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Queen Shit: The Case for Joan Baez
posted by Artw at 11:55 PM PST - 29 comments

How this little insect's stinger is inspiring the next generation of micro medical devices. New research from UNSW Canberra reveals the amazing natural design of a honey bee's stinger, and the potential advancements it could inspire in the next generation of micro medical tools.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:27 PM PST - 4 comments

In Japan (or at least for two different mini-series for the Japanese Pokémon Youtube Channel), a man bakes various treats for the Pokémon with whom he hangs out.
Sweet Winter With Pokémon: “Pokémon Dessert Special” 🎂 “Gorgeous! Assorted Tarts” 🎂 “Sweet Candy is the Taste of Winter”
Camping Trip With Pokémon: “Refreshing! Muscat cake bursting with fragrance” 🥧 “Fluffy! Three-Colored Tiramisu at Mestin”
(Presumably more episodes of the second series will soon appear.)
posted by Going To Maine at 7:13 PM PST - 5 comments

My Year of Adornment is an essay by Afua Hirsch about embracing aging instead of fighting it. [more inside]
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 11:18 AM PST - 39 comments

An Alabama woman was imprisoned for ‘endangering’ her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower. (SLGuardian) During nearly 12 hours of labor, staff gave her only Tylenol for her pain, the suit says, allegedly telling her to “stop screaming”, to “deal with the pain” and that she was “not in full labor”. Caswell lost amniotic fluid and blood and was alone and standing up in a jail shower when she ultimately delivered her child, according to the complaint and her medical records. She nearly bled to death, her lawyers say.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:02 AM PST - 27 comments

Would you like to look at a truly boggling number of linear and circular slide rules, and related paraphernalia, on a website with a comfortingly 20th century aesthetic? Of course you would, which is why you should spend some time at The Oughtred Society's Archive of Collections.
posted by cortex at 8:55 AM PST - 15 comments

Do you remember the days before pop-up Halloween stores? Pictures of them are all over the web, of course, but people sure do like to talk about Spirit Halloween, given it's the ghost of U.S. retail past. Heck, some people liked the store so much, they made a movie about it!
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:50 AM PST - 12 comments

Whatever the formula is that says for top dollar you can look like you had an outhouse flipped on you, these two had it. And yet despite the filth and indifference, as soon as they sat down, my adrenaline spiked. Their level of iPhone absorption and entitled dysmorphia felt like a suspended missile over the whole table. If they caught me compulsively glancing at them, I thought, things might actually flower into some kind of fracas. from Depravity’s Rainbow [The Baffler; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 7:53 AM PST - 24 comments

A cut too far: at BBC Future, Chris Baraniuk writes about "the people who can't give up paper". Among those trying but failing to give it up: the UK's NHS. Lindsay Clark at The Register bemoans their 'abysmal efforts to go paperless'. In the U.S., meanwhile, the IRS has every intention of going paperless, aiming "to achieve paperless processing for all tax returns by filing season 2025". Paper & print industry body Two Sides ask "Is Going Paperless Really Better for the Environment?" While at UNCTAD, Yann Duval et al, attempting to quantify "the environmental benefits from paperless trade facilitation" answer that it often is.
posted by misteraitch at 4:21 AM PST - 43 comments

Poet Louise Glück has died (NYT, gift link). Among many other accolades, she was the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature, for her "unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Previously. [more inside]
posted by charmedimsure at 12:24 AM PST - 21 comments