Slightly held up this week when I realised that the last one on my list was a Tumblr I'd already posted here just over four years ago, and had to find something else 
Happy invoicing!
- The Ghosts of the Glacier - "What happens when climate changes quickly in a previously frozen place, when the earth heats up and the mountains melt? In the high Swiss Alps, here's what happens: The ice gives up the bodies—and the secrets—of the past." Sean Flynn on the mountains giving up their dead.
- The Dead Beneath London’s Streets - Meanwhile in London, it's usually property development that leads to the dead being unearthed: "The sarcophagus dates to London’s earliest years, not long after the Romans planted the walled settlement of Londinium on the marshy north bank of the Thames in 43A.D.… It was the find of a lifetime for the archaeologists who worked on it. But in the course of London’s nearly 2,000-year history, perhaps it’s not so surprising at all."
- Behind the scenes at London Underground’s Bank tube station upgrade - And Ian Mansfield has been even further beneath the city streets, to look at the ongoing work to expand Bank: "There’s a building site near Monument, and what otherwise looks like just another office block development near Bank. However, unless you pay attention, it could be possible for even the most ardent of Bank station commuter to not be aware that on the other side of the corridors they squeeze along, huge new tunnels are being dug."
- “He Actually Believes He Is Khalid”: The Amazing 30-Year Odyssey of a Counterfeit Saudi Prince - Mark Seal on a con man of remarkable ambition: "He lived in a penthouse on Fisher Island, the super-wealthy enclave that sprawls across 216 acres south of Miami. But he spent much of his life on his yacht and private jet, which he chronicled religiously on his Instagram account… Khalid wasn’t writing me from his yacht, or his penthouse on Fisher Island, or his father’s palace in Dubai, but from a cell at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, where he awaits trial on charges of fraud, traveling on a fake passport, impersonating a foreign official, and identity theft."
- Sainsbury's Archive: Packaging - The supermarket is putting its archives online, so now you can revisit familiar labels from the pantry of your childhood, like this corn flakes box introduced in 1976
- Raising Spiders in a Physics Lab Reveals There's More than Strength Behind a Spiderweb's Sturdiness - "Of course, spider silk has to be able to stretch without breaking, since it exists primarily to ensnare fast-moving insects… Traditionally, this incredible functionality of spiderwebs has been attributed to the remarkable qualities of the silk itself. However, new research out of the Tsinghua University in Beijing indicates that there’s more to the story.”
- Kelly, the Sassy Dolphin - "What can one brash dolphin teach us about personality?" Animal behaviourists disagree on whether it’s meaningful to ascribe personality traits to dolphins. Mind you, B.F. Skinner was an idiot, so maybe they shouldn't pay so much attention to his theories?
- Lies, Blackmail, and Murder: The Mysterious Life—and Death—of ‘Madame X’ - Another con artist, this time a woman who came to a grisly end in Wales: ”It took just a few seconds for Olive to realize the screams sounded like her neighbor, and that they were coming from the direction of her backyard. She rushed over, where she found her friend crouched on her hands and knees, bleeding from her head and moaning… To her husband, she was an aristocrat born in a foreign land. To neighbors, she was a best-selling novelist and journalist. But to the local police, and soon a jury, she would become a murder case that has yet to be solved.”
- Clock Monitors Deep Space Network, Keeps Vigil Over Lost Mars Rover - Neat little electronics project to keep you in touch with the wider solar system: ”It’s been a long, long time since we heard from Opportunity, the remarkable Mars rover that has shattered all expectations on endurance and productivity but has been silent since a planet-wide dust storm blotted out the Sun and left it starved for power… To pass the time until Opportunity stirs again, [G4lile0] built this Deep Space Network clock. Built around an ESP32 and a TFT display, the clock monitors the Deep Space Network (DSN) website to see if mission control is using any of the huge antennas at its disposal to listen for signals from the marooned rover. If the DSN is listening, it displays a special animation exhorting the rover to phone home; otherwise, it shows which of the many far-flung probes the network is communicating with, along with a slideshow of Mars mission photos to keep the spirits up.”
- video games skies - "the art of depicting skies in video games" This tasteful night sky is from the 1995 arcade game P-47 Aces:
Happy invoicing!
