Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Damn Interesting
Iceland is known to the rest of the world as the land of Vikings and volcanos, an island caught between continents at the extremities of the map. Remote and comparatively inhospitable, it was settled only as long ago as the 9th century, and has seen little additional in-migration since. Even today, more than 90 percent of Iceland’s 390,000 residents can trace their ancestry back to the earliest permanent inhabitants, a Nordic-Celtic mix. The tradition of the Norse sagas lives on in the form of careful record-keeping about ancestry—and a national passion for genealogy. In other words, it is not the place to stumble upon old family mysteries. But growing up in the capital city of Reykjavík in the 1950s, neurologist Dr. Kári Stefánsson heard stories that left him curious. Stefánsson’s father had come from Djúpivogur, an eastern coastal town where everyone still spoke of a Black man who had moved there early in the 19th century. “Hans Jónatan”, they called him—a well-liked shopkeeper who had arrived on a ship, married a spirited woman from a local farm, and became a revered member of the community. The local census did record a man by the name of Hans Jónatan, born in the Caribbean, who was working at the general store in Djúpivogur in the 19th century—but that was all. No images of the man had survived, and his time in Iceland was well before any other humans with African ancestry are known to have visited the island. If tiny, remote Djúpivogur did have a Black man arrive in the 19th century, the circumstances must have been unusual indeed. It was an intriguing puzzle—and solid grounds for a scientific investigation. Given the amount of homogeneity in the baseline Icelandic population, the genetic signature of one relative newcomer with distinct ancestry might still stand out across a large sample of his descendants. Geneticists thus joined locals and history scholars, and they pieced together a story that bridged three continents. Continue reading ▶
It’s been a busy summer, and the large shortfall in donations last month has been demoralizing, so we’re taking a week off to rest and recuperate. The curated links section will be (mostly) silent, and behind the scenes we’ll be taking a brief break from our usual researching, writing, editing, illustrating, narrating, sound designing, coding, et cetera. We plan to return to normalcy on the 11th of September. (The word “normalcy” was not considered an acceptable alternative to “normality” until 14 May 1920, when then-presidential-candidate Warren G. Harding misused the mathematical term in a campaign speech, stating that America needed, “not nostrums, but normalcy.” He then integrated this error into his campaign slogan, “Return to Normalcy.” Also, the G in Warren G. Harding stood for “Gamaliel.”) While we are away, on 06 September 2023, Damn Interesting will be turning 18 years old. To celebrate, here are the first emojis to ever appear in the body of a Damn Interesting post: 🎂🎉🎁 If you become bored while we are away, you might try a little mobile game we’ve been working on called Wordwhile. It can be played alone, or with a friend. If you enjoy games like Scrabble and Wordle, you may find this one ENJOYABLE (75 points). Launch Wordwhile → And, as always, there are lots of ways to explore our back-catalog. View this post ▶
We’re not going to post things on Twitter X anymore. The new owner keeps doing awful stuff. If you have enjoyed our mostly-daily curated links via the aforementioned collapsing service, we invite you to bookmark our curated links page, or follow us a number of other ways. Rather than linger any longer on this tedious topic, here are some home-grown dad jokes. If there is any order in this universe, the comments section will fill with more of the same. Q: What is the flavor of a chair? Do you even know the meaning of the word ‘rhetorical?’ Don’t answer that! My friend bought an alarm clock that makes loud farting sounds in the morning. He’s in for a rude awakening. You’re right, these ARE my orthopedic shoes. I stand corrected. I want a good game of hide and seek, but skilled players are hard to find. Like tight sweaters, corporate acquisitions are hard to pull off. I was offered a job at the mirror factory. I could see myself working there. Did you hear about the farmer in Colorado raising cannabis-fed cattle? The steaks are high. Q: What is the best stocking stuffer? I used to be addicted to soap, but I’ve gotten clean. I finally worked up the courage to tell my hot female coworker how I felt. She felt the same. So we turned down the thermostat. The universal remote: This changes everything. Q: How fast are donkey trucks? It smells like death in there, and not in a good way. My dad demanded that I go fetch some water from that deep hole in the ground. He means well. Calendar makers: Your days are numbered. A: I enjoy cooking with ghee, but I don’t buy it, I make my own. I will not rest until I find a cure for my insomnia. I bought my wife a new refrigerator. I can’t wait to see her face light up when she opens it. Did you hear about the hilarious thing that happened at the mandatory meeting? I guess you had to be there. Remember that sweet grandmother on Twitter who thought that ‘lol’ meant ‘lots of love’? “Sorry to hear about your uncle passing. lol.” Yesterday, we were standing at the edge of a cliff. Since then we have taken a huge step forward. We had to cancel the big game of tag because somebody got hurt. It was touch and go there for a while. “Of course you can count on me,” said the