I spent the summer reading papers, following herons, looking at London data and falling into historical rabbit holes. Here are 15 things I learned.
Peeling off tape creates miniature sonic booms.
When researchers let AI models run a simulated society, Claude was the safest, while Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct within 4 days.
Teenagers with acne tend to get better grades in high school English, history, maths and science.
For more than a century, Iceland had its own Dracula, with some characters having different names and more emphasis on sexuality.
Box office hit films are four times more likely to star a talking animal than a woman over 60.
Humanity may have spoken tens of thousands of languages between 3,000 and 1,000 years ago, far more than the roughly 7,500 spoken today.
After local newspapers closed, police departments became more likely to classify reported rapes as unfounded.
Terrapins invaded London rivers after people released unwanted turtles bought during the Ninja Turtles craze.
Some herons use tools like twigs and plastic tubes to attract fish.
During the 2022 heatwaves, London’s leafiest areas were 1.2°C cooler than those with the fewest trees.
Fans use around 30 times less electricity than central air-conditioning.
The average number of words spoken each day fell from 16,632 in 2005 to 11,900 in 2019.
Illness, financial loss, trauma and violence can make people more likely to believe in conspiracies.
Research suggests political moderates can be seen as disloyal by both liberals and conservatives when the other side feels threatening.
In 1820, it was cheaper to ship a barrel of whale oil from Sydney to London than 100 miles inland.
And if you missed the longer Hypertextual issues I published this summer, here are three of them:
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Elia Kabanov is a London-based science writer exploring technology, cities, nature and history (@metkere).
Cover art: Elia Kabanov feat. DALL-E.