Cool Stuff Daily

Latest Episodes:

Tue. 02/08 - Wine Bricks To The Rescue + Decoding Dickens & Digital Dollars Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

Is a national digital currency coming to the US? And what would that look like? Plus, coders have teamed up with scholars of British literature to decode Charles Dickens’s secret notes. And the very clever wine bricks from the Prohibition Era that helped keep the wine industry afloat.

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The US is debating whether to adopt a digital dollar (NPR)
A US Digital Dollar Should Serve the Public, Not Banks (Bloomberg)
Fed releases long-awaited study on a digital dollar but doesn't take a position yet on creating one (CNBC)
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Feedback Form (Federal Reserve Board)
Decoding Dickens’s Secret Notes to Himself, One Symbol at a Time (NY Times)
Forget Wordle! Can you crack the Dickens Code? An IT worker from California just did (The Guardian)
Dickens Code
How Wine Bricks Saved The US Wine Industry During Prohibition (Vinepair)
CDC launches wastewater tool to help show COVID-19 trends (The Verge)
CDC COVID Data Tracker
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Mon. 02/07 - How Many Micromorts Is Listening To This Podcast? Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

Micromorts, the unit of measurement that predicts your risk of death. How effective are they and how could we make it more effective, especially with regards to the pandemic? Plus, why Washington state is building highway overpasses for cougars. And two rappers who have been added to the Super Bowl halftime show lineup and will be making history with their performances.

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We Need A Standard Unit Of Measure For Risk (Adjacent Possible)
microCOVID Project
Why Washington state wants to spend millions building bridges for cougars (Fast Company)
Dr. Dre Adds Two Deaf to Super Bowl Halftime Show (Consequence of Sound)
Deaf Detroit rapper to join Eminem, Dre, Snoop at Super Bowl halftime (Detroit Free Press)
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Fri. 02/04 - The "Eminently Boycottable" Olympics Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

The Olympic Games have officially begun––how to reconcile excitement for the sports and the spectacle with the reality of the situation. Plus, controversy is brewing over the remains of Captain Cook’s ship the HMS Endeavour. And choose your fighter: 3D-printed vegan meatballs or Build-A-Bear’s sultry “After Dark” line of stuffed animals for adults.

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Thu. 02/03 - Where Did Numbers Come From? Feb 03, 2022

Show notes

When did we start counting? Are numbers just a modern human concept? Plus, we have more details about the impending end of the International Space Station as focus turns ever-more to the moon and Mars. And a new search engine that only gives you one result and it’s always a book that was published before 1927.

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Links:

How did Neanderthals and other ancient humans learn to count? (Nature)
NASA Plans a Fiery End for the International Space Station by 2031 (Scientific American)
NASA: Decommissioned International Space Station to plunge into Pacific Ocean in 2031 (Washington Post)
NASA Provides Updated International Space Station Transition Plan (NASA)
New company run by former NASA leader aims to build robotic outpost near the Moon (The Verge)
A Search Engine That Finds You Weird Old Books (Debugger, Medium)
11/2/21 episode about Rewilding Your Attention (Kottke Ride Home)
Weird Old Book Finder
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Wed. 02/02 - How Many Weeks of Winter When the Groundhog Dies? Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

How does your brain know when you’ve had enough to drink each time you take a sip of water? Plus, a Groundhog Day tragedy, how North America came to celebrate this wacky holiday, and what it’s future might look like in lieu of the climate emergency. And finally, the Pope’s personal playlist.

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Links:

Thirsty? Here's how your brain answers that question (NPR)
Your Body's Thirst Messenger Is in an Unexpected Place (NY Times)
A celebrity groundhog dies shortly before his big day (NPR)
Groundhog predictions of spring no better than chance (National Geographic)
Groundhogs Aren't Looking for Their Shadow—They're Scoping Out the Opposite Sex (National Geographic)
Can a groundhog's shadow really predict if there will be six more weeks of winter? (Library of Congress)
Punxsutawney Phil Reckons with His Jungian Shadow (McSweeney’s)
Flowers in The UK Are Blooming a Whole Month Earlier Than They Did in The 1980s (ScienceAlert)
The Pope's Playlist Is Pretty Decent! And, Honestly, Weirdly Romantic (Mother Jones)
The (unofficial) Pope Francis Playlist (America Magazine)
Pope Francis Visits Rome Record Shop And Gets Classical CD (UDiscover Music)
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Tue. 02/01 - 2,500 Subway Cars Under the Sea Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

The New York City subway cars taking on a second job on the ocean floor. Plus, a successful drone created using Leonardo da Vinci’s aerial screw design. And crows in Sweden are being trained to pick up litter.

