abiogenesis

Enough to make even the hardiest water bear (tardigrade) blanch, spelunkers studying extremophile biotopes have extracted microbes from crystals buried deep in an abandoned zinc mine in Chihuahua that researchers believe to be between ten-thousand and fifty-thousand years old.
Discoveries such as these really push the limits of our conventional definitions of how and indeed where life manifests itself. Such rugged determination speaks to the theory of panspermia, the idea that life could be propagated through the Cosmos on the backs of comets, meteors or even on the breaking crest of a radio-wave but also is a stark warning for us as explorers to be vigilant about stowaways and unintended contamination.

profiles in courage

Amusing Planet directs our attention to a moving but easily missed monument under an awning in Postman’s Park in London. The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice first opened in 1900 by a collector of such human-interest stories commemorates sixty-two individuals who did not hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice to save (in most cases) complete strangers. The sort of unflinching heroism deserves to be remembered—especially that these epitaphs are not those of warriors and leaders, since fame is no substitute for character and empathy. Be sure to visit the website at the link above to learn more and discover other curious and inspiring destinations.

patronage system

Although this gig has far less tenure, the Mall of America’s—on the occasion of its quarter of century in existence, as Super Punch informs—call for submissions reminds me of the competitive recruitment and retention of professional hermits.
The selected writer-in-residence will receive an immersive experience to record in their own words and report to world the atmosphere of this giant shopping venue. Having passed the age of mall rats and yet to confront the ranks of mall walkers, I wonder what one might observe—especially in the course of a few days—and wonder where the real story is to be found. Do you suppose that other businesses as contract such laureates? That would be interesting to find out and maybe avail oneself of.

tldr; or subspace, subtext

Though my faith in the robust and impeccable nature of Vulcan logic remains unshaken—Mister Spock was after all half human and thus prone to human hysterics—I do appreciate this analysis of such qualifiers of interesting or even fascinating and what they convey in modern parlance through the lens of the formative cultural impact his sober and supposedly dispassionate assessment of situations has had on generations.
Even the search for more sovereign synonyms probably do not distance us really from the subtext that what’s meant by calling something interesting means infotainment—something to hold one’s attention. It wasn’t always so and perhaps I might have presented the same argument but via the conduit of Goethe’s Faust, whose eponymous doctor dares to ask what force in creation could be more compelling than love. Interest, the demon Mephistopheles answers straightaway and without hesitation. The doomed Faust is of course cursed with a universal knowledge whose trivia and recall one could of course look up in his or hers Funk & Wagnalls but in those times conferred exclusive advantages. What do you think? Has the meaning of interesting been relaxed so as to signify nothing at all, making its opposites a grave transgression? No one wants to be uninteresting or boring, even if the judgment means little. In relative terms, I suppose there were fewer contenders for our undivided attention back then but the latter also illustrates how our perspective can make us all regret the bargain.

6x6

sex-ed: acknowledging that most young people are schooled by pornography, a major service-provider is getting in the business of outreach, via Bad Ethnography

coffin nails: ironic, hypocryphal Death cigarettes were really popular with Goths

nüshu: throwing off the yoke of a patriarchal society that excluded women seeking education, Chinese women developed their own secret script to promote literacy, via Nag on the Lake

pinhologican: a nonsense word generator for the nonce that yields some very cromulent terms, via Boing Boing

you and me baby, we ain’t nothing but mammal: a look at the making of Planet Earth II and the evolution of the documentary

thank you for being a friend: a Golden Girls themed café, with special emphasis on Blanche Deveraux, opens in Washington Heights, NYC

tusken raiders

Hasbro will be issuing a special fortieth anniversary edition of its iconic line of Star Wars actions figures—to include R5D4 and the other denizens of Tatooine. The poor Sand People are always made the scapegoats and get the blame for everything, like for the deaths of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and the destruction of their moisture farm. Never forget, it was done by Imperial Stormtroopers who made it look like the aftermath of a Tusken raid.

agent orange

Revoltingly—and unclear whether the US ambassador thought of this stupid cruelty himself or it was part of some State Department hazing ritual to prove oneʼs absolute loyalty to the new regime, the president of the eastern African nation and one of the seven majority Muslim countries under Dear Leaderʼs travel ban was presented with a baseball cap with a variation of the white-supremacist dog-whistle of slogan, “Make Somalia Great Again.” Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed (who happens to be a US national) was not available for immediate comment but seemed to grudgingly accept the gift—which is far more patience and poise that could be expected out of anyone in such an awkward and inappropriate situation.

italia irredenta

Advisedly, a Roman high school cancelled plans less than a day after it announced its intentions to host a grand ball with a fascist-era theme.
Perhaps officials on the planning-committee thought there was little significant difference between dressing up in a flapper frock for a Great Gatsby-themed fete or that no 80s dance party was complete without doing a lot of coke and Japanese bashing. In any case, teachers conceded that this was insensitive to the memory of those times and was especially a poor choice right now considering nationalist movements are political big-ticket items in a lot of contested election campaigns—including Italyʼs own.