Well, what do you know? Maybe writing a newsletter is easier than writing a blog post. And it’s clear why. Writing a 1500+ word post on a single topic means you should have that much material to begin with. That requires coherent thoughts, not a pocketful but a large suitcase full of coherent thoughts (Be sure to use a waterproof suitcase. I once had all my thoughts ruined because water got in and they dissolved. It was an article about the monsoon.) Newsletter can have a bunch of topics, with no restrictions on length. This is perfect for my brain that likes to jump from topic to topic like a hummingbird high on a case of Red Bulls.
This is not a blogpost becuase it contains various unrelated topics. And this is not a newsletter because it’s written on a blog. So I shall call it ‘NotNewsNotLetter’ (3NL). (If you outbluff a Surrealist, what do you get? If I say ‘this is a sketch of a pipe’, can we all go home?)
If you are wondering what in the name of Majorana fermion was all that gobbledygook about, I was just trying to confuse the AI bots. Really, it’s a blogpost. Or maybe I am tripplebluffing. I am keeping the name 3NL though.
We start this edition of 3NL with a tour of the animal planet. Great story in The New York Times about the Deer-Forest Study, a decade long project that tracks more than 1200 deers in the Pennsylvania forest. In particular, the story highlights travels of Buck 8917, an adult male deer. While most of his wanderings were normal and boring, on June 4, 2013, Buck 8917 took a one mile walk to the top of a rocky ridgeline, staying there for an afternoon. In 2015, researchers found his dead body at the same spot that he had visited only once before.
Biologists do not have an explanation for Buck 8917’s behaviour. On The Deer-Forest blog, Prof. Duane Diefenbach reports this study in detail and merely states that “we will never know why this deer picked the spot it did to die.” As a professional ecologist, he is understandably cautious in coming to any conclusions without data.
I am a physicist so as far as ecology is concerned, my status is that of a layman. (I did take botany and zoology in college; loved watching the stained plant cells under microscope. Dissecting frogs and earthworms was a tricky job, you need a super steady hand!)
So as a layman, I am free to voice the possibilities that many non-specialists would have pondered upon while reading about the study. Did Buck 8917 know he was going to die? It’s known that animals often choose remote areas to hide when they are sick to avoid predators. Was Buck 8917’s previous excursion merely a random walk? Why did he stay at that remote spot for a whole afternoon? Did he decide that this was the spot as he went back that day? How conscious are animals about future planning? Or is it all instinctual?
Modern technology has enabled us to observe the natural world on a scale that is multi-dimensional, fine grained and this produces enormous amounts of data. As a result, we are witnessing animal behaviours that seem to go against what we have been made to believe, whether it’s a bear fixing a fallen traffic cone or a cockatoo dancing in perfect sync to The Backstreet Boys.
Our next guest is not as mysterious but is loads of fun. She enjoys playing with her sister who is a rottweiler. She is Luna, a black panther/leopard. She was abandoned by her mama when she was a kitten and was raised by her human parents from day seven. The zoo was planning to sell her so the kind humans adopted her permanently. She has been with them ever since. Raise your hand if you are reminded of Bagheera and Mowgli.
Désolé, monsieur Leblanc, Lupin déçoit.
After watching the Lupin series, I decided to read the original, starting with the first book The Gentleman Thief by Maurice Leblanc. You can find a free copy at Project Gutenberg. I must say it was an underwhelming experience. The book is a series of stories, with Arsène Lupin as the central character. Leblanc seems to have a love/hate relationship with Sherlock Holmes. The sixth story called The Seven of Hearts is clearly based on Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Second Stain.
Both stories have so many common points – important documents stolen, kept in a secret place at a house, also contain compromising letters written by the wife of victim used for blackmailing etc.
And then there is the last chapter in which Sherlock Holmes himself appears, and Lupin steals his watch. Story goes that Conan Doyle was furious after reading it and threatened to sue so the name was changed to Herlock Sholmes (sounds like nails on a chalkboard.)
Problem here is that Leblanc simply states that Lupin stole Holmes’ watch. He does not care to elaborate how he did it.
In contrast, Conan Doyle is all about ‘show, don’t tell.’ That’s why Holmes is so much more believable. His process is so logical that all Holmes fans believe that if only they apply themselves, they can be him.
It’s possible that Leblanc was still trying to find his footing and later Lupin books show improvement. Nevertheless, the first book is certainly disappointing and makes a rather cringeworthy and unsuccessful attempt to bring down the greatest detective in the world.
Take a walk (literally) in the medieval era
One of my favourite Youtube channels is that of Prof. Alessandro Barbero who is a professor of medieval history at the Universita degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale e Vercelli in Piedmont, Italy. What’s interesting about his lectures is that while he speaks about kings, queens, and wars like all historians do, he also tells you about what the life of ordinary citizens was like in the medieval era. For instance, surnames were not common in the those times; only royalties and wealthy families had them. Ordinary people were known as ‘Paolo the carpenter’ or ‘Giovanni the blacksmith.’ Prof. Barbero’s lectures are full of such interesting titbits.
In one of his recent interviews, Prof. Barbero was talking about how protests and revolts were carried out in medieval times; for instance the Ciompi Revolt in the republic of Florence from 1378 to 1382. Speaking about how the news of such revolts spread, Prof. Barbero said it was through word-of-mouth. People used to walk a lot in those days; walking 20 kms. a day was normal.
That got me thinking. A human in medieval era was walking 20 kms everyday without a sweat. Fast forward 20 generations (assuming 3 generations every 100 years), that number is down to less than 1-2 kms for many of us. 20 generations is hardly any time for the genes to evolve. Compare it to a fruit fly that can have hundreds of thousands of generations in a short time to show measurable effects of genetic mutations. We still have the ancient physiology that thrives on intense physical activity.
Today, we have no walking and abundance of food which the brain mistakes as a signal to store more of it. It does not know that we are not going to starve, like ever. And false danger signals that trigger the amygdala for all sorts of wrong reasons – bad performance review or not getting likes is not the same as a leopard chasing you through a forest. But the brain is blissfully unaware and treats all of these as life threatening. It produces cortisol in copious amounts, to better help you run and hide from that cheetah that never was. But where are you going to run if you don’t get enough likes? It’s like calling for an armoured division because you saw a cockroach. Do this everyday and too much cortisol floating around will cause all sorts of unwanted chemical reactions.
Is it any wonder that modern life is so full of problems?
We live in modern times where things are changing rapidly every hundred years. What worked for your great-great-grandfather no longer works for you. Gone are the days of the expensive papyrus when writing was a precious and sacred act carried out by snooty scribes in secret. With the wide availability of paper and ink, people are now writing to each other more than ever and that has opened up a whole new space on the gig economy front – the messenger.
Do you like to walk? Can you hop down to the next village 30-40 kms away without breaking a sweat? If you answered yes, then you are a born messenger. Carry messages back and forth between villages and earn handsome rewards. Apply now!
A messager’s job can be risky. Are you afraid of wolves, leopards or coyotes chasing you through the forest? Look no further. Our special cream made from garlic, onion, vinegar, and a month old fermented tuna will keep all the wild creatures away. First 10 buyers will get a 30% discount.
Tried the cream, works great. But how do I remove the smell? It’s been a month and my wife is not letting me in the house.
