The Curious About Everything Newsletter #34
The many interesting things I read in December 2023.
Welcome back to the Curious About Everything Newsletter! CAE 33, last month’s newsletter, is here if you missed it. The most popular link from last month was my own gift guide. Surely, you were lured in by the promise of a spaghetti monster strainer. It truly is the best.
Writing updates:
I wrote a post about Seasonal Affective Disorder, and ways to treat it (including what’s worked for me). For years, I thought something was wrong with me as winters caused me to feel empty and hopeless. I chased summer on my travels, but now that I’m in Canada and unable to go anywhere, I wanted to share how I was able to make those cold months cozy (instead of demoralizing).
My high school French teacher passed away. I would not be who I am today without her influence, and support. I wrote about how she changed my life, and the way I saw the world.
Substack is embroiled in a tense moderation stand-off with many of its users over what is or isn’t considered hate speech, and its mostly-refusal to deplatform white supremacist publications who are profiting with paid subscriptions. You can read a short summary about here. Several friends have left the platform. My situation is slightly different to the norm since this newsletter is free, but also with limited ability to work due to my spinal CSF leak, a move is not simple. Migrating is both more expensive, and takes precious uptime I don’t have. For now, I am waiting to see where things net out.
The Most Interesting Things I Read This Month
This section’s links here are once again formatted thanks to the help of my friend Mike, because Substack still won’t let me hyperlink on mobile.
Start here:
Start here for my faves, then fill up your browser tabs with the pieces below:
🇨🇴 A glimpse of the world's heart. Lyrical, thoughtful, wide-ranging piece on the Kogis of Colombia, a tribe that fled the destruction of (1800s) colonialism to live in isolation in the “heart of the world”, the mountains in of the Sierra Nevada. These days, the isolation is changing, and contact with the world persists in controlled ways. Lots to mull with this one. Aeon
🤔The friendship problem. Friendships are, by their very nature, made of friction, which — yes, interrupts your day-to-day, and pierces “your veil of seamless productivity” but also provides true support as life does its life-y thing. So where does the furious, modern elimination of friction leave us, friendship-wise? Lacking, says
: “We are so burned out by the process of staying afloat in a globalized, connected world that we simply don’t have the energy for the kinds of in-person, easy interactions that might actually give us some energy and lifeforce back.” I enjoyed this thoughtful piece on the “friendship burnout” in younger people, a consequence of how modern life optimises for ease. What Do We Do Now That We're Here?🦣 The Mammoth Pirates. With the sale of elephant tusks under close scrutiny, “ethical ivory” from the extinct woolly mammoth is now feeding an insatiable market in China and luring a fresh breed of miner—the tusker—into the Russian wilderness. It’s also creating millionaires in some of the poorest villages of Siberia. This interactive story profiles those using illegal, new methods in the hunt for what remains of Siberia's lost giants. The story was only possible on the condition of anonymity, and is fascinating and worrisome. I had no idea that ‘Siberian white gold’ was hunted, and given what we’ve learned about old viruses and bacteria from the permafrost… eek. RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty. (Article is from 2018; thanks to TravelBloggerBuzz for surfacing it now.)
🥢 The Kikkoman Soy Sauce Bottle Is Priceless. “It’s a shape so ubiquitous it’s become nearly invisible: an easy-to-grip, pear-shaped glass bodice planted on a sturdy base, a tapered neck swooping up to a red cap, and most important, a two-way spout that controls the flow of pours and prevents drips.” Kikkoman soy sauce dispensers are all over North America, and the company has sold over 400 million of the bottles thus far. They're available at grocery stores everywhere, so why will some people pay $100 or more for them? An interesting read about the "iconic soy sauce bottles" and special releases that are sought out in earnest. Eater
🦠 1,374 Days. Some of you aren't thrilled that CAE covers Covid, but it's still a infectious vector worldwide, and a whole-body disease with vascular, neurological, immune, and other harms. It will only become a bigger thorn in the economy’s side over time. This piece from Giorgia Lupi was a stunner in its data viz and its prose: “Every morning, I wake up in my Brooklyn apartment, and for two seconds, I can remember the old me. The me without pain, the me with energy, the me who could do whatever she wanted.” I found this incredibly relatable with my own disabled state, and there are so many more quotable lines within it. (Gift link via the author’s IG feed) New York Times
😧 My Unraveling. I had my health. I had a job. Then, abruptly, I didn't. Following that beautiful read by Lupi, Tom Scocca’s piece about chronic illness (a rare disorder, not of the long covid variety) is also a must. No dataviz here, just raw prose: “This is what disability advocates have said all along,” he wrote, “not that it usually sinks in: The able and the disabled aren’t two different kinds of people but the same people at different times.” Haunting, and well-written, Intelligencer
