A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Disclaimer: this edition was not edited as it was only completed close to 2am. Any mistakes are my own, and my editors are not to be held accountable. I’m tired and the blurb may not flow. I’m ok with it – D.
Hello there! Welcome to Volume 126 of Dovi’s Digest.
One of things I used to take for granted was family holidays. Of course there were the good times we would have together, the moments of joy, the wonderful memories we made. But more about the fact that everything was included as well. Accommodation, food, flights, the works. These days more often than not I land up travelling alone. There’s nothing wrong with that. I enjoy my own company, it allows me to do what I want when I want, and strangers are quite obliging about taking photos of me with my arms around my imaginary friends. But it can be expensive as heck. Even trying to mitigate the accommodation cost by sleeping on couches and walking everywhere to save on bus fare only goes so far. (Please know that I’m not complaining about being able to travel. It’s a rare privilege, one for which I’m profoundly grateful.)
However, one thing I made sure to never do alone was hike. You never know what could happen, and being stuck alone up a snowy mountain in Colorado with a twisted ankle and a storm coming in doesn’t seem like a fun way to die (if there is such a thing).
The subject of this week’s headline article has no such qualms. He has spent the better part of the last 50 years going all over the world into the most extreme environments, most of the time solo. From being caught in fog in the Andes, to staying awake to watch for polar bear attacks, he’s done it all. And been better off for it.
Do you have any crazy travel stories? Drop me a line to share your experience! Always love hearing about other’s adventures!
Do you enjoy the Digest? Would you like it to get better? Then please consider sharing it, as the more articles I’m sent, the better it is. It only takes a few seconds, and all you need to do is click here 👇. Thank you!
There were TWO correct answers to last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Ariel Subotzky and Ori Tobias. The answer and this week’s riddle are below.
If you’re a homebody, I have other stuff for you to read. Learn about how bird watching can save lives, how dog breeds and baby names rise and fall in popularity (and what that means for fads in general), finding real life dragons, the fake Titanic that drew the ire of a fake UN department and a whole town, how scientists are cleaning up the massive garbage patches that are all over our oceans, and how people’s nostalgia for the agrarian society of the middle ages is probably misplaced. Enjoy!
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
Have a great week,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
The Greatest Traveller You’ve Never Heard Of
J.R. Harris is one of the most prolific solo hikers the world has ever seen. But he’d never tell you that himself.
A Once-in-a-Lifetime Bird
Birding saved one man’s life. Maybe it can save the rest of us from climate change?
The Boom-Bust Cycle of Baby Names and Dog Breeds
People choose names and dogs depending on how common they are. Other cultural ideas spread or sputter out in similar ways, research suggests.
Could Dragons Be Real? Not in the Way We Think
Let's compare the flying assassins in ‘House of the Dragon’ to real-life lizards and dinosaurs.
A Titanic Fraud?
Things get weird when the $300 million “Titanic Experience” collides with a fake UN department and a possible crypto scam.
The Secrets Being Revealed By Ocean Garbage Patches
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an enormous agglomeration of plastic waste floating in the world's largest ocean, but it's not the only one and now scientists are trying to work out how to clean them up.
What Did Medieval Peasants Know?
The internet has become strangely nostalgic for life in the Middle Ages.
Quote of the Week:
“One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.” – François de La Rochefoucauld
Facts of the Week:
The Guinness World Record for highest fall survived without a parachute is 10,000m.
The world record for the most people licking ice cream in one place is 2,728.
The world record for the most people licking lollipops in 12,831.
“Lick into shape” comes from the medieval belief that bear cubs were born shapeless and were “licked into shape” by their mothers.
Matabele ants nurse each other and tend each other’s wounds.
Ancient ants were the size of hummingbirds.
Palaeontologists lick stones to identify whether they are fossils are not.
The longest-ever dog’s tongue was more than twice as long as the smallest living dog.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
Take the given words, and by moving a single letter from one word to the other (can be left → right or right → left), make a pair of synonyms, or near-synonyms.
For example: Given Hip - Boast, move the “s” from “Boast” to “Hip,” which creates Ship - Boat.
1. Open - Cop
2. Cave - Curt
3. Cares - Pest
4. Salve - Savage
5. Whiled - Spurn
Last Week’s Brainteaser and Answer:
If five = four, six = nine, and seven = five, what does twelve equal?
Answer:
55. The key here is to notice the hidden Roman numerals in each of the clues. Five = four, six is nine, etc. And twelve is 55, since LV = 55.