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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 ▶
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 ▶
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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I don't know about you, but the concept of a 'vegetarian restaurant' brings to mind a certain set of expectations, not all of them good. I suppose it's because traditionally, vegetarian food has been, at best, just 'normal' restaurant food with the meat either taken out, or replaced by meat substitutes such as Quorn or tofu or certain types of mushroom. Sometimes, admittedly, this approach does work - the Shake Shack 'Shroom burger is just their normal cheeseburger with the beef replaced with a breaded, fried portobello mushroom, but it works remarkably well. But too often you're presented with things like meat-less lasagna or a French Onion soup made without beef stock, and the main result is that you just wish you were eating the real thing. Attention to detail is everywhere, not least the drinks list which is courtesy of A Bar With Shapes For A Name, one of the most exciting cocktail bars in town and currently riding high in the World's 50 Best Bars list. This is a dill-infused martini which by virtue of the fact it's come straight out of a frozen premade bottle was icy cold, pure and clean and simply enjoyable. House pickles are as good as you might hope to expect from chef Daniel Watkins, who at Acme (his previous gaff) had filled the place with giant jars and tubs of fermenting and pickling who-knows-what to keep his menu full of the stuff year-round. So yes they were all good, but we particularly enjoyed the green beans which had a lovely sweet touch, and daikon because, well, I always like pickled daikon. Koji bread was a lovely fluffy bun, sort of like a risen flatbread, golden and bubbly on the outside and glossed with butter. This would have been worth an order by itself, and indeed that is an option, but really you'd be an idiot not to go for the version with "smoked mushroom chili ragu", a concoction so ludicrously moreish it probably should come with some kind of government advisory addiction warning. I'm not the first person to swoon over this dish, and I certainly won't be the last, but do believe the hype - it justifies the journey to Notting Hill by itself. Stracciatella came under a pile of endives and other bitter leaves, dressed in the Thai dipping sauce Nahm Jim. Perfectly nice, but I think we were mourning the loss of the mushroom ragu at this point, so it had a lot to live up to. Coal roast leeks, though, bowled us over all over again. Leeks have a marvellous way of holding the flavour of charcoal smoke, and enhanced with judicious use of green leek(?) oil and a kind of almond hummus, they were a great demonstration of everything that makes Watkins' cooking so exciting. Not to mention beautiful, teased as they were into a neat geometric block and dotted with yellow blobs of aji chilli. Celeriac schnitzel was a greaseless puck of breadcrumbed, fried celeriac which had a nice earthy flavour and robust texture. On top, more excellent pickles and micro herbs, as tasty as they were colourful, and underneath their version of a katsu sauce, packed full of curry flavour and a perfect foil for the celeriac. Finally from the savoury courses, a giant skewer of oyster mushrooms, with lovely crispy bits from the grill and soft and meaty (I'm sure they won't mind too much me saying) inside. The mole sauce underneath was rich and glossy and complex, a beautiful match with the grilled shrooms, and the provided (though not pictured, sorry) almond tacos were soft and buttery and held firm even when soaked in gorgeous mole sauce. Dessert consisted of a pear, simply poached perhaps in syrup or some kind of dessert wine, and a bowl of frilly soft-serve ice cream. I can also see a bowl groaning with 3 scoops of ice cream in my picture, but can't for the life of me remember where this came in the equation. I'm pretty sure I'm on safe ground telling you they were very nice, though. So all-in-all, there's not many reasons not to love Holy Carrot. Don't think of it as a vegetarian restaurant, if that's likely to put you off - think of it instead as a great neighbourhood restaurant that puts interesting, seasonal vegetables center stage and uses a bewildering variety of techniques to make the very best of them. It's not "good for meat-free", it's just plain old good. And that should make everyone happy. We were invited to Holy Carrot and didn't see a bill.
all images by Otama-shimai | used with permission The Japanese artist who goes by the name Otama-shimai creates Nihonga-style images almost exclusively of hamsters. Nihonga is a Japanese style of painting coined in the mid-1800s to differentiate it from its Western counterpart. Typically made from organic pigments and depicting animals or landscapes, nihonga can be […] Related posts: Miniature Collages Inspired by the Sea, Made From Newspaper Clippings and Nihonga Materials Nihonga Painter Yuki Matsuoka’s Organic Artworks are Brimming with Energy Traditional Nihonga Style Paintings of Ordinary Life by Yuka Kasai
I used to drop everything to focus on a single project at a time. I would try to do all the tasks as soon as possible, in the hopes of getting it done and out of the way so I could relax. For example, if I had an administrative project, I told myself I’d just […]
World War II ended in 1945. That same year, at the age of 40 and with a husband and 3 children, Ayako Miyawaki would begin an artistic career so full of vitality and creative freedom that she would go on to produce hundreds of works made from rags and other textiles stitched together. “Hinona” Turnips, […] Related posts: The Women of Osamu Tezuka Neighborhood Globe: the artwork of Yasuhiro Suzuki Photographing The Story of Japanese Textiles
There are enough people who don’t like how software has evolved, don’t need all of the bells and whistles (and don’t want to pay for it), and remember how much simpler software used to be. It’s how I feel about the music app, Doppler. I don’t know the team at Good Enough, but it seems […] The post Good Enough appeared first on Herbert Lui.