Hubble Captures Clearest View Yet of Egg Nebula

From SciNews:

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A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals for the first time the delicate interplay of cosmic dust and stellar winds in the Egg Nebula, a bipolar protoplanetary nebula within the constellation Cygnus.

The Egg Nebula resides approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus.

Also known the Cygnus Egg and the Egg, the nebula hosts a central star obscured by a dense cloud of dust and is around 0.4 light-years wide.

“The Egg Nebula is the first, youngest, and closest pre-planetary nebula ever discovered,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“The nebula offers a rare opportunity to test theories of late-stage stellar evolution.”

“At this early phase, it shines by reflecting light from its central star, which escapes through a polar ‘eye’ in the surrounding dust.”

“This light emerges from a dusty disk expelled from the star’s surface just a few hundred years ago.”

“Twin beams from the dying star illuminate fast-moving polar lobes that pierce a slower, older series of concentric arcs.”

“Their shapes and motions suggest gravitational interactions with one or more hidden companion stars, all buried deep within the thick disk of stardust.”

“Stars like our Sun shed their outer layers as they exhaust their hydrogen and helium fuel,” they said.

“The exposed core becomes so hot that it ionizes surrounding gas, creating the glowing shells seen in planetary nebulae such as the Helix, Stingray, and Butterfly nebulae.”

“However, the compact Egg Nebula is still in a brief transitional phase — known as the pre-planetary stage — that lasts only a few thousand years.”

“This makes it an ideal time to study the ejection process while the forensic evidence remains fresh.”

“The symmetrical patterns captured by Hubble are too orderly to result from a violent explosion like a supernova.”

“Instead, the arcs, lobes, and central dust cloud likely stem from a coordinated series of poorly understood sputtering events in the carbon-enriched core of the dying star.”

“Aged stars like these forged and released the dust that eventually seeded future star systems, such as our own Solar System, which coalesced into Earth and other rocky planets 4.5 billion years ago.”

'Acceptable Risk'

This is excellent, a 6-part thriller which premiered in Ireland in 2017, set in Ireland and Canada revolving around what appears to be simply the unexpected death of a young drug conglomerate salesman but then steadily widens its gyre of suspicion and mistrust and uncertainty to involve ever more powerful individuals along with the German police and the CIA.

The excellent cast is comprised of no one you're familiar with.

I found the show on Prime Video buried deep in the suggestion box while I was idly surfing what's there: I'm always amazed by how many movies and shows exist and continue to appear.

I only wish there was some way to identify ones I'd really like, gems stuck in amidst hundreds of what to me are duds.

Yes — I've tried that feature where you list things you like and then the AI suggests others like them that it thinks you'd like but the results proved a big disappointment.

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One more thing: another series on Prime Video called "Hidden Assets" is a spinoff of "Acceptable Risk": so far I've watched Season 1 (of 3), a six-episode crime drama set in Ireland and Belgium — it's excellent.

Spectacular Pendant Associated With Henry VIII's Marriage to Catherine of Aragon

From the Smithsonian:

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The Only Surviving Piece of Jewelry Associated With Henry VIII's Reign Is Now On Display In The Permanent Collection of the British Museum

Known as the Tudor Heart, the 24-carat gold pendant from the early 16th century is the only surviving piece of jewelry linked to Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Their union lasted nearly 24 years, the longest of Henry VIII's six marriages.

Accompanied by a 75-link gold chain and a clasp in the shape of a hand, the pendant features a red and white Tudor rose, a pomegranate bush, and the initials "H" and "K." Red letters spell out tousiors, an old French word for "always," on a golden banner that stretches across the artifact.

In 2019, amateur metal detectorist Charlie Clarke unearthed the pendant in a field in Warwickshire, England.

At first, some experts expressed skepticism about the artifact's authenticity. But after extensive analyses, historians concluded that it likely dates to the middle of Henry and Catherine's marriage, which lasted from 1509 to 1533.

10 Rules for Thinking Clearly — Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell, New York Times Magazine, December 16, 1951.

8 great actors who make any film they're in worth watching

In no particular order:

• Saoirse Ronan

• Sofia Helin

• Kristen Stewart

• Jessie Buckley

• Golshifteh Farahani

• Jodi Foster

• Julianne Moore

• Naomi Watts

Junior CIA Agent Secret Dissolving Message Labels

You know who you are.

These one–time use messaging tools are cleverly hidden in the kitchen and cooking spaces because stealthy peeps like you know very well that you never put secret stuff out there where just anyone can find it.

Heck no: 'Hide in plain sight' is one of the first lessons for the agent–in–training.

