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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 ▶
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 ▶
An American Indian man on horseback stood outlined against a steely sky past midday on 05 October 1877. Winter was already settling into the prairies of what would soon become the state of Montana. Five white men stood in the swaying grass on the other side of the field, watching the horse move closer. Four wore blue uniforms, another in civilian attire. One of the uniformed men was tall and stout, with bright blue eyes and a large, curling mustache. He watched the proceedings with an air of self-importance. The surrender of the man on horseback might have been inevitable, sure, but it was nevertheless a nice feather in his cap. Perhaps his superiors would finally grant him that promotion after this whole affair was over. The other four men were more apprehensive. All of them were experienced in fighting American Indians on the frontier, but this opponent had been different. One man, with a full, dark beard and right arm missing below the elbow, looked at the approaching chief with grudging respect. The man had lost his arm in the American Civil War 15 years earlier, so he knew battle well. And in his opinion, the man across the field was a tactical genius, a “Red Napoleon.” Despite overwhelming odds, this Red Napoleon had wormed his way out of battle after battle, somehow always coming out on top. Continue reading ▶
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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.
A few days ago, I wrote about causal and effectual reasoning. You’ll be familiar with these two paths—but having words to describe them really helps. “When you think with causal reasoning, you focus on what you want to do—the desired end goal, or the destination—and then work backwards from that,” I wrote. “Business leaders, managers, […] The post Limitations of causal reasoning appeared first on Herbert Lui.
I have somehow reached the age of 60 and I'm not sure how I feel about that. 60 is a milestone age and a proper one for once. 50 was fine, 50 was just a half-century, it didn't mean anything. 40 was merely a number to make the middle-aged feel uncomfortable, nothing tangible actually happened. 30 was an inconsequential blur that only a vain 29 year-old could ever be flustered by. But hit 60 and things are different, there are actual changes to the way you're treated. teens. 16 meant I could shag, 17 meant I could drive and 18 meant I could drink and vote. But after 18 any age-related benefits were generally minor, like being able to go to better nightclubs or get an HGV licence. 60 is suddenly a properly significant birthday again, which after 42 years of insignificance comes as a bit of a jolt. 60 is also when society starts to offer you rewards in recognition of your age. Suddenly you're a 'Senior' and all sorts of nice little concessions kick in like cheaper haircuts, cut price cinema tickets, £4 off admission at Coventry Transport Museum or 10% off shopping at Iceland on a Tuesday. Not everywhere is so generous, so for example Kew Gardens and the Tower of London make you wait until you're 65 and the London Eye charges everyone over 16 the same. But before today I would never even have bothered to look at the Concessions tab and now suddenly it might be well worth it. (ooh, National Trust Senior Membership is 25% off the normal subscription and I am now eligible, that's how useful checking rewards for today's post has been) Bow Geezers, and they appear to be having a cheerily excellent time every time they meet up but I could have joined that at 55 and I didn't. 60 is just a number with a zero on the end, a number we choose to see as special. I was going to say that it's only special because we count in 10s but in fact it'd have a zero on the end if we counted in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, or 12s instead, indeed of all the years in the human lifespan it's the year with the greatest number of factors so maybe that means it really is fundamentally special after all. 60 is when older people start to welcome you to their world. "See," they say, "it's not so bad. 60 was nothing, it's 70 you need to worry about... or 75/80 depending. 60 is merely piddly foothills, we need not speak of it, but by the way welcome to the club." 60 was once the start of the countdown towards death. When I was born in 1965 the average life expectancy for men was about 68, indeed neither of my grandfathers got past 70. It's very different today, thankfully, with the ONS website confirming that the average 60 year-old male has a life expectancy of 84 with a 1 in 4 chance of reaching 92. The Grim Reaper's still coming, indeed could cut you down anytime, but he's a lot further away than previous generations expected. kicked back, in terms of state pension to 67 and stretching further later, so no longer the employment guillotine it used to be nor the dawn of pipe and slippers leisure. niggles at present but with the potential to one day properly scupper things, though I fervently hope I'll be able to get to 70 and say they still haven't. I used my Senior Railcard for the first time yesterday to take me to the Essex village where my grandmother met my grandfather. She was the cleaner in the pub and he was the dishy postman on his daily rounds, and she'd lean out of the window for a chat and that's how it all started. It's a restaurant now and sadly wasn't open so I couldn't go in, but I did pause for a while and ponder the significance of the windows that led to my Mum being born and me being here today. In particular it made me realise that the elderly couple I'd only known in their 60s were once young and playful and hopeful and happy, and you should never judge people on how old they are now but on a lifetime of achievement. 60 is strange because for everyone else it's just a normal Sunday whereas as for me and the other 2350 Britons born on 9th March 1965 it's a potential existential crisis. 60 is an unwelcome eyeopener. 60 is well special. 60 is nothing. 60 is what you make of it.
