Matilda's Lab Newsletter #50
This week get bricky. We have flowers that feel electricity and talk to other flowers about it, a catharsis warning, ancient fox buddies and that time our moon turned itself inside out!
I’ve struggled this week. Work has been busy, home has been busy and I’ve just been in a bit of a lull. Nevertheless, let’s newsletter the week that was.
What we’ve been up to
Not a great deal. The weather continues to be horrendous, with wind and rain every single day; so we’ve been spending a lot of time at home. But home does open up possibilities. Whilst the kids had fun playing with Play-doh, I decided to raid the Lego. I’ve been studying insect form recent with a mind of improving my drawing of them; but I decided to apply what I have learnt in the medium of plastic bricks.
Cat has been away with work a bit this week, and the dishwasher has been broken. When you only realistically have a couple of hours a day to do things that you want to, the inabilityto take your lunch break and another hour of doing the washing and sorting out the children alone leaves you a) tired and b) with no time left to do anything else. I honestly don’t know how single parents do it and I am so grateful that I usually don’t have to.
So, it’s not fun or exciting, but that has been our week.
New Blog content
I was all ready to go with a new instalmentof the history of science. The next development on my list was bronze. So I’ve prepared a whole bit on the bronze age, with an illustration and everything. As I was putting the dates on the artwork it made me stop and think, “ that doesn’t look right”. So, it turns out that the bronze age didn’t start until a thousand years after the earliest bronze artefacts. So, it’s back to the drawing board on that one.
So in the absence of any other new content to share with you, it’s the last week to share Immortality as the newest single. Next week I’m due to release the next single, so keep an eye out for that.
From the Archive
Nope. It really has been another one of those weeks.
Science News
I did manage to find a handful of science stories this, if nothing else:
Many people swear by catharsis, but new evidence supports the growing case that venting frustration doesn’t help you recover from anger, it actually intensifies it. Giving in to the dark side may actually turn you into a Sith Lord!
There are parts of the moon’s surface that have confused people for a long time. The evidence now suggests that early in its history, the surface of the moon turned itself inside out!
Remember that God particle? The Higgs boson, which was such a big fuss a few years ago. It is a very important particle in explaining why the universe is the way it was, which is why showing it exists was such a big deal. The discover not only made the Higgs boson world famous, it made the man who predicted it, Peter Higgs, world famous too. And he hated it! He didn’t want limelight or attention, he just wanted to be left alone to get on with his work. This week, aged 94, Peter Higgs died. He did a pretty good job of dodging the attention aimed at him, but this is one case where the phrase Rest In Pease feels truly appropriate. Whether he would have wanted it or not, his name is etched into the very fabric of physics and all students of particle physics will be taught his name.
The blog has visited the history of dog domestication a couple of times. This history is of a process that reached a permanent conclusion; with domesticated dogs. What we don’t always see are processes that began but didn’t stick. A new discovery has shown that in ancient South America, people lived so closely alongside foxes that they were being buried with them.
It’s time to marvel at nature again. It turns out that flowers can sense that bees are approaching to collect nectar using electricity. They then tell the other flowers what they know.
Kicking back
Building this section is always a ray of light in my week, hopefully it brings some joy to yours too.
We’ve all seen domino rallies, but tongue depressor rallies? There’s nothing depressing about that!
Whenever you see the sun, you’re looking into the past.
It is your first time? Don’t worry, we’ll go easy on you…
If you want to film dangerous animals with drones, watch and take note.
A picture that tells a thousand stories. It certainly puts my week into perspective.
That’s it for this week.
Please feel free to get in contact with any questions, suggestions or comments either via Substack or at matildaslab@gmail.com.
Please share this with anyone who you think will appreciate it. And remember to share with me any cool sciencey stuff that you find to make sure that I can pack this newsletter with best new science content each week.
Until next time, remember that one person’s old news is another’s revelation; so explore. Sometimes it’s not about being the first up the hill. The view’s still going to be breath-taking, no matter how many people have seen it before you.