News
Limpet Teeth Tell of Daily Grind
I have a soft spot for limpets, there is a Hawaiian children's book called Iki the Littlest 'Opihi about a little 'opihi who doesn't want to stick to things and just wants to see the world, so he does, but then eventually learns to "stick to it!" and saves a Hawaiian guy out gathering limpets from being dragged under by a rogue wave because he clings to the rock tightly enough that the guy's knife hooks under his shell and saves him. So I guess the whole "strongest biological substance in the known universe" thing tracks, although I don't think it was clear in the children's book that he was holding on with his teeth lol.
How This Woman Creates God of War’s Sound Effects
Do you ever watch videos of foley artists? Usually once or twice a year I deep-dive it just to see what new videos are out there, and sometimes when I'm watching a movie and the movie itself isn't very good I entertain myself by trying to guess what they used to create the foley effects 😂
Eight Facts About Mountain Goats You Should Know
Spoiler alert (and what sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place): THEY AREN'T REALLY GOATS. They're still very cool though, and would sometimes block roads while trying to drive through the mountains in Colorado.
Why are bananas berries but strawberries aren't?
After the mountain goat debacle, I fell down a rabbit hole about misnomers (and I've typed the phrase "rabbit hole" enough times in the past five minutes that now I'm pondering where that came from too. Like why a rabbit hole over a gopher hole? Or just a generic hole? Why the rabbit hole specifically? Rabbit warrens are complex so maybe that's why to try to allude to the depth, so maybe that combined with rabbits being more widely distributed than gophers? Here comes my next rabbit hole....) Anyways, naming conventions are weird. I read a bunch about musk melons vs. cantaloupes a few weeks ago too, fruit labeling is a lie.
Uh-Oh: A story of SpaghettiOs and forgotten history
Niche snack trivia. Do you like spaghettios? They never worked for me texture-wise even as a kid. Also I guess there's a little bit of a recurring theme about food with these articles (unintentionally), it was either this or a dive about why the letters in the alphabet are in the order they are/what order the letters were created in, which technically kind of relates to the close cousin of Spaghettios Alphabet Soup if I'd actually been trying for a food theme, but I liked the little detour this article took into Pasta Fazool and the lady who created it better.
Rent-a-Stranger: This Japanese Man Makes a Living Showing up and Doing Nothing
Is this my dream job? I think yes.
Why We Use Helicopters to Dry Cherry Trees
I don't actually remember at all how I fell into learning about cherry drying via helicopter, but it's fascinating and I suddenly understand why cherries are so expensive. I have yet to do sufficient research on how people manage it on smaller farms/home-grown crops. I'm just imagining going around with like a blow dryer or something even though my logical brain says that's probably wrong....but then, my logical brain also would have said helicopters being the most efficient way to dry large cherry crops was wrong too, so who knows.
Nothing Could Prepare Me for the Bizarre 'Live Birth' Experience at Babyland Hospital
No clue why I was reading things that led me to this. I never really had dolls as a kid, and definitely not Cabbage Patch ones (side note: I still don't understand why, out of all the veggie namesake options, they went with a CABBAGE of all things), but it's a fascinating slice of Americana in rural Georgia regardless of whether you were a doll person or not.
Sugarland and Sara Bareilles cover "Come On Eileen"
Since we were just talking about this and it's a super solid brain-perking cover. The harmonies! The way they're all just vibing together! The 2010s fashion! Perfection. Plus I figured you'd appreciate this as the newsletter song more than the techno version of "Our God is an Awesome God" that's been circling my head on repeat while putting this together 🙏
Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt Once Abandoned a Formal Dinner For an Aerial Joyride
And a final one just for you, in case you didn't stumble across this fabulous little anecdote while in your Eleanor Roosevelt phase :)