Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: February 2021

the weird world of slime moulds - Australian Geographic

faster to cycle time-critical medical supplies around Oxford - NHS

France, Japan, the Baltics + the Balkans face vaccine reluctance - map - Lancet

are playgrounds a form of incarceration? - Guardian

reading at age eight - Oxford Blog

now UK politicians can lie and lie and lie and no one cares - OpenDemocracy

getting Urdu online: the challenges of typography - RestOfWorld

the UK's visa offer to Hong Kong residents: dreams of a "model minority" - CNN

suicide rates in Japan rise significantly, reversing a decade of improvement - BBC

Coventry and Oxford consider full bus fleet electrification - Electrive - Oxford Bus

reducing car dependence is an inherently political challenge - Energy Res. Soc. Sci.

the UK can't credibly claim "climate leadership" while opening a new coal mine - Guardian

evidence-based teaching is as difficult as evidence-based medicine - Simon Smith

the UK covid infection rate is down to 0.5% and halving every 15 days - REACT/Imperial

"dropped across all ages, at a similar rate, suggesting the downward trends are due to lockdown rather than the impact of vaccination"

the British glottalisation of /t/s - Guardian

Disha Ravi and India's crackdown on dissent - Guardian

bin apps, push notifications, open source, and local government - Tom Forth [via @rcolvile]

China imposes "national security" restrictions on speech and books in Hong Kong schools - Amnesty

the whole of Carole Satyamurti's retelling of the Mahabharata is online - Erenow

London's bridges are falling down - Guardian

the cost of child poverty - PoliticsHome

State Nationalism and Territorial Accommodation in Spain and India - Regional and Federal Studies

the British army: an opaque and inflexible institution - Guardian

UK Conservatives try Soviet-style cybernetic management - LSE

another potentially huge Covid treatment - Oxford University

why road-safety awareness campaigns are useless - WarOnTheMotorist

new documentary about Escher sounds really good - ARTnews

the story of Grothendieck's prime number - Stack Exchange

facing the B117 variant, Denmark considers its options - Science [via @kakape]

Nature's Ultimate Social Hunters - Army Ants [my review]

How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World - Lying for Money [my review]

Iran's censorship of social media and the forthcoming presidential election - Rest of World

the fight against Covid-19 is global, and making it competitive would be a terrible mistake - Guardian

750 million people living in extreme poverty - Guardian

an English headteacher explains school finances - Secret Headteacher [via @MrEFinch]

there is no war on cars, but we need to start one - London Society

depression as an adaptive survival strategy - Psychology Today

London doesn't need more penthouses and luxury skyscrapers - Guardian

discovering Mary Norton's Borrowers - Foxed Quarterly