The Friday Link for 12/6/24

Howdy all!

We are going to have an all science-y edition of the Friday Link this week.  The YouTube algorithms have been giving me some great things to watch, that have nothing to do with politics. For that I am grateful.

Let's start with a fascinating video from the British Museum, their Curator's Corner.  Irving Finkle looks like an extra in an Indiana Jones movie.  He's a curator in the museum from the Middle East department. 

The feature of this curator's segment focuses on a clay tablet which happens to be the oldest map of the world to exist. On top of that, there is a fascinating part of this video that talks about how the map was unable to be deciphered until a volunteer found a very small but important piece of the tablet in the museum's files. I found this video an absolute gem. 

Next up this week is a fun video from ZeFrank, but instead of talking about a perverse animal species, he talks about being asked to join an advisory board of the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfort, where they are working to identify and name multiple species. This is actually a cool look at how science approaches new animals. 

Next up is a great video from PBS Eons, where they talk about how weird the Amazon used to be. Not only did the Amazon used to flow backward, but then eventually, as the Andes Mountains began to form, it just pooled up and made a South American version of Minnesota (minus the tropical theme).

We talked about ancient maps, naming new species, and the earth of long ago, but our final science destination is space and Proxima Centauri.  What would life be like if humans eventually made it to that star system?  This video does a good job hypothesizing the young community there, and (although it uses some crud AI images) puts together a positive picture of what life would actually look like, populating another planet, far away from any help. 

That does it this week. Have a wonderful weekend!

Please make sure to stay up to date on your vaccinations!