Random links
- Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong
- "Tulip mania was irrational, the story goes. Tulip mania was a frenzy. Everyone in the Netherlands was involved, from chimney-sweeps to aristocrats. The same tulip bulb, or rather tulip future, was traded sometimes 10 times a day. No one wanted the bulbs, only the profits – it was a phenomenon of pure greed. Tulips were sold for crazy prices – the price of houses – and fortunes were won and lost. ... Yes, it makes an exciting story. The trouble is, most of it is untrue."
- Don’t jump to conclusions about climate change and civil conflict
- "The study, published in Nature Climate Change, states what critics have long suspected: conclusions that climate change is triggering violent conflict cannot be generalized, and are hard to substantiate even in individual cases"
- In Sudan, Rediscovering Ancient Nubia Before It's Too Late
- "According to an assessment by Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, the reservoir created by one planned dam would flood more than 500 archeological sites. ... Nature is a destructive force as well. Since the 1980s, sand storms have increasingly eroded the intricately carved walls of 43 decorative Kushite pyramids and a dozen chapels at a UNESCO World Heritage site named Meroe. With funding from Qatar, archaeologists have attempted to remove sand accumulating in the necropolis. But a 2016 report on the effort reads, “the volume of the sand dunes by far exceeds all removal capacities.”"