Musings

By Ruth Panofsky Diane Pullan; Facebook; special collections Many of the classic books of Canadian literature thrived because of women editors, publishers and agents. Some are profiled here: Anna Porter in the 1970s, Bella Pomer in 2015 and Claire Pratt in 1950. As you indulge in summer reading, consider this fact. If not for the path-breaking women in Canadian publishing, some of Canada’s best-known writers might not have made it: Margaret Laurence, Farley Mowat, Carol Shields. More

Two British aviators, Matt Jones and Steve Brooks, are taking turns to fly the Silver Spitfire on its four-month, 43,500-kilometre adventure westwards around the globe—the first time a Spitfire will ever have circumnavigated the planet. More

By Eli Glasner · CBC News · Software engineer Ben Feist restored 11,000 hours of audio as historic mission control room becomes museum Eli Glasner Ben Feist, seen smiling in the centre, gazes at the large monitors displaying the lunar surface in the newly restored mission control More at CBC News

By Kate Cox You don't have to have as many followers as David Beckham to be influential. getty | Thomas Barwick Some voices shout more loudly into the abyss of the Internet than others. Enlarge / Some voices shout more loudly into the abyss of the Internet than others. One of the stranger questions of our modern era: when does being "Internet famous" translate into being, well, actually famous? According to a UK regulator, the magic number is 30,000 followers. More at Ars Technica

By Gita Jackson Jim Cooke When Scott Udall first played Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance shortly after it came out in 2005, he was in a vulnerable spot. Udall, who grew up Mormon in Salt Lake City, Utah, was very religious, and his family were all politically active Republicans. His parents had gone through a messy divorce, and he’d lost contact with his father’s side of the family. He found solace in Path of Radiance’s world, and when the sequel, Radiant Dawn, came out two years later, he was excited to revisit the characters. He didn’t realize when he started playing that Radiant Dawn would become a catalyst that shook him from his previously held convictions. More

By Evan Lubofsky, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Justin Buchli Captains and first mates of whaling ships kept daily logs of weather information during each voyage, including wind speed and direction, sea conditions, air temperature, and other variables. Researchers can use these weather records to gain a better understanding of climate conditions we face today. In September 1871, a fleet of 33 American whaling ships navigating through Arctic waters came upon a disastrous impasse. Mountains of ice pack, some clumped nearly mast high, formed a natural blockade around the convoy. Crews anxiously waited for winds to bail their ships out from the pulverizing grip of the ice, but it never blew their way. Ice tore into hulls and as the shredded vessels surrendered to the sea, more than a thousand men, women, and children fled for nearby rescue boats. More at Phys.org

By George Dvorsky Image: Scott Haddow Recent excavation work at the Çatalhöyük site in Turkey. New archaeological evidence suggests the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük, an ancient city founded over 9,000 years ago in what is now Turkey, were subject to many urban problems we’re familiar with today, including overcrowding, interpersonal violence, and sanitation issues. More at Gizmodo

By Lund University Image: CC0 Public Domain In a new study, Lund University economic historian Erik Bengtsson debunks the myth that Sweden was destined to become a social democratic country. Instead, he argues that it was actually against all odds, as Sweden in the early 1900s was one of the western world's most unequal countries—and the least democratic in western Europe. More at Phys.org

By Kristin Strommer, University of Oregon Image: University of Oregon A new study by UO archaeologist Scott Fitzpatrick and finance professor Stephen McKeon describes striking similarities between the decade-old digital currency bitcoin and a stone money system developed centuries ago in western Micronesia. More at Phys.org Opinion: The biggest advantage of the two systems: it is near impossible to counterfeit money. Don't stop where the ink does.

