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10 Remarkable Discoveries of 2020

Nature published a list of 10 remarkable discoveries of 2020 which include the violation of matter-antimatter symmetry, the connection between the shifting jetstream and the ozone layer, and the DNA based discovery of incest between the people buried in Newgrange.

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Ireland's Only Dinosaur Fossils

#239

The only dinosaur fossils ever found on the island of Ireland have now been confirmed as coming from two seperate dinosaurs. The fossils, confirmed by a team from National Museums NI, University of Portsmouth, and Queens University Belfast, come from a Scelidosaurus and a Sarcosaurus.

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Podcast of the Week: The Almanac of Ireland

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I recently interviewed Manchán Magan over on Smart Thinking Books and as a result this week I sought out his podcast The Almanac of Ireland and I was not disappointed! In the episode Hellmouth, Manchán goes in search of the ancient mystical cave enterance to the Cetlic underworld, in a field in Roscommon. He ventures 7 meters underground into the cave with no light and just a microphone and a book for company.

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Podcast of the Week: Motherfoclóir on Peig

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In this episode of Motherfoclóir about Peig, the team finally let loose with both barrels on the Peig myth. Peig Sayers lived on the Blasket Islands off the coast of Kerry at the turn of the 20th century. Her auto-biography in Irish about her hard life on the islands was on the Leaving Certificate Irish exam curriculum until 1995.

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The History Of Mashed Potatoes

#232

Did you know that spuds were banned in France in 1748, until a French pharmacist prisoner of war popularised them again, including mash, after living on them while imprisoned? Well I didn't, and I'm Irish! This article on Mental Floss is full of fun potatoe facts!

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Stanford Data Visualisation Exhibition

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The Stanford University Libraries have a fantastic data visualisation exhibition available online showing great examples of data visualisation, many historic in nature, including this fabulous paleontological map of Ireland & the UK from 1850.

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First Thought Talks

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The First Thought Talks are an excellent set of talks in the Galway International Arts Festival that this year are streamed online and available to view on the festival's YouTube channel. There was an excellent talk on practical options for Ireland in addressing the climate crisis. The last day of talks will be streamed tomorrow, Saturday Sep 12.

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The First Webpage

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Russ over on Twitter highlighted that 29 years ago, the first webpage was published by Tim Berners-Lee. Here it is. 29 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee posted the first ever web page.This is ithttps://t.co/MSxAZ2cMZK

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Podcast of the Week: Blindboy Interviews Brenda & John Romero

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In his podcast this week, Blindboy played an excellent live interview with Brenda & John Romero, who are video game royalty. Brenda is a fullbright scholar and has been working in the games industry since 1981, and John was a game designer on Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D. The interview is an enjoyable listen into the world of video game history, including the large role that women have played in computer programming history.

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Information Theory Introduction

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Information theory and entropy are theory topics that can quickly become very abstrast and difficult to get a handle on. Federico Carrone does a great job in this medium post at delivering an introduction to Information Theory that is based around real world scenarios to provide grounding context.

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