Links 12 May 2023

Roman face vases from 3rd century Gaul

Steamboat racing was a dangerous sport.

Study finds that one reason births are declining in the US is that fewer women are having children before they feel that they are ready. Which is great, but on the other hand it seems to be universally true that if you wait until you feel certain you are ready before doing anything, whatever it is, you will do a lot less of it.

Photographs of Iceland's ice caves.

Article at Nursing Clio on abortion by ingested medicine, partly on modern drugs but with an introduction on the past use of pennyroyal, rue and other herbs for the same purpose. There is a compound called pulegone, found in many herbs but especially pennyroyal, that can induce miscarriage. It is strong enough that pregnant women are regularly warned away from these herbs. But just because it theoretically could work doesn't mean it worked reliably and it certainly wasn't safe; my understanding is that a woman would have to have been desperate near to the point of suicide to try it.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, now a convicted scam artist, has taken to calling herself "Liz," and also dropped the phony deep voice she used while running her business.

An old tradition brought back, and a good one: senior cords. (NY Times, Indiana State Museum, IndyStar)

Amuse yourself with the Laboratory Danger Sign Generator. The random function gave me "It is against Federal regulations to attempt beyond this point."

Kukeri: Very cool 9-minute Youtube video from The New Yorker documents the old Bulgarian tradition of dancing in hairy costumes to scare away evil spirits.

MidJourney AI makes art depicting historical battles. (Twitter)

Taylor Swift's tour will cost more than $100 million to mount, with a logistics operation like an armored battalion, but expects to gross $620 million in revenue.

Ben Pentreath's Dorset Spring, with a quick trip to Australia.

Promising results from the first trial of an mRNA-based vaccine to treat pancreatic cancer. (NY Times, Sloan-Kettering)

In the case of California's law requiring better conditions for pigs, the Supreme Court declines to get involved in judging how much burden California can impose on pork producers in other states.

Paris is trying to make the Seine clean enough to swim in before the Olympics, which means, as in all other older cities, finding a way to limit Combined Sewer Overflows. Paris is spending $1.5 billion on the problem. (NY Times)

This week's random past post: How the Other Half Lives (2009), in which I ponder how different I am from former DC mayor Marion Barry.

Ukraine Links

Interesting Vox article on why Putin tolerates visible division within his military like Prigozhin's rant against the Minister of Defense; creating division within your military is an old strategy used by many dictators to protect themselves against a coup.

According to this NY Times article, more than 5.5 million Ukrainians who fled when the invasion began have now returned home, some to towns only a few miles from the front lines. For some the mood is resignation; the war, they think, will go on for years, so they might as well get used to it.

Igor Girkin complains that Russia can't possibly win the war, since its goals have never been announced; the fighting follows no strategic plan, because you can't formulate a strategy without goals; Russia is therefore going to lose and needs to plan for how it will survive and rebuild after a defeat.

Ukraine's improved air defenses were thwarting Russia's drone attacks on its cities, so the Russians modified how they launch drone attacks. . . . 

The pathetic Victory Day parade in Moscow. Opinions differ as to whether this was a specific message from the military to Putin – I mean, they could have found a few more tanks if they had really wanted to – or just a general sign of how bad everything is in Russia.

Some discussion of the shootdown of a Russian Kinzhal missile by a Patriot missile.

Vox tour of wartime Kharkiv.