- I watched Conclave over the holiday break and thought it was pretty good. The acting was great, of course, but I’d expect nothing less from a film featuring John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Ralph Fiennes. If you dig Roman Catholic esoterica, I’d also suggest reading this deep dive into the Vatican’s secret saint-making process.
- Ozempic is a modified, synthetic version of a protein discovered in the venomous saliva of the Gila monster, a large, sluggish lizard native to the United States. – via Tom Whitwell’s 52 Things I Learned in 2024, not to be confused with Kent Hendricks’ equally-awesome list of 52 Things I Learned in 2024
- Some of the 77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024 (from The Atlantic Science Desk) are really pretty wild! – via kottke
- The Ghosts in the Machine is a great explainer on the current kerfuffle over Spotify’s nefarious fake music.
Please don’t say just, “hello,” via text. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter, where I also found this awesome food map of Italy- I enjoyed reading this quick essay on how to write readable sentences.
- What happens when websites start to vanish at random?
- An average of about 900 people per week have died of COVID-19 over the past year in the USA, according to the CDC. – via PBS