📰 Reporting on Long Covid Taught Me to Be a Better Journalist. Also in the NYT, this is from Ed Yong (a CAE-featured regular) with an excellent piece about the reporting side of things. He’s won awards for his pandemic coverage, and this piece shares his takeaways 5 years in. “I witnessed almost every publication I once held in esteem become complicit in normalizing a level of death once billed as incalculable. It was galling, crushing work that wrecked my faith in journalism and its institutions". Journalism “can be a conduit for empathy” he wrote, both giving words to what patients are unable to describe, and “clarifying the unfathomable” for people too sick to do it themselves.” Unfortunately, that’s not often been the case in the media, though Ed himself has always been the exception and shed a light on patients who otherwise are rarely heard. (Archive link here.) New York Times
😄 How different languages laugh online. A fun, interactive short piece illustrating how laughing may be universal, but ‘lol’ is not. When I lived in Thailand, I was excited to learn ‘555’ meant hahaha because the number 5 is pronounced ‘ha’. Such a fun way to write it! Rest of World
🧄 The Many Garlics of My Childhood. Wonderful read that combs through decades of meal memories (as well as New York’s diamond district) to land on a garlic-filled dish from childhood that the author has chased for many years. Taste
⚰️ Their Bodies Were Donated to Harvard. Then They Went Missing. This piece is about generous donors who gave their bodies to science — but were then snuck out of the morgue and sold to a dark and ghastly corner of the oddities world. Fr years, family members who thought their loved ones were laid to rest, were none the wiser. I can’t imagine how those families feel. Awful. Rolling Stone
🥔 'How do you reduce a national dish to a powder?': the weird, secretive world of crisp flavours. We love a good food deep dive, and this story about the ways that crisps (potato chips, for us North Americans) are flavoured is entertaining and interesting, and full of characters. “Reuben describes his work as part science and part art, likening an unseasoned Pringle to a blank canvas on which he paints.” It talks about how flavours vary based on region, many different to where you’d think they’d be sold. Loved this. The Guardian
⏳️ How to Waste Time “I think that a lot of what we’re doing when we claim that we’re engaging in becoming more productive, more efficient, getting on top of things, getting organized, is really an attempt to kind of feel unlimited with respect to time, with respect to the tasks, responsibilities, goals, ambitions we might have for using our time.” Is wasting time a crutch so we don’t need to face the finite nature of the thousands of everyday life choices? And the finite nature of life itself? Interesting podcast (it’s the transcript at the link) about what would it mean to commit to letting go in a culture obsessed with productivity. A nice companion to the friendship piece above. How to Keep Time podcast
🟡 Finally, we know why pee is yellow. Researchers have discovered that pee's golden color is caused by an enzyme called bilirubin reductase, which is produced by bacteria in the gut. Believe it or not, this is new information, because scientists had yet to identify the enzyme responsible for converting bilirubin to urobilinogen and causing the colour. It’s in the ‘start here’ section because I can’t be the only one who didn’t realize we didn’t know this yet. LiveScience
The rest of the most interesting things I read this month:
🇦🇶 Antarctica's Looming Threat. Antarctica faces a big threat we hear less about int he news: with waters warmed by climate change, marine invasive species can arrive in one of the world’s most pristine ecosystems on the planet. The Revelator
🧠 Complex, unfamiliar sentences make the brain's language network work harder. Neuroscientists have discovered what kind of sentences are most likely to fire up the brain’s key language processing centers. A new study found that language regions in the left hemisphere light up when reading uncommon sentences, while straightforward sentences elicit little response. MIT News
🎙“You Better Be as Good as Letterman!” Conan O'Brien's Wild First Year: An Oral History. A fun oral history of Conan’s first year as host, from the studio’s decision of selecting a ‘no one underdog’ to replace David Letterman to the chaos that ensued. “The beautiful thing about that Late Night show is nobody knew what the rules were. Nobody knew what was okay to try, so we tried everything" Vanity Fair
🤥 To catch a catfish. How one detective took on a global network of romance fraudsters, tackling a rising trend of online scams where connection is followed by financial gain. How fast we talking? Per this piece, romance scams increased by 1/3rd last year to 94 million GBP ($116.45 million USD) in the UK alone. “Most romance frauds owe their origins to ‘The Spanish Prisoner’ scam, which dates back to the 16th century. Wealthy gentlemen were told of a Spanish nobleman who was being held captive; if they could help bribe the guards to release him, they would have a share in the reward his family was offering. The nobleman, it was mentioned, had a beautiful unwed daughter. Was sir married? Every email you have ever received from a Nigerian prince – requesting a small fee in order to release a large fortune – is the Spanish Prisoner trick without the bride.” Fascinating and disturbing. New Statesman
