5 Intriguing Things
1. Meet the Mosers, Nobel Prize winners for their work finding our brain's "inner GPS."
"If anyone knows how we navigate home, it is the Mosers. They shot to fame in 2005 with their discovery of grid cells deep in the brains of rats. These intriguing cells, which are also present in humans, work much like the Global Positioning System, allowing animals to understand their location. The Mosers have since carved out a niche studying how grid cells interact with other specialized neurons to form what may be a complete navigation system that tells animals where they are going and where they have been. Studies of grid cells could help to explain how memories are formed, and why recalling events so often involves re-envisioning a place, such as a room, street or landscape." (nature.com)
"The Internet portal has committed to an investment in Snapchat at a $10 billion valuation, people familiar with the matter said. One of the people said Yahoo is investing about $20 million. Over the past few months, the mobile-messaging startup has been working to secure capital from a mix of venture-capital firms, money managers and companies. Spokeswomen from Yahoo and Snapchat declined to comment." (wsj.com)
"By examining European skulls, Brace found that the typical way in which human teeth fail to meet, with the upper set overlapping the lower set in an overbite, is a phenomenon that is actually only 250 years old in the West. That shift that correlates almost exactly with the widespread adoption of the table knife and fork. Before cutlery, Europeans would clamp their teeth together on large chunks of meat, in order to hack off pieces with a dagger – a style of eating Brace christened the ‘stuff-and-cut’. Afterward, the cutting was done on the plate, and the overbite became common. By way of proof, Brace offers the Chinese, who had adopted chopsticks 900 years earlier – and whose overbite predates the European version by exactly the same amount of time. If Brace’s theory holds true, the implication is that the replacement of food with a liquid substitute could result in dramatic changes to the human jaw. ‘Soylent-face’ might become a recognisable look." (aeon.co)
4. The National Museum of American History holds a McDonald's tartar-sauce cartridge.
"This cartridge for holding tartar sauce is made of white cardboard; the words 'McDonald’s ® Tartar Sauce' are shown in green lettering along with the McDonald’s double arches logo. This canister holds 25 fluid ounces of tartar sauce, and is made to be used with a ratchet gun condiment dispenser. The tartar sauce is used on McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, a menu item developed by a franchisee in 1962 as an option for his customers who did not eat meat on Fridays for religious reasons. The Filet-O-Fish became a nationwide menu item by 1965 beating out another meatless option, the Hula burger, made with grilled pineapple." (americanhistory.si.edu)
5. Empathy and virtual reality.
"Part of the allure of annihilating time and space is our desire to eradicate the unknown, to make everything visible, to reduce our primitive, mystical reliance on our imaginations. Yet empathy depends on imagination. A Virginia Woolf novel may not actually transport you to the streets of London in the early 20th century, but it plunges you deep into her characters’ subjectivity. I’m reminded of something I read on the author Alain de Botton’s School of Life blog: 'A novel is a machine for simulating experience.' A 'life simulator' that allows us safely to experience what we otherwise couldn’t. 'Unaided, we are puny in our powers of empathy and comprehension, isolated from the inner lives of others, limited in our experiences, short of time, and able to encounter only a tiny portion of the world firsthand.' (californiasunday.com)
+ From the brand-new California Sunday Magazine, produced by some of the very best people out west.
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
company, for guests or visitors, is often labeled 'colloq.,' but has seemingly been in good standing since 1579: 'one or more persons invited or entertained' (OED).
And Where They Have Been