"Ancillary Materials"

By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA

I just couldn’t keep these links to myself.

• Once upon a (Medieval) time, people used to have “two sleeps.” This was a fascinating and occasionally amusing BBC article about the history of biphasic sleep patterns and why it disappeared from our modern sleep schedule. I will also note, as someone who minored in Medieval-Renaissance studies in college, I am aghast that I’m only just now learning (thanks to this article) that there’s a book in this world entitled Beware The Cat, within which a “terrifying supernatural cat” named Mouse-Slayer is on trial for promiscuity.
• This list of National Geographic’s 21 Most Fascinating Scientific Discoveries of 2021is well worth a gander. Some that I had been unaware of include the discovery of the “lost golden city of Luxor,” known as Egypt’s own Pompeii; the first visualization of the disks from which new moons are formed; the sequencing of the DNA from millions-of-years old mammoths; and the unearthing of a nearly complete skeleton of a pterosaur/winged reptile in Brazil.
• If you’re like me and think Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg in their cooking segments are as perfect together as PB&J, then you should probably also know that legal filings suggest Snoop may be expanding his brand further into the culinary world. The venture? His own line of (_just guess_) known as (_you’ll never guess_).
• If you do anything productive today (outside of your job and family obligations, of course) just open this My Modern Met article for the pictures alone. There’s very little to read here — all you need to know is that polar bears have taken over an abandoned meteorological station in the remote Russian arctic, and now, I have a new, very ambitious travel destination on my list.
• You had me at “tiny dwarf mongooses.” The fact they’re playing with plastic Easter eggs is just a truly entertaining bonus.
• Though months-long quarantining was a troubling experience for us all, I think you’ll agree (hopefully?) that being stuck with your partner and/or children and/or by yourself in your own space was more welcome than getting stuck living with a blind date who is a “mediocre cook” and “as mute as a wooden mannequin.”
• When I get old, I hope someone transports me to one of the nursing homes in England that are regularly visited by “therapy penguins.”