Matilda's Lab Newsletter #47
This week we go gigging, celebrate Mum, release a new song, discover radiation resistant worms, get affected by the orbit of Mars and attempt to recreate not only woolly mammoths, but life itself!
What we’ve been up to
The week kicked off with Mothering Sunday which is the perfect oppotunity to pay tribute to Matilda and Nathaneil’s mum. The only reason that I can invest so much time and attention into writing newsletters, science lesson, songs, recording those songs and drawing pictures, etc, is because Cat supports all of us so well. Children, even ones as amazing as ours, are hard work and teamwork is definitely the best way to deal with it. I was once in a management training course where we had to name the best team that we had ever been a part of and I had to refer to my marriage.
The most valuable people in your life aren’t just the ones who support you and back you up. They are the people who push you to be more than you were before and to become a more rounded person. This is exactly what Cat provides to all of us.
So Sunday was all about trying to make her feel special. Breakfast in bed (even if is was just a bowl of serial). Cards and presents (she finally has her own piece of Matilda’s Lab apparel), and lunch out are her choice of restaurant.
She then went to a spa for a few well derserved treatments. Which meant it was up to me to look after the kids. What fun…
And if that wasn’t enough. On Saturday night we took Nathaniel to his first gig (if you don’t count one of my own). We went to see the wonderful folk duo Megson. Matilda and I have been before but now we were going as a whole family. As expected, it was a great show, but one late enough to result in two very tired children.
New Blog content
No surprises for guessing the first update. The map of life grows again! It now has it’s first scorpion.
It’s also time to release the next Matilda Lab song; “Immortality”. I'm really happy with this track. It's so much more chilled than the other science songs and more subtle.
The song emerged from the lesson that I wrote about vampires. There's a small section there about immortal beings and their feasibility. I decided to make it a little more poetic and put it to tune, and now it's out there for everyone to enjoy.
From the Archive
It’s ironic that I release the next song, that deflects attention from the last track “Pi” on the week of Pi Day (March 14th, or 3/14, for American daters). So much for planning.
But the 14th of March is much more than that. It’s also Einstein’s birthday, so I shared this:
And it’s also the anniversary of the death of Stephen Hawking (whose career was largely based on the works of Einstein), which meant that I really had to share this one too.
Science News
It’s been a bit quiet for a while, so clearly it’s time for another story about resurrecting Mammoths. This one is due to the creation of stem cells from regular Asian elephant cells. Unlike regular cells, stem cells can go on to become any cell in that creature. The mammoth idea is a bit of headline grabbing distraction, but an aspiration that allows for a lot of important work to be comepleted that could contributing to saving many other currently vulnerable species. So whilst this is a good thing, don’t expect mammoths back any time soon.
Microscopic worms living in Chernobyl for decades appear to have been completely unaffected by the high levels of radiation in the area. That sounds like it could be useful.
Another potential step in re-enacting the origin of life from non-living things has been been achieved. This adds backing to a theory of life’s origins know as the RNA world hypothesis, which isn’t a million miles away from the the primordial soup idea.
Whilst astrology may have no scientific backing, that’s not to say that the planets don’t affect life here on Earth. The moon may give us tides, but a new theory suggests that Mars’s graviational influenze is driving deep ocean whirlpools.
Human’s spend so much time pointing out how different we are from other animals, yet we then seem to struggle understanding how different those animals are to us. A new study of some 400 mammals provides another examples of how different we are. It over half of cases, mammalian females are just as large or are larger than males.
Kicking back
Now for something a bit less newsworthy…
Kids aren’t stupid…neither are parents
I didn’t see that (literally) coming
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.