Weekly Articles Archive (March 20 - March 27)

 

1. A beautiful, poignant short read that tugs at the heartstrings

I never thought to ask why anyone would lock up books. In my house now, there are books in every room, free for the taking. But back then, they were likely a luxury for my parents. Books, a treasure they found worth protecting... those books were a promise of something sacred between the two of them; an unconditional bond that was more elusive than love.

2. “Physiologically, it would just be an immensely bad idea... A terribly, terribly bad idea.”

“There’s an anti-authoritarian bent to pop-culture wisdom, and a part of that is dealing with food taboos, which are handed down by authorities,” Levinovitz said. “Those are government now, instead of religious. And because they are wrong so often—or, at least, apparently wrong—that’s a good place to go when carving out your own area of authority. If you just eat the ‘wrong’ foods and don’t die, that’s a ritual way to prove that you go against conventional wisdom.”

3. A mind-blowing optical illusion

Overall, this illusion highlights how people may actually perceive and remember far more of the world around them than they intuitively realize.

4. I’m not a look-alike!

What is a look-alike (double, doppelgänger)? A look-alike is someone who looks like another person to the point that there is confusion about them.  In Plautus’ play  Amphitryon, the god Mercury disguises himself as Sosia, Amphitryon’s servant and creates great confusion by his uncanny likeliness.

5. Winners of the 2022 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest

Salted anchovy is the most important raw material to create traditional Vietnamese fish sauce, but anchovies are a little fish with a big impact. When they are overfished, whales, tuna, seabirds, and other marine predators that rely on them as a dietary staple face starvation and population decline. Vietnam is facing an anchovy-overfishing situation—according to the survey results of the Institute of Seafood Research, the reserves and catches of anchovies in the waters of Vietnam have decreased by 20 to 30 percent in the past 10 years.