Origin of "Humpty-Dumpty" - the coolest thing I read today

In a book packager's newsletter, the origins of "dead metaphors" was the topic today. Specifically, that of "Humpty-Dumpty," which, in my coarse reckoning, isn't a metaphor until we make it one. Still, the origin - involving bad haircuts, empty theological disputes, and medieval artillery - was fun to read about, and the explanation - involving mollusks, literary references, and a drink recipe - was almost free of grammatical errors.

And afterward, Darn that Lewis Carroll! (Read the linked post. This will make a bit of sense afterward.)

Erik Asphaug's two moons hypothesis, the coolest thing I read today

This is way cool. A UC-Santa Cruz Earth and Planetary Sciences professor and his grad student created a computer model to explain the mountains on the far side of the moon. 

The model involves a second moon around the earth, back when earth was very new and still mostly molten. The collision that created the moon may well have created a second one, and as the moon receded from the earth, it may have come into the orbit of the smaller moon. A slow collision would have spread the material of the smaller moon around one hemisphere of the larger body, creating the mountain ranges on the far side, and possibly triggering the orbital "lock" that keeps the older side of the moon facing earth.

Astrophysics is really, really cool.

coolest thing I "read" today: the future of publishing

ironically, a video, oh my! but it's worth watching/reading

--found it at the Tor/Forge art director's blog!

Did I mention that sounds like a really great job?

coolest thing I read today: satirical reviews...and avoiding huge ships

This collection of Amazon customer reviews for How to Avoid Huge Ships is the coolest thing I read today.

I love stuff like this.

coolest thing I read today: the wherefores of book titles

I'm sorry Gary Dexter's blog, How Books Got Their Titles, is no longer active, but he posted 181 essays explaining book titles, which I think is a very literary and worthy thing to do. I liked his explanation of the origin of the title Pride and Prejudice (#178) very much.

I'll definitely pay his blog a visit again (after all, I have 177 left to go!), and if you're among the handful of people reading this, I guess you might like to as well.

coolest thing I read today: telomeres!

But you can't read it, unless you get the Chronicle on your iPad or on shredded trees. Or wait till Wednesday at 3pm for this link to work.

I wasn't a science guy in college, but I'm not sure why not. (Hint: math.)

This is pretty cool, though. The ends of chromosomes fray with cell reproduction and stress, and when they're gone, you die. (Yikes!)

It's as if the non-coding ends of chromosomes were the fraying fringes of carpets. They absorb the damage and stress of pounding feet, and yet the carpets remain whole, until the fringes are breached.

See why I wasn't a science guy? Still, cool stuff.

More about telomeres here:
Wikipedia
Kimball's Biology Pages
Science Daily

coolest thing I read today: tvtropes.com-ANVILICIOUS

I was working, really, trying to find useful details about gangs for a story I'm editing, and found a television tropes result...always worth following if you have an hour.

I wound up at "anvilicious" which has a fairly plain meaning about obvious messages thinly disguised as or in entertainment.

My concise definition has its merits, but there's just something about browsing tvtropes. Don't forget to click on the examples buttons below. It's a clunky interface, but the interwoven content will have you opening a dozen simultaneous tabs in no time.