By Hope Reese/Undark

In the spring of 1974, a young Hungarian architect named Ernő Rubik became obsessed with finding a way to model three-dimensional movement to his students. After spending months tinkering with blocks of cubes – made from wood and paper, held by rubber bands, glue, and paper clips – he finally created something he called the “Bűvös kocka,” or Magic Cube.
The invention, eventually renamed the Rubik’s Cube, would become the most popular puzzle toy in the world, with more than 350 million sold as of 2018. The cube also inspired numerous artworks and films, and spawned a competitive sport called speedcubing that fills arenas with teenagers racing to complete the puzzle in the shortest amount of time.
But at the start, no one was more stunned about the runaway success of the cube than its creator, as he explains in his new book, Cubed: The Puzzle of Us All.
The impact of the cube has been “much more interesting than the cube itself,” Rubik said in an interview with Undark. The book, he said, is about trying to understand its popularity and “why people love it.”

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Posted on September 29, 2020

Define It And Name It!

“A wry look at what the astonishing world of animal penises can tell us about how we use our own,” Penguin Random House says.
“Phallacy looks closely at some of nature’s more remarkable examples of penises and the many lessons to learn from them.”
Listen to a sample read by the author, Emily Willingham:

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Posted on September 28, 2020

By Montell “Ice” Griffin

Both entertaining and funny, Montell “Ice” Griffin’s self-published tell-all book The ICE LIFE takes you on a journey filled with plot twists, wrong turns, and pivots as he vividly recounts his story of becoming an Olympian and World Champion.
The Ice Life is a funny depiction of his journey. Hailing from the South Side of Chicago he traveled the world chasing his dreams.
Montell shares with the reader how sheer determination and blessings led him to the biggest stages, how life knocked him down and how he bounced back.
You will not believe the things that he has survived, the places he has been, and the countless people that he has met.
This book will enlighten you on the inside world of boxing, encourage you, and surely you will be entertained. Griffin is the owner of Windy City Boxing, Chicago’s Elite Boxing Training Club.

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Posted on September 26, 2020

By Rachel Love Nuwer/Undark

In Russia’s Far East, meeting a person alone in the wilderness is usually a bad thing. Some recluses in this remote region might be criminals of one kind or another; those hiding from law enforcement or those hiding from other criminals. But when conservationist Jonathan C. Slaght ran into a man with “a crazy look in his eyes” and one missing finger living alone in an abandoned World War II hydroelectric station, rather than make a quick exit, he took the hermit up on his offer to spend the night. The night turned into weeks and the hermit soon became a valued field assistant (albeit one who regularly asked questions like “Did the gnomes tickle your feet last night?”).
In Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owls, Slaght transports readers to the remote wilds of Primorye to join him on his quest to study one of the world’s least-known owls. Like Amur tigers (also known as Siberian tigers), Blakiston’s fish owls are top predators. They feast on salmon and thrive in the inhospitable wilderness of northeast Asia, primarily in Russia but also Japan and China.
Prior to Slaght’s five-year project, conducted for his doctoral research, only a smattering of scientific studies – many of them decades-old – existed on the species. Fewer than 2,000 fish owls still survive in the wild, and logging and new roads are increasingly infringing on the endangered bird’s habitat. The more scientists can learn about the species, the better equipped they will be to propose effective protections.

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Posted on September 9, 2020

By Jane Ward/The Conversation

When I was conducting research for my new book on the destructive aspects of modern heterosexual relationships, I started looking into the archives of early 20th-century books about courtship and marriage written by physicians and sexologists.
In the process, I made a discovery that would radically alter my understanding of why so many parts of heterosexual culture remain mired in violence and inequality.

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Posted on September 5, 2020

By Stephen A. Jones and Eric Freedman/The Conversation

The fury over racial injustice that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s killing has forced Americans to confront their history. That’s unfamiliar territory for most Americans, whose historical knowledge amounts to a vague blend of fact and myth that was only half-learned in high school and is only half-remembered now.
If their historical knowledge is lacking, Americans are not any better informed about the role of presidential leadership – and lack of leadership – on racial issues. They may have heard that five of the first seven presidents owned slaves, and they know – or think they do – that Abraham Lincoln “freed the slaves.”
But even those tidbits of fact are incomplete. Several other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, owned slaves. And Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation was more symbolic than practically effective, hated slavery but never considered Blacks equal to whites.
An honest assessment of American presidential leadership on race reveals a handful of courageous actions but an abundance of racist behavior, even by those remembered as equal rights supporters.

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Posted on September 1, 2020