Quickies

Quickies: Brundibar, Terrence Howard and Domestic Violence, and Turning Chickens into Dinosaurs

  • Q&A With Emily Graslie – “Emily Graslie’s had a pretty big week. On Wednesday, the art-student-turned-star-science-communicator celebrated the release of the 100th episode of her popular YouTube series, “The Brain Scoop,” which offers a behind-the-scenes look at Chicago’s Field Museum, where she works.” From Arturo.
  • Terms of Service – A (free) graphic novelization of understanding our roles in Big Data. (If only I could consume all of my news in comic form…)
  • Joyful Opera Performed In Nazi Concentration Camp Revived In Chicago – “Brundibár, a children’s opera that premiered during World War II, became both a symbol of hope and resistance and a Nazi propaganda tool. Now, Petite Opera, a small company in suburban Chicago, is reprising the opera, originally performed by Jewish children held in a concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. The opera, written by Czech composer Hans Krása and librettist Adolf Hoffmeister, chronicles the efforts of two children, siblings Pepicek and Aninka, as they try to get milk for their sick mother. Eighty-four-year-old Ela Stein Weissberger says it’s a simple story, a tale of good conquering evil, based on a fairy tale.”
  • Will Reporters Finally Ask Terrence Howard About His Alleged Violence Against Women? – “The Bill Cosby saga, as it’s played out over the last few weeks, represents a massive systemic fail for the media. This wasn’t just a story that the media missed. It’s a story that was already on the record and about a guy whom various newspapers, magazines, and TV networks helped promote in all sorts of ways over the last 10 years.”
  • When Thanksgiving Was Weird – “People – young and old – got all dressed up and staged costumed crawls through the streets. In Los Angeles, Chicago and other places around the country, newspapers ran stories of folks wearing elaborate masks and cloth veils. Thanksgiving mask balls were held in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Montesano, Wash. and points in between.”
  • UVA Bans Fraternities Until January In Wake Of Campus Rape Article – “Citing ‘great sorrow, great rage’ and ‘great determination,’ University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan says she’s suspending all the school’s fraternities until Jan. 9. The move comes days after a Rolling Stone article in which a woman described being gang-raped when she was a freshman in 2012.” It’s sad that there needs to be an uproar before rape is taken seriously, anywhere.
  • Paleontologist Jack Horner is hard at work trying to turn a chicken into a dinosaur – “In 2009, the world’s most famous paleontologist made a bold claim. In ‘How to Build a Dinosaur,’ Jack Horner proposed re-creating a small dinosaur by reactivating ancient DNA found in its descendants, chickens. His 2011 TED talk on the subject went viral. And then for the past four years, the public heard nothing. While the Internet moved on to other viral videos and ideas, Horner and his team have been working on the ‘chickenosaurus’ and moving ahead the science of evolutionary development. The project has already resulted in some of the first research into the embryonic development of tails.”

Featured Image

Mary

Mary Brock works as an Immunology scientist by day and takes care of a pink-loving princess child by night. She likes cloudy days, crafting, cooking, and Fall weather in New England.

Related Articles

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button