Interconnected

1.

Artificial skylight that uses the same physics behind the sky being blue to create a blue sky.

Comes in a variety of models e.g. For enthusiasts of Nordic countries, CoeLux 30 is available, with a 30 degree angle beam relative to the horizon. It is a wall window and is capable of reproducing a warm, grazing light.

2.

Archaeoacoustics, including this playful idea:

[A] trowel, like any flat plate, must vibrate in response to sound: thus, drawn over the wet surface by the singing plasterer, it must emboss a gramophone-type recording of his song in the plaster. Once the surface is dry, it may be played back.

Not true, but fun to believe this: He claimed to have extracted … the word “blue” from an analysis of patch of blue color in a painting.

Also, reproducing the sound of drums in Stonehenge.

Also, extracting sounds from pictures of gramophone records in books.

Also, the ghost between the original recording of Suzanne Vega and an MP3.

3.

Sci-fi books upcoming for 2015.

1. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (May): The world is ending, and the human race makes a desperate effort to get some survivors off the planet. Five thousand years later, the descendants of humanity are divided into seven different races, all of which decide to pay a visit to the old homeworld.
2. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (July): A generation ship novel! Robinson returns to the future after a sojourn in the distant past, and tells the story of the first ever arduous journey to another solar system.

4.

In the Qur’an, Solomon understands the language of the ants.

Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, “O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not.”

So [Solomon] smiled, amused at her speech, and said […]