On this week’s “Long Reads Sunday,” NLW reads Alex Treece’s recent essay “Why the US Needs Bitcoin.” The piece argues the U.S. will inevitably adopt bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, but by doing so sooner rather than later it can enjoy geopolitical advantages.
NLW follows with a discussion of his assessment of the prospects of a digital dollar backed by digital gold.
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Reset brings on an infectious disease expert for our weekly check-in to provide clarity and answers to your questions, comments and concerns about COVID-19.
On January 1, 1987, a paper was published in the journal Nature which rocked the world of anthropology.
Researchers Allan Wilson, Mark Stoneking, and Rebecca Cann used the then-new science of genetic analysis to analyze the DNA in human mitochondria.
What they found was evidence that humans on Earth can trace their ancestry back to a single woman who lived approximately 180,000 years ago.
Learn more about Mitochondrial Eve, the mother of everyone, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
A paper in the BMJ shows that deaths from Covid 9 are being massively overlooked in Zambia. The new data come from post-mortem tests at the University Hospital mortuary in Lusaka, showing that at least 1 in 6 deaths there are due to the coronavirus; many of the victims had also been suffering from tuberculosis. Chris Gill of Boston University’s Department of Global Health, and Lawrence Mwananyanda, chief scientific officer of Right to Care, Zambia, discuss their findings with Roland Pease.
New variants of concern continue to be reported, such as the one labelled B 1 1 7 in the UK, or B 1 351 identified in South Africa. Geneticist Emma Hodcroft, of the University of Bern, talks about seven variants that have been found in the US. Although all these variants are evolving from different starting points, certain individual mutations keep recurring – which suggests they have specific advantages for the virus.
Her co-author Jeremy Kamil, of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, explains how he can watch the viruses replicating inside cells.
Much of the United States, as far south as Texas, and Eurasia, has been gripped by an extraordinary blast of Arctic weather. Roland hears from climatalogist Jennifer Francis, of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, about the Arctic’s role in this weird weather.
Life, in the form of sponges, has been discovered hundreds of metres under the thick ice surrounding Antarctica, where it’s dark, subzero and barren. The British Antarctic Survey’s Huw Griffiths reveals how it was spotted unexpectedly in pictures colleagues took with a sub-glacial camera.
It’s the stuff of fairy tales – a beautiful cottage, with windows, chimney and floorboards … and supported by a living growing tree. CrowdScience listener Jack wants to know why living houses aren’t a common sight when they could contribute to leafier cities with cleaner air. The UK has an impressive collection of treehouses, but they remain in the realm of novelty, for good reasons. Architects are used to materials like concrete and steel changing over time, but a house built around a living tree needs another level of flexibility in its design. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible and CrowdScience hears about a project in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where architect Ahadu Abaineh made a three-storey, supported by 4 living Eucalyptus trees as a natural foundation.
Host Marnie Chesterton meets some of the global treehouse building fraternity, including builder of over 200 structures, Takashi Kobayashi, who adapts his houses to the Japanese weather. In Oregon, USA, Michael Garnier has built an entire village of treehouses for his “Treesort”. He’s developed better ways of building , including the Tree Attachment Bolt, which holds the weight of the house while minimising damage to the tree.
Professor Mitchell Joachim from Terreform One explains the wild potential of living architecture, a movement which looks at organic ways of building. He’s currently building a prototype living house, by shaping willow saplings onto a scaffold that will become a home, built of live trees.
(Image: A man walks to his friend's home in a neighbourhood without electricity as snow covers the BlackHawk neighborhood in Pflugerville, Texas, U.S. Credit: Reuters)
Cold Snap in Texas; News Items: American Megafauna Extinction, The Fifth Dimension, Bird's Magnetic World, Pentagon UFO Wreckage; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Police and Lie Detection, Saunas and Sweat; Science or Fiction
Ever heard of the German Crusade of 1197? Probably not. It must be one of the most overlooked Crusades. And yet it could have been a game-changer. Discover why in this episode.
Please take a look at my website nickholmesauthor.com where you can download a free copy of The Byzantine World War, my book that describes the origins of the First Crusade.
This week, instead of our normal Weekly Recap, NLW digs into Thursday’s congressional hearings around GameStop, Robinhood and WallStreetBets.
He explores:
Why there was a significant focus on T+2 settlement
Bipartisan agreement on retail investors getting screwed, but different diagnoses on how to address
Why Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, aka DeepF***ingValue is a new American folk hero
Ultimately, NLW argues that any congressional action needs to make it easier for retail investors to be full participants in the market, rather than further limiting their options.
Some of the things we use every day were invented in the distant past. Other things were invented quite recently.
However, there is a category of inventions that have been known forever, but no one ever had any practical use for it until recently.
Learn more about the elevator, and how it helped create the modern world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Actor Steven Yeun talks about making “Minari”, and how it’s the first film he’s been involved with that shows the immigrant experience through the eyes of a recently-arrived Korean family to the U.S.
