Six Things, Volume 142
Sleep | Sentences | Measures | Earth | Automata | 2025
Thing 1 – Sleep
My favourite New Fact™ this week was the one about jellyfish and sea anemones sleeping even though they don’t have brains. Yet another reason, in my view, to be fascinated by jellyfish. They were once described by someone-I-can’t-remember-who as “little more than organised water”, but the more we learn about them the less accurate that description seems.
Having recently (and voluntarily, mark you) endured the quadrennial combination of extreme sleep deprivation and bitter disappointment that inevitably comes with an Ashes series in Australia, I am at the moment an avid devotee of both the practical and theoretical aspects of sleep. It is, in general, quite the thing. Just ask a cat. Or a sloth.
We interrupt this broadcast to castigate you for perpetuating the slanderous myth that sloths sleep all the time and are therefore somehow the epitome of indolence and ne’er-do-well slackery. They’re not lazy – they just have an extraordinarily slow metabolism. This loathsome calumny is based on “decades of casual observation and a bad reputation”, for which you can blame noted naturalist Georges Buffon, who in 1749 described them as “the lowest form of existence”. That’s enough about you, Georges – what about the sloths? Eh? EH?
Well that’s me told.
OK, so how about asking a chinstrap penguin, with its enviable ability to take thousands of micronaps a day? Or perhaps a frigatebird, which can put half its brain to sleep while the other half stays awake? Or—
Look, it’s probably best if you read this informative and entertaining piece about the extremes of animal sleep, which not only has some fun animated infographics but a truly adorable video of a chinstrap penguin trying to get some shuteye STOP WALKING PAST ME SANDRA FFS.
Thing 2 – Sentences
Sentences are getting shorter. Yes they are. Just look. Here I go. Short. Snappy. Punchy. Eat your heart out, Hemingway.
This, for someone like me, who revels (sometimes, I admit, to excess) in the intricacies of a long sentence, one that takes you on a little journey, never quite lets you settle, and, despite your best intentions to skip to the next paragraph, somehow keeps you reading (even when, like this one, it contains annoying nested parentheses (god I love a nested parenthesis, so much so that (and I do apologise) I sometimes indulge myself with a double (or even a triple), digressions and other distractions), until it somehow, and against its will, almost forced into inertia by the weight of its own ponderousness, stumbles to a conclusion, is a pain in the arse.
OK, perhaps that could do with an edit.
Anyway, this piece is interesting on the subject.
Thing 3 – Measures
We’re all familiar with the Holy Trinity of comparative measurements – football field, double-decker bus, Wales (other Holy Trinities are available, and no doubt you have your own, but those are mine) – but sometimes you want to shake things up a bit.
Yesterday, for example, I found myself in need of an equivalent for the size of a humpback whale. Sure, I could have gone for “about half the size of a blue whale”, but this seems both unimaginative and unhelpful – do any of us really know, without looking it up, the size of a blue whale, beyond the obvious “biggest creature that ever lived”?
I’m grateful, then, for the website The Measure of Things, from which I was able to ascertain that an adult humpback whale (ca. 40 tons), is equivalent to 60 cows, one 150,000th of a Great Pyramid of Giza, or 900 toilets. Admittedly the second one still leaves us scratching our heads just a bit, but it does at least engage our imagination. And as a bonus, I know that you are all, right now, imagining 900 toilets propelling themselves en masse out of the water, twisting in the air and crashing down with a hefty splash – one of the greatest spectacles in nature.
Anyway, do check out The Measure of Things – along with its companion site, The Count of Things, it’s a treasure trove of useless but temporarily interesting information.
Thing 4 – Earth
We had a storm. Perhaps you did too. For years now my default reaction on these occasions has been to monitor a storm’s progress on this website. Something to do with the intrinsic fascination of swirly lines, I think. It’s good to know, then, that they now have an app (click the link above, then click on ‘get the app’ in the bottom right-hand corner).
Whether you’re using it on the web or the app, there’s much more to it than just watching the wind. You can watch the waves, for example. Or look at particulate levels, or monitor the likelihood of auroras. To toggle all the options, you just click on the word ‘earth’ in the bottom left-hand corner. Hours of fun for the whole family.
Thing 5 – Automata
This is a lovely short film about Blair Somerville, who, for over a quarter of a century now, has been making automata art using recycled materials, as well as collecting automata from all over the world. The film was made in 2015, so presumably The Lost Gypsy – his gallery on the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island – is now even more packed with fascinating stuff than it was at the time of making. A loving portrait of an original mind.
Thing 6 – 2025
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. But I’ve spent ages completing this, so – and as I might have said before, I don’t make the rules – I’m compelled to put it in front of you.
Simply organise the 2025 things in the grid into 45 categorised groups of 45. You’re not told what the categories are, but you can sort of work that out as you go along. Simple, no? Well, up to a point. Some of them I found easy enough (there’s a Birds category – you can have that one for free); others, depending as they do on knowledge of stuff I have no knowledge of (looking at you, D&D and the Marvel Universe, really looking at you very hard)… NOT SO VERY MUCH.
Anyway. Have fun! If you do play it (think of it as the equivalent of a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, the kind of thing you just have there and do a little bit from time to time) it’s probably best done on a tablet or desktop because of the – did I mention this – TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY-FIVE THINGS.
Bonus Thing
By way of compensation for the fiendishness of Thing 6, please enjoy Stanley the talking IKEA cat.
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Another jellyfish fact for you: the Irish word for jellyfish is smugairle róin which translates literally into “seal’s snot” 🫣
During a visit to Niagara Falls, my husband and I were fascinated that the amount of water was compared to bathtubs, as in X number of full bathtubs per second. Ever since, we've used bathtubs as our comparison for wildly inappropriate things: amount of milk in my coffee, how much rain is falling, etc.