umbra viventis lucis

Venerated on this day, the occasion of her death in 1179 (*1098), as one of the most accomplished and prolific scholars of the Middle Ages, Hildegard von Bingen (see also, the saint and song-writer also being one of the most recorded artists in modern times), recognised for her mysticism, scientific curiosity, leadership and musical virtuosity as a Doctor of the Church.

In addition to her numerous treaties on theology, history and botany, Hildegard also invented a constructed, auxiliary language (previously) called Lingua Ignota—that is, the unknown language written in twenty-three stylised glyphs (see also) and translated mostly by the large lexical volume of her notes and the occasional Latin or German parallel gloss.
Albeit much of this interpretation is a matter of conjecture, it further was unclear if anyone else could read her writings and whether she intended the script to be a universal and ideal one or a secret, holy language.

simulmatics

Limning the world as we’ve inherited it, a Madison Avenue advertising agency, crafting detailed but questionably nuanced or accurate reflections of anyone or informing the proclivities of real persons demographic “people machines,” founded in 1959 the nascent business of data modelling, brilliantly accounted in Jill Lepore’s new book.
The corporate architecture originally programmed and coded by women staff members selected from the typing pool—until male executives recognised the prestige and profit in making computing and technology their exclusive domain (see also)—this Big Data approach was quickly applied to other venues besides marketing, but in ways that ultimately seem maladapted and cynical despite best intentions going in. That and the fact that a group of white men feel that those outside of their peer-group have to be decoded to be understood aptly prefigures the trajectory that tech has taken us and offers a glimpse at least of how it could be otherwise when civics are held separate from sales and targeting is not baked-in to community. Listen to the entire interview on NPR’s Fresh Air at the link below.

wormsign

From the extensive archives of JWZ, we are reminded what a golden age the 1980s were for up-and-comer sandworms. Shai-Hulud (1985) as they are called by the Fremen of Arrakis (not to scale) grow to gigantic proportions, hundreds of metres in length and forty metres in diameter and ply the desert sands as whales do in Earth oceans, and extending the comparison, as with flensing and whale oil, were the source of the spice melange—the most valuable commodity in the Cosmos. The sarlacc that inhabits the Great Pit of Carkoon (1983) is classified as non-sessile arthropod though shares a similar physiology to its companions.

zen den

As a bonus, through the final act of the most recent episode of This American Life, we are acquainted with the delightful yoga instructional videos (see previously) and classroom lesson plans from the studio of Cosmic Kids. The enthusiasm is contagious and some exercise routines are based on based on fairy stories, nursery rhymes and the contemporary re-tellings, and for this movie night themed show, they had the instructor take on a film for grown-ups, Thelma & Louise—not presented here but rather a quick regiment of basic poses (asanas) to practise and limber up to.

movie night

In an exploration of how film informs our sympathies and limn the present through memory and reinterpretation over the years, couching the present of the movie-makers in our own, This America Life producer Sean Cole digs up an obscure title from 1968, which despite its all-star ensemble cast was singularly bad to have not garnered much attention or conservation heretofore though presently in the redemptive and consoling way that cinematic homeopathy can arise to, even if the inversion of current climate. With several points of resonance to today (that year was also a particularly tumultuous time) we cycle through distrust in science, mask-mandates, downplaying the contagion (the vector being instead of bats a toucan), negative implications for the economy, retreating to a bunker and the suggestion that the virus was manufactured in a laboratory for nefarious ends—though the infection and its attendant co-morbidities result in euphoria and an altered outlook that is particularly communicable.

biomarker

Researchers—with due restraint and caution—have made the announcement that the concentration of the toxic gas phosphine (phosphane, PH₃) in the Venusian atmosphere, which should not be present at the levels they have detected in accordance with known chemical and geologic reactions, consistent with the presence of anaerobic bacterial life suspended (see also) at a tolerable zone within the thick atmosphere. There’s a selection of nice primers and more details of the unexpected finding at Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy at the link up top.

popish plot

Promoted and promulgated by English priest Titus Oates, born on this day in 1649 ( †1705), the ungrounded conspiracy theory gripped England and Scotland with an anti-Catholic hysteria from its 1678 circulation and was not easily dispelled despite, Oates’ eventual arrest and conviction of perjury for giving false testimony that led to the execution of twenty-two individuals. Capitalising on fear and suspicions—and guilt by affiliation, real or attributed—of the foiled Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and fuelled by the Thirty Years’ War, framed as a Hapsburg effort to stamp out German and British Protestantism, Oates’ sermons accused one hundred Jesuits and their supporters of plotting an assassination attempt against Charles II. Owing to the recent restoration of the monarchy, the government took any accusation with gravity and led to legislation excluding Catholics from the throne with the Act of Settlement of 1701, further giving rise to two political party factions, the Tories who were opposed and the Whigs in favour of prohibiting Catholics from rule.

recapitulation theory

Having before seen some of the precocious handiwork of Charles Darwin’s children, we enjoyed this curated collection from Open Culture of the early drawings of the immanent scientist whose offspring matured beyond test subjects and objects of academic curiosity into laboratory assistants and apprentice researchers themselves with several becoming scientists in their own right. Interest born to a degree out of melancholy and self-preservation, these illustrations and what they prefigure provides a nice counter-balance.  Much more to explore at the link above.