"Run them under water or in the dishwasher and the paper disappears, as does the adhesive residue!"

A roll of 500 1" x 2" secret message labels costs $9.99.

6 phrases I use that I never hear anyone else employ

Dead Slow

Then the penny dropped

As any fool can plainly see

Res ipsa loquitur

Sic transit gloria [± mundi]

Bob's your uncle

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Anyone else? Bueller?

Charms — Kay Ryan

The dead do not
become stars or ghosts.
In fact, they are
hardly undone.
Soon their randomly
dispersed parts
reappear one
by one on
foreign hosts—
the beloved ear
or freckled arm,
separate as a
milagro or bracelet
charm. It is not
grotesque, though
odd. Even a piece
does us some good.

Drink Tray

Designed 

by 

Martino D'Esposito 

for Ligne Roset.

A note on potholes

In my little 36-house subdivision just outside Podunkville aka Charlottesville, Virginia, we are financially responsible for road upkeep even though the roads — each about a half-mile long (actually, two of them, roughly perpendicular, forming one [1] intersection) — are public and thus not able to be regulated or monitored, say with a gatehouse etc.

For as long as I've lived here, our homeowners association has levied annual dues on each household: when I moved here in 1983 they were $100/year, and have since increased to $400/year.

This money is used to pay for road repair and snow removal as well as minor upkeep, such as replacing a stop sign someone ran into and paving over donuts which appear every couple years at the intersection.

The main expenditure has always been for pothole repair, which comes up every couple years.

I went along with the usual majority vote to fix them up to a couple years ago, when it occurred to me that the majority of road damage was the result of heavy machinery contracted by a small minority of homeowners for home and yard improvements.

Why should I pay for fixing the road adjacent to their property?

Especially since its the same few residences who hire contractors for such projects, repeatedly?

Then the penny dropped: 

            A pothole is an inverted speed bump. 

Lagniappe: they're free!

We have a STOP sign at our intersection and signs at the subdivision entrance that say 

           CAUTION: CHILDREN PLAYING

but over half of the people who live here and most who don't don't stop.

And even though there's a sign at the entrance under the caution sign that says

           SPEED LIMIT — 20 MPH

very few drivers observe it — including residents with kids.

So from now on when someone brings up pothole repair at one of our infrequent association meetings, I am going to stand up and register my objections to fixing them by noting the facts above and pleading for complete and total neglect: the worse our roads, the safer we all are.

Driving 

never hurt anyone nor their car.

Pop Speech — 'Air guitar for the lips'

• don't go there

• get over it

• whoa!

• duh

• I don't think so

• that is so last year

• too much information

• whatever

• you da man

• bring it on

• glitterati

• fashionista

• I hate it when that happens

• in your dreams

• put a cork in it

• tell me about it

• you got that right

• don't even think about it

• bling

• it's all good

• yesss!

More?

Read the book, pictured up top.

What are they?

Answer here this time tomorrow.

Hint: bigger than a bread box.

Another: no moving parts.

A third: plastic.

Best Print Ad of the 21st Century?

For sure it's in the top three.

It appeared on October 2, 2005 in the  New York Times magazine, placed by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

'But do you believe in love, Mr. Evans?'

I don't, she said. No, I don't. It's too small a word, don't you think, Mr. Evans? I have a friend in Fern Tree who teaches piano. Very musical, she is. I'm tone-deaf myself. But one day she was telling me how every room has a note. You just have to find it. She started warbling away, up and down. And suddenly one note came back to us, just bounced back off the walls and rose from the floor and filled the place with this perfect hum. This beautiful sound. Like you've thrown a plum and an orchard comes back at you. You Wouldn't believe it, Mr. Evans. These two completely different things, a note and a room, finding each other. It sounded... right. Am I being ridiculous? Do you think that's what we mean by love, Mr. Evans? The note that comes back to you? That finds you even when you don't want to be found? That one day you find someone, and everything they are comes back to you in a strange way that hums? That fits. That's beautiful. I'm not explaining myself at all well, am I? she said. I'm not very good with words. But that's what we were, Jack and me. We didn't really know each other. I'm not sure if I liked everything about him. I suppose some things about me annoyed him. But I was that room and he was that note and now he's gone. And everything is silent.

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Above, from pages 327-328 of Richard Flanagan's sublime and harrowing Booker Prize-winning 2014 novel "The Narrow Road to the Deep North."

Banana Peel Door Stopper

I ordered one about a yoctosecond after I saw it somewhere many, many years ago.

It's still in place and works great.

