From CNN: “The patient consulted a doctor about a chronic cough that was concerning him. During his first couple months of treatment, he was diagnosed with pneumonia, thickening and stiffness in the right lung, and bronchiectasis, or damage of the breathing tubes. When the patient finally reached Munavvar’s clinic at the age of 47, they ran multiple tests, including a CAT scan, and conducted a white light bronchoscopy, a procedure involving the insertion of a scope inside the airways to view the lungs. The doctor noticed extensive shadowing and a thickening lump in the lower right lung. These symptoms, along with the spread of a bacterial infection in the pockets of the lower right lung, led his team to believe that the man had a tumor, which needed prompt removal. But when doctors performed surgery on a man to remove what they suspected to be a carcinoma, they instead found a toy traffic cone he had swallowed in 1974.”
The poet John Milton coined almost twice as many words as William Shakespeare
From The Guardian: “To many scholars he is still the sublime English poet. But John Milton deserves to be remembered for rather more than Paradise Lost. According to Gavin Alexander, a lecturer in English at Cambridge university and fellow of Milton’s alma mater, Christ’s College, who has trawled the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for evidence, Milton is responsible for introducing approximately 630 words to the English language, making him the country’s greatest neologist, ahead of Ben Jonson with 558, John Donne with 342 and Shakespeare with 229. Without the great poet there would be no liturgical, debauchery, besottedly, unhealthily, padlock, dismissive, terrific, embellishing, fragrance, didactic or love-lorn. And certainly no complacency.”
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The story of Canada’s second official currency: Canadian Tire money
From the Toronto Star: “It was carted around in armoured trucks, protected by gun-toting security guards and secured with alarms and cameras. It was accepted at par with the Canadian dollar at bars and car dealerships and jewelry stores across the country. It became so universal that lawyers worried it would be confused with actual Canadian currency.For more than 60 years, Canadian Tire money staked a legitimate claim as Canada’s unofficial second currency. At one point, a study showed half the country collected it. The coupons even made the Canadian Oxford dictionary.Then, five years ago, as the pandemic began and the world fell apart, physical Canadian Tire money disappeared. No eulogy, no tearful goodbye, no 21-gun salute or playing of Taps. Just a quiet fade into memory for one of the most successful loyalty programs in Canadian history.”
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. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
This house in Portugal looks like something from The Flintstones but it is very real
From Ancient Origins: “The Casa do Penedo (‘Stone House’ or ‘House of the Rock’) is a peculiar monument located in the Norte Region of Portugal. This house acquired its name due to the fact that it was built between four gigantic boulders. A Portuguese engineer was inspired to build the house in the Fafe Mountains — construction began in 1972 and was completed two years later, in 1974. The boulders serve as the structure’s walls and ceiling. Each room has a different shape, probably due to the boulders that form the walls of the house. A fireplace was installed in the Casa do Penedo to keep it warm during the cold winters, and there is also a sofa made of concrete and eucalyptus wood in the house. Due to publicity from the internet, the owner had to move away to avoid the mass of curious visitors wanting to see his property. Since then, the house has been converted into a small museum to accommodate tourists.”
What happened in the skies over Nuremberg in April of 1561 remains a mystery
From Public Domain Review: “On April 14, 1561, over the German city of Nuremberg, the residents saw what they described as some kind of aerial battle — complete with the erratic dance of orbs, crosses, cylinders, and the appearance of a large and mysterious black arrow-shaped object — all followed by a crash-landing somewhere beyond the city limits. Some have considered the event an early sighting of extraterrestrial beings, but it is more likely that what the people of Nuremberg witnessed that morning was a natural meteorological phenomenon (possibly “sundogs”, or to give them their scientific term, “parhelia”). Another interesting idea relates to the fact that a year earlier Vannoccio Biringuccio published De La Pirotechnia, Europe’s first book on metallurgy which contained several chapters on the preparation and use of rockets in warfare and festivals. Could this Italian book have made its way to the hands of a Nuremberg resident keen to try out the firework recipes it included?”
That time a Bugatti Chiron drove at 400 kilometers per hour on a German highway
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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