(Roughly) Daily

The good folks over at The Center for Biological Diversity have decided to take on the problem of noise pollution– more specifically, the droning din of cell phone rings…

At Rare Earthtones, readers can download the authentic sounds of endangered species– the howl of a Mexican gray wolf, the underwater warbles of a beluga whale, the gurgling chirp of Gunnison’s sage grouse…

So, readers might consider using the free service to replace that tired clip of “Macarena” with the call of the wild…

As we tentatively unmute our phones, we might spend a memorial moment honoring two explorers who died on this date.  Marco Polo, whose coda to his remarkable travelogue was “I did not tell half of what I saw,” passed away on this date in 1324.

A page from “Il Milione” (aka” Le Livre des Merveilles” (“The Book of Wonders”)… and in English, “The Travels of Marco Polo”

And Galileo Galilei, the Italian physicist, philosopher, and pioneering astronomer, rose to his beloved heavens on this date in 1642.  Galileo (whom, readers will recall, had his share of trouble with authorities displeased with his challenge to Aristotelean cosmology), died insisting “still, it [the Earth] moves.”

Draft of Galileo’s letter to Leonardo Donato, Doge of Venice, in which he first recorded the movement of the moons of Jupiter– an observation that upset the notion that all celestial bodies must revolve around the Earth.