palimpsest or spine-tingling

As The Guardian reports, x-ray techniques similar to those methods that have revealed artists’ earlier versions of iconic works or teasing out the script from the scorched manuscripts of Pompeii are now as being applied to the bindings of early printed books and discovering fragments of much older texts.
Antiquarians have known that it was common practise after the introduction of the printing-press for book-binders to pulp spare handwritten manuscripts (considered obsolete) in order to strengthen the covers of new editions. Once considered lost to the ages, researchers can know explore and reconstruct what’s within with non-invasive means. Only a small sampling from the University of Leiden has been examined so far with this technology, but with millions of older volumes in libraries across the globe, who can say what might be hidden?

ginsburg precedent

A newly classified species of Praying Mantis, named in honour of the Notorious RBG, the Ilomantis ginsburgæ, represents a significant departure from the usually gender-bias of taxonomists and biologists, which had heretofore almost exclusively (for reasons) isolated unique exemplars by male representation. When told (mansplained) that looking at lady bits had no taxonomical value, one researcher became more determined and found a new specimen within the genus and designated it after the equal rights champion and US Supreme Court judge.

player-piano or à quatre mains

I did enjoy seeing this demonstration called “Andante” by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Tangible Media Group, which aims to reformat performances as interactive, collaborative and engaging for all the senses. Figures gallop and dance over the keyboard with the music and the video of the duet (piano four hands) is really amazing, and I bet such a show could be a tutor for instrument-lessons.

alhambra

Antoni Gaudí, perhaps best known for his exquisite though not slated to be finished until 2026 basilica Sagrada Família in his native Barcelona, also designed a colossal hotel to dominate the skyline of New York City.
Called Hotel Attraction, the renowned architect submitted the blueprints in 1908 but was deemed structurally unsound for construction methods of the time. Originally proposed for a location somewhere in Lower Manhattan when it was known as Little Syria but before the establishment of Radio Row and later, to reverse urban-blight, the World Trade Center, Gaudí’s sketches were among the contenders for rebuilding at Ground Zero—and arguably a far better and purer memorial and testament (since the architect’s ego was not involved in the project) than the ghostly pillars that carried the day.