abacus. IBS is genetic, you know. Runs in the family. My grandfather once told me, “It’s worth investing in good speakers.” That was some sound advice. Extreme camping is in tents. The solar panel company wouldn’t let me pay for the installation. They said it was all on the house. I was chopping herbs all day, and now my hands are quite fragrant. I’ve got too much thyme on my hands. A weather balloon measures about 4 feet in diameter (adjusting for inflation). A: Have you ever had a flatulence-based tea? Like a German dietitian, I tend to see the wurst in people. I don’t care for rulers. That’s where I draw the line. Why did the farmer propose to his horse? He wanted a stable relationship. I still think whiteboards are one of mankind’s most remarkable inventions. The Earth has successfully rotated around its axis. Let’s call it a day. My daughter dropped a brand new tube of toothpaste and it made a big mess. She was crestfallen. You’ve got to hand it to customs agents: Your passport. My friend tried to steal a box of lipstick for us, but she accidentally grabbed a box of glue sticks. My lips are sealed. Elevators: They take things to a whole other level. A friend gave me an expired pack of batteries. They were free of charge. Comedy: To taste a bit like a comet. A: How many times do I have to apologize? My wife said that the battery in my hearing aid needed to be replaced. That was difficult to hear. I asked the ski lift operator if I could get a free ride to the top of the mountain. He didn’t take me up on it. What makes a sentence a tongue twister? It’s hard to say. If you visit Mexico, remember to use the word “mucho.” It means a lot to them. There are more hydrogen atoms in a single molecule of water than there are stars in the solar system. To whoever discovered the number zero: Thanks for nothing. View this post ▶
In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific theory that was gaining currency in Europe: universal gravitation. In correspondence with a scientific contemporary, Newton complained that it was “an absurdity” to suppose that “one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum.” The scientist who proposed this preposterous theory was Isaac Newton. He first articulated the idea in his widely acclaimed magnum opus Principia, wherein he explained, “I have not yet been able to discover the cause of these properties of gravity from phenomena and I feign no hypotheses […] It is enough that gravity does really exist and acts according to the laws I have explained.” Newton proposed that celestial bodies were not the sole sources of gravity in the universe, rather all matter attracts all other matter with a force that corresponds to mass and diminishes rapidly with distance. He had been studying the motions of the six known planets–Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus–and by expanding upon the laws of planetary motion developed by Johannes Kepler about eight decades earlier, he arrived at an equation for gravitational force F that seemed to match decades of data: Where m1 and m2 are the masses of the objects, r is the distance between their centers of mass, and G is the gravitational constant (~0.0000000000667408). But this is only an approximation; humanity may never know the precise value because it is impossible to isolate any measuring apparatus from all of the gravity in the universe. Fellow astronomers found that Newton’s theory seemed to be accurate–universal gravitation appeared to reliably forecast the sometimes irregular motion of the planets even more closely than Kepler’s laws. In 1705, Queen Anne knighted Isaac Newton to make him Sir Isaac Newton (though this honor was due to his work in politics, not for his considerable contributions to math or science). In the century that followed, Newton’s universal gravitation performed flawlessly. Celestial bodies appeared to adhere to the elegant theory, and in scientific circles, it began to crystallize into a law of nature. But in the early 19th century, cracks began to appear. When astronomer Alexis Bouvard used Newton’s equations to carefully calculate future positions of Jupiter and Saturn, they proved spectacularly accurate. However, when he followed up in 1821 with astronomical tables for Uranus–the outermost known planet–subsequent observations revealed that the planet was crossing the sky substantially slower than projected. The fault was not in Bouvard’s math; Uranus appeared to be violating the law of universal gravitation. Newton’s theory was again called into question in 1843 by a 32-year-old assistant astronomer at the Paris Observatory, Urbain Le Verrier. Le Verrier had been following the Uranus perturbations with great interest, while also compiling a painstaking record of the orbit of Mercury–the innermost known planet. He found that Mercury also departed from projections made by universal gravitation. Was universal gravitation a flawed theory? Or might undiscovered planets lurk in extra-Uranian and intra-Mercurial space, disturbing the orbits of the known planets? Astronomers around the world scoured the skies, seeking out whatever was perturbing the solar system. The answer, it turned out, was more bizarre than they could have supposed. Continue reading ▶
More in travel
I’m really good at waking up. I’m so good at waking up, in fact, that occasionally I wake up two hours too early. I used to find it difficult to fall back asleep. When I asked a doctor about this, they told me it was called “fragmented sleep” and there wasn’t that much they could […] The post Notes on fragmented sleep appeared first on Herbert Lui.
