{"id":252666,"date":"2022-09-30T01:32:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T01:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=252666"},"modified":"2022-09-30T01:32:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T01:32:02","slug":"the-cia-has-just-invested-in-the-woolly-mammoth-resurrection-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/09\/30\/the-cia-has-just-invested-in-the-woolly-mammoth-resurrection-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The CIA has just invested in the woolly mammoth resurrection business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dallas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has a vision: \u201cTo see the Woolly Mammoth thunder upon the tundra once again.\u201d Founders George Church and Ben Lamm have already racked up an impressive list of high-profile funders and investors, including Peter Thiel, Tony Robbins, Paris Hilton, Winklevoss Capital \u2014 and, according to the public portfolio its venture capital arm released this month, the CIA<\/a>. Colossal says it hopes to use advanced genetic sequencing to resurrect two extinct mammals \u2014 not just the giant, ice age mammoth, but also a mid-sized marsupial known as the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, that died out less than a century ago. On its website, the company vows: \u201cCombining the science of genetics with the business of discovery, we endeavor to jumpstart nature\u2019s ancestral heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otters are art history’s unsung muses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Though seals are probably the gateway to aquatic mammal fandom, connoisseurs of the genre all agree that otters are best in class. These furry powerhouses are not only capable of tender intimacy and novel tool usage, they often just seem to be having the best time ever. So it\u2019s no wonder that they have been a recurring motif throughout art history<\/a>. \u201cThe pose of raised paws signifies the otter\u2019s adoration of the sun god when he rises in the morning,\u201d reads the label on this Ancient Egyptian bronze statuette, dating to between 664 and 30 BCE. \u201cIn myth otters were attached to the goddess Wadjet of Lower Egypt, whose cult was centered in Buto, in the northern Delta.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Japanese professor wins Ig Nobel prize for study on knob turning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is one of life\u2019s overlooked arts: the optimal way to turn a knob. Now an investigation into this neglected question has been recognised with one of science\u2019s most coveted accolades: an Ig Nobel prize. After a series of lab-based trials, a team of Japanese industrial designers arrived at the central conclusion that the bigger the knob, the more fingers required to turn it<\/a>. The team is one of 10 to be recognised at this year\u2019s Ig Nobel awards for research that \u201cfirst makes you laugh, then makes you think.\u201d Other awards at the virtual ceremony on Thursday evening include the physics prize for showing why ducklings swim in a line formation, and the economics prize for explaining, mathematically, why success most often goes not to the most talented people, but instead to the luckiest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On language, overuse, and hyperbole<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza in LitHub (via Why Is This Interesting?) comes a phenomenon known as “semantic bleaching”<\/a>: To attract attention, we submit to the \u201cmaxim of extravagance.\u201d You really want people to see the taxidermied pig you just bought, so you tell your friend, \u201cMan, this thing is incredible. It\u2019s wearing a lederhosen and everything.\u201d Your friend goes to see the pig and he too is surprised by the thing. He starts telling his friends, \u201cthat thing is incredible.\u201d This is called \u201cconformity.\u201d Word gets around the neighborhood and then the whole block is talking about the incredible taxidermied pig. This is called \u201cfrequency.\u201d You\u2019re out for a walk one day, and you flag down a Door Dasher on a bicycle. \u201cHave you seen the\u2014\u201d \u201cThe incredible taxidermied pig? Yeah man, whatever.\u201d This is called \u201cpredictability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riding with one of the world’s last whaling tribes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The shore of Lamalera Bay is too rocky and parched to grow crops, but the newcomers soon discovered that even one of the sperm whales schooling just offshore would provide enough meat to feed everyone for weeks. To survive this harsh environment and the dangerous work, the Lamalerans evolved a unique culture that has been rated by anthropologists as one of the world\u2019s most cooperative and generous. Today, the Lamalerans are among the small and ever-dwindling number of hunter-gatherer societies in existence, and the only one to survive by whaling. Although they will harpoon anything from porpoises to orcas, their main prey are sperm whales, the largest carnivore in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened when my entire family came out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a photo of my family from November 1981, when we are still living in Greenville, S.C. I remember that I lost my first tooth while we were sitting in the studio\u2019s waiting area at Sears. If there were an instruction manual for the modern American family of the 20th century, this photo could have been on its cover. Dad, the son of a minister, had gone to law school and was working in-house at a Fortune 500 company. Mom cared for us at home full-time. But these identities obscured secrets, hidden shames so pervasive<\/a> and toxic that although they went unnamed, they couldn\u2019t be entirely concealed. As a child, Dad had nurtured crushes on boys. As a teen, Mom had been romantically involved with a young man who turned out to be an alleged murderer. Then, in the space of five years, everything changed. We all came out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The youngest scientist on the Manhattan Project was also a spy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The story of Theodore Hall, among the youngest Manhattan Project scientists, who finished high school at 14, graduated at Harvard at 18, entered program at 19. Fifty years later, before dying, he confessed he had been a Soviet informant the entire time: https:\/\/t.co\/1GL8mJmgFo<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/sBEiASDKiZ<\/a><\/p>— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 29, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>