Thursday Things: Way Up High Edition
10 June 2021. Vol 3 No 23 By Dan McGirt. #96
Welcome to Thursday Things! If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the heading or at the end of the post to let me know. You can also comment by clicking the dialogue bubble next to the heart.
This picture has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this issue. Photo by Max on Unsplash
The title of it this item pretty well sums it up: Where to View Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks Online for Free
This looks like something da Vinci would have in his notebooks if he were alive today: World’s First Skyscraper Designed To Hang Suspended From An Asteroid
New York-based architects have revealed their plans for a skyscraper to hang suspended from an asteroid 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) in the air.
Clouds Architecture Office, the people who brought us the Mars Ice Home design, have released artwork and plans for their Analemma Tower – a skyscraper that will not only be the world’s “tallest” but also hang suspended from a harnessed asteroid orbiting the Earth.
A sky-high ambition, but I don’t think I’d want to be living in a building hanging upside down from a rock orbiting in space. Or living under it for that matter. Could you even get property insurance for something like that? Great setting for Die Hard 12 though.
Could we not do this please? Frozen ‘zombie’ worms brought back to life after 24,000 years
Russian scientists have resurrected “zombie” worms that had been frozen for 24,000 years in the Arctic.
The microscopic, multicellular animals — called bdelloid rotifers — have inhabited freshwater environments for some 50 million years. Other studies on rotifers have shown that the animals can be revived after 10 years on ice, but a new study published in the journal Current Biology on Monday confirms that these clever creatures have the potential to live on for millions of more years.
Nothing good comes of thawing out 24,000-year-old zombie worms you found frozen in the Arctic.
Get all the science details in Current Biology A living bdelloid rotifer from 24,000-year-old Arctic permafrost.
You’re not as bad at math (or “maths” as the British say) as you think you are. The myth of being 'bad' at maths
Research has shown that in the US, 93% of adults say they have some level of maths anxiety. And it’s not just adults: some 31% of 15- and 16-year-olds across 34 countries say they get very nervous doing maths problems, 33% say they get tense doing maths homework and nearly 60% say they worry maths classes will be difficult, the Programme for International Student Assessment reports.
But why are so many so worried about math? In part, it is socially acceptable, at least in Western countries to be “bad at math”:
Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist and president of Barnard College in New York, says the idea that you are either innately good or bad at maths persists in western countries, and it seems to be socially acceptable to be bad at maths. “You don’t hear adults bragging about not being a reading person, but you do hear them brag about not being a math person,” she says.
But many people who fear math are perfectly capable of solving math problems. So why are they so anxious about math? It doesn’t add up.
Beilock and her colleagues have shown that maths anxiety can start as soon as we enter formal schooling. “Math is one of the first places in school in Western culture where we really learn about whether we got something right or wrong, and are exposed to being evaluated in timed tests,” she says.
Ah! People learn to be anxious about math in school, where they also learn to be anxious about so many other things. Girls, in particular, may be susceptible to math anxiety:
Girls may be more prone to it than boys. Primary school teachers often have high levels of maths anxiety, says Beilock, and in the US and elsewhere, they are mostly female. Since young children tend to identify with adults of the same gender, this means girls are more susceptible to picking up maths anxiety from their female teachers. And having a female teacher with maths anxiety, Beilock’s research shows, makes girls more likely to believe gendered stereotypes about maths, leading to poorer achievement.
Can math be taught in a way that is less likely to induce “mathephobia”? It turns out it the answer is yes. But you’ll need to click over and read the article for the details!
We need a feel good story like this once in a while. Diver reunites woman with camera lost in lake for nearly 10 years
A technical rescue diver in Virginia found a camera at the bottom of a Virginia lake and was able to reunite it with the woman who lost it nearly a decade earlier.
Lilly Potts was participating in a rescue training exercise with the Blacksburg Volunteer Rescue Squad when she found the algae-covered camera at the bottom of Claytor Lake.
"I happen to pass over a camera, and I decided to pick it up and open it up and the SD card was still in it," Potts told WDBJ-TV.
Potts enlisted the help of a friend who was able to recover about 300 photos from the card.
"There was so much sentimental value to all the pictures, like there was a wedding on it, two weddings on it, a baby being born, and I know if I lost those kind of pictures I would want them back," Potts said.
Potts posted photos from the SD card to Facebook in the hopes of finding the owner, and one of Potts' former teachers was able to identify the camera's owner as Brenda Dalton, who works for the teacher's husband.
Dalton said she thought some of the pictures had been lost forever when she dropped her camera into the lake nearly a decade earlier.
A new (to me) podcast I’ll be checking out: The History of Persia
This is a podcast dedicated to the history of Persia, and the great empires that ruled modern Iran before the rise of Islam. Our narrative begins with the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great and the foundation of an imperial legacy that impacted ancient civilizations from Rome to China, and everywhere in between. Join me as we explore the cultures, militaries, religions, successes, and failures of some of the greatest empires of the ancient world.
Thank you for reading Thursday Things. Please click the hearts, comment, and use the share button to send this issue to a friend who might enjoy it. See you next Thursday!