In a cave 800 feet down, divers found a human body

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. As many of you probably know, 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 Ghost 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. And I appreciate it, believe me! If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else, and thanks for being a reader.

From Outside: "Ten minutes into his dive, Dave Shaw started to look for the bottom. Utter blackness pressed in on him from all sides, and he directed his high-intensity light downward, hoping for a flash of rock or mud. Shaw, a 50-year-old Aussie, was in an alien world, more than 800 feet below the surface pool that marks the entrance to Bushman’s Hole, a remote sinkhole in the Northern Cape province of South Africa and the third-deepest freshwater cave known to man. Only two divers had ever been to this depth in Bushman’s before. One of them, a South African named Nuno Gomes, had claimed a world record in 1996 when he hit bottom, on open-circuit gear, at 927 feet. Shaw touched down and started swimming. Suddenly, he stopped. About 50 feet to his left, perfectly illuminated in the gin-clear water, was a human body."

A shocking crime divided a Minnesota town

From The Atavist: "Grand Marais is a quiet outpost on Lake Superior’s North Shore, set among boreal forest in the easternmost corner of Minnesota. The town of roughly 1,300 is home to a mix of artists and outdoor enthusiasts, working-class people and professionals, liberals and diehard Trump supporters. The residents of Grand Marais have had a lot to discuss in recent years. A suspicious fire that destroyed the historic Lutsen Lodge. The suicide of their neighbor Mark Pavelich, a star on the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team that defeated the Soviet Union. Plans for the 40 acres owned by convicted sex offender Warren Jeff’s fundamentalist clan. All those events stirred plenty of talk. But nothing has captivated local conversation quite like what happened between Larry Scully and Levi Axtell in March 2023. A shocking act of violence attracted international attention and split the town over questions of truth and justice."

In Singapore it's illegal to drive across the border with less than three quarters of a tank of gas

From Now I Know: "Singapore, if you’re not familiar with the nation, is a tiny city-state on an island of the same name. It is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. And it is also home to some of the highest gasoline prices in the world — by design. Singapore has a culture where car ownership is actively discouraged by the government. To further encourage the use of that system and discourage driving, the government taxes gas heavily. But while that’s true for Singapore, the opposite is the case for its only neighbor, Malaysia’s population density is around the world average, and in many places, there isn’t adequate public transportation. As a result, car ownership and use is very common. The nation is also one of the larger petroleum producers in the world, extracting 500,000 barrels or so each day. Gas is cheap there — much cheaper than in most of the rest of the world, and certainly much cheaper than it is in Singapore."

Celebrities have to pay $75,000 to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

From People magazine: "The historic Hollywood Walk of Fame was first established in 1960 and has since installed over 2,000 stars along Hollywood Boulevard Vine Street. While the Walk of Fame ceremonies are always a grand event, many small details go into the starry finished product that viewers might not realize — like that recipients have to apply for a star and there’s a sponsorship fee once they’re selected. While Martinez notes that usually it’s the celebrity’s studio or record label that nominates them for a star, anyone can nominate, including a fan (there is a special “Springsteen clause” that requires a celebrity's consent, which came to be after a fan nominated Bruce Springsteen without clearing it with The Boss himself.) In addition to a $250 fee to submit an application, there is also a sponsorship fee of $75,000 upon selection, which pays for the creation and installation of the star."

The top of Mount Everest used to be at the bottom of the sea

From Montana.edu: "The rock that comprises the "summit pyramid" or uppermost part of Mount Everest is gray limestone that was deposited on the northern continental shelf of northern India during the early to middle Ordovician Period of the Paleozoic Era, long before India began its northward journey towards Eurasia and the eventual collision of tectonic plates that uplifted the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau. Called the "Qomolangma Limestone" by geologists, the summit rocks are well-bedded limestone (grainstone) with fragments of common Ordovician marine invertebrate shells, such as trilobites, brachiopods, ostracods and crinoids. The Qomolangma Limestone has been altered by heat, pressure and fluids that have altered the original limestone, so it is now a low-grade metamorphic rock. These rocks have been brought to the roof of the world through continual uplift caused by the collision of India and Eurasia."

Visual proof that a single centimeter can make a big difference

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