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Sinking 1,000 NYC subway cars in the Atlantic to create a reef didn't (Fast Company)
Growing Pains for a Deep-Sea Home Built of Subway Cars (NY Times, 2008)
New York's Subway Lives On in the Atlantic Ocean as Artificial Reefs (PBS Thirteen)
Bye bye Brightliners: MTA's oldest subway cars bid farewell on final run after almost 58 years (amNewYork)
More Than 2,500 New York City Subway Cars Are Now Artificial Underwater Reefs. See This Artist’s Remarkable Photos of Them Here (artnet)
Photographing the New York City Subway Cars That Retired as Artificial Reefs (Atlas Obscura)
New York City's newest oyster bed is 50,000 mollusks and 5,000 old public school toilets (Washington Post)
NY State Drops Two More Vessels, Including "Chickadee" The Tugboat, Into Waters For Artificial Reefing (Gothamist)
MTA Redbird Train Scrapping off Shark River Reef New Jersey (YouTube)
This drone flies using da Vinci's 530-year-old helicopter design (CNET)
A New Quadcopter Is Based on da Vinci's 530-Year-Old Helicopter Model (Interesting Engineering)
Swedish firm deploys crows to pick up cigarette butts (The Guardian)
Crows may soon be Sweden's newest litter pickers (The Local Sweden)
Crows trained to collect cigarette butts on the street (Boing Boing)
Latest Attraction at French Theme Park: Crows That Pick Up Trash (NY Times)
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Mon. 01/31 - I Want a Christmas Moon Tree & A Shot of Spikevax Jan 31, 2022

Show notes

The lost history of moon trees. Not quite as exciting as it sounds, but still really cool. Plus, the lineup of new emojis that just dropped on iOS 15.4––as well as a new study showing how emoji use can be an early detector of remote work burnout. And Moderna’s HIV vaccine has entered human trials.

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Links:

We Almost Forgot About the Moon Trees (The Atlantic)
The Moon Trees (NASA)
Is There An Apollo 14 Moon Tree Near You? (Universe Today)
Moon Trees Stand as Living Testaments to First Voyages to Moon (NASA)
Can you help us find the Moon Trees? (Royal Astronomical Society)
Buy a Half Moon Tree Seedling (American Heritage Trees)
First Look: New Emojis in iOS 15.4 (Emojipedia)
Can emoji use be the key in detecting remote-work burnout? (Phys.org)
Moderna's HIV Vaccine Has Officially Begun Human Trials (them.)
Hunting the holy grail: the marred history of HIV vaccine trials (Clinical Trials Arena)
Moderna begins early-stage trials of mRNA-based HIV vaccine (Engadget)
The F.D.A. grants Moderna’s vaccine full approval. (NY Times)
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Fri. 01/28 - Why the Metaverse Doesn't Have Legs Jan 28, 2022

Show notes

Catalonia is set to pardon a thousand people who were condemned for witchcraft four hundred years ago. Plus, a mysterious object discovered in our galaxy has astronomers a bit stumped. And why don’t avatars in the metaverse have legs?

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Links:

Catalonia to pardon up to 1,000 people accused of witchcraft (The Guardian)
Hundreds of Women Executed for 'Witchcraft' Were Just Pardoned (Vice)
Catalonia Pardons Hundreds of Witch Trial Victims (Mental Floss)
What the hell is this new thing in the Milky Way? (Mic)
Astronomers detect powerful cosmic object unlike anything they've seen before (Space.com)
Scientists amazed by blinking star's 'totally unexpected' behavior (Reuters)
'Spooky' object that unleashes periodic bursts of energy detected in Milky Way (NBC News)
Astronomers Detect Strange Signals We've Never Seen Before in Our Cosmic Vicinity (Science Alert)
I found out why metaverse avatars don't have legs (The Next Web)
Tongan Flag Bearer Cancels Olympic Plans to Help Tsunami-Stricken Nation (Vice)
Tonga Tsunami relief by Pita Taufatofua (GoFundMe)
Kottke.Org
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Thu. 01/27 - The History of “sus” is… pretty sus Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

What’s up with the drastically different predictions for this weekend’s Nor’easter, and how is snowfall measured anyways? Plus, the sus-prisingly long history of the term “sus.” And, sometimes pre-ordering a book does not mean you’ll get it right on the publication date. Like when the shipping container it was being transported in sinks to the bottom of the ocean, for example.

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Links:

How is snowfall measured? A meteorologist explains how volunteers tally up winter storms (The Conversation)
Why This Weekend's Bomb Cyclone Snow Forecast Is So Challenging (Gizmodo)
Why Northeast Winter Storms Can Be Difficult to Forecast (Weather.com)
How do we tell how much snow fell in a storm? (The Verge)
What does 'sus' mean? (Merriam-Webster)
Sus meaning: 'Among Us' catchphrase has a controversial past (Inverse)
sus | suss, n. (Oxford English Dictionary)
Thread on 'sus' (with original illustrations!) (Austin Kleon, Twitter)
Thanks for Preordering! Your Cookbook Is at the Bottom of the Atlantic Ocean (Eater)
Turkey and the Wolf's Hotly Anticipated Cookbook Delayed After Copies Sink in the Atlantic (Eater New Orleans)
Large swell in 22-knot wind caused idling Madrid Bridge to roll and lose boxes (The Loadstar)
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Wed. 01/26 - Dun, Dun, Duuuuun! Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

Is there liquid water under Mars ice cap or isn’t there? Recent studies have claimed both. And what about an underground ocean on Saturn’s death star moon? Here’s all of your space water updates. Plus, the origins of the melodramatic “dun dun duuuun” sound. And, and old SpaceX rocket stage is on track to slam into the moon this March.

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