A gay paraplegic had a key role in the early days of Marvel

From Flaming Hydra: "The best-kept secret in the history of Marvel Comics was in high dudgeon by the time he sat down at his typewriter. It was a July afternoon in 1971, and Ron Whyte, a playwright and activist, was about to hammer out an ill-advised letter. Truth be told, there may have been some pills involved: he had just finished the 15-minute ordeal of strapping on the prosthetics that he had used to walk since the age of 20, when the doctors had amputated what remained of his legs, and he’d long since relied on a variety of drugs for help with the pain he experienced as a gay, poor, legally blind, paraplegic double amputee. What we know is that Ron Whyte was at Marvel Comics in 1966, where he worked with Stan Lee and Roy Thomas. And curiously,  in the large collection of Ron Whyte's papers at Yale University there are scripts for some of the most storied and beloved comics — comics eventually published in Stan Lee’s name."

Two hundred thousand eggs disappeared and then came the ransom note

From the Washington Post: "The hens were unaware of the heist. Before the product of their labor was an item on a police report, it was a shipment headed from Maryland to Florida: 280,000 brown eggs. They belonged to Cal-Maine Foods, which boasts being number one in the pecking order of egg supply. About 1 of every 5 eggs sold in America are laid by a Cal-Maine hen. They line the refrigerated shelves of Walmarts, Costcos and other supermarkets, labeled Eggland’s Best, Land O’Lakes and other brands. By gobbling up its competitors, Cal-Maine built an egg empire without most egg eaters knowing the company’s name. But by the April afternoon when the 280,000 eggs left the farm, that was beginning to change. A winter spike in bird flu was widely seen as the cause of empty shelves and eggs doubling or tripling in price."

An investigation into why so many dads like to watch TV standing up

From GQ: "We hold this truth to be self-evident: Dads watch TV while standing up. This tendency has become fodder for memes, numerous comedy videos, and even a commercial for a major streaming service. But why? After an informal survey of dads on Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook (more of a grandpa platform now, but still), talking to others, and some dubiously scientific data analysis, I’ve drawn numerous conclusions about this phenomenon—and raised several more questions. I’ve received reports of dads who clutch the remote control while standing to watch Jeopardy! I’ve heard tell of at least one dad who stands directly in front of the TV, prompting his family to remark that he makes a better door than a window. (Using a dad joke against a dad?) Writer Anna Gifty described standing to watch TV as “very West African dad coded” and that she “doesn’t know a single father who doesn’t do it.” Comedian Emily Winter says every dad she’s ever met consumes entertainment while at attention."

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

A limestone figurine found in a farmers' field in Poland is over 6,000 years old

From the Art Newspaper: "A figure found by a Polish farmer near the Baltic coastal city of Kołobrzeg has been confirmed as a 6,000-year-old figurine depicting a woman. The 12-centimetre-high beige limestone piece is being called the "Venus of Kołobrzeg" because of its similarity to other historical Venus figures found in Europe, which are thought to be fertility symbols due to their exaggerated breasts. Historians have suggested they could have been used in rituals or ceremonies aimed at celebrating fertility and ensuring the survival and prosperity of the local community. “I can safely say that this is the find of the century,” Aleksander Ostasz, director of the artefact’s destination, the Polish Arms Museum in Kołobrzeg, told National Geographic. “What was discovered … is truly something phenomenal, extraordinary.” The figure was found in December 2022 by a farmer in a village near the Parsęta river, close to Kołobrzeg.

This artist goes into the woods and records the music of trees and plants

From Nautilus: "On a crisp April morning, Lucas Gutierrez, a multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin, walks over to a 150-year-old oak inside Castello di Potentino’s wine estate in Tuscany. “This branch should work,” he says, and carefully places two small electrodes on each side of a leaf. A few seconds later, the screen of the device attached to the electrodes lights up. “It’s picking something up,” Gutierrez says. Plants generate electrical signals when chloride ions and other compounds move across cell membranes during activities like photosynthesis or respiration, the conversion of oxygen and sugars into energy. Similar to an EEG machine, where electrodes are applied to the skull to detect brainwaves, the device used by Gutierrez, which is called a MIDI Sprout, can detect plants’ electrical signals and convert them into audio files."

An ancient Scandinavian technique for singing to cows to bring them in from a field

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy's Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova's The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com