The Harappan lived 5200 years ago in the Indus valley in huge complicated cities before the society eventually disappeared. Now it seems that two droughts in short succession could have been responsible for the downfall Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261018-double-climate-disaster-may-have-ended-ancient-harappan-civilisation/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: the society
Pakistan Bans TikTok
Pakistan has banned popular short video app TikTok in the nation, citing circulation of videos that it deemed “immoral and indecent.” From a report: The move comes months after the South Asian country raised serious concerns about the nature of some videos on ByteDance’s app and the impact they posed on society. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the country’s telecommunication authority, said in…
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled
NPR and PBS Frontline spent months digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials. We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic. NPR: The industry’s awareness that recycling…
Stet!, the Hot New Language Game
The game Stet!, a spinoff of the book “Dreyer’s English,” is an excellent way to prepare for a copy-editing test and pairs well with a gin-and-tonic. Mary Norris, writing for The New Yorker: Nerdsday fell on a Tuesday this year, and I invited a friend over for a doubleheader: a round of Stet!, the new language game based on “Dreyer’s English,”…
John Mooney, an Inventor of the Catalytic Converter, Dies at 90
John J. Mooney, an inventor of the catalytic converter, the small and ubiquitous device that makes the engines that power everything from cars to lawn mowers less polluting and more fuel efficient, died on June 16 at his home in Wyckoff, N.J. He was 90. From a report: The cause was complications of a stroke, his daughter Elizabeth Mooney Convery said….
We’ve just found the largest and oldest Mayan monument yet
The 3000-year-old site of Aguada Fénix is the oldest and largest Mayan monument to be discovered and dates from a time before the society had a powerful ruling class Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2245181-weve-just-found-the-largest-and-oldest-mayan-monument-yet/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
New timeline rewrites history of Easter Island collapse
Easter Island society did not collapse prior to European contact, and its people continued to build its iconic moai statues for much longer than previously believed, according to a team of researchers. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/new-timeline-easter-island-collapse…
‘Laziness Has Won’: Apostrophe Society Admits Its Defeat
A society dedicated to preserving the “much-abused” apostrophe is to be shut down as its chairman said “ignorance and laziness” had won. From a report: John Richards, who worked in journalism for much of his career, started the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001 after he retired. Now 96, Richards is calling time on the society, which lists the three simple rules…