Just Interesting

The “glossy magazine” category. Nothing too deep.

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The behavior of ball bearings as they self assemble under an electric field They seem alive, reaching for each other to form emergent structures. In fact, it’s how the molecules in living cells work,  just on a larger scale. 

Compare to this single brain cell searching for connections:

It doesn’t pay to make grand conclusions based on similar appearances, but this shows the patterns driving all of our living cells and probably something elemental about the nature of evolution itself.

 

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Lysimachus Tetradrachm. Byzantium, Posthumous. 190-110 BC. 16.18g.

Lysimachus was a Macedonian officer and successor of Alexander the Great, who became a King in 306 BC, ruling Thrace, Asia Minor, and Macedon. He began as a bodyguard to Alexander before becoming a trusted friend and rising through the ranks.

The coin is a tetradrachm, meaning that it was worth four drachmas; one drachma, in turn, was worth six obols. It is a high-value coin representing, in the mid-fifth century BC, four days’ pay for a skilled laborer or for a hoplite soldier, or two days’ pay for a sculptor working on a public building.

I love how sharp and clear it is.  I wonder how many times, and for what exactly, it was passed from hand to hand.

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Ball of carbonized thread of linen or nettle dating from the Middle Neolithic (3,900 – 3,300 BC) from the Marin-Epagnier / Préfargier site, France.

After Joëlle Bregnard Munier/Romain Pigeaud

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Book-shaped French cipher machine, with arms of Henri II of France gilt brass and gold. 1547–1559

Enciphered letter from Gabriel de Luetz d’Aramon, French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, after 1546, with partial decipherment

 

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