Tag: 03.05.20

How Those Flocks Of Starlings Know Where To Fly

In the mid 1960s, researchers found that murmurating birds, particularly starlings, interact—not always, but often—with six or seven of their closest neighbors, who interact with six or seven of their closest neighbors. In recent years, studies posit that a network with seven neighbors optimizes the trade-off between “group cohesion and individual effort.” One theory among researchers, in the context of predation, is that starlings are “managing uncertainty while maintaining consensus.” – Nautilus

How Wasps (And Their Nests) Help Date Ancient Painting

A nest built on top of a painting is probably younger than the painting, but a nest covered over with pigment is probably older than the painting. At one site, ancient people had painted a figure over the remains of one nest, and some time later, wasps built two more mud nests atop the painting. Radiocarbon dating those nests suggested that the painting is 11,300 to 13,000 years old. – Ars Technica

Inside The Head Of Freeman Dyson

Even by physicists’ standards, Dyson’s thinking was strikingly unconstrained by the here and now. One moment, he was delving into the esoterica of quantum theory, and, the next, he was speculating about the logistics of alien civilizations. In the nineteen-fifties, he led the team developing a new type of nuclear reactor, which included several novel safety features; soon after, he was designing an interstellar spacecraft propelled by nuclear bombs. – The New Yorker

How A D&D Tool Helped Organize Our World Views

The pleasure of filling out an alignment chart is similar to that of playing a simple brainteaser, or completing an elementary-school worksheet: You’re making judgment calls, sorting, putting objects into little boxes—and you end up with something neat and composed. It has the allure of surety. If we could decide, once and for all, what is the exact best way to live, maybe everything would fall into place. – The Atlantic

Joyce Gordon, Pioneering TV Actress (And Voice You Know From Frustrating Phone Calls), Dead At 90

“During the germinal days of television, … [she] became famous as ‘The Girl With the Glasses,’ for un-self-consciously wearing her signature eyeglasses on camera as she delivered live, on-air advertising pitches for products like Crisco and Duncan Hines cake mixes.” Her voice was heard in many a dubbed foreign film and countless radio announcements — and whenever you called a number that was “no longer in service.” – The New York Times

Settlement Terms Revealed In Lawsuit Over Audible’s Captioning Of Audiobooks

“Now that it’s public, it’s still not clear why the parties sought to keep the settlement terms private in the first place, other than the fact that NDAs and confidentiality agreements have become the default for Audible’s parent company, Amazon. Beyond the revelation of the settlement containing payments from Audible, the settlement is brief, and its 18 terms are simple, standard, and straightforward.” – Publishers Weekly