Month: July 2023

This Full Page Ad Was Written Entirely in Chicken

A red chicken stands on a printed page as if reading it; the title on the page, in large letters, is “Bawk bawk ba-kawk bawk.”
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Do chickens talk? What a silly question! Of course they do; ask any child. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they can read as well. We have the evidence right here: a letter composed in chicken language, signed by the Founder and CEO of Upside Foods (a human), and addressed to all chickens. The letter appeared as a full-page ad in the New York Times in November 2022 (really!). Advertising journalist Tim Nudd gives a full report on it for Muse by Clio, an advertising industry periodical.

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LSU’s Angel Reese, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, and the Double Standards of Race in Sports

LSU forward Angel Reese making the “you can’t see me” gesture in front of Iowa guard Caitlin Clark during an NCAA championship game in 2023.
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Image credit: MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES

A basketball player waves their own hand in front of their own face and gets called out for behavior that some reports and social media posts called “thuggish.” Wait. What? Did that really happen? Well, yes, it did. Here’s the context: an NCAA tournament championship game, two top teams, each with a top-notch star player. So far, nothing remarkable, right? Ah, but did we mention that it was a women’s game? And that the hand-waving player was a Black woman leading a mostly Black team from a school in the South, while the other star player was a White woman leading a mostly White team from the Midwest? Is it making sense yet? Award-winning sports journalist William Rhoden details the situation and adds his own argument in this April 2023 Andscape essay.

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Why Are All Action Heroes Named Jack, James, or John?

A collage of action heroes Capt. James T. Kirk, Johnny Utah, James Bond, John Wick, Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne, and John James Rambo.
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Image credit: Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo/Slate. Photos by David Lee/Lionsgate, MGM, Amazon Prime Video, NBC, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and Yoni S. Hamenahem/Wikipedia.

“Bond. James Bond.” Such a recognizable movie quote even though it has no punchline, makes no clever point. Does it matter that his name is James and not, say, Clive (very English!) or Butch (very strong and also alliterative)? Such a silly question. But of course it matters; at least, his name follows a definite pattern of action hero names. Demetria Glace, data researcher and author, investigates a pattern she has observed in the names of action heroes in this March 2023 report in Slate.

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What Really Made Geoffrey Hinton into an AI Doomer

Geoffrey Hinton standing in a backyard.
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Image credit: CHLOE ELLINGSON/REDUX

Does the name Geoffrey Hinton mean anything to you? It might not; he never won an election, a Grammy, or a Super Bowl ring. But in the world of cybertechnology and artificial intelligence (AI), he’s more than a rock star, and he made a lot of headlines in May 2023 when he left his job at Google and began publicly expressing his alarm about recent developments in AI. Will Knight, who covers AI as a senior writer for Wired, spoke with Hinton and wrote this May 2023 report.

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The Ocean Cleanup — “How System 002 Works”

Ocean and horizon with long view of Ocean Cleanup’s System 002 with its two vessels, long net, and retention zone.
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Image credit: The Ocean Cleanup

Have you heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? No, it’s not something from Sesame Street (although it sounds like it could be). It’s big, it’s in the middle of the ocean, it’s garbage-y. And it’s real. Ocean Cleanup is an organization that uses innovative techniques to clean up the patch. In addition to their website, they have numerous YouTube videos that explain their techniques and their progress. For our Library, we’ve chosen this short one from October 2021.

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Surprising Creatures Lurk in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Assorted plastics and other debris float on the surface of the sea.
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Image credit: Jakchai Tilakoon/EyeEm/Getty Images

Raise your hand if you think that the tons and tons of plastic garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean are a good thing, something to be preserved and protected. Nobody? No hands up? Good. We all know that it’s ugly and harmful to wildlife; there’s no controversy there. Now, new research shows that it’s even worse than we imagined. Scientific American science writer Meghan Bartels describes a newly researched threat posed by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in this April 2023 report.

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Influencer Parents and the Kids Who Had Their Childhood Made Into Content

A small child sits on the lap of a woman; they gaze at one another, smiling. In front of them, a ring light and a smartphone on a gooseneck stand.
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Image credit: JOSE LUIS PELAEZ INC

How would you feel about seeing photos of yourself on social media for all the world to see (especially if you didn’t put them there yourself)? This may not be a hypothetical question; many of us have likely had that very experience. For some, it might cause some blushing, a chuckle, and no big deal; life goes on, what’s for dinner? But in some cases—particularly those involving children, who typically don’t get to make their own decisions about it—there is a danger of it being a Very Big Deal and not a pleasant one. Journalist Fortesa Latifi details some cases of childhood being used as content in this March 2023 Teen Vogue report.

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The Thinking Error That Makes People Susceptible to Climate Change Denial

Photo from above of a person standing before a chalked arrow that points both to the left and to the right.
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Image credit: eyetoeyePIX via Getty Images

We’ve all seen and heard scientific reports and arguments about climate change from scholars in many different disciplines—biology, geology, environmental sciences, chemistry, and many more, and those disciplines seem obviously relevant to the phenomenon. Here’s one from psychology. What does psychology have to do with climate change? Not much with the changes themselves, perhaps, but it may have a lot to do with the debates and controversies surrounding the issue. In this May 2023 essay in The Conversation, psychology professor Jeremy P. Shapiro proposes an explanation for climate change denial.

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