things i learned

The other Winston Churchill

2023-05-12

This is the clearest evidence yet that we’re living in a simulation. I learned recently that there was an American Winston Churchill, who was also a politician.

The American Winston Churchill won election to and served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1903 and 1905 and lost the Republican primary for governor in 1906.

Even more amazing, the two Winstons met in 1900, where the British Winston said to the American Winston: “I mean to be Prime Minister of England, it would be a great lark if you were President of the United States at the same time.”

For this discovery, I thank Robert Cottrell, founding editor of The Browser, who included it in one of his recent emails to subscribers.

Military dolphins

2023-04-28

In addition to dogs, the US armed forces includes dolphins and seals employed by the US Navy.

Discovered via Joseph Noel Walker’s conversation with Palmer Lucky

Update: More on military dolphins and their role protecting the nuclear stockpile via Marginal Revolution.

It’s a boy!

2023-04-20

Things I learned today, via Our World in Data: sex ratios at birth are slightly biased towards boy babies for biological reasons. The “natural” sex ratio is about 105 boys born for every 100 girls.

Why is this? Miscarriage rates are slightly higher for female babies than for male babies, although this varies by phase of the pregnancy.

So the next time you’re guessing a baby’s sex, the odds are in your favor if you guess it’s a boy!

Fighter pilots and kindergarten teachers

2023-03-16

As a share of the occupation, there twice as many female fighter pilots as there are male kindergarten teachers.

This is from Richard Reeves on the Ezra Klein Show

15th century Venetian beads found in Alaska

2023-03-02

Not new but new to me; interesting never less. From Smithsonian Mag:

Archaeologists dug the beads up in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Now, a new study published in the journal American Antiquity asserts that the glass objects are among the oldest European-made items ever discovered in North America.
Per the paper, Michael Kunz of the University of Alaska Museum of the North and Robin Mills of the Bureau of Land Management studied ten glass beads found at three sites along Alaska’s Brooks Range. The researchers used mass spectrometry carbon-dating to analyze trace amounts of twine discovered alongside three of the beads and date the artifacts’ creation to between roughly 1397 and 1488.

The beads provide evidence for overland trade networks reaching Alaska from the East (Siberia).