You’ve probably seen it on social media before: a paragraph of scrambled text that looks like nonsense at first glance, yet somehow you can read it with surprising ease.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

This effect, often playfully referred to as typoglycemia, is frequently shared online as a quirky insight into how our brains work.

But this viral claim is only part of the story. To understand why it works, we need to look at how the brain actually processes written language.

There is no magical ‘rule’

The claim that usually accompanies this snippet is that as long as the first and last letters of a word are in the right place, the order of the middle letters doesn’t matter.

At first glance, the claim seems plausible.

But while there is a kernel of truth here, the explanation is misleading.

Reading scrambled words has much less to do with a magical “rule” about first and last letters, and much more to do with how our brains use context, pattern recognition and prediction.

We don’t read letter by letter

When we read, we typically don’t painstakingly process each letter in sequence. Instead, skilled readers recognise words rapidly by drawing on multiple cues at once. Psycholinguistic research shows that we process words as patterns rather than as sequences of individual sounds.

These include familiar letter patterns, the overall shape of the word and, crucially, the context of the sentence. Our brains are constantly predicting what is likely to come next, then checking those predictions against the visual input.

This is why we often miss typos in our own writing. We don’t see what’s actually on the page, we see what we expect to be there.

The same principle helps us make sense of jumbled words. Even when letters are out of order, enough of the structure remains for the brain to make an educated guess.

Word shape and structure matter

The viral meme suggests that only the first and last letters matter.

But this oversimplifies what’s really going on. We are sensitive to how letters relate to each other within a word. Common spelling patterns and familiar combinations make words easier to recognise, even when slightly distorted.

This is also why certain visual disruptions make reading harder. Text in alternating caps, such as “AlTeRnAtInG CaPs”, is difficult to process because it disrupts the usual visual contour of words. The same goes for “ransom note” lettering made from mismatched fonts, which interferes with pattern recognition.

In other words, readability depends on preserving enough of a word’s internal structure, not just its outer letters.

Not all scrambled text is readable

If the meme were true, any sentence with intact first and last letters should be easy to read. But that’s not what we find.

Take this example:

Salhal I cmorape tehe to a srmmeus day

It follows the supposed “rules”, yet it is much harder to decipher. In fact, this is the opening of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

So why is the viral paragraph so much easier to read? Because it has been carefully (if unconsciously) engineered to be readable.

The hidden tricks behind the meme

Several factors make the famous example easier to process than it appears.

First, many of the words are short, which limits how many possible combinations the letters could form. Words like “you” and “can” are often left unchanged.

Second, function words such as “the”, “and” and “is” are usually intact. These small, common words provide the grammatical scaffolding of the sentence, making it easier to predict what comes next.

Third, when longer words are scrambled, the changes are often minimal. Adjacent letters are swapped (“wrod” for “word”), which is much easier to process than more extreme rearrangements.

Finally, the passage itself is highly predictable. Once you recognise the topic and rhythm, your brain fills in the gaps automatically, much as it does when listening to speech in a noisy environment.

The key to understanding this phenomenon is context. Words are not processed in isolation. Each word is interpreted in relation to the others around it, and within a broader framework of meaning.

This allows us to compensate for missing or distorted information.

But there are limits. As scrambling becomes more extreme, or as words become less predictable, comprehension quickly breaks down. Reading speed also slows noticeably, even when we can still make sense of the text.

Humans and machines

Interestingly, computers can now unscramble jumbled words with remarkable accuracy. By analysing probabilities and patterns across large datasets, algorithms can determine the most likely original form of a word or sentence.

In this sense, machines and humans rely on similar principles. Not rigid rules about letter position, but flexible systems that weigh patterns and probabilities. This highlights why the “typoglycemia” claim is an oversimplification, rather than a scientific rule.

The idea persists because it captures a genuine insight in a catchy way. It reveals that reading is not a simple, letter-by-letter process, but a dynamic interaction between perception and expectation.

At the same time, it’s a reminder of how easily scientific ideas can be distorted as they spread online.

So yes, we can often read scrambled words. But not because the order of letters doesn’t matter. It’s because our brains are remarkably good at making sense of imperfect information. So good, in fact, that they can turn a mess into meaning.

Karen Stollznow, Research Fellow of Linguistics, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University; University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Taiwanese pop music superstar Jay Chou, known in Mandarin as Zhou Jielun (周杰倫), has put country Victoria’s Sovereign Hill on the map.

Chou’s 25 albums have sold more than 30 million copies, and the music video for his latest hit, Gold Rush Town (淘金小鎮) was filmed in the open-air museum.

With over 9 million views on YouTube, the video offers a global audience for both Sovereign Hill and the Chinese Australian experience.

