“For few decades there, though, barbed wired brought people not apart but together.” Barbed wire was used by rural communities to connect their telephones before the Bell system became widespread. This brought the community together at a relatively low cost, as the fences were abundant. People used the system to host community events, like music nights, getting on their phones with some playing instruments, others singing, and the rest listening in from the comfort of their homes. Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