A selection of thoughts from Sunday 1) I only received 5 birthday cards this year, most of them from people who remember me being born in 1965 (dgD, dGA3, dgDBM). Pictured are some of the 43 cards I received when I was born, all of a very 1960s aesthetic. Number of birthday cards received (age 0) - 43 (age 20) - 23 (age 40) - 16 (age 60) - 5 2) I was hoping to catch a nice early train from Hackney Wick but there weren't any, indeed it turns out on Sundays there never are. The entire Mildmay line between Willesden Junction and Stratford is unserved before 9am on Sundays, with the first westbound train departing Stratford at 0900 and the first eastbound train departing Willesden Junction at 0902. The station with the slowest start is Camden Road whose first Sunday train arrives at 0922, and I wonder if that's the latest timetabled start on any day on any TfL line. 3) Sunday was an unseasonably springlike day for early March, at 18°C the warmest 9th March since 2014. The warmest 9th March on record was in 1948 with 23.9°C recorded at Wealdstone, that's 75°F. While I was researching this online I also found the weather forecast for the day I was born ("England and Wales will be sunny and rather warm this afternoon, but frost and some fog patches will return tonight in midland and eastern districts"). The temperature was -5°C at Kew when I was born, rising to 10°C in the afternoon, and my Dad would have cycled through fog to see me at the hospital. The Met Office has a nerdily detailed archive of weather forecasts and data records for the whole country here. 4) To enjoy the weather I walked the Croxley Boundary Walk, a 6.3 mile waymarked circuit around the village where I grew up. It's a fantastically varied walk for somewhere so close to London (canal towpath, country lane, fields, village green, river valley, chalk stream, woods, disused railway, moorland) and well signed throughout. On the way round I spotted several signs of spring (catkins, snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses, celandines, flowering cherries, budding trees, nest-building, butterflies, bees collecting blossom, emerging bluebell stalks), also a fox, several swans, a heron and a pair of red kites. I previously walked the Croxley Boundary Walk on 9th March 2014, and blogged about it then so I won't again, but do enjoy a few photos and yes I do recommend it. 5) On the way round the Croxley Boundary Walk there's a lovely path that climbs across a large field from the edge of Whippendell Woods. I was shocked to discover there's now a plan to turn this field into 600 houses, unexcitingly titled 'Land north of Little Green Lane', which would extend the village's built-up area by 5%. Thankfully the top end of the field would survive, reworked as Rousebarn Country Park, but the whole plan's brazenly speculative and very poorly connected to the rest of the village. Whatever the government's definition of 'grey belt' is, this definitely isn't it. 6) I've had plans for a while to see if I could get a mention on the radio on the occasion of my 60th birthday. In the event one of my target shows turned out to be pre-recorded, one was doing an International Women's Day special, one doesn't really do dedications any more, one I wasn't listening to at the crucial moment, one I forgot about until it was too late and the one email I did send made no ripples whatsoever. If anyone sent in a message on my behalf and I missed it do let me know, else I'll have to wait another ten years. 7) BestMate and BestMate'sOtherHalf took me out for a meal in the West End and we started off with cocktails. We thought we'd try the Cellar Door, the speakeasy bar squished into a former gents toilet off Aldwych, which Londonist described as "a mirrored microcosm", Time Out as "a tiny basement" and Secret London as "lav-ley". It seems it only picks up after 9pm, pre-cabaret, so it was pretty much dead. Also they were probably the slowest cocktails I've ever had, sluggishly confected, so the atmosphere really didn't match the setting. 8) For my birthday meal we went to London's oldest restaurant which is Rules in Covent Garden, established 1798. It's a classical warren adorned by Georgian portraits, seemingly with a regular clientele of ruddy couples, shire buddies and old money. The food's extremely traditional, all meat, game and oysters, although not so staid that they won't stick a candle in some ice cream and bring it to your table. For my main I was totally set on steak and kidney pudding until I saw they were doing a proper Sunday roast, then couldn't resist crumble and custard for dessert. BestMate has kindly shielded me from the overall bill. Also we had the table next to the really famous one, the one where M's seen dining in Spectre and which brings all the James Bond fans to the pass. 9) While I was out, Radio 4 broadcast a half-hour documentary by a blogger who rides buses and writes about them, in this case the new V1 nightbus from Manchester to Leigh. It was dead thoughtful of them to schedule something so on point on the occasion of my birthday. Incidentally if you're waiting for me to report back on the number 60 bus route, I'm planning to make that the first trip I do with my 60+ Oyster card when it arrives, which it hasn't yet so you'll need to be patient. 10) I may have overdone it, I had to lie down at one point. But if what you want for a milestone birthday is a memorable day then Sunday certainly delivered.
