The secret reason that the US beat Russia to the moon

From Big Think: "Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union was far ahead of the USA in the space race, launching the first satellite, the first human into space, and many other spaceflight firsts. This dominance continued for several years, and by the mid-1960s, they were planning a 1967 Moon landing: years ahead of even the most ambitious schedule for the United States. After the disastrous Apollo 1 fire, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Soviets would be the first to walk on the Moon. Yet they never even came close. The unexpected illness and death of one supremely competent but unsung Soviet figure, Sergei Korolev, changed everything. Without Korolev as the chief designer, everything went downhill quickly for the Soviets."

A mysterious nerve disease in a mountain town might be a result of poisonous mushrooms

From Knowable: "Well known to skiers, the French mountain town of Montchavin has grabbed the attention of medical researchers as the site of a highly unusual cluster of a devastating neurological disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS is both rare and rather evenly distributed across the globe: It afflicts two to three new people out of 100,000 per year. Montchavin's year-round resident population is only a couple hundred, and neighboring villages aren’t much bigger, so the odds are strongly against finding more than just a few ALS patients in the immediate area. Yet physicians have reported 14. he notion that something in food might cause ALS does not come out of the blue. It comes from Guam, where US medical researchers, near the end of World War II, documented an epidemic of neurological disease among the island’s native Chamorro people."

An illustrated manuscript from the 16th century is written in an unknown language

From Amusing Planet: "The Rohonc Codex is a 448-page illustrated manuscript book written by an unknown author in an unknown language that has baffled scholars and historians since it was discovered at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in mid 19th century. The codex is named after the Hungarian city of Rohonc, where it was kept until it was donated to the Academy in 1838. The total number of symbols used in the book is around 800 which is about ten times higher than any known alphabet, but most symbols are used with little repetition, so the it might not be an alphabet, but instead a syllabary. The illustrations seem to indicate an environment where Christian, pagan, and Muslims coexist, as the cross, crescent, and sun/swastika are all present."

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.

Can goats predict earthquakes? These scientists think so

From The Guardian: "Scientists are enlisting some unusual recruits in their efforts to forecast earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural phenomena. They are enrolling thousands of dogs, goats, and other farmyard animals – as well as a wide range of wildlife – in studies that will monitor their movements from space. The programme uses tiny transmitters that are being fitted to mammals, birds and insects. The detailed movements of these creatures will then be monitored from a dedicated satellite to be launched next year. The value of studying tagged animals in this latter area has already been demonstrated in early experiments in Sicily on the slopes of Mount Etna, said Wikelski. “We have found the behaviour of goats is pretty good at predicting large volcanic eruptions.”

No one is sure of Cleopatra's ancestry, and some scholars think she was Black

From Wikipedia: "The ethnicity of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian-led Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, has caused debate in some circles. There is a general consensus among scholars that she was predominantly of Macedonian Greek ancestry and minorly of Iranian descent. Others, including some scholars and laymen, have speculated whether she may have had additional ancestries. For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in Ebony magazine in 2002. Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the Black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J. A. Rogers called World's Great Men of Color, although the idea of Cleopatra as black goes back to the 19th century."

Mount Everest is covered in human waste including 12,000 kilos of excrement

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