Dovi’s Digest Volume 227
The Corpulent King (or Queen) of Katmai 🐻🎣🏔
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Hello all! Welcome to Volume 227 of Dovi’s Digest!
Fat Bear Week is underway at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, which is home to an estimated 2,200 brown bears. Eight bears were entered into a bracket-style competition that had to be delayed when one bear was mauled by another bear on a live webcam on Monday, a problem that almost never affects the start of other tournaments.
The backstory: What began as one park ranger’s Facebook post—written in 2014 to highlight some chonky ursids—has ballooned into a global event. Last year, a record 1.3 million votes were cast for Fat Bear Week from more than 100 countries. The winner, 128 Grazer, defeated her closest competitor, Chunk, by more than 85,000 votes.
It’s democracy in its purest form.
How it works:
1. The park provides photos of the bears after a summer of gorging on the more than 50 million salmon in Bristol Bay, which allows them to gain the weight that’s crucial to their winter survival.
2. Then, a leering public casts votes in a single-elimination tournament .
The final will take place on Fat Bear Tuesday, when one lucky bear will ascend to the coveted Hall of Champions, something the bears actually don’t know exists because they are bears.
The parallel I’m drawing here is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year that was celebrated worldwide last week, and the copious amount of food many people ingested over that time. Shana Tova to all who celebrated!
In this week’s added extras:
A satisfying video of how granite goes from a quarry to a kitchen counter.
This interactive shows how many people are older and younger than you are.
A chemistry professor explains how fire-breathing dragons could work.
The architectural marvels nominated for this year’s World Building of the Year.
A new word search game just dropped.
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 Josh H and Avi F! The answer and this week’s riddle are below.
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming.
Have a great weekend,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
Spreadsheet Superstars
An elite handful of analysts, actuaries, and accountants have mastered Excel, arguably the most important software in the business world. So what do they do in Vegas? They open a spreadsheet.
How to Win a Nobel Prize
What subjects have past winners studied? What age were they when they won? Nature crunched the data on every science prize-winner to find out.
Teeth As Time Capsules: Soviet Secrets And My Dentist Grandmother
In post-war Warsaw, my grandmother Zosia fixed the teeth of prisoners and spies. In doing so, she came into contact with the hidden history of her times in a way few others could.
“Perhaps We’re Being Dense.” Rejection Letters Sent to Famous Writers
Some kind, some weird, some unbelievably harsh.
The Problem with Tracking Sleep Data
The latest wearables have gotten much more accurate at logging our Zzzs. Too bad researchers haven’t figured out how we should use the data.
The Moral Panic Over Ozempic Misses the Point
The media has made the drugs about body politics and our obsession with thinness. That’s the wrong story.
The Pig Butchering Invasion Has Begun
Scamming operations that once originated in Southeast Asia are now proliferating around the world, likely raking in billions of dollars in the process.
Quote of the Week:
“It took me 15 years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give up because by that time I was too famous.” – Peter Benchley, author of Jaws
Word of the Week:
Purloin
puh·loyn/pəːˈlɔɪn/
Verb
steal (something).
"he must have managed to purloin a copy of the key"
Do you know a word you think others should know about?
Facts of the Week:
From the 16th to the 19th century, England had a world monopoly on pencil production.
You can win a game of Monopoly after only four turns.
Vikings were buried with board games to combat boredom in the afterlife.
There are more people today pretending to be Vikings in the computer game Vikings: War of Clans than there ever were actual Vikings.
In Welsh mythology, fairies ride corgis into battle.
In Norse mythology, Naglfar was a ship made from the untrimmed fingernails of the dead.
The longest human thumbnail ever recorded measures 6 1/2 feet.
Cartoon of the Week:
(Courtesy of Josh F)
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
Which fruit comes next in this sequence: Banana, pear, kiwi, tomato, _____?
Your options:
Peach
Lemon
Plum
Guava
Last week’s brainteaser and answer:
A man has been prescribed two different tablets, X and Y. He needs to take one of each tablet every day, and if he doesn’t take the tablets according to this schedule, he’ll get sick. The tablets are very expensive, so he cannot throw them away and get a new prescription.
When the man has just a two-day supply left, he accidentally drops all four tablets on the floor. He picks them up and notices they look, smell, and weigh exactly the same. How can he make sure that he maintains his tablet schedule?
Answer:
Cut all four tablets in half, and then take half of each tablet.