When a theater shows a movie, it’s not convenient. You need to buy a relatively expensive ticket. You need to arrive on time. You can’t pause it. There will be a day the theater stops showing it. Movie theaters are not growing—they are in decline. Movie theaters make you do something that a streaming service […] The post Convenience, growth, commitment, and sacredness appeared first on Herbert Lui.
Unblogged things I did in March 1965 I wasn't around at the start of March 1965, I was lurking embryonically ready to make a grand appearance. Even when I did emerge I had no linguistic ability, no long-term memory nor any recognition of what on earth was going on, plus there were no blogs or the internet I could have recorded things on anyway. But my Mum had just started keeping a diary, perhaps in recognition of the enormous changes a first child would mean in her life, which allows me to bring you this (heavily edited) account of my earliest days. The first nine days are in her own words, the rest of the month I've paraphrased. Cast of characters Mon 1: Rather cold but nice bright morning. Got all my washing and ironing done nice and early. Had a quick clean round downstairs. Sat and almost finished one dress in afternoon. Watched TV and knitted in evening. [Monday was always washday in the 60s, even when you were nine months pregnant] [I wonder if that dress was baby sized and meant for me had I been a girl] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Date With Doonican, Bewitched and Perry Mason] Tue 2: Letter from dgGM and dgGF, they hope to come this weekend. Did the net curtains and some woolies. Cleaned all the windows inside. Very cold wind today. Went to the shops in the afternoon, then wrote a letter to dgGM. Watched TV in the evening. dgD has another cold coming. [My mum had taken to spring cleaning with a vengeance, either because this was normal back then or because she realised she wouldn't be getting much cleaning done imminently] [temperatures would fall to -7°C that evening, the coldest night of the winter] [wow, the joys of receiving a letter and writing back the same day, safe in the knowledge it would arrive almost immediately] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Compact and The Danny Kaye Show] Wed 3: Had a quick clean round. Went to dGA1 in the morning. Went to clinic everything alright. Lost 4ozs this week. Was home before 2.45. Sat and finished rompers. In bed early as both tired. [My auntie lived a few miles away so I suspect my pregnant mum rode round on her scooter, a very mid-60s form of transport] [I can just picture the Sirdar knitting pattern for those rompers] Thu 4: Card from dgGM to say dgA2 was coming out of hospital. Snowing very hard this morning. Didn't get up for church. Swept snow away in front and at back. dgD went to Cubs. I watched TV and knitted. [I'm not sure why my mum would have been off to church, Ash Wednesday was yesterday] [I found this newsreel from 4th March 1965 showing heavy snow in Trafalgar Square and train derailments] [My Dad wasn't in the Cubs, he helped out] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Top of the Form, Top of the Pops and Dr Kildare] Fri 5: Up early for milkman. Down the shops early, went to library. Did a quick clean round. Snow going slowly. dgDBM came round for evening. dgGM and dgGF arrived at 8.30. Stayed up talking late. [Paying the milkman required getting up early on a Friday, even I remember that] [My Dad's BestMate wasn't my godfather yet but it was already clear he was going to be] [My grandparents lived on the other side of Hertfordshire so that would have been quite a journey on a Friday evening after work] Sat 6: dgGM did my washing and all got dry. dgGF and dgD went into Watford in the afternoon. Sat and talked rest of afternoon and evening. Did watch TV as well. [This was well before washing machines so laundry was a big thing] [Watford FC were playing away at Colchester that afternoon so I know nobody sneaked off to the football] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Dixon of Dock Green and The Black and White Minstrel Show] Sun 7: dgGF swept the chimney with help from dgD. Gave the room a spring clean. dgGM washed our carpet. dgGM2 and dgGF2 called in. dgD cleared the shed. dgGM and dgGF left 6.15 to go home. [There's a heck of a lot of serious cleaning going on. Was the entire 1960s like this or was everyone just treading water waiting for me to arrive?] [seriously bad timing here from my grandparents, having to travel 20 miles