Month: September 2021

Enlarge (credit: Wang et al. 2021)

At a 9,000-year-old burial site in China called Qiaotou, archaeologists recently unearthed a number of ceramic vessels. Some of the vessels were shaped like the long-necked, round-bellied bronze pots that people used for alcoholic drinks millennia later. And that made Dartmouth College anthropologist Jiajing Wang and his colleagues wonder whether these earlier clay versions might have once held beer, too.

Bits of the residue left inside eight of the 13 pots turned out to contain phytoliths (fossilized plant remains) from rice, tubers, and a plant called Job’s tears. Starch molecules in the residue showed signs of being heated and fermented. Wang and his colleagues also found yeast and mold, key ingredients in fermentation.

“Our results revealed that the pottery vessels were used to hold beer, in the most general sense—a fermented beverage made of rice, a grain called Job’s tears, and unidentified tubers,” said Wang. “This ancient beer, though, would not have been like the IPA that we have today. Instead, it was likely a slightly fermented and sweet beverage, which was probably cloudy in color.”

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  The Super Mario 64 Lego set is a "? block" with four levels from the game hidden inside. [credit: Lego Group ]

Nintendo and the Lego group have been on a collaborative tear for the last couple of years, with releases including the interactive "Adventures with Mario" series for kids and a $230 replica NES set aimed directly at nostalgic adults with disposable income. The team's latest creation is another one for that latter group—today, the companies announced a $170 replica "? block" that opens up to reveal four miniature recreations of worlds from Super Mario 64.

The tiny size of each replica level means that some detail is lost, and the "microfigures" of characters like Mario, Peach, and Lakitu are all made out of just a handful of pieces. But despite that, everything in the set is instantly recognizable, from the chain chomp lying in wait on the Bob-omb Battlefield to the ski slopes of Cool, Cool Mountain to the Bowser sliding puzzle in Lethal Lava Land. Yoshi is even hiding on the top of Peach's Castle, waiting for you to find all 120 stars. The "? block" uses a clever hinge mechanism that makes it simple to pop the worlds out and tuck them back inside.

The 2,064-piece Mario 64 set is recommended for ages 18 and up and will be exclusive to Lego stores and Lego.com when it launches on October 1, 2021. Other retailers will get it sometime in 2022.

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  Back in the Matrix? Thomas (Keanu Reeves), aka Neo, has been having dreams that don't feel like dreams. [credit: YouTube/Warner Bros. ]

Those attending last month's CinemaCon in Las Vegas were treated to a sneak preview of the first trailer for The Matrix: Resurrections, the fourth installment in the hugely influential franchise that launched with the premiere of The Matrix in 1999. But the trailer was not released to the general public—until now. The Resurrections title is apt, since we do indeed seem to be going back to the beginning: an alternate version of that simulated reality, with some new faces and many similar shots, and very much the same theme of discovering (or in this case, rediscovering) one's power. It's at once familiar and fresh... in other words, sheer perfection.

(Spoilers for first three films in the franchise below.)

It's hard to overstate the deep cultural impact of The Matrix. It redefined the sci-fi film genre and shaped an entire generation of fans—plus, it raked in $460 million worldwide, garnered multiple Oscars, and sent star Keanu Reeves' already healthy career into the Hollywood stratosphere. We still refer to taking the "red pill" when searching for a metaphor to represent choosing between an unsettling, life-changing truth or blissful ignorance. Who can forget Reeves' meme-worthy utterances ("Whoa!" or "I know kung fu") or Laurence Fishburne's fabulous sunglasses-wearing Morpheus? This is also the film that gave us "bullet time": a special effect—used for the rooftop scene where Neo (Reeves) dodges bullets fired by one of the Matrix's Agents—in which the shot progresses in slow motion while the camera appears to move at a normal speed through the scene.