14 Nov 2022
Here’s an English translation of the on-screen Latvian instructions. Translation was worked out with Google Lens, Google Translate, and ChatGPT for a couple of the more confusing words. (The piece of wooden stick he used for the mouthpiece translated to ‘splinter’ and ‘dowel’. I just went with dowel.)
0:22 With a pencil, you need to mark the outline of the whistle, a square of 5×5 mm.
0:35 Mark the centers of 4 holes, with an interval of around 2.5 cm.
0:50 The walnut must be opened carefully, without damaging the shell.
1:20 The partitions should be cut out, the core of the nut should be removed and the inside of the shell should be cleaned.
1:45 A hole with a diameter of 4 mm should be drilled for the whistle.
1:55 Drill the side holes with a 1.5 mm drill bit.
2:20 The second hole can be enlarged to 2.5 mm, the fourth hole to 3.5 mm.
2:32 The whistle hole is widened with a file, grinding it into a square shape.
3:03 The whistle hole must be sharpened.
3:20 The mouthpiece can be made from a dry wooden dowel with a diameter around 10mm.
3:30 A hole with a diameter of 4mm will be drilled in it.
3:40 Cut a section 1 – 1.5 cm long
3:55 With a round file the mouthpiece must be ground inside.
4:07 To attach the mouthpiece, the edge must be cut diagonally.
4:35 The joint plane is sanded with sandpaper.
5:05 For the attachment of the mouthpiece, the connection plane is also formed in the upper part of the whistler.
5:53 Sand the edges of the mouthpiece.
6:10 Expand the air channel with a flat file.
6:48 The shells are glued together with moisture resistant glue.
7:33 The mouthpiece is glued to the whistle, precisely targeting the direction of the sharpened edge of the air channel.
8:12 The whistle is tuned by increasing the holes.
8:26 The fundamental tone can be raised by enlarging the whistle hole.
8:58 The tones of the whistler sound in sequence, comparing each next one with the previous sound.
9:15 Fine tuning takes time and patience.
20 Jun 2026
Lothar Heim runs the last traditional clay pipe workshop in Hilgert and the entire Kannenbäckerland region of the Westerwald, where pipe making was once a major trade alongside the area’s well known salt glazed stoneware. This video follows the full process from start to finish, beginning with the preparation of pipe clay in the cellar, where raw clay is soaked, mixed by hand, and run through a clay mill to form thick rolls. These rolls are later extruded into thin clay rods on a press, then cut into portions and shaped using two part metal molds, tampers, and bore wires, the same methods used in the trade for generations.
The video also shows the more demanding hand rolling technique, still practiced by Heim’s 80 year old mother, used for pipes with stems too long for the press. You will see how pilgrimage pipes, Saint Nicholas pipes, socket pipes known as Jacob’s pipes, and clay cuckoo whistle figures were made, cleaned, and prepared for drying. Each step, from cutting and trimming to smoothing and boring, is done with tools and techniques that have changed little since the craft began in the region.
Original source material:
Die Tonpfeifenbäckerei. Teil 1: Zubereiten des Pfeifentons und Ausformen der Ware
Published by Alltagskulturen im Rheinland
© LVR-Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalgeschichte
CC BY 4.0
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12 Aug 2026
At Kimmeridge Bay on the Jurassic Coast, the rocks have a bit of a pattern to them. And there’s a good reason for that! It’s a record of changes in Earth’s climate that were driven by something happening far beyond Dorset: the changing geometry of Earth’s orbit around the Sun… Because Earth’s orbit changes over time in cycles! Welcome to Milancovich cycles!
This is far from the only rock unit that shows this, and in fact the Blue Lias around Lyme Regis is also pretty famous for this, but I found this cool paper that really investigated it so it was an interesting spot to talk about it.
Enjoy!
📍 Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset, UK
Main paper used:
Weedon, G.P., Coe, A.L. & Gallois, R.W. (2004), Cyclostratigraphy, orbital tuning and inferred productivity for the type Kimmeridge Clay (Late Jurassic), Southern England, Journal of the Geological Society, 161, 655–666.
Update: after some comments asking if Milancovich Cycles explain current warming…. No. Unfortunately not. Technically we should actually be cooling. Full explanation here by NASA: https://science.nasa.gov/science-rese…
[…]
[…]
Chapters:
00:00 cold sleep?
01:03 the best hibernator
02:17 the deepest hibernator
03:49 it’s not sleep
05:26 medical applications
06:08 strokes/heart attacks
08:38 diabetes
09:02 cancer
09:18 longevity
09:58 dementia
10:21 space travel
11:13 radiation
13:36 razors for sale
14:33 space problems
17:12 ancient circuitry
18:36 the hidden switch
22:36 the pitt study
25:22 squirrelstronauts
Can humans hibernate? This episode investigates the science of human hibernation, induced torpor and suspended animation — from the brain circuits that regulate metabolism and body temperature to experiments exploring how doctors might safely induce a hibernation-like state in humans.
Drawing on research into Arctic ground squirrels, edible dormice, bears, hamsters, mice and rats, we examine how natural hibernation suppresses metabolism, heart rate, breathing and body temperature; how neurons in the hypothalamus and preoptic area may act as a “torpor switch”; and how scientists induce synthetic torpor in animals. Researchers Nick Clark, Sinisa Hrvatin, Domenico Tupone, Ryan Sprenger and Kate Flickinger guide us through the evidence, including ultrasound-induced torpor, thermoregulatory inversion and University of Pittsburgh human experiments using dexmedetomidine and surface cooling.
Then we ask what human torpor might actually be good for: buying time after a heart attack or stroke, reducing ischemia-reperfusion injury, preserving donor organs, and informing research on diabetes, cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, aging and longevity. We also investigate human hibernation for deep-space travel: whether torpor could reduce food and oxygen needs on a Mars mission and protect astronauts from space radiation, muscle atrophy, bone loss, blood clots, microgravity and psychological strain. Finally, we look at NASA’s proposed STASH hibernation laboratory, which could send Arctic ground squirrels to the International Space Station … and ask how close human hibernation really is.
[…]
