Books London Five SFF Novels Set in London (But Not the One in Canada) Each of these books has a unique take on the storied city of London, England By James Davis Nicoll | Published on July 9, 2024 Photo by Luke Stackpoole [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Luke Stackpoole [via Unsplash] London, Ontario is located in Southern Ontario. No doubt London, Ontario has many fine qualities, but if foreigners have heard of it at all, it is because the place name is a shibboleth that reliably identifies Canadians1. They may also have heard of it as a punchline on the Mary Tyler Moore TV show. One would be very hard pressed to find five SFF stories set there. London, England is an entirely different matter. Consider these five works, which are very small sample of works set in London2. The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti (1976) Particularly bold runaway children become pointy-eared Borribles. Borribles embrace lives of adventure. They are immortal until their luck runs out and they are killed or worse, are reduced to normal children again by having their ears cropped. All Borribles crave glory, for only by earning enough glory can they earn names. Eight nameless Borribles are offered the chance to win names. The hated rat-like Wimbledon Rumbles intend to conquer Battersea. The Borribles would lose a conventional fight. However, if the eight Borribles can kill all eight members of the Rumble High Command, the invasion will fail. Glory awaits! Or so the eight are assured. Persons of a certain age will be surprised and delighted by the many cultural references that de Larrabeiti slips into his novel. Other people may be alarmed by what they discover when they track down some of the allusions. Learning that which one was happier not knowing is part of the fun of reading older works. SS-GB by Len Deighton (1976) The United Kingdom has fallen to Nazi Germany. The UK is occupied. Winston Churchill has been executed. King George VI is a prisoner in the Tower. A few partisans are holding out, but it is only a matter of time before German troops find and kill them. Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer answers to Gruppenführer Fritz Kellerman now. Otherwise, his job is the same post-Occupation as it was pre-Occupation: investigate and solve mundane murders, like that of the dead man in the run-down apartment over the antique shop. Except there’s nothing mundane about the investigation that follows. In fact, the fate of the world depends on its outcome. I could do a piece on police procedurals set in worlds where the Nazis won. It may be that the Nazi tendency towards barefaced lies and concealing inconvenient facts is a difficult setting for works in genres based on uncovering truths that villains want concealed. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (2015) Able to walk between the four alternate Londons, Kell serves as Red London’s ambassador to Grey and White London. Kell could as easily step into Black London, but no sensible person travels there after Black London lost control of its magic. Kell has a lucrative sideline: interdimensional smuggler. Kell makes the mistake of transporting a package without establishing its provenance. Kell then makes the worse mistake of losing the package to pickpocket Lila. Now Kell must find Lila before some very bad people searching for the packet find Kell. I wonder what the odds are that having established that no sensible person travels to Ravenholm some cursed location like Black London, the plot will somehow, inevitably, involve that Bad Place? Is it one hundred percent? Stray Souls by Kate Griffin (2012) Unexpectedly imbued with the abilities and responsibilities of a shaman, Sharon Li reacted as any normal person might on discovering they are suddenly and without warning now a person of magical significance. Li formed Magicals Anonymous, a support group for the esoterically perplexed. Of which London has no small number. Matthew Swift, London’s Midnight Mayor, has a use for the Magicals. A god is missing. Swift would prefer not to resolve the matter himself. How better to help the troubled members of the support group come to terms with their natures than by handing them a mystery that they don’t seem notably well-suited to solve—a mystery on which the fate of London depends? Is Swift a lazy, useless nob who should be punted from office or a visionary manager able to see in people the potential they themselves cannot? As the focus is on Li and her pals, not Swift, that question is never fully resolved. Cruel Pink by Tanith Lee (2013) Emeni’s post-Collapse London provides an almost perfect stage for homicidal urges…but only almost perfect. Klova lives in a utopian London; too bad about her kleptomania. Rod lives in a mundane London, yet one in which his friends are somehow vanishing. Actor Irvin embraces both men and women, something that will not win accolades in a 18th century London not known for broad-mindedness. Four very different people, living in four different eras. Linking them? The city of London, a common address, and their seemingly unremarkable, reclusive landlady. This is a short novel, so it’s rather impressive that Lee flirts with five genres within its narrow bounds. Also impressive is the fact that, despite the odds against them, the characters manage to find reasonably happy outcomes, which is not generally the way to bet with Tanith Lee. There are many, many works set in London that might have been mentioned. Some, like Babel, I have not yet read. Others, like the Rivers of London books, are being saved for other purposes. Still others, such as The World at Bay, are too obscure to mention even in passing. Nevertheless, feel free to extol the virtues of your own favorite examples in comments below.[end-mark] Canadians reliably add either Ontario or England after London. Other people, being unaware of London, Ontario, do not need to disambiguate. [My site editor Karen Lofstrom notes that London, Ontario is frequently mentioned in Jason Slaughter’s popular urbanist YouTube channel, Not Just Bikes. He calls it Fake London and contrasts its suburban wastelands to the bike and transit paradise of Amsterdam, his new home.] Why isn’t the Canadian city named New London or, even better, something new and unique? Because Canadians are collectively unable to grasp the utility of unique names. This is why if one refers to Father of Confederation John Hamilton Gray, one then needs to clarify if one means Father of Confederation John Hamilton Gray from New Brunswick or the Father of Confederation John Hamilton Gray from Prince Edward Island. ︎England. I won’t be adding this footnote to every instance of London, as I sense editors would object. Nevertheless, in my heart it is there. ︎The post Five SFF Novels Set in London (But Not the One in Canada) appeared first on Reactor.

