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Missed News 499
February 22, 2021
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The Mystery of Florida’s Cannonball-Eating Spanish Fort
February 20, 2021
Business, Food For Thought, Human Interest, Science, Technical amazon, business, Business News, current-events, Future, Hotels, human-rights, medicine, mental-health, research, Science, Science News, technology, Technology News, travel, vacation 1 Comment
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In 1702, when the Spanish still ruled Florida, an English fleet from colonial Carolina approached Castillo de San Marcos, a Spanish stronghold on the Atlantic shore.
The fort guarded the Spanish empire’s trade routes as well as the surrounding city of St. Augustine, and the English wanted to run this politically and economically important outpost for themselves. Led by Carolina’s governor James Moore, the English boats dropped their anchors and laid siege.
But even after nearly two months of being shelled with cannonballs and gunfire, the fort’s walls wouldn’t give. In fact, they appeared to be “swallowing” the British cannonballs, which then became embedded within the stone. Precisely how the walls did this remained a mystery for the next three centuries.
Normally, a cannonball creates long, deep cracks in stone that radiate out from the impact’s center, causing catastrophic damage to a structure. This was clearly not the case for the walls surrounding Castillo de San Marcos. Built from coquina—sedimentary rock formed from compressed shells of dead marine organisms—the walls suffered little damage from the British onslaught. As one Englishman described it, the rock “will not splinter but will give way to cannonball as though you would stick a knife into cheese.”
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Castillo de San Marcos from above. Photo from the National Parks Service / Public Domain.
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What Happened After the Liberation of Auschwitz
February 20, 2021
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It was January 1945, and fires burned at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Not at the crematoria where, at the height of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp’s operations, an average of 6,000 Jews were gassed and cremated each day—those had been blown up at the command of SS officers preparing the camps’ evacuation. This time, the Nazis had set ablaze their prisoners’ looted possessions. The fires raged for days.
Once, the sprawling 40-camp complex now known as Auschwitz was characterized by grim record-keeping and brutal order. With chilling efficiency, the architects of the Holocaust orchestrated processes of deportation, detention, experimentation, enslavement, and murder. Between 1940 and 1945, approximately 1.1 million Jews, Poles, Roma people, Soviet POWs, and others were killed at the Auschwitz camps. Now, as Soviet troops marched westward through occupied Poland, the SS sought to dismantle their killing machine.
The Red Army’s arrival meant liberation, the camps’ end. But what came after the murders finally stopped?
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A picture taken in January 1945 depicts the gate and railway of Auschwitz-Birkenau after the camp’s liberation by Soviet troops. Photo from Hulton Archive / Getty Images.
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Adelie Penguin
February 20, 2021
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The Adélie penguin is a species of penguin common along the entire coast of the Antarctic continent, which is its only habitat. It is the most widely spread penguin species, as well as the most southerly distributed of all penguins, along with the emperor penguin. It is named after Adélie Land, in turn, named for Adèle Dumont d’Urville, who was married to French explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville, who first discovered this penguin in 1840. Adélie penguins obtain their food by both predation and foraging, with a diet of mainly krill and fish. The Adélie penguin is one of three species in the genus Pygoscelis. Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA evidence suggests the genus split from other penguin species around 38 million years ago, about 2 million years after the ancestors of the genus Aptenodytes. In turn, the Adélie penguins split off from the other members of the genus around 19 million years ago.
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What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Eating Sugar
February 20, 2021
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Sugar is a cruel, cruel mistress—it’s delicious and addictive, but it’s not doing you any favors. Aside from causing weight gain, increased consumption of refined sugar increases the risk of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and can impact cognitive function and memory, says best-selling author Sara Gottfried, M.D.
It turns out your daily afternoon sugary treat not only gives you major brain fog—according to author David Wolfe, it also accelerates aging.
It may seem daunting, even impossible, to remove processed sugar from your diet, but understanding all the extraordinary things that happen when you cut it out can empower you to kick the habit. Keep reading.