Chinese people and the Australian gold rush

Gold Rush Town marks the first time a pop superstar has told the history of Australia’s gold rush through Chinese eyes. But the Sovereign Hill museum has an admirable record of including the history of Chinese people during the Australian gold rush.

Led by historian Anna Kyi, the museum’s Chinese exhibits exemplify a new push in Australian heritage to rediscover the foundational role played by Chinese migrants in Australian history using Chinese-language sources.

The museum’s “Chinese camp” was opened in 2024, promoting the multi-ethnic nature of the goldfields and the rich cross-cultural relations that developed as a result.

Tens of thousands of Chinese came to the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s, interacting with people from all over the world.

The music video features Chou as a sharply dressed Chinese detective, walking stick in hand, chasing down Chinese bank robbers through the twists and turns of a frontier town in which the main characters are ethnic Chinese.

The Chinese in Ballarat were a prominent community in the 1850s. They made up 25% of the community, and may have been the majority in some areas of the colony. As late as 1871 – after the end of the city’s gold rush – 14% of men over 15 in Ballarat were Chinese.

Some Chinese Australians became wealthy during the Gold Rush. Chinese locals showed off their wealth just as Europeans did, with swagger and style and public display.

While stereotypes of Chinese as miners and market gardeners have some basis, many were involved in all variety of occupations, including police work.

Detective Fook Shing served on the Victorian police force from the 1860s to the 1880s, solving crimes across the colony and even as far off as Sydney.

Chou also plays a detective in the video clip – and you can clearly see the similarities between Fook Shing and Chou’s character.

Sharing an Australian Chinese story

Despite the intense political scrutiny for artists trying to maintain popularity on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Chou has managed to avoid being boxed into a political position. He has carefully crafted an audience of everyone from Chinese ultra-nationalists and Taiwanese independence sympathisers.

Those trying to emphasise his politics often refer to a deliberately ambiguous 2007 quote: “Of course I’m Chinese. I’m also Taiwanese.”

Gold Rush Town has been incredibly popular on Chinese-language social media, spawning dozens of commentary videos and covers on popular sites such as BiliBili.

While The Ballerat Courier has reported the clip could be “boosting Ballarat’s tourism industry”, we haven’t seen any evidence of this on social media. Indeed, many international Chinese speakers are commenting that the video was filmed in Melbourne – 90 minutes’ drive away.

Without travel to Sovereign Hill being part of the social media buzz, it seems unlikely the video will lead to huge tourist numbers beyond the small bump this month.

But the video’s value isn’t in tourism. Chou’s video highlights a shared Chinese and Australian past and a common humanity at a time of rising diplomatic tension between China and the West.

Chou has pushed the memory of the Chinese Australian gold rush experience away from simplistic discussions of racism, and towards the complicated and multifaceted experiences of real people in the 1850s.

The video shows Chinese Australians as gold rush pioneers, rather than gold rush victims. Heroes in the national story, rather than marginal players.

People in China and Taiwan may not even register this as an Australian music video. But Chinese speakers in Australia will recognise the iconic location and the significance of this shifting history.

Gold Rush Town marks an important moment for Asia-Australia cultural relations, with a popstar bringing Chinese Australian history into the light in a positive way. We have come a long way from the 1983 filming of David Bowie’s quasi-racist China Girl in Sydney’s Chinatown.

Sophie Loy-Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Australian History, University of Sydney and Craig A. Smith, Associate Professor of Translation Studies, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Devil Wears Prada’s Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) has become a mythic cinematic character. The magazine editor is icy, commanding, manipulative, cruel, oddly sympathetic and endlessly imitated.

Streep’s portrayal was surprisingly inspired by the quiet authority of powerful men such as Clint Eastwood. Her Miranda is soft but steely, controlled rather than overtly theatrical.

The trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 proudly proclaims “Icons Reign Forever”. This certainly holds true for the original film, 20 years later.

The film still feels urgent

Set at Runway Magazine – a stand-in for Vogue – The Devil Wears Prada tells a timeless story saturated with workplace toxicity, psychological manipulation, burnout culture and the quiet tyranny of demanding bosses.

In a glamorous New York setting, the 2006 film features a strong four-hander character structure. We have the coming-of-age for Andy (Anne Hathaway); the fierce professional ambition of Emily (Emily Blunt); the thwarted loyalty of Nigel (Stanley Tucci); the devastating private unravelling of Miranda.

The tension between ambition and personal values has only intensified in the two decades since the film’s release, as evident by 2022’s “quiet quitting” movement, transforming The Devil Wears Prada into an emblematic snapshot of modern working life.

