The Wheat Genome, Parenting, and a Lost City in Kansas: Lux Recommends #145
Welcome to Lux Recommends #145, this week’s edition of what we at Lux are reading and thinking about (and want to receive this by email? Sign up here).
Articles
After 13 Years, Scientists Finally Map the Massive Wheat Genome: “wheat has five times more DNA than you do” — Adam G
Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges: “Locals have long scoured fields and river banks for arrowheads and bits of pottery, amassing huge collections. Then there were those murky tales of a sprawling city on the Great Plains and a chief who drank from a goblet of gold.” — Sam
The Secret to Ant Efficiency Is Idleness: Ants don’t like traffic jams too. — Adam G
The Earth’s carrying capacity for human life is not fixed: “Despite its seeming scientific precision, the claim is old, not new — the latest iteration of the longstanding assertion that our population and consumption might soon exceed the Earth’s fixed ‘carrying capacity’.” — Sam
A New Method For Having Lucid Dreams Has Been Discovered by Scientists: “Building on their own previous research, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Lucidity Institute in Hawaii wanted to investigate how chemicals called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEls) might promote lucid dreaming.” —Adam G
Children of the Cube: “My son and his cubes have been inseparable for years. Like hundreds of other children, he found his tribe at the CubingUSA nationals.” — Adam K
What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do? “As a programmer myself, I’m startled to see how much of what Lovelace was doing resembles the experience of writing software today.” — Lux Recommends reader Connor Montgomery
World’s Oldest Cheese, Found in Ancient Tomb, Was Also Very Dangerous: ‘Dating back to the 13th century BC, the “solidified whitish mass,” was discovered in a jar, and despite 30 centuries of exposure to harsh desert conditions, the compound retained enough of its original chemical content for scientists to study its cheesy origins. In addition to determining the kind of animal milk used to manufacture the cheese, the researchers also detected traces of a dangerous bacteria that still plagues us to this very day.’ — Adam K
That Time an Astronaut Lost His Wedding Ring in Space: ‘On the second day of the 1972 11-day trip to the moon and back, command module pilot Ken Mattingly lost his wedding ring. “It just floated off somewhere, and none of us could find it,” Duke says.’ — Adam K
5 Mental Models to Remove (Some of) the Confusion from Parenting: Some perennial parenting wisdom. — Sam
And Man Holds GoPro Wrong Way Round For Entire Holiday — Peter
Books
A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer: “A Planet of Viruses is Carl Zimmer’s eye-opening look at the hidden world of viruses…Zimmer’s lucid explanations and fascinating stories demonstrate how deeply humans and viruses are intertwined. Viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, are responsible for many of our most devastating diseases, and will continue to control our fate for centuries. Thoroughly readable, and as reassuring as it is frightening, A Planet of Viruses is a fascinating tour of a formidable hidden world.” — Adam G
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker: “Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free.” — Sam
Videos
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