By CARLY CASSELLA Image: NASA Mission commander Thomas Stafford pats Snoopy on the way to Apollo 10's launch. The Apollo 10 mission was supposed to be a "dry-run", in which all operations except the actual lunar landing were performed. With two popular cartoon characters as the mission's mascots, the command module was dubbed "Charlie Brown" and the lunar module "Snoopy" - thus named because it was destined to "snoop around" the Moon's surface from a close-by orbit. While Charlie got to return home, Snoopy never did. Instead, the lunar module was jettisoned off into an orbit around the Sun, the only once-crewed US spacecraft to never be seen again. More at Science Alert

By Greta Guest, University of Michigan Image: CC0 Public Domain How much effort workers think it takes to behave honestly in the workplace could have a big impact on whether they take dishonest actions, according to research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. More at Phys.org

By Murray Brewster · CBC News As memories of the war fade, those who fought struggle to explain the experience to those who came after Image: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Second World War veteran Roy Hare stands and looks out from Juno Beach following the D-Day 75th Anniversary Canadian National Commemorative Ceremony at Juno Beach in Courseulles-Sur-Mer, France on Thursday. It was something Jean Trempe felt called to do. He needed help, though — someone to hold the 94-year-old former Bren gunner and artilleryman steady as he dipped his foot in the pounding surf of Juno Beach one last time. More at CBC News

Canada’s unions are calling the long-awaited report on the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls the necessary and long overdue blueprint for immediate action. More at Canadian Labour Congress

By Jason Warick · CBC News Finds, including volcanic obsidian from Wyoming, could be 10,000 years old Image: Jason Warick/CBC Edgar Baptiste speaks to farmers, First Nations leaders and others following a pipe ceremony west of Biggar, Sask., Monday. Artifacts up to 10,000 years old were recently found there, including a piece of volcanic obsidian not native to Saskatchewan. A grid road is scheduled to be built at the site June 10. A Saskatchewan road construction project is set to begin June 10 despite the discovery of Indigenous artifacts left there up to 10,000 years ago. More at CBC News

By Murray Brewster · CBC News For one Canadian family, the map provided an unexpected resolution to a tragic mystery Image: Andrew Lee/CBC News George Fouchard, right, goes over a campaign map with Nathan Kehler at Fouchard's apartment in Ottawa April 23, 2019. Those three men — Nathan Kehler, Drew Hannen and Julien Brown — were passionate about military history and had launched a project to create a digital, interactive map to trace the day-by-day movements of every Canadian regiment that fought in Normandy. More at CBC News

By CBC Radio Image: David Gutnick/CBC University of Ottawa science students, left to right, Lotty Pontones, Sophie Gregoire-Mitha and Sam Yee spent a recent spring morning with June Lindsey, centre left. June Lindsey is easy to spot in a 1948 black-and-white photo of scientists working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. In a group of more than 100 men in suits and ties, she is one of just a few women. More at CBC News

By Anthony Dosseto And Alex Francke, The Conversation Image: CC0 Public Domain It's a simple enough equation: good soil is the key to good food. And good soil starts with trees. More at Phys.org

By Janet Davison · CBC News Ceremonies next week will mark 75th anniversary of Allied forces' invasion of Normandy Image: CWM 20020045-1453/George Metcalf Archival Collection/Canadian War Museum Canadian troops land at Juno Beach, Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, on June 6, 1944. But 75 years after D-Day, the significance of what unfolded after Allied troops came ashore on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, still resonates. More at CBC News

By University of Chicago Image: Henry Gleitman Above is a depiction of “John and Mary kiss each other,” described as two reciprocal events. The distinction between symmetrical and reciprocal events may be intrinsic to the development of language, a new study finds. If you hear someone say "John and Mary kiss," you'd likely imagine a single symmetrical action. But hear them say "John and Mary kiss each other," and you may construe an entirely different picture—one in which the parties reciprocate with two separate actions, kissing the other's hand. A distinction this subtle might not seem important, yet it appears across nearly all spoken languages. More at Phys.org

By Laura Clementson · CBC News Juno Beach Centre has sent hundreds of postcards to former homes of soldiers killed on D-Day to honour legacy Image: Juno Beach Centre Association The image that appears on the front of the postcard depicting scenes from the storming of Juno Beach in France on June 6, 1944. The postcards were mailed from Toronto at the beginning of May. The front of each postcard shows a collage of images from the landing. On the back is information about the soldier who used to live at the address, including age, regiment, rank and a few details about the soldier's death on the battlefield in France. More at CBC News