LINKS - March 23rd, 2022
Welcome to LINKS — my attempt to provide Rhapsody readers with five interesting stories that tell us something about what it means to be human. LINKS is published every Wednesday. Have a link you want to share? Drop it in the comments.
The Golden Fleece paradox
By Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, The Past
“The Caucasus were home to some of the world’s earliest and most proficient goldsmiths. Despite an association between this metal and the mountains that became so strong it was woven into mythology, gold artefacts more or less disappear from a large part of the region for a period of some seven centuries. Nathaniel Erb-Satullo investigates why.”
Can science understand everything? NASA scientists attempt to answer the question
By Ruth Jarman & Joe Gerhardt, Aeon/Semiconductor Films
“This short documentary is built around a single question posed in 2005-6 to scientists working at the NASA Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley: ‘Do you think science can understand everything?’ Most of them pause or take a deep breath before venturing out on such thin ice. From seeking clarity on the meaning of the question, to weighing careful, nuanced answers, to relative certainty one way or the other, their perspectives provide a fascinating window on to the varying motivations and world views of scientists working at the frontiers of human knowledge.”
Is Geometry a Language That Only Humans Know?
By Siobhan Roberts, New York Times
“Neuroscientists are exploring whether shapes like squares and rectangles — and our ability to recognize them — are part of what makes our species special.”
Greenland’s Vikings may have vanished because they ran out of water
By Colin Barras, Science
“For more than 450 years, Norse settlers from Scandinavia lived—sometimes even thrived—in southern Greenland. Then, they vanished. Their mysterious disappearance in the 14th century has been linked to everything from plummeting temperatures and poor land management to plague and pirate raids. Now, researchers have discovered an additional factor that might have helped seal the settlers’ fate: drought.”
Portals of Discovery
“On this hundredth anniversary, we shouldn’t waste our time debating whether anyone still needs to read Ulysses, or whether Joyce is just another entitled straight white man, or whether something like Ulysses would be published today. We should instead remember how Ulysses was created in the first place and how far American culture is from recreating those same conditions today. In the same way that our conversations about the canon are backward—thinking we can reengineer a better society by reshuffling the mix of artists who get the imprimatur of genius—our attempts at cultural production are also backward. We’ve sequestered our cultural production, our critical culture, and our target audience into the university and other airless institutions, not only erasing and ignoring the work done outside of them—there is, after all, nothing new in that—but also actively trying to destroy it.”