[BLOG] Some Monday links

[rfmcdonald]

• The Crux compares the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the stories that they hold, to the sorts of oral histories that historians have traditionally been skeptical of. What, after all, is the difference?


• D-Brief notes a proposal by scientists to reengineer the world's food system to support a larger population in a time of environmental stresses.


• Earther notes that Gallifrey, the homeworld of Doctor Who, would be a pretty uninviting Earth-like world.


• Peter Kaufman at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes a powerful sociological treatment of his impending death.


• Far Outliers considers the relative firepower of the Hatfields and the McCoys.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper considering how, and why, different epidemics can be suitable (or not) for entertainment purposes.


• Language Hat looks at a remarkable new book, Robert Macfarlane's Lost Words, drawing from the nature-related words dropped by the Oxford Junior Dictionary.


• Lingua Franca at the Chronicle notes how "du coup" has ascended to become a newly prominent expression in French.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining mechanisms explaining how Communism had a lasting negative effect towards immigration.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, poor and insecure, need Russian military bases in their countries more than Russia does.

Comments

About Gallifrey

[dewline]

We know that Gallifrey is–or at least was before it was shifted off to a pocket universe in 2013–located near the center of its galaxy, and that galactic centers contain supermassive black holes. Harriet Brettle, a graduate student of planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology, suggested that if the system is extremely close to the black hole, this might cause time to run slowly for Gallifreyans compared to those farther from the galactic core thanks to the quirks of general relativity. A visit to Gallifrey, then, could mean that you would return to Earth to discover that your friends and family suddenly much older.

Then again, if Gallifrey is close enough to a black hole for this kind of relativistic effect to kick in, it’s not just wibbly wobbly timey wimey issues you have to be concerned about. According to Macintosh, extremely energetic material being flung off a black hole could “blow away a planet’s atmosphere.”

I think we may have the motive for developing space/time-travel tech on Gallifrey here. Right here in this quote.