3quarksdaily

Sunday Poem
Strongmen and Fragile Democracies
Why Are Bird Eggs Egg-Shaped? An Eggsplainer
A Theory of Reality as More Than the Sum of Its Parts
The Merchant Of Venice 2004 Shylock speech
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3quarksdaily - 5 new articles

Sunday Poem

Ode to the Cat

The animals
were imperfect,
long-tailed, dismal
in the head.
Little by little
they composed themselves,
becoming a landscape,
gaining spots, grace, flight.
The cat,
only the cat,
appeared complete
and proud:
born completely
...

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Strongmen and Fragile Democracies

David Kaye in the Los Angeles Review of Books:

In his introduction to Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (1990), Eric Hobsbawm argued that nations are “dual phenomena, constructed essentially from above, but which cannot be understood unless also analysed from below.” We need to pay...

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Why Are Bird Eggs Egg-Shaped? An Eggsplainer

Ed Yong in The Atlantic:

When Mary Caswell Stoddard started measuring bird eggs from hundreds of species, she wasn’t expecting to learn that most eggs are not egg-shaped.

Think about an egg and you’ll probably conjure up an ellipse that’s slightly fatter at one end—the classic...

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A Theory of Reality as More Than the Sum of Its Parts

Natalie Wolchover in Quanta Magazine:

In his 1890 opus, The Principles of Psychology, William James invoked Romeo and Juliet to illustrate what makes conscious beings so different from the particles that make them up.

“Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and...

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The Merchant Of Venice 2004 Shylock speech

Video length: 2:04

3quarksdaily - 5 new articles

Sunday Poem

Strongmen and Fragile Democracies

Why Are Bird Eggs Egg-Shaped? An Eggsplainer

A Theory of Reality as More Than the Sum of Its Parts

The Merchant Of Venice 2004 Shylock speech

More Recent Articles