News Gladiator 2 Rage Is Paul Mescal’s Gift in the Trailer for Gladiator II Will you be entertained? By Molly Templeton | Published on July 9, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Are you ready to go back to the arena? It’s gotten fancier since 2000’s Gladiator—now there’s a whole ship battle on its flooded floor. Twenty-four years after the Oscar-winning, Russell Crowe-starring Gladiator, director Ridley Scott has returned to the Colosseum for Gladiator II, which tells the story of Lucius, who was just a boy (played by Spencer Treat Clark) in the original film. The trailer is very aware that we might not remember the details of young Lucius’ life, so it starts there, with faded flashbacks: The boy is the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and was the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus. But he didn’t grow up on Rome’s clearly dramatic streets, as the synopsis explains: Years after witnessing the death of revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people. Lucius, Variety explains, was sent to “the northern African region of Numidia, where he was sent by his mother as a child as it was just outside the reach of the Roman Empire.” But now he’s back, and he’s very angry (understandably) about injustice. He becomes the instrument of Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, who has his own very strong (understandable) feelings about the Roman Empire. This trailer is full of cliches—the woman who dies so the hero can be (further) motivated; the handing over of a meaningful ring; the villains coded as effeminate—that make it seem as if this movie were actually made at least 24 years ago, hot on the heels of the original. And while Scott certainly knows how to stage an epic battle, the movie’s set pieces have been (probably wisely) held back so that we only get a taste of the fights. Pedro Pascal plays General Marcus Acacius; Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger play Rome’s twin emperors, who seem no better than Commodus (one gleefully shouts “They can eat war!” when Marcus Acacius points out that Rome has hungry people). Moon Knight‘s May Calamawy is here (possibly as the archer Lucius is mourning?) and so, somehow, is Matt Lucas. Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann—the Hound—being in this cast makes a perfect sort of sense. Gladiator II is based on characters created by David Franzoni, who wrote the story for the original film. The story for this one is by Peter Craig (co-writer of The Batman) and David Scarpa; Scarpa (who also wrote Ridley Scott’s Napoleon) wrote the screenplay. Hans Zimmer returns to score the sequel. Watch it in theaters on November 22nd.[end-mark] The post Rage Is Paul Mescal’s Gift in the Trailer for <i>Gladiator II</i> appeared first on Reactor.

