Matilda's Lab Newsletter #37
We bring in the New Year with our festive break, a dolphin with 'thumbs', terror beasts, ancient toothpaste, and new take on Coca-Cola vs Pepsi and more new signs of extra-terrestrial life.
Happy New Year!
What we’ve been up to
I kind of goes without saying. We’ve been doing Christmas, New Year and seasonal colds. I didn’t intend on taking so many weeks off doing the newletters, but this is the only time of year where I completely let myself switch off and this year I have fully embraced it.
I have always loved Christmas but it wasn’t until Matilda got old enough to understand what Christmas was that it became magical again for the first since I was a child. And now, Nathaniel is just getting to that age too.
Of course, there is plenty about Christmas that doesn’t sit comfortably with a science blog. A 24 hour global transit under the power of levitating ruminants, and I’m not going anywhere near the religious aspects! But whilst I believe it is important that my children learn the facts about how the world works, sometimes it’s important to know when to set those rules aside. Learning should be a joy, not a chore, and the moment that the results of that learning start impeding on innocent fun then why would you want to do it.
Not all lessons come from a textbook, and sometimes you can learn more by putting them away altogether.
New Blog content
I finally got around to posting a lesson that I had been sitting on for a while. The next instalment of the history of science.
From the Archive
I did keep up with the advent calendar up until Christmas Eve. I won’t share all of the instalments here, but here was the most viewed post of last year.
Science News
I was going to review my favourite stories from 2023 but it’s been long enough since the last edition that there are some new stories to cover:
Yet more organic compounds have been detected on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, further bolstering the case there there could be life on that there moon.
I could do a whole post about this one. Whilst well known people are calling for birds to be vaccinated against bird flu, the case is very complex. No all vaccines are as full proof as measles or polio. Influenza is a particularly hard one to keep under control and the potential consequences of getting its control wrong in poultry could make COVID look like mild incident.
Footage has been found of dolphin which appears to have thumbs. This this is a science newsletter and I take taxonomy very seriously, I will avoid gags about fish fingers.
Back to space, NASA have just taken the most close up pictures of the most volcanic body in the solar system, Jupiter’s moon Io.
I love an extinct monster. Newly discovered fossils have taught us a lot about ‘terror beasts’!
Kicking back
Fun time…click the links to brighten your day with fun things that I’ve found elsewhere.
For every Steve Jobs, there’s a thousand people like these guys
Here’s a search history review of 2023
Eye on the ball, keep your front elbow straight, and may move your feet a little less
Go plane watching they said. It’ll be fun they said…
It’s just a good old fashioned taste test…with ANTS!
Wow, this week we’ve got more golf than you can shake a 5 iron at
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.