Unicorns, Quality Street vs. Roses, and a micromoon

Hello, friends!

How have you been? I’ve been in a bit of a crafting vortex and it’s been total bliss ✨ I spent the best part of yesterday afternoon cutting dozens of 5½-inch squares out of fabric, and can’t remember the last time I felt so content. Using your hands rules!

Coming up:

🦄 how a “unicorn” was made on a farm in 1936

✈️ the 10-month, 15,000-mile journey of a swift compressed into 48 seconds

🍫 the median survival time of a chocolate on a hospital ward.

Let’s go!

read all about it

Intelligence on Earth evolved at least twice in vertebrate animals: “‘A bird with a 10-gram brain is doing pretty much the same as a chimp with a 400-gram brain… How is it possible?’” (Wired)

Pondering the beauty of art encourages ‘big picture’ thinking: “Engaging with the beauty of art can enhance abstract thinking and promote a different mindset to our everyday patterns of thought, shifting us into a more expansive state of mind.” (University of Cambridge)

Scientists turn to ancient poems to construct endangered porpoise’s history: “The poets vividly described the actual behaviours of the porpoises [using language] such as ‘blowing waves…’, ‘surging waves…’ and ‘bowing to the wind’.” (Scientific American)

that time when…

… a biologist made a “unicorn” (16 May 1936).

Dr W. Franklin Dove of the University of Maine made the “unicorn” by surgically bringing the horn buds of a day-old bull calf together and into the centre of its brow ridge, explains an article in Science News Letter.

“[The horn’s] proud possessor has undisputed domination over his companion cattle, and has developed much of the proud yet unaggressive bearing and disposition ascribed to the unicorn of fable,” reads the article.

Meet the “Maine unicorn” – there are pictures! – in Science News Letter.

what’s happening this week?

Your agenda for Monday 12 – Sunday 18 May. All times are BST.

🔭 in a sky near you: See if the Moon appears smaller and fainter than usual. This month’s full Moon happens this very evening (Monday 12) just before 6pm, less than two days after it reached apogee (its furthest point from the Earth).

This “micromoon” will rise in the south east at about half 9 tonight, though will remain low in the sky before setting at about half 4 in the morning.

👀 closer to home: Keep those eyes up (and ears out!) for swifts, which tend to arrive in the UK from Africa about this time of year. They’re dark brown birds with curved, boomerang-like wings and forked tails, which fly high above built-up areas as they rely on buildings for nesting.

Catch them at dusk, when they gather and dart about one another in “screaming parties”.

📼 Follow one swift’s 10-month migration journey through 26 countries and across 15,000 miles.

online talks and events

🌋 Rethinking the origins of plate tectonics, hybrid event by the Royal Institution, Monday 12 May, 19.00, pay what you can

⚡ Bioelectronic medicine, hybrid event by the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research, Monday 12 May, 19.30, free

🧠 The troubled brain: ageing and dementia, hybrid event by Gresham College, Tuesday 13 May, 18.00, free

💭 Unusual experiences and beliefs, online event by the University of Birmingham, Thursday 15 May, 12.00, free

🐦 A synaptic account of birdsong learning, hybrid event by the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, Thursday 15 May, 12.00, free

🍄 The role of fungi in solving planetary crises, hybrid event by St Cross College, University of Oxford, Thursday 15 May, 17.00, free

🛰️ The ingredients for life: OSIRIS-REx mission update, hybrid event by Jodrell Bank, Thursday 15 May, 19.30, £8

we finally know…

…the survival time of chocolates on hospital wards.

Source: The survival time of chocolates on hospital wards: covert observational study (BMJ, 2013)

we need answers

Last week I asked:

The answer is… time. The light-foot was defined by George Gamow (one of the funny-doing physicists we met last year) as the time it takes light to travel one foot, which he gives as 0.0000000011 seconds.

(So… only slightly less than the survival time of a hospital ward chocolate 🙃)

until next week…

Now a common sight in cities all over the world, what were known as “penny universities” in 17th-century England?

Answer comes next week. See you then! x