Berry special inspiring belly dancing and jumping at Turramarra
Folding book pages to spell "inspire"
Eurasian jays less likely than people to be deceived by magic tricks PhysOrg
‘There are ghosts in the land’: how US mega-dairies are killing off small farms Guardian
New research: Why do some frogs have teeth? Slate
Ted Gioia’s newsletter is called Culture Notes of an Honest Broker and in this recent issue, he shares the surprisingly cloak and dagger story of how he came to think of himself as an “Honest Broker”.
“Who, exactly, is this Honest Broker?”
“There’s at least one in every city. But don’t expect their business cards to say ‘Honest Broker’ - that’s just what I call them. But that’s exactly what they are. Sometimes they don’t even have an official position. But they are the key to everything.”
He proceeded to explain how Honest Brokers play a hidden but vital role in communities without a history of legal protections and stable institutions. Their influence and power is built solely on a reputation for straight talk and trustworthy dealings. “They are true brokers, intermediaries between others. They aren’t going to participate in your deal, no matter what it is. They are go-betweens, really. But do not underestimate the power of this kind of brokerage. Whatever you need — a loan, a building permit, political influence, a place to land a private jet, whatever — they will introduce you to the right people and steer you away from the sharks.
The California Academy of Sciences has announced the winners (and finalists) of their BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition for 2021. I’ve included a few favorites above: barracuda by Yungn-Sen Wu, leafcutter ants by Petr Bambousek, and lynx spiders by Lung-Tsai Wang. See all of the winners and finalists here. (
The Daily Beast -“Last September, New York City’s Swann Galleries were advertising the sale of an invaluable piece of Spanish and Mexican history: a 500-year-old letter involving Hernán Cortés, the Spanish military leader and colonizer. The letter was expected to sell for somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 until a group of academics intervened. Reuters reports that the letter was one of a cluster of Cortés documents that had been stolen out of the National Archive of Mexico (AGN) and put up for sale. What’s even more shocking is that this is not the first time that important and valuable pieces of history have been stolen from a national archive, prominent library, or museum and ended up on the block at a prominent auction house…”