Sunday Morning Reading

Here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share. From arts in space and on the stage, to booby trapped tombs and age-old pathogens thawing out of the ice, here’s an electic mix of topics that might or might not connect together as we sweat and swelter through the Dog Days of Summer. Enjoy.

The Lunar Codex is an archive of various forms of creativity including contemporary art, poetry, podcasts, film, images, and other Earth bound cultural artifacts that’s on it’s way to the Moon. Headed up by Samuel Peralta it will travel on several rockets and include works of 30,000 artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers from 157 countries. J.D. Biersdorfer tells us about it in the New York Times.

Back to Earth it seems that archaeologists are afraid to look inside the tomb of China’s first emperor. You know the one guarded by the Terra Cotta army among other things. Apparently it’s not just what might be disturbed by digging or what might be disturbing if they do, but there’s a theory that the place is booby trapped. Sounds very Indiana Jonesish. Tom Hale writes about it in IFLSCIENCE.

The Stage Is Yours according to Natasha MH in this Medium post on Ellemeno. It’s a great piece about arts, artists, dance, theatre, authenticity, and those hidden fears and secrets inside of us all. You know, the ones we choose not to share when we offer ourselves up. Or do we?

The strikes by the actors and writers unions have pointed a spotlight on AI and how that might replace creatives in film, TV and other industries. Studios see financial savings from reduced costs. But maybe they should take a look at Michael Grothaus’ piece in Fast Company as he theorizes that AI might even replace the studios themselves.

In what sounds like science fiction, scientists have woken up a 46,000-year-old roundworm from the Siberian permafrost. Carolyn Y. Johnson in the Washington Post tells us about that. But if tinkering with what many might think should be left alone doesn’t sound John Carpenterish enough for you, we’re also hearing about frozen pathogens that are waking up on their own in cold places that are warming up. (Can you say Climate Change?) Corey J.A. Bradshaw and Giovannie Strona wrote about this in The Conversation and I caught the article from Science Alert.

Ryan Busse is a former gun company exec who is now warning about the dangerous growing radicalization in his former industry. Corey G, Johnson talked to him for this article in ProPublica.

The social media world is certainly in a state of flux given all the damage Elon Musk has done to Twitter and the scramble by others to provide venues that might offer some of what Twitter used to be before it was X-ed out. Craig Grannell has a great piece called X Marks the Rot. Don’t Buy Into Elon Musk’s Lifelong Crusade.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.