Matilda's Lab Newsletter #36
This week we prepare for Christmas, we have white alligators, giant sea monsters and information that appears from nothing, we start our advent calendar and move an island.
The drive towards Christmas has well and truly begun
What we’ve been up to
I concluded my week of looking after Nathaniel whilst he’s between childcare by taking a trip to the zoo (of course). If there is one thing that Nathaniel likes, it’s a routine; so he generally wants to see the same things every time that we go. This time his hit-list was: elephants, monkeys, butterflies and lemurs.
We have some work to do though. Currently, he does like visiting the bat cave and he says that he doesn’t like sharks (no trouble with that at the zoo now, see newsletter # for details). I didn’t really have a problem with Matilda here, but the love doesn’t seem universal. I’m not too worried though. I remember that Matilda went through a very stereotypical pink girly phase. Not something that she ever got from home. But she have come out of the other side of that now. Now, Nathaniel is the biggest fan of pink in our house. At these ages, likes, dislikes and preferences change all of the time.
This week Matilda had her school Christmas play. They did Panto Pandemonium. Unfortunately I can’t share any pictures as the school understandably don’t want pictures of the kids posted over the internet. Matilda had a few lines at the start of the show and she was wonderful. It been lovely to see how devotedly she’s been learning all of the song. I feel like I should record some alternative versions of the new science songs and give her a chance to do the lead vocals on them.
Work has been busy again, with me travelling around for a 3 day long audit. But that’s all out of the way now so I’m hoping for a slightly smoother week before the Christmas break.
New Blog content
Still no new content this week. Although I have been doing a lot of build work on the map of life recently. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of growth in that in the New Year.
From the Archive
I’m a bit late, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t started this year’s advent calendar yet. This is something that I do every year. I look back at the blog stats from the current year and then countdown to the most popular until Christmas Eve. Here are some picks from since I remembered to start.
Science News
Let’s see what passes for festive science news these days:
Some super rare alligators have been hatched. Genetic anomalies which are almost albino but their eyes are unaffected.
It may seem like there’s not much left to discover about ancient monuments, think again. It’s been found that bacteria, lichens and mosses that are growing on the Great Wall of China are actually helping to hold the structure together.
I like this story as it will cause some more backpedalling by evangelical creationists who argue that evolution can only remove genetic information and cannot create new genes. A mechanism has been discovered that allows new genes to arise “from nothing”.
A new giant fossil has been discovered. The most detailed 2 meters of aquatic pliosaur ever discovered. If a 2m pliosaur does not sound all that big to you, then you’d be right. But that 2m is only the skull! The rest of the animal is yet to be found.
Kicking back
Fun time…click the links to brighten your day with fun things that I’ve found elsewhere.
So close, yet so far, part 1
So close, yet so far, part 2
Some people just want to watch the world burn
Give this a miss if you don’t like snakes or spiders (although, there is NO spider)
Can we have our island back please?
Harry Potter, eat your heart out
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.