📺 The Virus Inside Your TV. I had no idea! For 3 years, an art collective snuck over 100 subversive, political works onto what was a pretty bland/conservative show, Melrose Place. This ‘culture jamming’ hid commentary on the AIDS crisis, abortion, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the moon landing, and more in plain sight. “No one could know they were the ones sneaking avant-garde art onto television—indeed, no viewer should be aware that any art project was happening at all.” Slate
🇨🇳 The Chinese Migrants of Chiang Mai. Throughout Amy Zhang’s travels in Chiang Mai, she met Chinese people who came looking to make a new life, or escape an old one. This piece is a compilation of her interviews with them. Very interesting, and different to the Chiang Mai I lived in during my years there (2009-2011). The Dial
🐭 Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle What can you do to Mickey Mouse since Jan 1, 2024? After almost a century of copyright protection, version 1.0 of Mickey Mouse entered the public domain on that date. The first movies where Mickey appeared — Steamboat Willie and the silent version of Plane Crazy — were made in 1928. This means people can take characters from Steamboat Willie — Mickey and Minnie Mouse — and share, adapt, or remix them. Note that it can’t be later versions of the characters, and you need to disclaim this isn’t a work endorsed by/approved by Disney. Disney is quite litigious on that front, so you want to make sure you’re careful. Also! Here’s a list of other works from 1928 that entered the public domain on 1 Jan 2024. Public Domain Center at Duke
🇨🇦 'Am I going to die?' We fled to the U.S. after long waits, misdiagnosis in Canada. Patients misdiagnosed in Canada, or facing worsening outcomes because of delays in imaging and treatment. I know a woman in the US who was just diagnosed with lung cancer; an incidental finding on an x-ray. From spotting it to surgery on her lungs, it took three months time. This includes a biopsy and blood tests for cancer markers. Due to early detection, it hadn’t spread to lymph nodes. In Canada, she’d likely face long waits that would only encourage spread of the cancer. Canada’s medical system may not bankrupt you, but increasingly it may kill you due to the long waits. It’s two tough choices between the countries. Ottawa Citizen
🤢 Cambridge-led study discovers cause of pregnancy sickness - and potential treatment. Scientists say they have discovered why some women become extremely sick during pregnancy, bringing them one step closer to a potential cure. A new study found that the degree of sickness is related to the amount of a specific hormone produced in the womb, as well as prior exposure to it. Those with a genetic variant putting them at a greater risk of severe morning sickness, called hyperemesis gravidarum, had lower levels of a hormone called GDF15, while women with the blood disorder beta thalassemia, which causes very high levels of GDF15 prior to pregnancy, experienced very little nausea or vomiting. EurekAlert
👗 Why One H&M Skirt Traveled 15,000 Miles After It Was Brought Back to the Store. We’re addicted to cheap clothing and newest styles, with overflowing closets and fast fashion that leaves little guilt when discarded because it cost little to begin with. But what happens when we discard or return items we don’t want? It’s increasingly clear that they become someone else’s problem. Even take back schemes, like one H&M implemented to stop this cycle. Atmos
A selection of 2023 end-of-year roundups:
Google Trends: Year in Search 2023. You can sort by country, and category, to see what people searched for the most this year.
The best book covers of 2023 that weren’t published/used, from Fast Company.
Shepard’s 100 best books of 2023. There are many best book lists, but I like this one because they ask over 1000 authors and then put the books that are most suggested at the top.
🔥 What Happens When Facebook Heats Your Home. Last month we talked about sewers heating homes in the Netherlands. How about Meta heating homes in Denmark? Meta’s hyperscale data center in Odense spans 50,000 m2 and pushes warm air generated by its servers into the district heating network under Odense. That heat is then dispersed through 100,000 households hooked up to the system, with Meta providing enough heat to cover roughly 11,000. Wired UK
🔢 The Age Gappers. They say they're happy. Why is it so hard to believe them? Relationships with age gaps are increasingly scrutinized on social media and gossip sites. This piece cobbles together interviews with 50 different 'age gappers', all of who say they are happy. There's a big range of experiences and dynamics in there, and I found it an interesting read about something I don't have a firm opinion on either way. The Cut
🧑🦳 The Road to Rejuvenation. Profile of different ways to stave off aging, including links between insomnia and inflammation (apparently people have higher vascular inflammation when they also have sleep issues), stem cells, caloric restriction, and more. UCSF Magazine
😻 Like Dogs, Some Cats Will Play Fetch - but Mostly on Their Own Terms. Fetching: it's not just for dogs anymore. ”Cats prefer to be in control of their fetching sessions,” says an expert in this piece. Unsurprising, but fun read. Smithsonian Magazine
📣 The cable news kayfabe is dead. “It’s time to get real with people. They don’t want to hear the debate between two rival sects of increasingly unaccountable rich people, especially when neither of them is living a life that has anything to do with their daily lived experiences.” Ben Collins on cable news, and how too many news institutions have been sucked into the theatre of the absurd. Nieman Labs