home just before the event they were really looking forward to was about to happen] Mon 8: More or less spring cleaned all rooms upstairs. Did a little bit of washing. dgD home at six, felt alright. By 6.30 thought I might be in labour. dgA3 called in with my birthday present. Neighbour came round and kept time. Went to hospital just after 10. dgD came home having been told it wouldn't be yet. Given something to make me sleep but by 1.30 getting more pains. Taken to delivery ward by 2.30. Given an injection don't remember much else. [A pivotal day that started with cleaning and ended in labour] [how suddenly my parents' lives changed, from a normal day at work to here comes a child in half an hour flat] [good timing from my auntie to bring my Mum a birthday present just before she went to hospital] [how typical that my Dad got sent home from hospital just before everything really kicked off] Tue 9: About five was told to push. Used mask till just before the end and then I watched dg being born. Most wonderful feeling. dgD was told to ring at 6 so didn't make it in on time. dg arrived 6.4am. Was put in a two bed ward, much better. Had flowers from dg, dgGM/dgGF and telegram from family friend. dgD brought my birthday cards in when he came to see us. He held dg for a second, and came again in evening. 7lb 12oz. Black hair and brown eyes. All his skin peeling. [I don't know what you did on your 30th birthday but my Mum spent hers in hospital on heavy drugs, screaming in agony and giving birth to me] [we didn't have a phone at home so my Dad had to ring the hospital from a phone box outside the library, which isn't how it would happen these days with vastly improved telecommunications] [I was born four minutes after his phone call while he was cycling in] [I didn't really send my mum some flowers, my Dad bought them on my behalf (and accidentally left the shop without paying for them)] [my Mum really appreciated having one present to open in hospital, my auntie tells me] [technically I was her biggest 30th birthday present, obviously] [it's sad how little contact my parents had with me on my first day] [a birthweight of 3½kg is average today and I think was above average back then] [I bet you don't have this level of detail about your first day on the planet] Wed 10: Apparently I refused to take to breastfeeding so had to go on the bottle, which I can see my Mum was extremely disappointed about. Sorry about that. Back at home a lot of post was arriving. Thu 11: I was laid down in a different room to my recuperating Mum so she didn't see me much. On the plus side that meant she didn't have to change my first nappy, a sister did that for her. Fri 12: Had my name registered by the local registrar. Mum was still having an uncomfortable time of things and needed help to sleep. Sat 13: Still in hospital. My Mum dressed me and changed my nappy for the first time. I still had dry skin so a nurse oiled me. Sun 14: My long-distance grandparents came to see me for the first time. Visiting time was stretched from half an hour to an hour. They were thrilled to see me. Mon 15: Mum changed my nappy and I promptly filled the clean one. Sorry Mum. Tue 16: Mum now feeling a lot better. Finally allowed home a week after I was born. I was taken home in my godfather's two-seater sports car, clutched in my Mum's arms. Visited my Auntie's house on the way back. Neighbours started popping in to see me. I slept all the way through from midnight to 7am - well done me. Wed 17: A nurse came round to check my umbilical cord, which came off later in the afternoon. Mum was back doing the washing again. Thu 18: My grandmother and another auntie came round, which finally allowed Mum to get her hair done. Fri 19: Visits from my auntie, cousin, neighbour and health visitor. My auntie bought me a little nylon suit and my Mum some flowers. I slept through til 5am again. Sat 20: The first day in my life that no health professional saw me, I was solely in the loving care of my parents. I also got to experience sleeping in my new pram. Sun 21: Went on my first outing... to my grandparents down the road. Stayed to dinner and tea, which my Mum appreciated not having to make. Mon 22: A lot of my Mum's diary is now all about sleeping and feed times, so perhaps best leave it there. But how absolutely fascinating to have a window into my earliest days, and all the chaos and emotion and joy and pain and I brought. Thanks Mum, from your 60 year-old son on the day after what would have been your 90th birthday.