Miranda also highlights a set of cultural debates that remain stubbornly unresolved: is she a cruel boss or simply uncompromising? Would anyone object to her leadership style if she were a man? Does Andy ultimately betray her own values, or reaffirm them?

The absence of definitive answers is precisely what has kept the film alive in the public consciousness. The film sheds light on the brutality of professional hierarchies in ways that feel even more urgent now than they did in 2006.

Fashion as character

Thanks largely to the work of costume designer Patricia Field (whose work for Sex and the City was legendary), along with actual runway show footage, fashion titan Valentino playing himself, and clothing and accessories loaned by iconic fashion houses, The Devil Wears Prada is the preeminent film about fashion to have captured the public imagination.

Many still consider the cerulean speech, partly devised by Streep, the most incisive piece of fashion-industry commentary ever committed to screen. Its deadpan delivery demystifies fashion’s power structure while simultaneously validating it, showing how consumer choice is largely an illusion.

(Streep even donned) the famous cerulean jumper in Prada 2 interviews.)

The original film portrayed fashion’s glamour and excess as simultaneously dazzling and damning.

But the eager return of fashion houses including Dior, Lanvin, Fendi, Gucci, Jean Paul Gaultier and Prada in the forthcoming sequel demonstrates the industry regards The Devil Wears Prada as a vehicle of genuine cultural prestige.

Even Vogue is getting in on the act by having its retiring editor Anna Wintour appearing on the May 2026 cover with her Priestly/Streep doppelganger.

An online life of its own

The Devil Wears Prada has benefited enormously from the explosion of social media.

Scenes have developed independent lives entirely detached from the film itself: Andy’s makeover montage; the devastating “that’s all” retort; Miranda’s icy side-eye; the coat on the desk.

These moments are endlessly played, memed, and reimagined.

The film’s quotability is inseparable from its longevity.

The Devil Wears Prada was more than a chick flick. Not quite a dramedy, not quite a workplace comedy, nor a satire, romance, coming-of-age story or comedy of manners — it draws confidently on the conventions of all of these.

This deliberate blurring of genres encourages repeated viewings.

The film is light enough for casual viewing, yet rich enough for serious analysis of its feminist credentials. Some argue it presents an essentially conservative message, warning women against unchecked ambition and reinforcing the idea that they must prioritise their personal lives and moral purity over professional power. Others contend the film links female empowerment with consumerism and individual choice, framing this as a form of agency for women.

This ambiguity in the film’s ideological positioning has contributed to its continued popularity.

When Miranda asks, “Is it impossible to find a lovely, slender, female paratrooper? Am I reaching for the stars here? Not really!” is she a model of a woman holding her own in a male-dominated industry, or is she complicit in perpetuating the very beauty standards that oppress women?

The film refuses to decide.

You watch The Devil Wears Prada very differently depending on your mood, age or job. The ability to mean different things at different moments in a viewer’s life is the structural foundation of any truly enduring film.

The film doesn’t feel dated in its look, or its content. Its humour remains biting. Its timeless feel is rare allowing each new generation to discover it as though it were made for them.

William Simon, Casual Lecturer, Education and English Departments, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso on her island.

We can imagine that his wife, Penelope, would have asked him about that particular time. Odysseus might have replied, “It was nothing. In fact, it was less than nothing. Negative five years I dwelt with Calypso. How else could I have arrived home after only ten years? If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

Quantum particles, it turns out, are just as wily as Odysseus, as we have shown in an experiment published in Physical Review Letters. Not only can their arrival time suggest that they dwelt with other particles for a negative amount of time, but if one asks those other particles, they will corroborate the story.

Photons dwelling with atoms

Our experiment used photons – quantum particles of light – and the against-the-odds journey they must undertake to pass straight through a cloud of rubidium atoms.

These atoms have a “resonance” with the photons, meaning the energy of the photon can be transferred temporarily to the atoms as an atomic excitation. This allows the photon to “dwell” in the atomic cloud for a time before being released.

For this resonance to be effective, the photon must have a well-defined energy, matching the amount of energy required to put a rubidium atom into an excited state.

But, by a form of Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle, if the energy of the photon is well defined then its timing must be uncertain: the pulse of light the photon occupies must have a long duration. This means we can’t know exactly when the photon enters the cloud, but we can know on average when it enters.

If a photon like this is fired into the cloud, the most likely outcome is that its energy will be transferred to the atoms, and then re-emitted as a photon travelling in a random direction. In such cases, the photon is scattered, and fails to arrive at its Ithaca.

Photon arrival times

But if the photon does make it straight through, a strange thing happens. Based on the average time when the photon enters the cloud, one can calculate the expected average time it would arrive at the far side of the cloud, assuming it travels at the speed of light (as photons usually do).

