🩹 7 facts I learned this week
Hey folks! Today’s list explains why peeling tape is basically a tiny sonic boom and how Ryan Gosling’s fox cardigan became the latest knitwear obsession.
Peeling tape makes that sharp ripping noise because tiny cracks race through the glue faster than sound, creating miniature sonic booms as they reach the edge of the tape.
Teenagers with acne tend to get better grades in high school English, history, maths and science. They are also more likely to complete a college degree. Women who had acne later earn more in the labour market.
“Since 1900, scientists have observed more than 20 phases of ice, many of them shaped under extreme conditions. The growing list includes hot ice and even ice that conducts electricity.”
London has about 93 golf courses. Together, they cover roughly 4,325 hectares — about the same area as the whole borough of Brent, or 30 Hyde Parks. Some could now be turned into housing and public parks.
A cream-coloured knit cardigan with foxes on it, worn by Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary, is based on a knitting pattern from the late 1950s by a Canadian yarn and crafts company. It has become a viral sensation since the premiere.
AI may be making language more uniform. One study found that writing became less varied after ChatGPT’s release; another found that words it favours, such as “delve” and “meticulous”, are now appearing more often in everyday speech.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, when several adjectives come before a noun in English, they usually follow a set order: opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, colour, origin, material, type, and purpose.
From my mailbox
Sam Matey-Coste: “Kenya has had an incredible last three decades in terms of socioeconomic development: the share of the population with access to electricity rose from just 5% in 1997 to 76% in 2023.”
Matt Brown: “The vast majority of [London’s] locality names go back to medieval times, many are Anglo-Saxon (over 1,000 years old), and a small number predate the Romans.”
Alec Luhn: “It’s getting pretty likely a strong El Niño will develop by the end of the year, with a 25% chance of a “very strong” a.k.a. “super” El Niño. In either case, it will likely continue through the bulk of 2027.”
Hannah Ritchie: “Last year, around 1.5% of the world’s electricity was used to power data centres. Non-AI data centres consumed more than twice as much electricity as AI-focused ones. By my estimates, AI consumed around 0.5% of the world’s electricity in 2025.”
And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading! If you enjoy the newsletter, share it with a friend or ten. And if you really enjoyed it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription: it helps support my work and means a lot.
Elia Kabanov is a science writer covering the past, present and future of technology (@metkere).
Cover art and visualisation: Elia Kabanov feat. DALL-E.