The future is unpredictable. It’s always great to have an option, maybe two, in case things don’t go according to plan. That’s why you’d want to have a backup plan. In my freshman year in university, I made a backup plan that took too much of my energy. According to my plan, I would switch […] The post Keep the back up plan a back up plan appeared first on Herbert Lui.
The Mousetrap is the play that refuses to die. It's also an iconic part of London's cultural life, if not for critical acclaim then for sheer persistence, having reliably entertained West End audiences for over 70 years. So when London Theatre Week recently offered cut-price tickets I thought it was about time I booked a seat at St Martin's Theatre and experienced all the spoilers for myself. The Mousetrap started out as a 30 minute radio play on the BBC Light Programme on the evening of 30th May 1947. It was specially written by Agatha Christie for Her Majesty Queen Mary on the occasion of her 80th birthday, and was originally titled Three Blind Mice. If you'd been listening to Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh on the Home Service instead you'd have missed it. Later that year it was adapted as a 30 minute play for BBC Television, then in 1948 reworked as a short story for American readers of Cosmopolitan magazine. Christie subsequently decided it might make a good full-length play so set about writing the stage version which made its debut at the Theatre Royal Nottingham on 6th October 1952. It's been running ever since. Mathew Pritchard on the occasion of his ninth birthday. She thought it might run for 14 months tops whereas in fact it's proven to be one of the best birthday presents ever, and Mathew still runs a charitable trust promoting the arts in Wales on the proceeds. She also stipulated that no film version could be produced until the show had been closed for six months, which of course it still hasn't, so if you want to discover the plot your only options are to read all the spoilers on Wikipedia or turn up in person. St Martin's Theatre in Covent Garden, just across the street from The Ivy restaurant. The Mousetrap first arrived at the Ambassador's Theatre on 25th November 1952 after a brief provincial tour taking in Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham. It played there until March 1974 when over the space of a weekend it transferred nextdoor to St Martin's Theatre where it's been playing ever since. Technically the pandemic forced a pause in March 2020 but The Mousetrap was the first West End show to reopen the following spring and officially its opening run continues. Not only is this a record-breaking debut it's also by far the longest run of any play anywhere in the world, and even in its 73rd year The Mousetrap is still raking them in. The Mousetrap is a one-set play, that set being the hall at Monkswell Manor, an isolated country guest house in the wilds of Berkshire. The first couple we meet are Mollie and Giles, the newlywed proprietors hoping to make a go of the place and nervous of who their first guests might be. It's also snowing outside which means the scene is set for a classic lock-in murder mystery, and which also keeps the stage hands busy dropping flakes past the hall's lattice windows. As various characters turn up, not all of them anticipated, Christie skilfully weaves a complex tale out of seemingly not very much. Some characters seem pure cliche while others are more compellingly complex and may not be all they appear on the surface. The script is also well sprinkled with comedic moments, indeed it's quite some achievement for a play steeped in 1950s sensibilities to still be making audiences laugh in the 2020s. eight actors are required and none of them are big names, each cast signing up for a six month stint on the understanding that the play's the star. The current lot includes one who's done The Play That Goes Wrong, one that's done Hollyoaks, four who were in Doctors and one who was a Slytherin bully in the first Harry Potter. The latter is Alasdair Buchan who as an 11 year-old put on an amateur version of The Mousetrap at school only for his headmaster to receive a cease and desist letter from the show's West End producers. Thankfully this didn't count against him when he joined the cast three decades later, and his depiction of Mr Paravicini (the mysterious foreign stranger) was one of the play's comic highlights. ice cream tubs. The current going rate is £4 for the 125ml Mini Tubs or £5 for the 180ml Upsell Tubs, and I was surprised the lemon sorbet didn't sell better. She also had £6 programmes to sell, these smallish but also fairly thick because a 73 year-old play has quite a backstory to be elaborated. In a nice touch if you take your programme to the bar they'll officially stamp it with the performance number and then you've got a proper souvenir on your hands. Sitting beside the exit had one final benefit in that I was out on the street before the rest of the theatre disgorged so was able to get a clear view of the wooden board in the foyer. And wow the count was now at 29983 performances, a phenomenal total, and incredibly close to a proper quadruple-zeroed milestone. The Mousetrap's 10,000th performance was way back on Friday 17th December 1976, a few months after Agatha Christie's death, and the 20,000th was on Saturday 16th December 2000. By my calculations the 30,000th will thus be the matinee on Saturday 22nd March 2025, i.e. a fortnight from today, so steel yourself for a burst of publicity celebrating the amazing success of the world's longest running play. Did you ever see such a sight in your life? See how they run. See how they run.