What one finds is that the photon actually arrives far earlier than that. In fact, it arrives so early it appears to have spent a negative amount of time inside the cloud – to exit, on average, before it enters.

This effect has been known for decades and was observed in a 1993 experiment. But physicists had mostly decided not to take this negative time seriously.

That’s because it can be explained by saying that only the very front of the long-duration pulse makes it straight through the atomic cloud, while the rest is scattered. This leads to a successful (non-scattered) photon arriving earlier than would be naively expected.

Asking the atoms

However, Aephraim Steinberg, one of the authors of that 1993 paper, was not so quick to accept this dismissal of the negative time as an artefact. In his laboratory at the University of Toronto, he wanted to find out what happened if one queried the rubidium atoms in the cloud to find out how long the photon had spent dwelling among them as an excitation. After an initial experiment with inconclusive results, he asked me, as a quantum theorist, for help in working out what to expect.

When we talk of querying the atoms, what this means in practice is continuously making a measurement on the atoms while the photon is passing through the cloud, to probe whether the photon’s energy is currently dwelling there. But there is a subtlety here: measurements in quantum physics inevitably disturb the system being measured.

If we were to make a precise measurement of whether the photon is dwelling in the atoms, at each instant of time, we would prevent the atoms from interacting with the photon. It is as if, merely by watching Calypso closely, we would stop her getting her hands on Odysseus (or vice versa). This is the well known quantum Zeno effect, which would destroy the very phenomenon we want to study.

Our experiment

The solution is to make, instead, a very imprecise (but still very accurately calibrated) measurement. That is the price paid to keep the disturbance negligible. Specifically, we fired a weak laser beam – unrelated to the single photon pulse – through the cloud of atoms, and measured small changes in the phase of the beam’s light to probe whether the atoms were excited.

Any single run of the experiment gives only a very rough indication of whether the photon dwelt in the atoms, but averaging millions of runs yields an accurate dwell time.

Amazingly, the result of this weak measurement of dwell time, when the photon goes straight through the cloud, exactly equals the negative time suggested by the photons’ average arrival time. Prior to our work, no-one suspected that these two times, measured in entirely different ways, would be equal.

Crucially, the negative value of the weakly measured dwell time cannot be explained by imagining that only the front of the photon’s pulse gets through, unlike the time inferred from the arrival time.

So what does this all mean? Is a time machine just around the corner?

Sadly, no. Our experiment is fully explained by standard physics.

But it does show that negative dwell time is not an artefact. However paradoxical it may seem, it has a directly measurable effect on the atomic cloud that the photon traverses. And it reminds us that there are still lands to discover on the odyssey that is quantum research.

Howard Wiseman, Director, Centre for Quantum Dynamics, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

Is the science that we do today truth, likely to be a lie, or is it undetermined? – Nathaniel K., age 15, Hamilton, Ohio

For most students, science is something you study and something you have to learn. I remember when I was in school, adults were always asking me things like “Do you like math?” and “Do you like science?” It’s almost like asking someone if they like spinach or broccoli.

In reality, science is not really a specific thing to like or hate, or something to believe in or not. Science is an activity. As one famous scientist put it, “Science is what scientists do.” It’s a way of working, a way to get things done.

So, then, what is it that scientists do? As a historian of science and medicine, I’ve studied how scientists try to understand the rules that govern things in the universe. For example, what makes the Moon orbit the Earth? How do clouds produce rain? How do people catch a cold? To answer questions like these, they do three things: They observe, they experiment and they analyze.

The process of science

All scientists carefully observe the subjects they are studying. Take the case of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin traveled the world collecting specimens of plants, animals and fossils to figure out how they came by their different features.

He soon came up with an idea: Maybe certain species in an area look the way they do because they have characteristics that are best adapted to the environment they live in, and they are passing these on to their offspring. Darwin kept testing out this idea everywhere he went, and in the end his theory seemed to work. Ever since, scientists have conducted countless studies that affirm his theory.

Many scientists take observation a step further by performing experiments. In an experiment, the scientist might use a laboratory and special instruments to modify something they’re studying and look at the effects of the change. Their aim is either to test a theory or to see whether certain changes occur regularly.

A good example of this process can be seen in the experiments conducted by Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s with dogs. By introducing a sound right before a dog would be fed, Pavlov found the dog would start reacting to the sound the very same way it reacted to a bowl of food. For Pavlov, this demonstrated that animals learned through a process of association, or “conditioning.”

Finally, scientists are constantly analyzing the results of their observations and experiments. Scientists use measurements, logic and math to consider what their findings mean. But it’s often not clear what the findings mean, and so the investigators end up having to make more observations, conduct more experiments and rethink their methods and guesses.

