Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

Just read about the lead mask case of Brazil. Very odd story. Two men found dead in waterproof jackets wearing lead masks and with wet towels nearby plus a cryptic note in Portuguese.

I am still only part-way through the weird ways to die but...

I love a story that has a religious element like how people get drawn into cults, or kidnappings from fundamental Christians or something. Writing that down makes me sound weird, I realise.

I am also fascinated by people who are not in contact with the rest of the world, like tribes in the Amazon. I wonder if they are more content with life.

Wow! You are very talented. I hope one day you can get back to it.

Here you can listen to the radio from all over the world, by spinning a globe: radio.garden/visit/jacksonville-fl/uv7VqrAV

I already mentioned David Crystal, he did some work with his son to produce Shakespeare in the original pronunciation

Child Prodigies - especially the bonkers clever ones who seem to be tapping into some part of their brain that the rest of us can't access. But also the way that their lives so often turn out to be a bit tragic and disappointing.

I would love someone to remind me of the name of this person. It was a girl - possibly Victorian Era who was hailed as a prodigy for writing a book (or books?) - I think on nature maybe? For a few years she was the best thing ever and then discredited for reasons I can't remember. Then at some point, she was sent to an asylum where she lived out her whole life. I have been trying to remember her name for ages.

Human Faces. The fact that there are billions of people and only a few components to our faces and yet no two are the same. There was a website (that I also now can't find) where you could submit a picture of your face and you might find your doppelganger (and that was fascinating) but even though some of the likeness was incredible, it wasn't identical. HOW can we all have different faces? Blows my mind.

I pass a house that Livingstone lived in every time I go to Sainsbury's in Hamilton. Every time, I'm awestruck thst such a great explorer lived there!

Love this, thanks!

The story of Vivian Maier. The film ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ is fascinating, and her life and talent for photography remarkable. All found because a job lot of a suitcase was bought with contents unseen at an auction. The person who bought it found her life works in reels upon reels of film. A real social history.

Great thread, OP.

I'm absolutely fascinated by the Industrial Revolution. Social and economic history. Life for people who were 'in service.'

Placemarking to read later!

I recently came across details of a derelict house that my family had lived in. As I looked into it, it became clear that my grandparents (in the 1930s) were the last people to live there so I was looking at bits of their decor. There was also a
YouTube ghost hunt filmed there - which was a hilarious contrast to my father’s rose-tinted memories…

I believe it was aliens too, possibly giants. The part of the bible that says ‘I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven…’ I’ve always believed this is talking about a spaceship. I know that sounds crackers.

There are some lovely wildlife webcams here - brown bears in Alaska:

explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/river-watch-brown-bear-salmon-cams

Bloody great thread op.

It's Mary King's Close and it's an amazing guided tour. There are still empty shops and streets under there.

As I understood it they are more like vaults, which were used as storerooms that became unusable through damp and then taken over by the poor and destitute as housing.

@noodlezoodle google Mary queens close in Edinburgh to read about it.
Its only under the royal mile (not the whole of Edinburgh ! ). where they built on top of streets and some houses.
They also took the top floors of buildings and used the lower floors as foundations for newer buildings. The poor ended up living below the new city.
When you go on the tours you walk down the open closes and alleys and end up underground.
Princess street gardens is a large grass covered area under Edinburgh castle but it actually used to be a loch. It was drained at some point in the past.
Edinburgh also has a underground railway tunnel which was abandoned. It was used during the war as a mass airraid shelter.

I'm with you on this! I keep reading stuff and I'm fairly confident some of it is going in. One of my favourite experts is Don Lincoln who contributes to the FermiLab channel on YouTube. I think it was him who said that in the world of the ultra-small, energy doesn't have to be conserved, as long as the amount of time the energy isn't being conserved is very short.

It's all mind-blowing stuff.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. It's for us all to find what interests us.

I don’t know if that counts are irrefutable evidence.

Nuclear fission spontaneously happened about 20 million years ago to some rocks in Africa and when they realised enough was missing to make several bombs 🤯 I just find it mental to think about so much stuff happening before humans (or dinosaurs) even existed

www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-nuclear-reactor/

@Almahart @DailyMaui have you read the mass observation book edited by Simon Garfield, 'Our Hidden Lives'? It’s a selection of diaries kept by ordinary people from 1945 to '48 for the wartime Mass Observation project (which is still running, by the way). It’s a fascinating read and such an insight into the immediate post-war period.

Re. suffragettes…..I remember watching that TV series, 'Shoulder to Shoulder' as a child, and it appears to be on DVD if this link is correct.

One final recommendation from me for anyone like @Tiddlywinkly who enjoys looking at old maps - do you know about Layers of London?

Is it this idea? It's fascinating!

toppandigital.com/translation-blog/physics-topography-explains-language-diversity/

Sharona makes a feature of it, mentioning it as part of her advertising herself as an estate agent.

Still really icky tho 'Touch of a younger kind' ewwww