The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “good to know”

Comic Books as the Grimms’ Fairy Tales of Pop Culture
Comic Books as the Grimms’ Fairy Tales of Pop Culture

On making out the shape of our society through its gods of good and evil.

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How Money Is Made: A 1920 Silent Film from the Royal Mint of Canada
How Money Is Made: A 1920 Silent Film from the Royal Mint of Canada

“In this factory no samples are given as souvenirs, though the practice would be a very popular one.”

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An Illustrated Visualization of What Happens on Earth in a Single Second
An Illustrated Visualization of What Happens on Earth in a Single Second

What a whale’s song has to do with the Helios II satellite and the beat of the pigmy shrew’s heart.

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Hands Are Amazing
Hands Are Amazing

From monkeys to Michelangelo, or what Margaret Mead has to do with combinatorial creativity.

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BBC’s Volatile History of Chemistry
BBC’s Volatile History of Chemistry

How the elements came to be, or what alchemy and urine have to do with the God particle.

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What It’s Like to Live in a Universe of Ten Dimensions
What It’s Like to Live in a Universe of Ten Dimensions

What songwriting has to do with string theory.

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Babel No More: Inside the Secrets of Superhuman Language-Learners
Babel No More: Inside the Secrets of Superhuman Language-Learners

What a Chilean YouTube disaster and a busy Manhattan restaurant have to do with the limits of the human brain.

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What Does It Mean To Be Human? 300 Years of Definitions and Reflections
What Does It Mean To Be Human? 300 Years of Definitions and Reflections

What Aristotle has to do with the women’s suffrage movement, Darwin, and M. C. Escher.

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Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors: The Physical Underbelly of the Internet
Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors: The Physical Underbelly of the Internet

An anatomical tour of the Internet by way of 60 Hudson Street, a nondescript epicenter of global data traffic.

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How Radio Broadcasting Works: An Animated Explanation from 1937
How Radio Broadcasting Works: An Animated Explanation from 1937

From oscillator to audience, or how the music of the orchestra travels from the studio to your home.

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