Russian missiles are too fast so Ukraine jams them with music
The Kinzhal is one of Russia’s most fearsome missiles. Streaking at Mach 5.7 as high as 15.5 miles in the air, the 4.7-ton missile can deliver a 1,000-pound warhead over a distance of 300 miles. It’s so fast that Ukraine’s best kinetic air defenses, its U.S.-made Patriot missiles, often struggle to hit incoming Kinzhals. Good news for Ukraine. One of the country’s most popular strategic electronic warfare systems, Lima EW, now works against the Kinzhal, according to the system’s user. Not only are the operators from the Night Watch unit using Lima EW to take down Kinzhals — around a dozen in just the last two weeks — they’re doing it in style: by replacing the incoming missiles’ satellite navigation signals with a popular patriotic Ukrainian anthem, “Our Father Is Bandera.” Bandera was a popular Ukrainian insurgent during World War II. (via Trench Art)
Researchers have found evidence that the ancient Egyptians dabbled in opiates
A detailed chemical analysis of residues found in an alabaster vase dedicated to King Xerxes, who ruled an ancient empire in what is now Iran from 486 to 465 B.C., identified traces of the narcotic substance. The results provide the most conclusive evidence yet that opiates were a major part of daily life in ancient Egyptian society, say the researchers, who work in the Yale Ancient Pharmacology Program. They published their findings in the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology.“When a rare, expertly crafted alabastron bearing a king’s name yields the same opium signature found in more humble tomb assemblages from hundreds of years earlier, we can’t dismiss the results as accidental contamination or the experimentation of the socially elite,” wrote Yale researcher Christopher Renton, one of the study authors, in an email. (via Nautilus)
They won $4 million in two different lotteries and the odds against this are one in 2 trillion
An Ocean County couple with two young children claimed a $3 million scratch-off lottery prize last week just months after claiming a $1 million jackpot in another scratch-off game. The “Jackpot Millions” scratch-off game ticket was purchased Thursday at the Exxon convenience store on Fischer Boulevard in Toms River, New Jersey Lottery officials said Monday. The game, which costs $30 per ticket, started in October and now has two top-prizes of $3 million remaining. The couple won their first prize in April with the “$1,000,000 Ultimate Spectacular,” a $30 scratch-off game also purchased in Ocean County. The combined odds of winning both jackpots are roughly 1 in 2 trillion, lottery officials said. The couple, who are raising a 5-year-old and an 11-month-old, claimed the prizes anonymously, but provided statements shared by lottery officials. (via NJ.com)
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.
We still believe many wrong things about the Black Death thanks to a 14th century poem
In a study recently published in the Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, historians at the UK’s University of Exeter argue the infamous plague likely didn’t move across the continent as quickly as many experts thought. The reason for the common misconception? A 14th century literary tale recounting the dangerous exploits of a fictional, traveling trickster. For decades, most experts believed the plague arose in China before sweeping westward in a matter of years via the Silk Road, and many researchers still contend it took barely a decade for the Black Death to travel as far west as the Black Sea by the 1340s. This “Quick Transit Theory” has remained one of the most popular hypotheses explaining the plague’s advancement. But the theory’s primary evidence isn’t based on genetic records. Instead, it stems from Risālat al-nabaʾ ʿan al-wabāʾ (“An Essay on the Report of the Pestilence”), a story penned by poet and historian Ibn al-Wardi in Aleppo, Syria, around 1348 CE. (via Popular Science)
This word dollar originated in this tiny town in Czechoslovakia in the 16th century
The US dollar is the most widely used currency in the world. It is both the primary de facto global tender and the world’s unofficial gold standard. According to the Federal Reserve, 58% of the planet’s financial reserves are held in US dollars – more than double the total foreign holdings of euros, yen and renminbi combined. Thirty-one nations have either adopted it as their official currency or named their money after it; 65 countries peg the value of their currencies to it; and it’s now accepted in places as far-flung as North Korea, Siberia and research stations on the North Pole. Yet, one place where the dollar is not accepted is in the tiny Czech town of Jáchymov – which is ironic, because it was here, tucked deep into the wooded folds of Bohemia’s Krušné hory mountains, where the dollar originated more than 500 years ago around the year 1520. Welcome to Jáchymov: a sleepy 2,300-person town near the Czech-German border that’s both the home of the dollar and the home of no dollars. (via the BBC)
In 2017 developers were challenged to make the worst volume control imaginable
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