Reporting the findings

The analysis process doesn’t stop there. Scientists show the results of their work to others, who, in turn, are invited to weigh in on whether they did a good job answering their research question. The criticism can be pretty intense at times. In most cases, this practice includes telling other scientists who work in the same field about what they did and what they found by giving presentations at conferences.

Scientists also have to submit their work for more evaluation if they hope to get money to support their research. After that, they go through even more evaluation when they try to publish the findings of their research in professional magazines called journals.

In both cases, scientists undergo a process called peer review, during which other scientists who study similar topics are asked to basically grade the quality of the researcher’s work and provide both negative and positive feedback.

If reviewers decide the study is not good enough, the researcher won’t get funding or their study published.

Is science truth?

The work of a scientist isn’t just observing something out in the world. Scientists must invite other experts to weigh in on what is right and wrong about their methods and ideas. As a result, every scientist has to be ready to rethink what they have been doing and believing.

Through this process, scientists work at getting closer and closer to the truth. New observations and new experiments may support or disprove earlier ones, or they might open up a whole new set of questions to answer.

The scientific results of today aren’t the whole truth, but they are the closest we can come to it right now. And as scientists today and in the future keep working, they seek to bring the whole truth more and more into focus.

When you see science as something people do to reach the truth, you realize it’s a way of working, whose strength comes from scientists being open to changing their approaches and conclusions.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Greg Eghigian, Professor of History, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What’s the point of play? Is it simply a way to keep children occupied, or something more? For some, it’s about learning literacy and numeracy. For others, it’s how friendships form and relationships deepen. But it can be all of these at once, and more.

Most parents recognise that play matters. But there’s less agreement on what kind of play is best. Should children be guided towards activities designed to build specific skills, like sports for coordination, or construction for maths and engineering? Or should the child’s own interests lead the way, regardless of perceived educational value?

Our research focuses on a type of play often dismissed as “just for fun” – playing with dolls. Across a series of studies, we found that doll play can help children understand other people’s thoughts and feelings. This is a skill that underpins social interaction throughout life.

There is pressure on parents to create the “right” environment for development, often filled with toys that promise clear educational outcomes. STEM-focused toys (science, technology, engineering and maths), in particular, are widely seen as beneficial for learning. Doll play, on the other hand, can be viewed as having little educational benefit.

Our findings challenge that assumption.

More than make-believe

When playing with dolls, children often play out scenes between characters. These may seem simple on the surface but could present opportunities for the child to develop social and emotional skills.

As parents, it seems obvious that playmates are important for building and learning about relationships and other people, and recognising others’ emotions (empathy). But what if children can develop these skills even when playing alone?

Previous studies have found that children who engage more in pretend play tend to have stronger social understanding and empathy. Earlier studies, however, didn’t often use controlled methods to separate out the different factors linking pretend play and social understanding.

So, we set out to test this more directly. We worked with children aged four to eight, assessing their ability to understand that others can hold different beliefs and desires to their own. This is an important milestone in social development. If children recognise that their own mental states may vary from others, this should help them better understand other people and know how to interact with them.

After that initial assessment session, children were randomly assigned either a set of dolls or a tablet with open-ended creative games. They were asked to play several times a week, with parents logging how and when play occurred. We didn’t instruct children how to play because we wanted to understand their natural behaviour.

After approximately six weeks, both sets of children came back and again completed the task about understanding others’ mental states. We found that the children who had been assigned dolls to play with, rather than tablets, showed a greater improvement in their understanding of others’ mental states during the intervening period.

The findings suggest that doll play can actively support the development of social understanding. This is consistent with prior research of ours showing that areas of the brain linked to social processing are activated during doll play, and that children use more language about thoughts and feelings when playing with dolls than when using tablets.

Why it matters beyond childhood

For parents, the message is reassuring – playing with dolls lets children practice skills that they can also use when playing with playmates, like understanding others, anticipating behaviour and responding appropriately.

These abilities matter far beyond childhood. They help us collaborate, resolve conflicts and navigate relationships. In a world that often feels increasingly divided, the capacity to see things from another person’s perspective is not just useful – it’s essential.

Sarah Gerson, Lecturer in Developmental & Health Psychology, Cardiff University; Ross E Vanderwert, Lecturer in Neuroscience, Cardiff University, and Salim Hashmi, Lecturer in Psychology, King's College London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

At the time of the dinosaurs, the oceans were teeming with life. Below the waves, giant marine reptiles, such as the fearsome 4m (13ft) long mosasaurs, were the undisputed apex predators.

