Some light reading to pass the time until we enter the sunlit green uplands on Friday 
Happy invoicing!
- My 750-mile Hike Through the Grand Canyon Started with an Epic Fail - In this extract from his book about the experience, Kevin Fedarko reveals what happened when a friend persuaded him to go for a walk: ”Together they would embark on a 750-mile expedition, by foot, through the Grand Canyon, moving from east to west—a journey McBride promised would be ‘a walk in the park.’ Fedarko agreed, unaware that the tiny cluster of experts who were familiar with this particular trek billed it as ‘the toughest hike in the world.’”
- How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It - ”Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science.” AI may not be able to draw hands, but this application of it seems to have worked
- Meet the Forgotten Woman Who Revolutionized Microbiology With a Simple Kitchen Staple - ”Fanny Angelina Hesse introduced agar to the life sciences in 1881. A trove of unpublished family papers sheds new light on her many accomplishments.” As so often, it turns out she also contributed in other ways to the work attributed to her husband.
- How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe - HT to DoctorStrangelove for this exposé of 3M’s manipulations: ”Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles with the secrets that 3M kept from her and the world.”
- A Dose of Antacids, a Quaint British Bay, and a Public Relations Fiasco - More big corporation shenanigans: ”Uproar over an ocean alkalinity enhancement pilot project in St. Ives Bay raises an important question: who gets to decide where climate change projects are tested?”
- Private School Mafia - ”This is not intended as a list of awful people… But this desperately needs pointing out: privately educated children are NINETY-FOUR times more likely to reach the British elite than those of us who were educated in state schools.” I did think my old school might get off lightly, having produced some good comedians and musicians, but no: Desmond Swayne!
- Is this England’s most filmed village? - ”The chocolate-box setting of Turville in Buckinghamshire has provided film and TV locations for everything from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to The Vicar of Dibley. ” Seems nice enough. I think the BFI have messed up a few of the photos slightly though: I don’t remember any shots of tower blocks in Went the Day Well?
- ‘It’s impossible to play for more than 30 minutes without feeling I’m about to die’: lawn-mowing games uncut - ”Lawn Mowing Simulator joins a long line of popular simulation games of real-life activities. But why trim fake grass? We ask some cutting-edge experts.” I once tried a Tube train simulator, but by the time I’d got from Edgware to Burnt Oak I’d concluded that driving a Tube train isn’t as exciting as you might think.
- Ice cream vans gone silent - ”How councils are threatening the sound of British summer.” Sad news for aficionados of Greensleeves if these councils continue with their overreaching interpretations of regulations
- Мороженое на карте СССР or Ice cream on the map of the USSR if you’re waiting till after the invasion to learn Russian - ”Soviet ice cream is not only the best in the world (at least that’s what we thought then). But also the most multinational… I continue the story about the exhibition of the upcoming Museum of Ice Cream in Moscow on the 89th floor of Moscow City. Taking advantage of my official position as a historical consultant for the project, I am revealing to you another small part of it.”
Happy invoicing!
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