Thursday Things: Sharks and Spinach Edition
10 February 2022. Vol 4 No 6 By Dan McGirt. #131
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“Unprovoked, my dorsal fin! You know what you did.” Photo by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash
Shark Report! Apparently there is such a thing as the Yearly Worldwide Shark Attack Summary. How did I not know this?
The Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File investigated 137 alleged shark-human interactions worldwide in 2021. ISAF confirmed 73 unprovoked shark bites on humans and 39 provoked bites.
The good news is that 2021 had fewer shark attacks than average worldwide. Which makes sense — there were probably fewer people in the water for sharks to attack because fewer people were traveling or taking vacations at the beach.
The bad news is that the U.S. leads the world in unprovoked shark attacks — and this is apparently a long-term trend:
Consistent with long-term trends, the United States recorded the most unprovoked shark bites in 2021, with 47 confirmed cases. This is 42% higher than the 33 incidents that occurred in the U.S. in 2020. The 47 cases represent 64% of the worldwide total. This represents an increase from 2020 when 58% of the worldwide unprovoked bites occurred in the U.S.
What? Why do sharks have it in for Americans? Let’s dig deeper into the the data!
For decades, Florida has topped global charts in the number of shark bites, and this trend continued in 2021. Florida’s 28 cases represent 60% of the U.S. total and 38% of unprovoked bites worldwide. This is consistent with Florida’s most recent five-year annual average of 25 incidents.
Ah. Florida. Now it all makes sense. The feud between sharks and Florida Man is ancient.
Follow the science. I’m not a wine drinker but I offer this as good news for those Happy Subscribers who are. New Study Suggests Red Wine Reduces COVID Infection Rates
What if that glass of Châteauneuf you're sipping with dinner is also reducing your chances of contracting COVID-19? A new study analyzed health data on nearly 500,000 U.K. residents and found that subjects who drank one to two glasses of red wine a day had a 10 to 17 percent lower risk of contracting COVID than non-drinkers.
The benefits are less with white wine. And beer and cider drinkers are just out of luck:
Subjects who drank white wine had a 7 to 8 percent lower risk if they consumed five glasses or less per week, while those who frequently drank beer or cider had a 28 percent higher chance of contracting the virus than non-drinkers.
So pour another glass — it’s medicinal!
“To your health! No, really.” Photo by Kelsey Knight on Unsplash
And maybe enjoy some spinach dip with that wine. As long as we’re sharing good news about food and drink, here is another recent report you may like. Magnesium-rich foods like avocados, spinach can boost ability to fight cancer
BASEL, Switzerland — If you love loading your nachos with guacamole and spinach dip, scientists have good news — the popular appetizers may help keep cancer at bay. Researchers from University of Basel find that foods rich with magnesium — including avocados, spinach, bananas, and beans — all help to boost the immune system.
Magnesium is your friend. But wait! There’s more!
The mineral also improves muscle and nerve function and makes proteins, bone, and DNA. Other healthy foods high in magnesium includes lentils, almonds, cashews, tofu, seeds, oily fish, and dark chocolate.
Pass the guacamole!
Witch! And now for something completely different — more than you ever wanted to know about the practice of dunking suspected witches to see if they floated or sank.
Swimming a Witch: Evidence in 17th-century English Witchcraft Trials
In recent posts on this blog, I have written about the evidence used in 17th-century witch trials, both in America and in England. In those posts, I pointed out that proving the crime of witchcraft was no simple matter. Rules for evidence in criminal trials were not yet formalized at that time, and opinions about what constituted proof of things supernatural varied widely among judges, writers, and the wider population.
You don’t say.
This post is about a strategy to prove an accusation of witchcraft that came into use in England in the early Modern Era: “ducking” or “swimming” a witch.
Witch swimming was the practice of tying up and dunking the accused into a body of water to determine whether they sink or float. Sinking to the bottom indicated that the accused was innocent while floating indicated a guilty verdict. (Kittredge, p. 232.)
Follow the science? Actually, this was less about science than divine intervention:
The premise of the ordeal was that the trial provoked God’s direct intervention in determining the guilt or innocence of the accused. Since the ordeal’s result was a revelation of God’s judgment, the ordeal was often called judicium dei, the judgment of God.
This assumes God had nothing better to do, which seems like a dubious assumption to me. And the courts eventually figured that out:
By the end of the 17th century, courts were apt to consider witch swimming as an assault committed against its target; and if the subject were to drown during the procedure, it was a murder.
But read the whole blog post for some fascinating, if disturbing, history of this questionable evidentiary standard.
“Er…I’m not going to dunk her. You dunk her.” Photo by Nurlan Imash on Unsplash
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