In artistic reconstructions of these ancient oceans, cephalopods – the animal group that includes squid, cuttlefish, octopuses, and their ancestors – are almost always portrayed as prey, often seen desperately swimming away from the jaws of a marine reptile to avoid becoming lunch.

However, a remarkable new fossil suggests our view of the ancient oceans is incomplete, and that giant octopuses, perhaps reaching as long as 19m (62ft), may have been the ones doing the hunting.

The fossil in question is a giant octopus jaw, belonging to a new species called Nanaimoteuthis haggarti. It is found in Late Cretaceous rocks of Japan, making it between 100 million and 72 million years old.

Like other cephalopods, octopuses have a hard beak that looks like a parrot’s bill, used to bite and tear prey, and this fossil example is enormous – larger than that of the famous giant squid Architeuthis.

Based on the shape and size of the beak, Shin Ikegami, from Hokkaido University, Japan, and colleagues, identify it as belonging to the Cirrata, a group of finned octopuses still found today in the deepest oceans. They estimate that the animal may have reached between seven and 19 metres in length. Details have been published in the journal Science.

If that upper estimate is even close to correct, Nanaimoteuthis, would represent the largest invertebrate yet described from the fossil record — an animal rivalling the largest marine reptiles in scale.

The authors also use the wear and damage on the octopus beak as indicators of ancient behaviour. Scratches and pits on the surface point to an animal hunting and crushing prey with bones or shells, not scavenging or feeding on soft-bodied organisms.

Additionally, the wear pattern is asymmetric, interpreted by the authors as evidence of a preference for chewing on one side over the other, a trait associated with higher cognitive function.

Far from being food, Nanaimoteuthis may have been one of the most formidable predators in its ecosystem, in an era we have long assumed was defined by vertebrate dominance.

That such a claim can be made at all is remarkable, because cephalopods almost never leave any trace in the fossil record. Unlike fish, marine reptiles, or even ammonites, most cephalopods have no hard parts like bones.

Octopuses, in particular, are almost entirely “skin bags” filled with water. When they die, they rot quickly, and even the few hard parts, such as the beak, are seldom preserved.

This creates a systematic bias that skews our understanding of ancient ecosystems: animals that preserve well dominate our reconstructions, and the animals that don’t, even if they were common among certain ancient ecosystems, are largely invisible to us.

Every fossil cephalopod, therefore, represents a vital piece of palaeontological information, giving us a fleeting glimpse into a lost world of squishy invertebrates.

But not all cephalopodologists are convinced by the size estimate, with the potential length of 19m in particular drawing scrutiny on social media.

Scaling cephalopod body sizes from beaks is not straightforward. The relationship between jaw dimensions and total body size varies considerably across cephalopod species, a problem compounded by the patchy data available for rarely caught deep-water cirrate octopuses.

Other researchers have also questioned the behavioural inferences drawn from the wear patterns, arguing that bite asymmetry can be caused by many factors, and that drawing conclusions about animal intelligence from a single specimen is premature.

It is also important to put this finding into context of the living relatives of Nanaimoteuthis. Modern cirrate octopuses are not known to swim after prey, typically hunting small invertebrates on the seafloor, raising questions about whether their giant ancient cousins would ever have encountered, let alone challenged, the formidable marine reptiles.

But step back from the debate over metres and scaling equations, and something fundamental comes into view. Our reconstructions of ancient ecosystems are shaped by what preserves (bones, shells, teeth) and often systematically blind to what doesn’t.

While future investigations may test the size estimate or refine behavioural interpretations, this remarkable fossil shows that there may have been giants lurking in the vast, deep, and dark waters of the ancient oceans. We just couldn’t see them until now.

Thomas Clements, Lecturer, University of Reading

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the 1990s, Melissa Auf der Maur played bass in two of the decade’s most notable rock bands: Hole and Smashing Pumpkins.

Her new book, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: My 90s Rock Memoir, documents this wild chapter in her life, as she navigates the heightened emotions and destructive excesses of Courtney Love and learns to wrangle the controlling influence of Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins).

Ten years earlier, Kim Gordon’s career began during New York’s post-punk era. Her book, Girl In A Band (2015), recently re-released as a tenth anniversary edition, chronicles her time with Sonic Youth, and charts her role within an alternative scene that shaped and influenced independent music culture across the United States.

By the early 1990s, she was something of a godmother figure for Auf der Maur’s generation of women.

Review: Even the Good Girls Will Cry: My 90s Rock Memoir – Melissa Auf Der Maur (Atlantic); Girl in a Band – Kim Gordon (Faber)

Introverted individuals with distinct perspectives on the peculiar challenges of the rock industry, Gordon and Auf der Maur appear to have benefited from a stability missing in many of their peers.

