Thursday Things: Taste of Space Edition
16 June 2022. Vol 4 No 24 By Dan McGirt. #149
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“Life has no meaning until Thursday Things arrives.” Photo by Shamim Nakhaei on Unsplash
That time the future King James II tried to steer a ship. And it sank.
340-Year-Old Shipwreck May Change What We Know About 17th-Century Maritime History
A British warship that sank in 1682 while carrying a future king has been located off eastern England, in a find described as the "most significant historic maritime discovery since the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982".
The announcement follows 15 years of secret verification work due to the need to protect the wreck.
There you in 1682 are piloting a ship in the fleet of King Charles II, but you’ve got the king’s brother on board. And he thinks he knows better than you how to navigate a tricky sandbar. You’ll never believe what happens next!
On 6 May 1682, James Stuart, duke of York and later James II and VII, travelling on the third-rate frigate Gloucester, was shipwrecked off the coast of Norfolk while en route to Scotland. The ship struck sandbanks a few hours after a protracted argument between the Duke, the pilot and several naval officers over the course that was to be taken. James abandoned ship shortly before the Gloucester sank, transferring to an accompanying vessel to complete his voyage, but hundreds of passengers and crew died.1
And that’s bad enough. But the then-Duke of York was in a delicate political position, being the putative heir to throne, but also a Catholic in a mostly Protestant country that was pretty much over Catholic monarchs by this point.
The wreck occurred at a sensitive political moment when, within the maelstrom of the Exclusion Crisis (1679–81), the Duke was hopeful of securing his place in the succession. However, thanks in part to the cultural vigour of the ‘ship of state’ trope, the disaster risked James being regarded as a pilot and commander unable to steer the nation. Because his political enemies could use the shipwreck as propaganda to undermine his position as heir to the throne, the event in general, and especially the Duke’s behaviour, became popular topics which were debated and contested from Whig and Tory viewpoints.2
The “ship of state” is a hoary political figure of speech, dating back to at least the time of Plato’s Republic in the 4th century BC. So when someone whose fitness to guide the metaphorical ship of state wrecks an actual ship, you know that’s just too good for his enemies to resist.
Check out The Last Voyage of the Gloucester (1682): The Politics of a Royal Shipwreck for the whole story.
“Let me drive.” James, Duke of York, 1633–1701, by Henri Gascar, 1672/3. Source: National Maritime Museum
What does outer space taste like? Apparently raspberries. What Does Space Taste Like and Why Does It Matter?
In 2009, astronomers were able to identify a chemical called ethyl formate in a big dust cloud at the center of the Milky Way. Ethyl formate happens to be responsible for the flavor of raspberries (it also smells like rum). Space tastes like raspberries! What a downright delightful thing for space to taste like. It’s a reminder that even in deep space, there’s some small, delicious semblance of life as we know it.
I do love raspberries! But what if you don’t? Well, the multiverse theory suggests that there must be parallel universes where space tastes like blueberries or bananas or whatever you like. Of course, there means there must also be a universe where space tastes like dirty socks. So universe hop at your own risk.
Space. The final frontier. Now in raspberry! Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash
Faster, please! Gel that repairs heart attack damage could improve health of millions
British researchers have developed a biodegradable gel to repair damage caused by a heart attack in a breakthrough that could improve the health of millions of survivors worldwide.
Now after years of efforts searching for solutions to help the heart repair itself, researchers at the University of Manchester have created a gel that can be injected directly into the beating heart – effectively working as a scaffold to help injected cells grow new tissue…
Until now, when cells have been injected into the heart to reduce the risk of heart failure, only 1% have stayed in place and survived. But the gel can hold them in place as they graft on to the heart.
“While it’s still early days, the potential this new technology has in helping to repair failing hearts after a heart attack is huge,” said Katharine King, who led the research backed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF). “We’re confident that this gel will be an effective option for future cell-based therapies to help the damaged heart to regenerate.
I heart this one.
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The English Historical Review, ceac127, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceac127 Published: 10 June 2022
Ibid.