To solve the mystery of swing bowling, build a jet engine

Hello, friends!

Not ashamed to admit that I spent a lot of last week watching this corpse flower – named ‘Putricia’ – as it prepared to bloom for the first time in 15 years.

Thousands at a time tuned into the Botanic Gardens of Sydney’s livestream over the course of about a week, and the vibes were cultish at times. “We watch the flower,” they said – like, a lot – as well as WDNRP (“We do not rush Putricia”) and BBTB (“Blessed be the bloom”).

The Botanic Gardens of Sydney has taken down the recording – 203 hours is too long for YouTube, apparently – but has promised to upload a timelapse.

In the meantime, see this minute-long timelapse (with far-too-large captions), or treat yourself to a clip of the BBC Earth Asia team braving flooding, power failure and the limitations of the English alphabet (“flower E, flower D, flower B? Which one?”) to capture a corpse flower opening in the Sumatran rainforest. (Thanks for the tip, BL!).

Right. Let’s go!

🍿 online talks and events 🐧

All times are GMT.

Monday 27 January

Electric jet engines and cricket ball swing, hybrid lecture by the Whittle Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19.30, free: Dr Sam Grimshaw discusses the lab’s work developing zero emission propulsion systems for aircraft, before looking at how the science of jet engines has helped us understand the mysterious art of swing bowling in cricket.

Wednesday 29 January

Looping the loop in search of new physics, hybrid event by Imperial College London, 17.30, free: Professor Mitesh Patel discusses his work measuring quantum-loop processes, where particles exist for an instant before disappearing again, and how new experiments can help us understand if these measurements are “new physics”.

Green immunity: how do plants fight infection?, hybrid lecture by Gresham College, 18.00, free: Professor Robin May explores how plants mount bespoke immune responses to pathogens, retain a memory of past infections, and even inherit immunological memory from parents, all without the need for white blood cells.

Thursday 30 January

How trauma affects the body: the psychosomatic nature of trauma, hybrid event by Seed Talks, 18.00, from £9.51: Dr Megan Klabunde examines the latest research about the impact of trauma on health, and the importance of the body in reducing the effects of stress.

Thinking slowly about uncertainty, hybrid event by the Royal Institution, 19.20, from £5: One of the highest authorities on risk and probability, Sir David Spiegelhalter discusses the nature of uncertainty, how we use data to work out the chances of something happening, and how we can do it better.

Saturday 1 February

The real science of asteroid defence, hybrid event by the Royal Institution, 19.00, free: Volcanologist and science writer Robin George Andrews discusses how an international team of scientists and engineers work to protect Earth, which has approximately 25,000 ‘city killer’ asteroids in its orbit. But don’t have nightmares – he’ll also take a look at the successful DART mission, which in 2022 smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its course (google ‘dart mission’ for lols).

🌒 in a sky near you… 🔭

Views from KFS HQ, London. See Stellarium for a personalised view of your night sky after setting your location and time.

Wax on: Look for the thin waxing crescent moon low in the southwestern sky just after sunset on Saturday – a still bright Venus will be just a few fingers (at arm’s length) above it, while Saturn will be about a fist (same) below. They’ll set in the west at about 8pm.

🌼 closer to Earth 👀

Crocuses take a peek: Keep an eye out for the purple and yellow flowers of crocuses, which appear – overnight! – in late winter and early spring.

💫 we need answers

Last week I asked:

The answer is… iron, which spelt backwards is nori, the seaweed jacket that sushi rolls come in. Mmm.

(And if you were wondering, nori is rich in iron – this nutrition study suggests that 13g of the stuff could provide 20% of the daily amount of iron you need, though other sources might be more practical.)

🤔 until next week…

I’ve reached back into the archive for this one:

Where would you find eight millstones, eight cutters, 12 millstones, and four dogs?

Answer comes next week. See you then! x