Scientists recreated a 3,000-year-old mummy's voice
From The Smithsonian: "In the nearly 200 years since his mummy’s arrival at the Leeds City Museum in northern England, an ancient Egyptian priest named Nesyamun has slowly but surely revealed his secrets. Employed as a high-ranking priest and scribe at the Karnak state temple in Thebes, Nesyamun performed rituals filled with both song and speech. Active during the turbulent reign of Ramses XI, who served as Egypt’s pharaoh between 1099 and 1069 B.C., he died in his mid-50s, likely due to a severe allergic reaction, and suffered from ailments including gum disease and heavily worn teeth. And, as evidenced by inscriptions on his coffin, Nesyamun hoped his soul would one day speak to the gods much as he had in life. A new study fulfills the 3,000-year-old priest’s vision of the afterlife, drawing on CT scans of his surprisingly intact vocal tract to engineer an approximation of his voice. The sound bite was created with a speech synthesizing tool called the Vocal Tract Organ.”
A charity unknowingly distributed candies laced with lethal doses of methamphetamine
From CNN: "A charity working with homeless people in Auckland, New Zealand unknowingly distributed candies filled with potentially lethal doses of methamphetamine in its food parcels after the sweets were donated by a member of the public. The Auckland City Mission told reporters on Wednesday that staff had started to contact up to 400 people to track down parcels that could contain the sweets — which were solid blocks of methamphetamine enclosed in candy wrappers. New Zealand’s police have opened a criminal investigation. The amount of methamphetamine in each candy was up to 300 times the level someone would usually take and could be lethal, according to the New Zealand Drug Foundation — a drug checking and policy organization, which first tested the candies. Methamphetamine is a powerful, highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. It takes the form of a white, odorless, bitter-tasting crystalline powder that easily dissolves in water or alcohol."
For decades he tended New York's Earth Room art installation, a SoHo loft filled with dirt
From the New York Times: "How much does it weigh? Does it leak? Does anything grow here? For 35 years, Bill Dilworth tended a Manhattan loft filled with dirt, otherwise known as The New York Earth Room, a monumental artwork by Walter De Maria, a lion of Minimalism who died in 2013. And for decades, Mr. Dilworth, an affable abstract artist, patiently fielded those and other questions, noting the more intriguing ones, and the visitors who posed them, in a notebook he kept for that purpose. The Earth Room is an extravagant, startling artwork — 280,000 pounds of dark, chocolaty soil, about two feet deep — on the second floor of an early artists’ co-op in a former manufacturing building on Wooster Street, in the heart of SoHo. It was intended to be temporary, a three-month-long exhibit. But Mr. Friedrich — who had formed a foundation to support work like Mr. De Maria’s —decided that The New York Earth Room should be one of its showpieces. It opened to the public, free of charge, in 1980."
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.
No one knows the purpose behind India's ancient "dwarf chambers"
From the BBC: "At first glance, Hire Benkal might be mistaken for any other village nestled in Karnataka's lush interior. Surrounded by rocky hillocks, mango groves, small brick kilns and fields fed by a nearby canal, it exudes a languid, laid-back charm characteristic of rural South India. However, scattered across a granite-strewn plateau are nearly 1,000 prehistoric megalithic structures that have stood for more than 2,500 years. As far as the eye can see, rows of giant stone chambers resembling houses and stone circles stretch across the landscape, forming one of the oldest and largest necropolises in India. Some formations housed rock shelters with red ochre paintings dating from 700-500 BCE, many still vivid with scenes of creatures resembling cattle and boar. Historians believe the formations were created as an ancient burial or commemorative site. However, its exact purpose remains a mystery."
A motif featuring three rabbits shows up repeatedly across many different cultures
From Wikipedia: "The three hares (or three rabbits) is a circular motif appearing in sacred sites from China, the Middle East and the churches and synagogues of Europe, in particular those of Devon, England. It is used as an architectural ornament, a religious symbol, and in other modern works of art or a logo for adornment (including tattoos), jewelry, and a coat of arms. It is viewed as a puzzle, a visual challenge, and has been rendered as sculpture, drawing, and painting. The symbol features three hares or rabbits chasing each other in a circle. The symbol of the three hares has a threefold rotational symmetry. Each of the ears is shared by two hares, so that only three ears are shown. It is thought to have a range of symbolic or mystical associations with fertility and the lunar cycle. but its origins and original significance are uncertain."
What Mount Fuji looks like from 30,000 feet
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
