Hello, scholars! We hope you had a fruitful fall weekend and are ready for another week of classes. Here is another installment of Core-related news and articles to send you on your way.
- BU researchers, headed by Prof. Deborah Kelemen, developed a children’s book about natural selection entitled How the Piloses Evolved Skinny Noses. Directed towards children aged 5 to 8, the book follows the evolution of fictional creatures called “piloses” who adapt to a changing environment. Read an interview with Prof. Kelemen over on BU Today.
- Good news: We found a new Core-related Twitter account to follow. It’s called @bitsofpluto, and it is a bot that posts “a different bit of Pluto every six hours.” Finally, Plutogets the credit it deserves.
A bit of Pluto pic.twitter.com/pcyr5nDLm1
Bits of Pluto (@bitsofpluto) October 2, 2017
- What can we learn from ancient Greek myths? Nothing “particularly useful [and] direct,” according to author Mary Beard, who takes on Emily Katz Anhalt’s new publication Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths. The book, she says, is too oversimplified (with a message that it is “better to talk about things than fight”). “Do we want to live in a world in which we dont get furious at slavery, racism, or any number of other global injustices or even at some of the dreadful truths of the human condition?” Beard asks. Read the full review here.
- Ever, Jane, is the Jane Austen RPG we’ve all been waiting for. A video game by Judy L. Tyrer (formerly of Linden Labs, producer of the game Second Life), it is basically an “Austenified” fantasy game revolving around quests and role play. The article itself is worth a read, even if the game is perhaps… not up to snuff. Here is an excerpt:
And so Flopsy [McCanada, the author’s player character] wanders Tyrehampton in search of love, gliding down its streets, passing an ivy-covered church and sheep stacked on top of each another the Austen livestock algorithm clearly has some glitches to iron out.
Flopsy eventually meets Master Brimley outside the sheep pen on the village green. As a commoner, Ladys Magazine reminds me, he isnt someone a woman of my standing would normally talk to. But in the chat window I write: Good day, Shepherd Brimley! He has beautiful square blue eyes, like a polygonal Colin Firth.
- Just for fun: An oldie but goodie from the late Toast. Peruse a compilation of “portraits of Lord Byron, In Order of Lord Byron-ness.” And boy, is Lord Byron Lord Byron-y. (Warning: Contains some… questionable language that we’re sure Core scholars can handle. Anything for Byron.)
“Hes wearing like eighteen ascots and theyre all flowing in a tempest, plenty of Byron here.”
That’s all for now! See you next week.
