From New Scientist: When a bee flies into your garden, it doesn’t see what you and I see. Flowers leap out from much darker-looking leafy backgrounds, and they have ultraviolet-reflecting landing strips that show the way to the nectar. Some spiders might even have evolved to exploit these displays, spinning UV patterns into their webs… Read More »
Some Nigerians reminisce on the experience of attending a boarding secondary school. I did, and experienced almost all the horrors they describe. Enjoy.
Jonathan Franzen in The New York Times: The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you’ll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don’t like at… Read More »
If, like me, you have a daughter, consider saying Amen along with Tina Fey when you get to the end of it. First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws… Read More »
From keith Hart: The anthropology of finance has flourished in the last decade or so. The doyen of this field is Bill Maurer who conducts research on law, property, money and finance, particularly new and experimental financial and currency forms and their legal implications. He is the author of Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative… Read More »
Thanks to Funlayo for the link. You can also listen to behavioural economist Dan Ariely on the same topic on the BBC Worldservice progamme Forum here.
Joschka Fischer, former leader of the German Green Party and former foreign minister of Germany, writes in Project Syndicate: … political power, not the requirements of energy policy, is what makes giving up nuclear energy so difficult. As a rule, the path to nuclear-power status always begins with so-called “civilian” nuclear programs. The supposed “civilian”… Read More »
The National Museum of China in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, recently trippled its exhibition place in a renovation and expansion that lasted about three and a half year. This makes it the largest museum in the world – it beats New York’s Metropolitan Museum, formerly the largest museum in the world, by about 20,000 square feet.… Read More »
It is difficult to carve out any part of the piece because it is a discussion of a post by Russ Roberts, but let’s try this: Whenever you hear the term ‘Darwinian’ from anyone other than historians of science, assume the crash position; it’s going to get real ugly. There’s a lot here to correct… Read More »
I was battling a tough fever over the past couple of weeks so blogging and tweeting had to take a back seat. I’m pretty much back now, and you can expect regular blogging to resume in the next day or two.