sequencing initiatives focused almost exclusively on populations of European ancestry, says Eric Lander, a geneticist and director of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is teaming up on SIGMA with the Carlos Slim Health Institute here. That European bias makes genomic findings less relevant for people of other backgrounds. … In medicine, “genomics is the language of the future,” [says epidemiologist Miguel Betancourt, global solutions director at the Slim institute]. Without a comprehensive understanding of the Latin American genome and its specific risk factors, he says, Mexicans will be left behind.
The white-people bias in genomics and what Carlos Slim plans to do about it. - Science
Few people in Mexico want to leave Pemex limping along in its current state, unable to invest in its future and doomed to fall behind major international oil companies. But the problem with Peña Nieto’s proposal, experts say, is that no one knows what it will actually do. As Ferrari puts it, “The constitutional amendments open the door, but we don’t know how far.” Details about structural changes to Pemex—not to mention the specifics of any partnership with a foreign company—would be hashed out in so-called secondary laws after the constitution has already been amended. At this point, no one knows if Peña Nieto’s reform will actually solve Pemex’s problems.
Will Mexico Amend Its Constitution to Drill for Oil? - Slate
Magic lantern slide, 1860. “Did the Victorians conquer space?”
In a cage match between a grasshopper mouse and a bark scorpion, put your money on the mouse. Here’s why.
A scientist pulled this tick out of his nose and discovered that it’s probably a new species. I wrote about it. Obviously.
From a book on the penmanship of the insane, 1870.
This is my goal.
From The Handbook of Doll Repair and Restoration, published 1979. Currently housed at the Reanimation Library, which just opened a temporary branch at Talcual in la Colonia Juárez. Check it out.
Dream house. via The Paris Review Daily (and yours truly).
