Two Strange Stories About Stones

1. The curse of the ownerless, secured Bahia Emerald, which is apparently the size of a mini-fridge.
2. Scientists turned hydrogen into a metal, whose implications range wide for humanity ... then lost the only sample.

If you've never read Stoned, a witty and wonderful book about rocks we consider precious and why, do. And if you're not subscribed to Next Draft, pretty much one of three newsletters in all of life worth reading—and the curator source for these two particular stories—I hope you do that, too.

In a move regarded as unusual by the media, the French research group refused to provide copies of the journal paper to reporters in advance of its publication, unless they signed non-disclosure agreements. The NDAs would have prevented the journalists from approaching third-party researchers for comment.

- "Group Promoting Rat Study of Engineered Corn Forced Coverage Rush", The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin.

I'm not a fan of GMOs, but I don't believe in pursuing lesser evils for a greater good, either. This kind of behaviour harms the credibility of journalists as well as scientists for a public whose interests are already so fractured that they're quick to find reasons to write things off as bullshit.

Crash Course: Dark Matter, the Universe, What We Know (and Mostly Don't)

Some exciting things happened in the last few days. Scientists at CERN managed to trap antimatter for a record-breaking 17 minutes, availing new opportunities to study its properties. (If you have ever read the Golden Compass series by Philip Pullman, you are hopefully as excited as I am, even if antimatter doesn't turn out to be able to produce self-awareness, communicate via iChat, or invest certain items with "intentions.")

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Explosive Orange! Tropicana's 'Energie Naturelle'

DDB Paris is on a crazy creative roll right now. For Tropicana, it came up with the idea of illuminating a sign using only natural energy from oranges. Part of me went, "Wow, that's a lot of oranges for not a ton of payoff,"* but part of me also exclaimed, "I would now like a cool and refreshing orange beverage."

For those worried about food waste, the oranges were later all recuperated for use as biofuel or compost. That probably doesn't make you feel better as it could have all gone down your throat, smooth and sweet like fish of Gollum, but such is life.

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Inklust #10: Agora

When Newton identified the laws of gravitation he did not assert that they held sway everywhere, but wondered whether "God is able ... to vary the laws of nature ... in several parts of the universe." The physicist Ernest Rutherford, whose experiments exposed the structure of the atom, was so skeptical about drawing grand implications that he threatened to bar from his laboratory any scientist who so much as uttered the word "universe." When the astronomer Edwin Hubble established that the Milky Way was one among many galaxies, he called them "island universes" and questioned whether "the principle of the uniformity of nature" pertained across such enormous distances. This is the opposite of starting with a deeply held faith and accumulating evidence to support it. Scientists have a story of discovery to tell, dogmatists a story of obedience to authority.

-- The Science of Liberty, Timothy Ferriss

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What the dickens is "Inklust"? Boy am I glad you asked. Here's the manifesto: part I and part II.