American recovery begins with religion, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Monday evening in a speech at the National Conservatism conference in the nation’s capital. The theme of Hawley’s speech: that the West’s Christian legacy has been hollowed out in the past half-century, that the economy has been distorted to fit the interests of a globalist elite, and that if Americans want to conserve what’s best about our country, then we must reestablish a God-centered worldview in our society and institutions. Hawley began by referring his Capital Hilton audience to the year 410 A.D., when Rome—once thought of as the eternal city—was sacked by Alaric and the Visigoths. In that moment, a “fading empire, the ancient world of antiquity, came to a close,” the Missouri Republican said. At the same time, old, pagan Rome was falling into ruin, the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo was writing and setting the stage for a new, Christian era, Hawley said, and this marked the beginning of the “West” as it became known. Augustine defended Christian virtues such as humility and service, which pagan critics said had weakened the empire. “Augustine knew that just the opposite was true,” Hawley said. “The Christian religion was the only vital force left in Rome at the time of its collapse and now Augustine imagined that religion rising from the ruins of the ancient world to forge a new and better civilization.” Rome began by loving glory and self-sacrifice, the Missouri senator said, but ended by loving pleasure and self-indulgence. With the collapse of old Rome, this past worship of glory was replaced by the “sturdier” virtues of the Bible, Hawley said, specifically the love of “life and children, the love of labor and neighbor and home, the love of God.” This change created the basis of a new kind of nationalism, Hawley said, a “Christian nationalism organized around Christian ideals.” The new ethos would be animated by common purpose rather than conquest and by common love rather than fear, he said. This Augustinian dream became “our reality” in America, Hawley said, and provided the moral center of American society for centuries. We must reclaim our Christian principles now, he urged, for the “sake of our future.” “Christian nationalism founded American democracy,” Hawley said, to applause. “The Christian political tradition is our political tradition.” Hawley argued that Republicans of past years argued too much for free markets and tax cuts without considering the needs of working Americans and families. He said that working Americans now struggle to provide for their families, or to create families in the first place, because the economy and politicians aren’t really working for them. “The free market is valuable exactly to the degree that it sustains the things we love together; otherwise, it’s just called profit. And somewhere along the line Republicans just found the love of profit at any price,” Hawley said. This came at the expense of the base of the Republican Party, which is mostly religious Americans, he lamented, saying that the Left at least knows that “people make politics.” Hawley noted how the Left puts trans flags on buildings and gives federal taxpayers’ money to various left-wing cultural projects. He accused his fellow Republicans of offering no resistance to the social liberalism of the Left and said the GOP of the future must “put people before money and prioritize the interests of the working person.” Most importantly, Americans must revive the idea that religion—not just religious liberty—unites Americans. This shared set of religious beliefs, he said, were embedded in America’s founding documents and the national motto on our currency: “In God We Trust.” Hawley called the long-term attempt to erase religion from the public square just “class warfare by other means.” The effort isn’t simply about eliminating religion, he said, “it’s about replacing one religion with another.” In the end, the Left wants a new kind of religion, he said. “They want the religion of the Pride flag. We want the religion of the Bible,” Hawley said. “So, I have a suggestion: Why don’t we take down the trans flag from all the federal buildings from which it’s flying, and instead, inscribe on every building owned and operated by the federal government our national motto: In God We Trust?” “Symbols matter,” Hawley concluded, and it’s up to conservatives to defend America’s national religion and its role in public life. The post Time to Take Down the Pride Flags and Put ‘In God We Trust’ on Every Federal Building, Sen. Josh Hawley Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Nintendo is one of the oldest and most beloved companies in the entire world. They've managed to appeal to multiple generations and are constantly reinventing themselves. Nintendo also brought the world one of the most iconic video game characters of all time: Mario. Whether you grew up playing video games or watching your kids be glued to the screen, you know who the plumber in the red overalls... Source

Benjamin Franklin is one of the most prominent figures of American history. There was little that Franklin couldn't do. The polymath was born into a modest family in 1706 and despite only two years of formal education, he would later gain acclaim as an author, printer, politician, scientist, inventor, statesman, and freemason, among other things. But did you also know that he was a serial... Source

During the mid-'90s, young kids across America were glued to their TV screens for the same reason. Jason (red), Trini (yellow), Zack (black), Kimberly (pink), Billy (blue), and Tommy (white) morphed into action fighting off evil antagonists. The original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were and still are some of the most iconic crime-fighting characters to ever surface. In 2017... Source

