Mike Sowden

Blimey, this blew up. So great to see smart folk challenging on details (check thread). Quite right too, the numbers need to add up.

But here's what I'm taking from this huge reaction:

Creative artists of all kinds are bloody sick to death of struggling because their work isn't seen as valuable.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

A VERY EXCITABLE ONE.

(With full credit to you for making me aware of this AMAZING THING I knew absolutely nothing about until now. Holy wow.)

The infamous Magdeburg Unicorn, perhaps the most incompetent fossil reconstruction in world history.

LIES

look, here is a REAL UNICORN

you can't LIE with BONES, can you

the TRUTH will come out eventually and then you scientists will be SORRY.

(www.snopes.com/articles/441...)

HOLY BANANAS

www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

As per the SciAm article: "In principle, there’s no reason rock from other places couldn’t work for curling....Ailsa Craig and the Trefor granite quarry probably became the go-to sources over time through some combination of their performance characteristics, tradition and standardization."

Update: rats! I just saw @elissaaltman.bsky.social is on Bluesky, and I would have tagged her directly if I'd known this. Apologies, Elissa!

Why curling rocks come from just two spots on Earth The rocks used in the Olympic sport of curling come from one island in Scotland and one quarry in Wales. What makes them so special?

...there's only one other place in the world where curling stone rocks comes from - the Trefor granite quarry in Wales:

www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

Just two places, and both in the UK! Kinda barmy.

Photo by photographer Rob Wilson of a single small but intensely stormy-looking cloud hovering over Ailsa Craig, Scotland.

...and it regularly creates its own weather, to spectacular effect.

This pic is from photographer Rob Wilson, who has cornered the market in taking Ailsa Craig weather pics: www.robertkwilson.com/photographs/...

And weirdly enough...

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Screengrab of a note on Substack by author Elissa Altman, which says "Curling is another reason to love the Scots. And if you're watching the Italians vs US right now? Those stones that you're watching are from the uninhabited island of Ailsa Craig in Scotland."

Yep! It’s the famous Ailsa Craig Blue Hone granite. My part of the world - I can see Ailsa Craig on the horizon from my nearest beach.

The island's a dramatically rugged remnant of a pluton in the Firth Of Clyde, the waterway opening out into the ocean between Scotland and northern Ireland...

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Humble Book Bundle: Charlie Jane Anders & Annalee Newitz by TOR Don’t miss this bundle of novels and story collections from acclaimed authors Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz! Pay what you want and support charity!

I'm stoked that the Humble Bundle of my and @annaleen.bsky.social's books from Tor has raised nearly $5000 for the TGI Justice Project and Miss Major/Alexander Lee Black Trans Cultural Center.

www.humblebundle.com/books/charli...

Let me tell you about when I went to the TGIJP's anniversary party

Tweet on X by Charles Fishman saying "you could launch a full-up newspaper from the 300 people laid off by the Washington Post 3 hours ago", quote-tweeted by Annie Wu who says "Mackenzie Scott you have the opportunity to do an extremely funny and genuinely heroic thing right now".

Please please please please please

You are way too kind. And I just learned that word too! It was delightful to find & use it and I felt *very* clever (which is, sadly, only a feeling).

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Okay, I've now written this up properly, and if anything I'm even more amazed by the whole story. Ghagh! The stuff we don't know, and the mindblownedness of first realising it....

everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/new-englan...

Photo of Salto Angel (Angel Falls), official name: Kerepakupai merú - by Rich Childs, via Flickr/Wikipedia.

This is Angel Falls in Venezuela, with its 807-metre sheer plunge - the tallest waterfall on our planet.

Except - it isn't. There's one that's bigger. MUCH bigger. And when I learned about it this week, my mind was fully blown.

OK. Buckle up! (Especially if you don't have a head for heights.)

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can I also interest you in a bonus waterfall in your waterfall? bsky.app/profile/mike...

Yo dawg I heard you like water so we put a water in your water so you can swim while you swim

I'm pretty sure I'm not synaesthesic, but wow, matcha certainly tastes *green*, doesn't it?

Science is very cool and pretty helpful to us.

Should we fund it 🤷🏻‍♂️

Good to see the major newspapers now picking up this story! (This is from The Independent.)

Good to see the major newspapers now picking up this story! (This is from The Independent.)

About - Semi-Rad essays and illustrations about adventure, creativity, and enthusiasm. Click to read Semi-Rad, by Brendan Leonard, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Go sign up to read Brendan. He's doing *such* great stuff: semirad.substack.com/about

Illustration from Brendan Leonard's newsletter "When We Hold The Door", showing a stage of the complicated collaborative process of groups of people holding open exterior and interior doors so each can pass through.

Illustration from Brendan Leonard's newsletter "When We Hold The Door", showing a stage of the complicated collaborative process of groups of people holding open exterior and interior doors so each can pass through.

Illustration from Brendan Leonard's newsletter "When We Hold The Door", showing a stage of the complicated collaborative process of groups of people holding open exterior and interior doors so each can pass through.

If you want a reminder of the essential decency of most human beings, look how they behave around doors:

semirad.substack.com/p/when-we-ho... (from @semi-rad.com).

UPDATE: oh dear oh dear, now we'll *never* know if it's good or not

LEV
LEV
LEV
LEV
*LEV*.

A man stands in a cave filled with white crystals, many of them much taller and larger than he is. The scale is hard to even understand. CREDIT: Javier Trueba From the C&EN article I'm citing below: "For millennia, conditions within the Cave of Crystals (290 m underground) were perfect for the growth of gypsum crystals, allowing them to grow to their massive size. Credit: Javier Trueba/MSF/Science Source"

Take a minute to really absorb the scale of what you're seeing.

This is 'Cueva de los Cristales', the Cave of the Crystals, near the city of Naica in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

The crystals are selenite, a type of gypsum.

They formed over the last 1 million years.

(📷: Javier Trueba, MSF)

I'm doing both! My gym is a 45 minute walk from home, so that's the cardio part of my workout done (and I get 90 minutes of audiobook-listening too).

Damn them too! All those "facts" that seem to "make sense"! Awful.

That's great!

Except it's also completely outrageous. How dare all those young people be correct about anything?

Damn them all.