As bass players, they avoided the spotlight until embarking on their solo projects. And with backgrounds in the visual arts, they each had access to independent creative identities away from the stage, which no doubt minimised the pitfalls of rock stardom.

As a music journalist throughout the 1990s, I interviewed many of the people in their stories, including Courtney Love, Billy Corgan, Dave Grohl, Thurston Moore and Kurt Cobain. I witnessed their complex politics and fierce power plays, some still ongoing.

Once or twice, I was personally impacted.

For example, a very high profile singer tried to persuade other women not to speak to me for my first book because my magazine profile of her was badly altered by a male editor. Another musician blamed me for publishing personal details in an interview after I’d given her full copy approval.

It was, as Auf der Maur says, a time of “messy humanity”, low-level trust, and delicate egos.

It was also, as she points out, the last analogue decade: a time before the music scene was transformed by the internet, when rock culture appeared to be finally embracing powerful women and female agency. But in my experience, and as each of these books reveals, it was never that straightforward.

Musical callings and romantic dreams

An artistic free spirit raised in Montreal by unorthodox, creative parents, Melissa Auf der Maur first saw Hole and Smashing Pumpkins within a fortnight of each other in July 1991. Both bands played at the legendary punk club, Les Foufounes Électriques, where she worked part-time while studying photography.

More impressed by Hole’s calm, centred bassist, Jill Emery, than the band’s infamous, volatile frontwoman, Auf der Maur was truly starstruck by Corgan. She introduced herself to him after he was bottled on stage by her roommate. Watching him play, she experienced a “new musical calling”. Four months later, she travelled to a Pumpkins show in Vermont and spent the night “soul fucking” him in his motel room.

“I am you and you are me,” she remembers Corgan saying to her, in what sounds like a rock-starry show of narcissism towards an impressionable fan. But for Auf der Maur, who occasionally veers into grandiose claims, the encounter was a “romantic dream come true” and “a turning point […] musically, personally and cosmically”.

More tellingly perhaps, though she describes Corgan as eventually exerting “more influence on my life than anyone other than my parents”, Auf der Maur didn’t question his patriarchal power dynamic for many years – despite being in one of rock’s most notorious female-fronted bands.

But Corgan’s hold extended to his former girlfriend, Courtney Love, long after she left him for Kurt Cobain. When Hole’s second bassist, Kristen Pfaff, died from an overdose, it was Corgan who decided Auf der Maur should be the replacement.

The Hole drama

Life in Hole was nothing if not dramatic – and Auf der Maur’s account harbours no illusions about the difficulty of working with a grieving, traumatised widow.

But her empathy and compassion keep her story from collapsing into the critical terrain so often provoked by the outspoken, uncontained Love who attracted considerable vitriol, particularly after becoming involved with Kurt Cobain.

Auf der Maur is also more forgiving than drummer Patty Schemel, who paints a harsher picture of the ambitious, tempestuous singer in her brilliant memoir, Hit So Hard. But she was very aware of her marginalised position as Love’s “good girl” in the autocratic Hole. She had no artistic freedom in the band and eventually grew frustrated with her unfulfilling situation.

After five years in Love’s orbit, Auf der Maur wanted out. By 1998, the singer’s Hollywood film career had catapulted her into a different stratosphere of celebrity culture, further widening the existing chasm between her and her band members.

And the glamour and excitement of big festival billings and hit records were not enough to prevent the bass player from feeling ultimately “disillusioned and disconnected”.

Her decision to quit was compounded when she fell in love with ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, now with the Foo Fighters. His long-running rift with Love had previously made him “off-limits”.

But before she was released from her restrictive contract with Hole, Corgan was back in touch, asking her to replace D’arcy Wretzky in Smashing Pumpkins for a year of intensive touring. Wretzky’s sudden departure is glossed over in the book as a “touchy subject”, though she played with the Pumpkins for 11 years, and was reputedly a friend of Auf der Maur.

I remember Wretzky as a quietly intelligent individual with a striking stage presence, but Corgan’s domineering personality and punishing work ethic apparently proved too much for her.

And Auf der Maur makes no secret of Corgan’s ruthlessness. At her first rehearsal, he issued her with three rules: “One, you can’t make a mistake. Two, you can’t get sick. And three, there are no days off.”

Away from Grohl, who was also on the road with his band, she was bound to a gruelling schedule at the hands of a man she now saw as a moody overachiever. In response, she began to change her perspective.

Corgan’s partner at the time was the gifted photographer Yelena Yemchuk, who, Auf der Maur notes, had become “a bit of a kept woman”. Knowing Grohl wanted marriage and children, she witnessed Yemchuk with “her beautiful talent trapped in the bell jar of Billy’s world” with growing alarm.

