xenograft (12. 002)

Tragically on this day 1984 Baby Fae, the first infant recipient of a non-human organ transplant from a baboon donor, died a month after her birth, though having lived by several weeks any other trial preceding hers and surviving the rare and fatal congenital disease, hypoplastic left heart syndrome that would have left her circulatory system untenable outside the womb. The radical operation, as no suitable human heart was available, became the subject of ethical debate, though demonstrating a proof of concept, which the administering surgeon built upon to safe further lives with this experimentation, albeit informed consent on the part of Baby Fae’s parents was questionable. Baby Fae’s death was attributed to rejection by her Type-O blood to the new heart culled from the female baboon population of type AB. Several pop culture encomia came afterwards with for instance from the Paul Simon Graceland album lyric, “Medicine is magical and magic is art / Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble / And the baby with the baboon heart.”

 synchronotpica

one year ago: the musical stylings of King Solomon (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: assorted links to revisit plus the Day of the Imprisoned Writer

eight years ago: a retractable pedestrian bridge, recreating snapshots over the decades, more tributes to Leonard Cohen plus an unusual museum collection

nine years ago: a history of safe-spaces, English is weird, collectors’ items plus Je suis Charlie

ten years ago: the Rosetta mission to probe a comet, the Frisian language, sight and colour in Nature plus obscure units of time

oder-neisse line (12. 001)

Pending since 1945—though the matter had been de facto settled between the communist governments of East Germany and Poland as the line of demarcation of the Soviet zone of occupation since 1950, West Germany, regarded as the only legal successor state to the Reich did not recognise the DDR’s diplomatic self-determination and insisted that the border treaty could only be ratified by a future reunited Germany—the agreement was signed by German and Polish foreign ministers on this day in 1990, as a stipulation to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany as a pre-condition for full sovereignty. The treaty reaffirmed the boundaries of the Zgorzelec agreement of 1950 and pledged mutual respect for each others territorial integrity.

america’s first news source (12. 000)

Actually not an article from The Onion—the satirical news outlet, we learn via Ernie Smith from Tedium, has bought the domain of Alex Jones’ Infowars during a bankruptcy auction with plans to relaunch it as a parody of itself to lampoon internet personalities starved for attention who peddle in misinformation, conspiracy theories and snakeoil. The sale (with sponsorship from a major gun safety advocacy group) was sanctioned by families of the victims of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, whom won a billion dollar defamation suit against Jones for spreading the revolting lie that the tragic event (which keeps happening as per the evergreen headline of the publication, ‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens) was staged as ploy for the US government to strip Americans of their vaunted second amendment rights.

title drop (11. 999)

Via the very data-driven Quantum of Sollazo, we directed towards a rather meta, fourth-wall breaking meta-analysis by Dominikus Baur and Alice Thudt surveying the past eight decades of cinema to tease out all the instances of when a character says the name of the movie they’re in—ranging from the inspired to self-aware to the bit cringy. The large scale examination, going beyond the anecdotal and obvious examples promoted in listicles and the like, reveals trends, auteurship and a real figure of about a third of film across all genres make direct mention of their title and possible motives for inclusion.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: consciousness and the breakdown of the bicameral mind plus a vineyard in New Zealand

eight years ago: a visit to Amsterdam, safety-pin solidarity plus a visit to Wewelsburg

nine years ago: the philosophy of Peanuts, planet Vulcan plus speaking Dinglisch

ten years ago: more on the spread of Indo-European languages

 

trial balloon (11. 998)

In a possible provocative test of the loyalties of the incoming senate, Trump has nominated Florida congressman Matt Gaetz (see previously here and here) to be the Attorney General under his new administration, the first pick announced out of a clutch of named individuals that include an inexperienced Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and a Fox News host for Secretary of Defence that requires confirmation by the upper chamber. The disbelief was intensified as Gaetz tendered his resignation to the Speaker of the House (see above) immediately, vacating his seat in congress at a time when the future composition of the lower chamber is yet unclear (see also above), whereas most would wait until after the official job offer to do so. Possibly seen as a countermeasure to “judicial over-reach” and “weaponising the department,” America’s next top lawyer, if approved, was under investigation and collegiate censure last year over alleged sex-trafficking offences and drug use.

9x9 (11. 997)

dr tj eckleburg: how The Great Gatsby influenced Robert Moses and transformed New York City  

tether: although the material technology is not quite there for a terrestrial one, a lunar space elevator might be feasible  

ssccatagapp: Russia moves to ban all content deemed to promote a childless-lifestyle—via tmn  

cleromancy: spiritual taverns that combine tarot and I Ching with cocktails are seeing growing popularity in China 

jeu de puce: fleas, chips and other observations on the 9ᵉ édition du Dictionnaire de l’Académie française just published 

talking head: Pentagon and US allies in shock over Trump’s intent to nominate a Fox News commentator as secretary of defence 

sobriquet: the twenty-eight European cities claiming to be Venice of the North—see also—via Messy Nessy Chic 

collectives: a series of aerial photographs of junkyards and graveyards neatly organised by Cássio Campos Vasconcellos—via Things Magazine  

a remembrance of things past: Proust and The Breakfast Club

synchronoptica

one year ago: a medieval large language model (with synchronoptica),  a new family of goblin spiders, a novel way to hack light pollution plus block printing personal narratives

seven years ago: tariffs on Chinese aluminium, revolutionary terrariums plus using AI to minimise road-kill, disruption to migration

eight years ago: RIP Leonard Cohen

nine years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus emoji syntax across different platforms

ten years ago: more on the spread of Indo-European languages

backsplash, splashback (11. 996)

Having previously explored the influence of architect and resistance-fighter through her Frankfurt model kitchen that has become the standard design for the Western world, we were pleased to learn that personal domestic space of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzsky has been carefully conserved and made accessible to the public in her Vienna apartment. The modern, fitted standard with harmonised features now taken for granted, like broad counter surfaces, tiled Spritzschutz which are reversed for British and American English and plenty of recessed storage room was first introduced in 1926 and the restored 1970s version in her former home. Despite of the impact of her installation, Schütte-Lihotzsky, who never was a homemaker nor cook prior and relied on interviews, was understandably resentful for only being remembered for this singular innovation at the expense of social aspect of architecture and urban-planning.

pont y borth (11. 995)

A temporary export bar has been placed on a 1827 needlework sampler made by Mary Anne Hughes, aged eleven, to prevent the national treasure (“rare, modest and of enduring interest”) from leaving the UK by giving institutions (see previously) the chance to raise funds for its purchase ahead of auction. The image depicts the Menai Bridge, opened to the public just the year before after seven years of construction, Designed by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford as the first suspension span of this scale and carries road traffic to this day, the bridge connects Anglesey to the Welsh mainland, bypassing a treacherous water route (particularly for fording livestock) through the Menai Strait. More from The History Blog at the link above.