From The Weather Network: “The Nazis managed to install an automatic weather station on the coast of Labrador during WWII and it remained undiscovered by Canadians for more than 30 years. The secret German mission remains one of the only known enemy operations to actually take place on North American soil during the second World War and highlights just how much an impact the weather had on the war. In October 1943, German U-boat U-537 sailed undetected to Martin Bay, off the coast of Labrador in what was then the British Dominion of Newfoundland. There, a crew led by civilian meteorologist Kurt Sommermeyer rushed to set up what was, at the time, an incredibly sophisticated weather station.”
She was a chess prodigy but later walked away from the game
From Slate: “During her brief and polarizing career in a male-dominated sport in a chauvinistic society, a focus on looks over brains was typically how it went for Lisa Lane, who died of cancer on Feb. 28 at age 90. When Bobby Fischer was still a brash wunderkind, Lane was a bona fide grown-up media star. In 1961 alone, she was interviewed on the Today show, was profiled in the New York Times Magazine, and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She was touted as a great American hope against the scary Russians. Lane marketed herself and elevated chess’s profile in America. Disgusted by the game’s latent sexism and classism, she criticized its leadership and advocated for equal pay. Then, as quickly as she’d arrived, she all but disappeared from the game.”
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A flight attendant survived a fall of more than 30,000 feet without a parachute
From Wikipedia: “Vesna Vulović was a Serbian flight attendant who survived the highest fall without a parachute: 10.16 kilometres or 33,338 feet. She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash. Vulović spent days in a coma and was hospitalized for several months. She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis and was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Vulović made an almost complete recovery but continued to walk with a limp. She had little to no memory of the incident and had no qualms about flying after the crash.”
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. And I appreciate it, believe me!
They tried to claim insurance for a bear attack but it was a guy in a bear suit
From the BBC: “Four people have been arrested after allegedly filing fake insurance claims stating that a bear had damaged the interiors of three luxury cars. Video footage submitted to insurers as evidence showed what appeared to be the animal climbing into the front seat of Rolls Royce, then clawing its way toward the back. The footage drew suspicion from investigators with the California Department of Insurance, who after executing a search warrant, found a bear costume in the suspects’ home. “Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the department said in a press release. The four Los Angeles-area residents have been charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.”
Scientists found an intact saber-toothed kitten frozen in the Siberian ice
From Science: “In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers described the frozen body of a saber-toothed kitten that had been preserved for 37,000 years in the Siberian permafrost. The carcass — containing the head, forelimbs, and front part of the animal, complete with fur — was discovered encased in a chunk of ice in 2020 near the Badyarikha River in northern Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. Radiocarbon dating revealed the cat — belonging to the species Homotherium latidens — lived in the late Pleistocene epoch 35,500 to 37,000 years ago. Based on the emergence of its baby incisor teeth, researchers estimate the cub was about 3 weeks old.”
An octopus stretches 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean
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
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