1. This Deadswap offline sharing game sounds fascinating.

"deadSwap is a clandestine offline file sharing system where participants covertly pass a USB stick from one to another. The route of the USB memory stick and the identity of the other participants is not known by the users but controlled by local, independently operated SMS gateways that are kept as a carefully shared secret by their users."

2. The Army open-sources some of its 'cyber defender' software.

"Army cyber defenders released code to help detect and understand cyber attacks. The forensic analysis code called Dshell has been used, for nearly five years, as a framework to help the U.S. Army understand the events of compromises of Department of Defense networks. A version of Dshell was added to the GitHub social coding website on Dec. 17, 2014 with more than 100 downloads and 2,000 unique visitors to date. Dshell is a framework that its users can use to develop custom analysis modules based on compromises they have encountered. It is anticipated that other developers would contribute to the project by adding modules that benefit others within the digital forensic and incident response community, said William Glodek, Network Security branch chief, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, or ARL."

3. Idris Elba is presenting a BBC series on 20 big questions in modern life.

"Luther star Idris Elba is to present a ground-breaking, interactive BBC documentary series called Story of Now that explores some of the biggest questions facing mankind about its past, present and future. Using the latest video technology, the series allows viewers to explore hours of films and information from experts about 20 of the world’s fundamental issues – from politics to religion, creation to consciousness.The experts include neuroscientist Dr Molly Crockett, blind figurative painter Sargy Mann and social activist Naomi Klein and questions covered include did the universe begin with the Big Bang and is the sky really blue?"

4. Let's get to the scientific bottom of this whole spontaneous human combustion thing.

"In the past, such a situation was erroneously attributed to supernatural powers, as such phenomenon occurs in the absence of any witness. The purpose of this review article was to analyze articles published from January 1, 2000, on this unique type of burn injury. Further aims were to gather and present data on the causes and events leading to this situation. The literature was reviewed with PubMed interface using the key words spontaneous human combustion and preternatural combustion. Specific inclusion criteria resulted in 12 patients. A unique sequence of events takes place for the human body to incinerate to ashes. The flame burn victim has to die for the body fat to start melting. A tear in the skin has to occur for the melted fat to impregnate the charred clothes, igniting a wick effect that produces localized heat for extended period. A phenomenon called spontaneous human combustion is reality. The term 'spontaneous human combustion' has nuances which are not applicable to this situation or to these modern times, therefore we suggest a new term 'fat wick burns.'"

5. The 33 1/3 book about Kanye West.

"Swallowing the chaos wrought by his public persona and digesting it as a grandiose allegory of self-redemption, Kanye sublimates his narcissism to paint masterstroke after masterstroke on MBDTF, a 69-minute hymn to egotistical excess. Sampling and ventriloquizing the pop music past to tell the story of its future – very much a tale of our culture's wish for unfettered digital ubiquity – MBDTF is the album of its era, an aesthetic self-acquittal and spiritual autobiography of our era's most dynamic artist."

Today's 1957 American English Language Tip

depicture, though in fact an old verb, has never established general currency, & perhaps always sets a reader wondering whether it is a blunder due to hesitation between depict and picture, it might well be abandoned as a NEEDLESS VARIANT.

CORRECTION: the spelling of yesterday's word was not DENTRIFICE but DENTIFRICE. My apologies to all.

The Credits:  1. deadswap.net / @kragen 2. army.mil  3. theguardian.com 4. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov / @spacearchaeology 5. bloomsbury.com / @christianbowe

Subscribe to The Newsletter

'Spontaneous Human Combustion' Has Nuances