As the two women became close, together they realised they needed to “step out of the shadows of these bigger, more successful men” and forge their own paths.

With the culmination of the Pumpkins world tour in 2001, Auf der Maur was 29 and finally ready for a new direction. She left her relationship with Grohl and turned down Corgan’s invitation to collaborate on a new project. She finishes her book with a glimpse into her next chapter: motherhood, and a grounded life of artistic ventures in upstate New York.

It’s more of a beginning than an end.

Feminism and challenges with men

The first time I interviewed Kim Gordon was over the phone in 1990. At the time, she was the bass player with Sonic Youth, the seminal no wave band she co-founded with her husband, singer/guitarist Thurston Moore, in 1981. Hinting at what I suspected was sometimes a lonely situation, she told me that while the band’s relationship was essentially a beautiful one, her male colleagues could be “so non-communicative”.

Three years later, I had a second, longer conversation with Gordon in her New York apartment for my aforementioned book, during which she elaborated on her original theme. Being in a band with men could be challenging, she said, because “there are some really boring aspects to it” and “no matter how much of a new man someone thinks they are, they’re just not!”

Gordon’s experience is summed up by both the content and title of her acclaimed memoir. With a new foreword by her friend, celebrated American writer, Rachel Kushner, and an additional closing chapter where Gordon reflects on the intervening decade, the latest version of the book is testament to its ongoing relevance for feminism, popular culture and music history.

Infused with the visceral, embodied sensuality of her artistic perspective, Gordon’s memoir details her upbringing in Los Angeles with her schizophrenic brother, Keller, whose moods clouded her early life, and whose death in 2023, aged 74, she recounts in the new edition.

It charts her pivotal move to New York as a 27-year-old in 1980, her involvement with the city’s post punk arts and music scene, her relationship with Moore and their resulting career with Sonic Youth.

Crucially, it details her influence in the Riot Grrrl movement, and her side projects, Free Kitten, with best friend Julie Cafritz, and fashion label, X-Girl, with Daisy von Furth, all of which afforded her the female companionship she lacked in Sonic Youth.

‘Painfully protracted’ marriage breakdown

It also tells the more universal story of a painfully protracted marriage breakdown and a couple’s failed attempts to save their relationship, following Gordon’s discovery of Moore’s affair. The book refrains from specifying dates, but by the time she found out through texts and emails, her husband had been unfaithful for several years.

The woman in question, who is not named in the book, was Eva Prinz, who became Moore’s second wife in 2020. At the time of the affair, Prinz was married to her second husband. She had previously been involved with one of Sonic Youth’s collaborators.

An editor for an independent publisher, she had initially approached Gordon about a potential book project in the early 2000s, but Gordon had passed it onto Moore, with fateful consequences.

Sickened by Moore’s long-concealed infidelity with someone well known to their inner circle, Gordon was left to navigate the devastating impact on her family, her career and her sense of self. Given the pivotal nature of this episode, it seems fitting that she starts her story here, at the end of a significant personal and professional era, with Sonic Youth’s final performance in 2011.

According to Gordon, this last appearance in Sao Paulo, Brazil “was all about the boys”. Struggling to hide her misery, anxiety and anger on stage, while her ex regressed into an adolescent display of “rock star showboating”, she was tempted to verbalise her fury on stage. But she didn’t want to follow the unboundaried example of Courtney Love, who was then ranting and raving her way around South America on tour with Hole.

“I would never want to be seen as the car crash she is,” writes Gordon. “I didn’t want our last concert to be distasteful when Sonic Youth meant so much to so many people; I didn’t want to use the stage for any kind of personal statement, and what good would it have done anyway?”

Distance as power

Gordon is highly adept at balancing between strong emotion and careful restraint. Throughout her book, she considers herself honestly, but thoughtfully. She conveys a quiet self-possession and enigmatic presence, writing as she speaks: with intelligence and a guarded openness. It’s how I remember her: warm enough to gift me a pair of John Fluevog sandals straight from her own closet, yet somehow always slightly removed. As Kushner says in her introduction to the memoir, “distance is the power of her performance”.

Now 72, Kim Gordon has been a touring musician for almost 40 years. Having made multiple forays into the worlds of fashion, art and film, since Sonic Youth she has launched two experimental bands with male collaborators, Body/Head and Glitterbust, been nominated for two Grammy awards, and released three highly acclaimed solo albums as a formidable frontwoman with an all-girl band.

These days, Gordon performs as if her life depends on it. With her second chapter well underway, she’s on fire – and cooler than ever. Let’s hope a second memoir is in the works.

Liz Evans, Adjunct Researcher, English and Writing, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.