After an Hour
Expect withdrawals, even after a few hours. “Sugar is addictive and activates a dopamine response in the reward center of the brain, like a drug,” says Wolfe. Depending on the amount of sugar you consume daily, you might experience varying drops in blood sugar levels, sweating, shaking, irritable moodiness, hunger, and sadness. Gottfried suggests fighting through these symptoms by consuming fresh vegetables with fiber, anti-inflammatory protein sources, and healthy fats.
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Photography by Cody Guilfoyle.
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People’s words and actions can actually shape your brain — a neuroscientist explains how
February 20, 2021
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We, humans, are a social species. We live in groups. We take care of one another. We build civilizations.
Our ability to cooperate has been a major adaptive advantage. It has allowed us to colonize virtually every habitat on Earth and thrive in more climates than any other animal, except maybe bacteria.
Part of being a social species, it turns out, is that we regulate one another’s body budgets — the ways in which our brains manage the bodily resources we use every day. For your whole life, outside of your awareness, you make deposits into other people’s body budgets, as well as withdrawals, and others do the same for you. This has pros and cons, as well as profound implications for how we live our lives.
How do the people around you influence your body budget and rewire your adult brain? Your brain changes its wiring after new experiences, a process called plasticity. Microscopic parts of your neurons change gradually every day. Branch-like dendrites become bushier, and their associated neural connections become more efficient. Little by little, your brain becomes tuned and pruned as you interact with others.
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Eugenia Mello
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Trollius
February 19, 2021
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Trollius is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants closely related to Ranunculus, in the family Ranunculaceae. The common name of some species is globeflower or globe flower. Native to the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the greatest diversity of species in Asia, Trollius usually grow in heavy, wet clay soils.
They are mostly herbaceous, fibrous-rooted perennials with bright yellow, orange, or lilac coloured flowers. The name “globeflower” refers to the petals of T. europaeus and T. × cultorum which are curved over the top of the flower, forming a globe. But T. pumilus has flatter flowers, and T. chinensis has open flowers with prominent stamens.
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An image of Trollius
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My Secret Life as a Mysterious Multimillionaire’s Personal Assistant
February 19, 2021
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My boss, Zander, stood outside a restaurant window, waving a wad of cash at the steakhouse’s waitstaff. He wanted them to open, hours early — just for us. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he shouted, their backs turned to us.
It didn’t work, so we continued wandering around downtown Austin. We decided to dine at Searsucker, an impulsive choice given Zander’s waning pride and the 100-degree heat. Sweat beaded down my neck and pooled in my armpits as the hostess led my boss, his chauffeur, and me to the dining area. She escorted us to a table guarded by a wide-branching palm tree that seemed almost practical compared to the braided ropes draping from the ceiling and the vanity lighting demanding that we EAT EAT EAT.
Zander (I’ve changed his name, as well as those of others mentioned in this piece) settled into the first open chair and started flirting with the hostess. He drained his Old Fashioned and asked for another.
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Illustrations by Julie Benbassat.
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Beat the Clock: The Surprising Psychology Behind Being Perpetually Late
February 19, 2021
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Sometimes, one of my psychotherapy clients will be late. “The tube got stuck; I do apologize.” If it happens once, I don’t treat it as significant. But some clients are perpetually late – perhaps just five or 10 minutes, but always – and out of breath when they get to the door. Then I am curious about what is behind their pattern of lateness, what it means, and what purpose it serves.
There are probably as many reasons for unpunctuality as there are habitually late people. Sometimes it seems unfathomable, but not always. One client remembered that his mother always spent so long in the bathroom that she made him late for school. She told him that it didn’t matter, and early people are uptight anyway. In his unconscious, being on time for things had got mixed up with being disloyal to his mother and therefore bad. Once he had found this narrative, he lost his compulsion for lateness.
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Photo by Willie B. Thomas / Getty Images.
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Edinburgh, UK
February 18, 2021
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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth’s southern shore.
Recognized as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, and the supreme courts of Scotland. The city’s Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a center of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences, and engineering. It is the second-largest financial center in the United Kingdom (after London) and the city’s historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom’s second most visited tourist destination attracting 4.9 million visits including 2.4 million from overseas in 2018.
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An image from Edinburgh, UK
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