WSJ: Inside the White House Cover-Up of Biden's Decline

From white and brown to pinkish and blue, chicken eggs come in all kinds of colors, especially if you shop at the overpriced organic food store. Despite what you’ve heard, it’s not directly associated with the color of the hen (when was the last time you saw a blue chicken?). The main factor behind eggshell coloration is genetics, although a few environmental elements play a role too.Scientists have discovered at least seven genes that are involved in chicken eggshell color: CPOX, FECH, BCRP, HRG1, FLVCR, SLCO1A2, and SLCO1C1. When it comes to brown and white eggs, their pigments are primarily influenced by the production of an organic pigment called protoporphyrin. The pigment is derived from heme, an iron-containing compound in the blood's hemoglobin. Two other pigments, biliverdin and biliverdin-zinc chelate, can also sway a chicken’s egg color, but protoporphyrin is typically deemed to be the most influential.Generally speaking, white eggs have very little protoporphyrin, while brown eggs are abundant in it. A high expression of the CPOX gene results in more protoporphyrinogen and, therefore, a brown shell color. On the other hand, high expression of the FECH gene results in lower protoporphyrinogen levels and a lighter eggshell color.However, genetics is rarely this straightforward forward and the other five genes – BCRP, HRG1, FLVCR, SLCO1A2, and SLCO1C1 – also impact the coloration by influencing the heme transporters, which deliver heme to the various parts of a biological cell.Different breeds of chickens can be associated with specific eggshell colors because they harbor a particular collection of genes. Leghorn chickens, for example, lay white eggs, while Rhode Island Reds lay brown eggs due to the genetic variation within the population. Marans chickens, a fancy French breed revered for their exceptionally dark brown eggs, are the product of selective breeding that has optimized the expression of genes that pump out protoporphyrin. Along with genetics, egg color can be shaped by numerous environmental factors, including the hen's age, stress levels, disease, and diet. Iron levels in their food are particularly important for chickens that lay brown eggs, as are certain probiotics, specifically Bacillus subtilis.Stress, old age, and illness can also result in less pigmentation in eggs, although white eggs don’t necessarily mean that a hen was “unhappy” or sick. Likewise, shell color doesn't explicitly affect an egg's flavor. If you are mindful of taste, then you're better off focusing on the farm's quality, rather than the color of eggs they produce.Blue eggs are a bit of an exception to all the genetic rules mentioned above. Just a few breeds – including the Araucana chicken from Chile, plus the Dongxiang and Lushi chickens from China – lay blue eggs and it’s all thanks to a gene called oocyan. Remarkably, the gene’s expression results from a historic infection by EAV-HP, a retrovirus that managed to integrate into the genome of the chicken breed and became passed down through generations via their DNA. The infection most likely occurred hundreds of years ago and was spotted by keen-eyed farmers who selectively bred the chickens to keep the phenotype rolling. Rest assured, the virus is harmless and blue eggs are perfectly safe to eat (if cooked correctly). Just like chickens, the human genome is filled with examples of endogenous retroviruses from historic infections; up to 8 percent of the human genome is made from sequences of viral origin. Unfortunately, none of them make us produce blue eggs, at least to our knowledge. 

A first-of-its-kind study has revealed that tampons contain toxic metals, including arsenic and lead. The “concerning” finding could mean that potentially millions of people are at risk of adverse health effects.According to the study, between 52 and 86 percent of people in the US who menstruate use tampons, generally for hours at a time. In addition to this, the skin of the vagina is highly absorptive, which means that if tampons did contain metals, there would be a very real risk of exposure for a large number of people. And yet, the study authors believe, their research is the first ever to measure metals in tampons.“Despite this large potential for public health concern, very little research has been done to measure chemicals in tampons,” said lead author Jenni A. Shearston in a statement. To remedy this, Shearston and colleagues analyzed the concentrations of 16 metal(loid)s in 30 tampons from 14 tampon brands. The metals studied were: arsenic, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, mercury, nickel, lead, selenium, strontium, vanadium, and zinc. “Concerningly, we found concentrations of all metals we tested for, including toxic metals like arsenic and lead,” Shearston added.Although concentrations differed by region of tampon purchase (US vs European Union/UK), by organic vs non-organic material, and for store- vs name-brand tampons, metals were found to be present in all tampon types. No category had consistently lower concentrations of all or most metals. For example, lead concentrations were higher in non-organic tampons but arsenic was higher in organic tampons.Several toxic metals were detectable in all tampon samples, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and vanadium. Among these, lead had the highest concentration with a geometric mean of 120 nanograms per gram.Overall, the highest concentration was found for zinc (geometric mean = 52,000 ng/g).“Tampon use is a potential source of metal exposure,” the study authors conclude. Metals have previously been found to increase the risk of dementia, cancer, infertility, and diabetes – and are known to damage the liver, kidneys, and brain, as well as the cardiovascular, nervous, and endocrine systems. However, what, if any, impact their presence in tampons has on the health of the people who use them is as yet unclear. “Future research is needed to replicate our findings and determine whether metals can leach out of tampons and cross the vaginal epithelium into systemic circulation,” the authors explain.The researchers call for more stringent regulations that require tampon manufacturers to test their products for metals. “It would be exciting to see the public call for this, or to ask for better labeling on tampons and other menstrual products,” said Shearston.For now, the US Food and Drug Administration recommends only wearing a tampon when on your period and advises they be changed every four to eight hours and never worn for more than eight hours at a time.The study is published in the journal Environment International.