Ancillary Materials
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
Welcome to the latest edition of “things you didn’t know you wanted to know.” Here are 6 of the wackiest and/or coolest stories I found recently on the Internet (oh, wonderful portal of joy & angst). Enjoy!
- If you love colorful charts measuring trends AND you also love food, then this is the site for you. FlowingData has measured Americans' food consumption (in pounds) from 1970-2019. Did you know of the “great chicken vs. pork battle of 1987”? Or that we used to drink a LOT more milk in the 70s? Even the charts themselves look like densely packed submarine sandwiches. Bon appetite.
- If you love traveling and seeing architecture, here’s a round-up of the most beautiful churches in the world. I’ve been to a whopping one (the cathedral in Brasilia), but it was, hands-down, the most unusual, coolest church I’ve ever stepped into. Norway, Colombia, Iceland, and Russia are officially added to the bucket list.
- Apparently selling vegetables wasn’t as fun as some painters made it out to be. A restoration of a 16th century painting depicting a smiling woman selling vegetables revealed that the painting’s original artist did not, in fact, want to “turn that frown upside down.” Refreshingly, the conservators also noted the (welcoming) lack of the “lecherous leering man” who was often a staple in the backgrounds of this artist’s paintings.
- For those of you who haven’t watched Ted Lasso, get thee to Apple TV+ immediately. Or if you just enjoy reading about celebrities, this is a fantastic feature on Ted Lasso star, Jason Sudeikis. At the very least, click through for the outfits — or stick around to be inspired by Sudeikis’ “brand of wary optimism” about all things.
- Remember the days in elementary school when you had to memorize and label the oceans? Well now you need to know a fifth one. National Geographic recently officially named the ocean nestled around Antarctica, “The Southern Ocean.” Though it’s long been known amongst scientists as the Southern Ocean, there were some massively nerdy debates ongoing about whether it really had enough of its own ecological eccentricities to deserve its own identity. Thanks to its current — which is what it’s named after — the waters of the Southern Ocean are colder and slightly less salty than northern ocean waters.
- Back in May in a town in Canada (of course), a Dairy Queen and local glass business engaged in a sign war. Naturally, this was done in an insanely polite fashion and led to a bunch of other businesses jumping in on the fun. My favorite is the church that told Dairy Queen its “Sundays” are the best. Now if only pharma had signs… (Though, I suppose we could look at the latest drama between Spark and bluebird bio to see how pharma gets down.)