I've given them as gifts to several people and as far as I can tell they were as amused as I was.

But who really knows?

Designed by Takashi Ohba.

Silicone: available in ripe yellow or unripe green.

5.75" x 7.5".

$36.

World's Oldest Noodles

A 4,000–year–old bowl of noodles (above), the earliest example ever found, has been unearthed at the Lajia archaelogical site near the Yellow River in northwestern China.

The beautifully preserved noodles were discovered in an overturned, sealed bowl buried under ten feet of sediment.

Radiocarbon dating was used to determine their age.

Houyuan Lu of Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences said, in an email interview, "This is the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found."

The noodles were made from two kinds of millet, a grain indigenous to China and widely cultivated there 7,000 years ago.

Until this discovery, the oldest account of the existence of noodles was in a 1,900–year–old book written during the East Han Dynasty in China.

Antidepressants or Tolkien?

Can you guess if the word is an antidepressant drug or a Tolkien character?

I said be careful, his pencil is really a flashlight...

Res ipsa loquitur.

From the website, in case your Latin's a bit rusty:

Perfect as we descend into the darker season, this pencil light is great for reading under the covers, finding keys in your bag, and generally lifting one's mood.

Simply push the tip and the eraser lights up!

It charges from a USB cable and is a hand held light, 160mm length.

$42.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

bookofjoeTV not a pipe dream after all?

The boj post above appeared on October 4, 2005, eight months after the founding of YouTube.

Google bought YouTube in November, 2006 and the rest is history.

My YouTube channel went live in September of 2009.

It took a little over 20 years from my 2005 fever dream for the boj post below to surface this past Monday on February 9, 2026.

'The Eavesdropper'

I stumbled on this 2017 French thriller earlier this week not knowing a thing about it, but I liked the title enough to take a flutter.

It stars François Cluzet, a excellent French actor whom I've watched in many films without knowing his name.

Well worth the 93 minutes required.

WANT

What does $1 million in pennies look like?

More than a few people find themselves unable to sleep because they can't visualize what $1 million in pennies looks like.

Just kidding.

But since pennies are gonna gradually disappear now that the U.S. stopped making them on November 12, 2025, now is as good a time as any to pay tribute to them.

Was the invention of cooking the single greatest technological advance in human history?

Richard Wrangham, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, believes that to be the case.

Julie Powell interviewed Wrangham for a New York Times story about her attempt to eliminate cooking from her life and eat only raw, uncooked, and unprocessed foods.

She found it essentially impossible because of the enormous amount of time she spent daily gathering food and eating it.

Wrangham pointed out to her that "chimpanzees in the wild spend 50% to 60% of their time eating, whereas humans spend only 5%–6%."

He believes the difference lies in the invention and spread of cooking, "the set of technologies that enable humans to efficiently transform food into softer, more easily digestible, and less perishable forms."

Powell understood Wrangham's point after her own experience of spending the bulk of her waking life juicing, dehydrating, and consuming massive amounts of raw foodstuffs in an effort to absorb sufficient nutrients from the unprocessed materials.

She wrote, "In his 2003 paper in the Journal of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, 'Cooking as a Biological Trait,' Professor Wrangham wrote that just to maintain the minimum necessary caloric intake, a raw foodist must eat 11 to 12 pounds of food every day."

Wrangham's theory is that the invention of cooking, widening the available range of digestible, nutritious foodstuffs, freed pre–humans to spend the time and brain power to do other things that led to their eventually becoming human.

Powell noted with some amusement the irony of how it has come to pass that many people now believe that cooking is harmful, even poisonous.

As I always say to vegetarians, only because your ancestors were the fiercest of hunters and killers did they survive long and successfully enough to give rise to the offspring that eventually begat you.

Every single human being who walks this planet descends from a long line of blood–on–the–lips, take–no–prisoners carnivores.

It's good to remember your roots every now and then.

More?

Read Wrangham's book, "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" here.

Free, the way we like it.

Apple Slicer — With a Twist

From websites: 

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Position this ingenious disc-shaped slicer on any apple and rotate to release perfect slices for snacking or cooking.

Don't need a whole apple at once?

Just leave the disc pressed against the fruit and it will not dry out or turn brown.

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Either it has no moving parts or the whole thing is a moving part, depending on how you parse words and the world.

A 1998 design by Ralph Krämer.

Chrome-nickel 18/10 stainless steel.

2.76" x 2.36".

$35.

The Night Migrations — Louise Glück

This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds' night migrations.

It grieves me to think
the dead won't see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.

What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won't need
these pleasures anymore;
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.