The venerable but still, apparently, quite sprightly Royal Society of London—the world’s oldest scientific academy—has just started to release a number of brilliant interactive widgets to celebrate its 350th anniversary. These images are from its photo gallery Moments of Seeing Further, “striking images (that) represent the original moments of discovery of scientists who were able to ‘see further’ to change the world around them.”

They’ve also put together an interactive timeline in which you can read the original manuscripts and see accompanying images for 60 trailblazing scientific papers, including these gems:

• The gruesome account of an early blood transfusion (1666)
• Captain James Cook’s explanation of how he protected his crew from scurvy aboard HMS Resolution (1776)
• Stephen Hawking’s early writing on black holes (1970)
• Benjamin Franklin’s account of flying a kite in a storm to identify the electrical nature of lightning – the Philadelphia Experiment (1752)
• Sir Isaac Newton’s landmark paper on the nature of light and colour (1672)
• A scientific study of a young Mozart confirming him as a musical child genius (1770)
• The Yorkshire cave discovery of the fossilized remains of elephant, tiger, bear and hyena heralding the study of deep time (1822)

It’s a bonanza for anyone interested in science and history, which pretty much defines us here at Inkling. Wonderful news indeed. Happy Birthday, RS, you old fart.

I am not particularly fond of UK football fans, especially en masse. They are kind of, well, scary. Those shirts, those scarves, the screaming, beer-drinking lot of them. Anne and I used to live very close to the stadium where Chelsea played in Fulham, London. When I happened to pass by as the revelers were leaving a game, I would walk many, many blocks out of my way to avoid the mob. I just felt as if they would turn on me at any second and pummel me to death with their over-flowing bellies and suffocate me with their terrible blue polyester jerseys. Annnnnways.

Watching football and soccer might be terrifying, but it seems that playing it really is great for you.  Danish researchers concluded after studying 37 men (very impressive sample size; I wonder it if was just their mates?) that soccer was better exercise than jogging. Men who played soccer for one hour, three times a week dropped more body fat and gain more muscle compared to men who jogged the same amount over the three week study period. The authors chalk up the results to the greater intensity (and enjoyment) of a soccer game, with its spurts of extremely vigorous running.

Wonderful stuff. Makes me want to take up soccer again; I played for a whole year, aged 8. Our team was named the She-Ra Kickers. I am not joking.