Extremely busy today, as it’s my last working week of the year and I want to leave things in good shape for my benighted colleague who’ll have to keep going for a week or so longer 
Happy invoicing!
- 14,445 and Counting - ”Inside a Texas nurse’s quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in America.” Dawn Wilcox, a nurse, started her project when Christina Morris, who she had known when Morris was a child, was murdered in 2014.
- XRISM observes a cometary interloper 3I/ATLAS from beyond the solar system - For the first time, X-rays have been observed coming from an interstellar comet: ”In our solar system, comets are known to emit X-rays… The situation is different for interstellar comets passing through our solar system.”
- Charting a Course Through Bears’ Eyes - Combining circuit theory and the traditional knowledge of Indigenous people: ”Traditionally, circuit theory is used to represent electrical circuits, and to help calculate how electrons navigate a complex system of resistors. In this case, the electrons are bears, and the resistors are dense old-growth forest… The Heiltsuk used their knowledge of bear movements garnered from DNA samples of bear fur collected across the territory, community interviews, and the Heiltsuk Traditional Use Study, which started gathering oral histories and traditional knowledge from Heiltsuk elders in the 1990s.”
- Webb Compare - Not a shopping comparison site: ”How much more powerful is the James Webb Space Telescope when compared to Hubble?” Use the sliders on the images to see how JWST images compare to Hubble images of the same celestial object
- We built a database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers – here’s what it reveals - ”When you picture medieval warfare, you might think of epic battles and famous monarchs. But what about the everyday soldiers who actually filled the ranks?” Chaucer is among those whose records are in there: the database itself is at https://medievalsoldier.org/
- The Ballad of Tako: Crazy Experiment Teaches Octopus to Play the Piano in 6 Months - Cephalopod rock: ”This is the story of Tako, a common octopus rescued from the frying pan, and how it came to play musical notes on an underwater piano.”
- AstroLight™ - ”There is a hidden music in the movement of the planets, a silent geometry that paints the canvas of space. AstroLight is an invitation to see this celestial dance, to find the stunning beauty that emerges when science and art collide.” Drag to form connections between one planet and another, or several, and see Spirograph-like patterns emerge. You're not restricted to this solar system either!
- The history of department stores - ”When were iconic British department stores like Debenham's and John Lewis founded? Find out with our guide.” Bringing some historical knowledge to the proceedings might make the nightmare of Christmas shopping slightly more bearable
- The strangest Excel functions you'll never use - Amir Bohlooli explores some of the spreadsheet app's little-known capabilities: ”Excel never removes functions; every new one is simply added to the existing pile… I went looking, got lost in the maze, and came back with a handful of Excel functions that I'm sure no one uses today.”
- Snowball Fights in Art (1400–1946) - ”Few seasonal activities are as universal — across time, place, or culture — as the snowball fight.” A gallery of snowball fights as depicted by artists through the centuries. This woodblock print by Torii Kiyonaga dates to 1787
Happy invoicing!
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