She refused to give up her seat months before Rosa Parks
Claudette Colvin, whose refusal in 1955 to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala., came months before it was overshadowed by a similar act of resistance in the same city by Rosa Parks, a historic moment that helped galvanize the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday in Texas. She was 86. She was just 15 when she boarded a Montgomery city bus on March 2, 1955. The seating was segregated, with Black riders forced to the back. To add to the indignity, Black riders were not allowed to occupy the same row as white riders, which meant that they had to move back even if there were empty seats. Her arrest was big news in Montgomery. Many felt that the time was ripe for a mass protest against local segregation laws, starting with public transit. But local civil rights leaders decided not to make Ms. Colvin their symbol of discrimination. She was, she later said, too dark-skinned and too poor to win the crucial support of Montgomery’s Black middle class. (via the NYT)
You might not have noticed but Apple made a big change in the laptop displays at its stores
Apple employees were once instructed to ensure that the screens of all laptops displayed in its stores were angled at exactly 70 degrees. But a while back, that instruction changed, a source tells Business Insider: Now, Apple laptop screens must all be set at exactly 76 degrees. The reason remains the same: The laptop screens tempt customers to adjust the screens when they look at a new Macbook. That requires them to touch the screen, thus letting them feel the full benefit of that all-metal seamless casing and the dampened hinge that sets the screen just-so. The new angle will make the laptops look just a leeetle bit more closed than they were before. Apple store employees use the Simply Angle app on their iPhones to get this angle just right. Simply Angle is an automated angle-measurer, a bit like a protractor, except that it uses the accelerometer on your iPhone to read off what angle the phone is being held at. (via Business Insider)
A physicist did a study and found that toast is more likely to fall butter-side down
Why does toast tend to land butter-side down? Physicist Robert Matthews shows it’s not just bad luck or selective memory, it’s physics. Toast typically begins to rotate as it tips off a table, but the height of most tables (~75 cm) is just enough for it to rotate about half a turn, landing butter-side down. This isn’t due to butter's weight or aerodynamics, which are negligible. Rather, it's about the torque and time during the fall. In this paper, Matthews builds a detailed dynamical model of the toast’s tumble and shows experimentally that under realistic conditions (with little horizontal velocity), there's a built-in bias toward a butter-side down landing. Surprisingly, this bias is linked to fundamental constants: table height is constrained by human height, which in turn is limited by biomechanical stability and molecular bond strength. Given the values of fundamental constants, the result is universal — all intelligent, human-like beings are doomed to drop toast butter-side down. (via Fermat's Library)
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.
The world's slowest race is the annual World Snail Racing Championship in the UK
The annual World Snail Racing Championships held in Norfolk, UK is conducted on a 33-cm circular course, outside St Andrews Church. The runners race from the centre to the perimeter. Some race several times as they are divided into heats to cater for the 150 snail competitors who enter every year. The all-time record holder is a snail named Archie, trained by Carl Bramham, who sprinted to the winning post in 2 min 00 sec in 1995. Like all great racing champions, he was sent to stud in a cabbage patch. The World Snail Racing Championships have been held every year since 1967, with the busiest years being 2000 and 2001, each attracting a record 250 gastropod entrants. The event has only been cancelled four times - three because of the COVID-19 pandemic and once because the pitch was waterlogged. On two occasions, the same snail has returned to defend its title: in 2001 for Eddie Irvine, and 2017 for Herbie 2. (via Guinness Records)
Sharks and rays have sensory organs that are designed to detect electrical signals
Ampullae of Lorenzini are electroreceptors, sense organs able to detect electric fields. They form a network of mucus-filled pores in the skin of cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, and chimaeras) and of fishes such as reedfish, sturgeon, and lungfish. They are associated with and evolved from the mechanosensory lateral line organs of early vertebrates. Most bony fishes and terrestrial vertebrates have lost their ampullae of Lorenzini. Ampullae of Lorenzini are associated with and evolved from the mechanosensory lateral line organs of early vertebrates. Ampullae of Lorenzini also contribute to the ability to receive geomagnetic information. As magnetic and electrical fields are related, magnetoreception via electromagnetic induction is possible. Magnetoreception may explain the ability of sharks and rays to form strict migratory patterns and to identify their geographic location. (via Wikipedia)
Most days feel a little like this now
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places 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 and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com
