Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting, but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch. By the way, much (but not necessarily all) of our delicious Popcorn comes from articles we’ve posted on our Facebook page. If you’re on Facebook, please stop by and “Like” us and we’ll keep a fairly-constant-but-not-frequent-enough-to-be-annoying stream of these coming to your virtual door!
We narrowly escaped THIS… Donald Trump’s vison for American History Education
Before you relax into the Biden adminstration, let’s remember just one of the things we avoided. When Conservatives were outraged by the 1619 project, Trump rose to defend America’s honor by writing a curriculum to churn out happy little patriots. Describing the work as “definitive” and “dispositive”, they were able to settle many questions legal scholars and historians thought were legitimate from slavery to Christian nationalism. The Biden administration scrubbed this from the WhiteHouse website in embarrassment, but not before we could download a copy. You may also be interested in coverage from Washington Post or The Regulatory Review.
Cranky Uncle game: building resilience against misinformation.
(from the website)- Developing solutions to misinformation is more important than ever in this post-truth era where science and facts are under constant assault. A key solution to making the public more resilient against fake news is inoculation – avoid being misled by learning the techniques of denial. In the Cranky Uncle game, players are mentored by a cartoon personification of climate science denial. Cranky Uncle explains 14 techniques of science denial, from fake experts to cherry picking and a variety of different logical fallacies. The game was developed by George Mason University scientist John Cook, in collaboration with creative agency Autonomy. The game is now available for free on iPhone and Android.
This is NOT a flamethrower… it says so on the box
Elon Musk’s maintains that his quirky little fire-shooting gadget is not a flamethrower, but police around the world aren’t buying it. from TechCrunch.com– “After being locked up in an Italian prison, American Max Craddock was finally able to make his case to a judge. “It’s not a weapon of war,” his lawyer told the investigating magistrate. “It’s a toy they sell to children.” More than 1,000 flamethrower purchasers abroad have had their devices confiscated by customs officers or local police, with many facing fines and weapons charges. In the U.S., the flamethrowers have been implicated in at least one local and one federal criminal investigation. There have also been at least three occasions in which the Boring Company devices have been featured in weapons hauls seized from suspected drug dealers…”
How do butterflies fly? Puzzle solved!
from BBC.com- “Flying species have evolved various methods of evading death. Some have developed powerful and efficient wings to speed them to safety. But what about the slow-moving, meandering butterfly? The problem for these creatures is that they have unusually large wings relative to their body size, which are aerodynamically inefficient for flight. Back in the 1970s, researchers developed a theory that their big wings allowed the butterfly to clap them together on the upstroke to power their take off. Now, a new study shows that butterflies evolved an effective way of cupping and clapping their wings to generate thrust…”but no one has shown how this works in natural flying conditions. Now, Swedish scientists, using a wind tunnel and high-speed cameras, have captured the butterfly’s unique flying skill.