🐦 Goodbye To All That Harrassment. Sarah Jeong goes back in time to when she was harassed so aggressively via Twitter that the media covered the endless threats, including a response from Trump. Where are things now, after all that hellishness? “Five years after I thought I had been saddled with a very stupid and very permanent legacy, it’s now a blip in time that lingers mostly in my head”. While awful that she went through all of it, I am glad that she has been able to put it behind her now. When in the muck of all the horrors, sometimes we forget how adaptable we really are. The Verge
🐒 Move over dolphins. Chimps and bonobos can recognize long-lost friends and family - for decades. Primates: even more like us than we previously thought they were like us! "We don't know exactly what that representation looks like, but we know that it lasts for years," said Laura Simone Lewis, a comparative psychologist at UC Berkeley." Berkeley News
✊🏻 A School of Their Own. Fed up with her job and marriage, Sharon Snow, “good, Christian girl from Fort Worth” walks out on her marriage and her life as she knows it, and enrolls at her daughter’s college. Well-written story about an unlikely mother-and-daughter college duo in the early 1990s, and the clashes between them and the old guard as protests and third-wave feminism took root. Truly Adventurous
🐶 Was Bobi the World's Oldest Dog - or a Fraud? A quest to uncover the truth about Bobi, named the “oldest dog ever” by Guinness World Records, led to dog fur experts and conspiracy theories. “Not a single one of my veterinary colleagues believe Bobi was actually 31 years old,” says veterinarian Danny Chambers. “For the Guinness Book of Records to maintain their credibility and authority in the eyes of the veterinary profession, they really need to publish some irrefutable evidence.” ESCANDALO. WIRED
🐔 Chick-fil-A nears $19 billion in sales: Inside the evolution of a controversial brand. As ChickfilA has expanded beyond the South, it finds itself being simultaneously boycotted by the left and the right. But lots of people still crave their chicken and waffle fries — sales have reached $19 billion. (Embarrassingly, I actually thought it was pronounced chick-fil-ahhh until recently but it all makes sense now.) Fast Company
💪🏻 I'm an Ultrarunner. Taylor Swift's Treadmill Workout Wrecked Me. In December, Taylor Swift released her training regimen for the Eras Tour, her three-and-a-half-hour stadium extravaganza, and the running internet went wild. The author — an ultrarunner — tried to follow her workout and realized just how hard it was. Fun short read. Outside
🧬 I received a new gene-editing drug for sickle-cell disease. It changed my life. You may have seen the news that the FDA has approved a CRISPR gene editing drug for sickle cell disease. I thought this article, a first person perspective from somebody in the trial, was a really welcome viewpoint. It’s rare that we hear from patients directly after these sort of cutting edge technologies become reality! MIT Technology Review
🔗 Quick links 🔗
An old but favourite Reddit post: insults from other languages that don’t translate well to English.
Scientists and engineers have been examining the brain via hardware that mimics it (called “neuromorphic computing”). And whoa, a new study found that human brain cells on a chip were able to recognize speech and also do simple math.
Almost 80% of Americans think crime has gone up, but in 2023 murder plummeted at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded, and every category of major crime except auto theft declined.
STEVE IS BACK! But not just STEVE, STEVE plus the Milky Way! (The STEVEy way?) Steve is “Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement”, and is a type of aurora that isn’t always present in the night sky. This picture features photographer NorthernPixl’s image combining northern lights, STEVE, and the Milky Way, an “exceptional and unusual” capture.
Christmas traditions around the world, from ‘fistfights to KFC’.
Incredible high-res pictures from Uranus taken with the James Webb Space Telescope. They show Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings, and many of the planet’s 27 known moons, even seeing some small moons within the rings.
Many gun owners are afraid to tell doctors about their mental-health struggles, because they worry someone will take their weapons away. (This piece is about suicide and gun ownership.)
How the ‘ugly Christmas sweater’ took the holiday season by storm.
A fun site for sunsets anywhere in the world: it’s built to connect you to a video of somewhere that the sun has just set in, so you can watch from afar.
A simplified version of Wiki’s greatest hits.
Unbelievable photos from December’s volcano eruption in South-West Iceland.
A lovely essay by Kurt Armstrong, sharing his ruminations about being a handyman, about integrity, about work, and so much more.
This month’s featured artist is Giorgia Lupi, who illustrated the powerful LC piece mentioned above. She’s also accomplished a ton prior to it: a TED Talk on data humanism watched over a million times, a MoMA exhibit, incredible work in fashion, data, art, and more, and she is an award-winning designer with the skills to translate complex issues into digestible, beautiful works of art that make you think.
Hope to see you next month,
-Jodi
Thank you for this incredible round up, Jodi. So much to ponder on!
Always amazing to see how much info you pack into these! Now I have a reading list of links for the rest of the week. 👏🏼🙏🏼👏🏼🙏🏼