The Peculiar Dispatch #008

Reuters published a deep dive today into the extraordinary technologies being developed as the US and China prepare for the possibility of conflict in orbit.

We're not just talking missiles fired at satellites. Think, maneuverable "hunter" satellites, robotic spacecraft, jamming systems, lasers, autonomous pursuit systems, satellite refuelling and secretive military spaceplanes.

Some spacecraft could potentially approach another country's satellite and interfere with, disable or perhaps manipulate it. One particularly interesting development is orbital refuelling. Normally, once a satellite runs out of propellant, its ability to manoeuvre becomes severely limited.

A spacecraft capable of refuelling another satellite could dramatically extend its operational life. While the same rendezvous technology could have military applications.

The US and UK have also reportedly conducted coordinated operations near a suspected Chinese intelligence satellite, while China has demonstrated increasingly sophisticated orbital manoeuvres.

We tend to imagine space warfare as science fiction. Increasingly, the technology involved already exists.

02. The Campfire May Have Helped Invent Storytelling

Researchers from the University of St Andrews and Dartmouth have proposed that mastery of fire may have played an important role in the evolution of sophisticated human communication. Fire didn't merely provide heat and protection.

It gave early humans something extraordinarily valuable. More usable time after sunset.

The researchers argue that firelight could have extended social interaction into the night, creating opportunities for communication increasingly detached from immediate practical activities. Instead of communicating primarily about things happening right now, humans could increasingly talk about things that weren't present. What happened yesterday, where animals were seen, who did what, what might happen tomorrow, stories, eventually myths, and perhaps increasingly sophisticated language.

So one of humanity's most important technologies might not merely have cooked our food. It may have helped teach us to tell stories.

03. Archaeologists Found a 2,200-Year-Old Version of a Food People Still Eat

Inside an ancient Chinese tomb, archaeologists discovered something strangely familiar.

Little bundles of grain wrapped in leaves.

They date back roughly 2,200 years and were recovered from the Wuwangdun tomb associated with King Kaolie of Chu, who died in 238 BCE. Waterlogged conditions helped preserve the plant material.

Researchers think the bundles represent an early precursor to the tradition behind zongzi, leaf-wrapped sticky-rice parcels still eaten today, particularly during China's Dragon Boat Festival.

These particular bundles appear to have served as funerary offerings rather than someone's packed lunch. But that's what makes it brilliant, a food tradition recognisable today may have roots stretching back more than two millennia.

04. We Are Still Discovering Monkeys

Large mammals don't exactly hide easily, yet we're apparently still discovering monkeys.

A black colobus monkey with a distinctive pinkish-orange area around its mouth was photographed in the Congo Basin back in 2008. Between 2018 and 2022 researchers detected the animal 114 times.

Now it has been formally described as, Colobus congoensis.

The researchers used physical specimens, genetic evidence and field observations to distinguish it. And there's a lovely detail to the story:

local communities already had names for the animal before Western science gave it a Latin one. Humanity has satellites mapping Earth, AI systems analysing genomes and telescopes looking billions of light-years into space. Yet there are still primates sitting in forests waiting to be formally catalogued.

A) Kingfisher
B) Hummingbird
C) Peregrine falcon
D) Swift

B — Hummingbird.

Hummingbirds have an extraordinary wing structure and flight motion that allows them to hover and move forwards, backwards, sideways and vertically. Rather than simply flapping their wings up and down, their wing movement produces a figure-eight-like motion that generates lift through much of the cycle.

They're essentially tiny biological helicopters.

A) Lake Superior
B) Lake Victoria
C) Lake Baikal
D) Lake Tanganyika

C — Lake Baikal.

Siberia's Lake Baikal contains approximately 23,000 cubic kilometres of water, around 20% of Earth's fresh surface water. It's also the deepest lake on Earth, reaching more than 1.6 kilometres down, and is over 25 million years old.

One lake.

One-fifth of the planet's surface freshwater.

A) 2,000°C
B) 8,000°C
C) 15,000°C
D) 30,000°C

D — Around 30,000°C.

Lightning can heat the surrounding air to around 30,000°C (54,000°F) in a fraction of a second. That's roughly five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. The air heats and expands so violently that it creates a shockwave.

And that shockwave is what we hear as...

thunder.

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