Matilda's Lab Newsletter #91
This week sees the end of an era. We also have a new view of quantum shenanigans, how we can see better sounding music, Neanderthal butchery culture and a picture of a solar system being born.
What we’ve been up to
Matilda has finished primary school. She started all the back when she was 3 years old, in the school nursery. We navigated her lessons there through the COVID pandemic and now, 7 years on, she has finally said goodbye. I believe that she is feeling a strange mixture of both nervousness and excitement about start high school in September which is fully understandable; she won’t remember a time when she wasn’t going to that school every day.
Nathaniel is hitting his own milestone. As Matilda finishes school, he finishes nursery. Like Matilda before him, he will return to the same school in September, but he will now officially be in Reception and a proper part of the schooling system. Right now, they have both gone to spend some time with their Grandparents, which is giving Cat and I a peaceful week, where we only have to contend with work and our canine fur babies.
Despite this brief respite, the summer holidays remain an event for the children more than it is for working adults, hence we took another weekend trip away in the caravan. It was a first though, because we had never been camping with our neighbours before. Their son is a couple of months older than Nathaniel (but frustratingly, an entire academic year older) and their daughter is two; she really brings out Matilda’s more caring side. We visited Anglesey, the island that sits a bridge crossing of the northwest of Wales, on what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year so far.
I keep forgetting just how beautiful this part of the world is, with Snowdonia dominating the horizon. The dogs had a wonderful time chasing each other through the Menai strait, which separates the island from the mainland, which I completely missed just how much I was catching the sun on my neck! By night, we were trying to work out what metropolis was glowing so brightly behind the Snowdonian range in contrast to the otherwise perfectly black and cloudless sky. Our question was answered when we started to see the even brighter face of the moon emerging from behind the hills. Whilst work continues to be two handfuls of busyness, weekends like this are worth their weight in gold.
New Blog content
I’ve been shirking my responsibilities, and I’ve not generated any new content since the last newsletter, how bad is that? I promise that I will do better. I have been working on the Map of Life, but the new build is taking me a bit longer that I had originally planned on. I’ve also written a new instalment of the history of science, I just need to produce an illustration for it.
7 Days is still new newest single. Whist the track came together fairly quickly, it took me a long time to polish it off. This week, I was explaining to Nathaniel that this is the newest song that I’ve released. He found that hard to believe because he’s already been listening to it for months. He already knows a lot of the words and enjoys singing along.
From the Archive
Recent revisits have taken us back to ancient Jericho…
… and we’ve paid homage to one of my musical heroes.
Science News
It’s been another busy new week.
There is so much about the weird world of quantum that we don’t understand. Like how information can move faster than the speed of light, or how particles can tunnel through solid barriers. Well, for the first time, a team has witnessed the dynamics of a quantum tunnelling electron, and they weren’t expecting what they saw.
I’ve been a bit of a musical purist for a long time, but it seems that this may be a rather unnatural aspiration. Presentation & performance counts because vision can make music sound better!
Forget the paleo-diet and knuckle dragging cavemen. New evidence suggests that cultural Neanderthal butchery techniques were spread throughout a local community.
Social media has a lot to answer for in relation to the great political divides that we see across the world at the moment, but it seems that the disruptive movement of highly polarised political stances received a boost from (of all things) COVID.
Some people are happy to be exhibitionists, for others, the idea of drawing attention to themselves fills them with nothing but dread. Other people can be a big source of stress, and a new study has found that extroverts simply may have learned how to handle daily stress better.
Kicking back
Request registered. Request denied.
It’s not a fault, it’s a feature. We spend our whole life making sense of weird stuff that shouldn’t!
I love beautiful data. This is a representation of global shipping lanes.
This is a news story in picture form. For the first time, astronomers witness the dawn of a new solar system.
Finally, I was sent this wonderful link to more UK climate than you can shake a stick. Check out if your local area is above or below average temperatures (thanks, Andy):
https://istheukhotrightnow.com/
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 the best new science content each week.
Until next time, treat every day like a school day and find those lessons to learn.