> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Further Reading
- URL: https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/blog/2025/02/14/further-reading-105/
- Published: 2025-02-14T10:03:13.000Z
- Updated: 2025-02-14T10:03:13.000Z
- Description: Your brain is full of microplastics. The asteroid Bennu. Ockham’s razor. Hula hoops. The shape of the universe. The kissing problem. A new book-sorting algorithm. Las Meninas. Jean Tinguely. Franz Kafka. Shigeru Ban. And more.
- Author: Ivar Hagendoorn
- Tags: Blog, Further Reading

[Your brain is full of microplastics](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com): are they harming you?

[Fragments of the asteroid Bennu](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00264-3?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com), carefully collected and ferried to Earth by a robotic spacecraft, contain the building blocks for life.

On [Jean Tinguely](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n02/daniel-soar/on-jean-tinguely?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

Cosmologists try a new way to [measure the shape of the universe](https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe-20250127/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com). This is a subject that has long fascinated me. Indeed the question of space was the subject of my Master’s thesis in Philosophy.

Recent results show that [large language models struggle with compositional tasks](https://www.quantamagazine.org/chatbot-software-begins-to-face-fundamental-limitations-20250131/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com), suggesting a hard limit to their abilities.

Crowds suck people into a [vortex](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00373-z?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

James Gleick [reviews](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/02/27/the-prophet-business-century-of-tomorrows-adamson/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) *A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present* by Glenn Adamson.

This study explains the physics and mathematics of [how and why a hula hoop can be suspended against gravity](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411588121?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

[Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2401230121?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com)? New perspectives on the principle of model parsimony.

Are the Internet and AI affecting our memory? [What the science says](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00292-z?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

[Ten wisdoms](https://www.ft.com/content/7d3fdb75-f7e0-45fa-b2d9-12c4643739cf?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) of Yohji Yamamoto.

If you had to store something digitally for 100 years, [how would you do it](https://lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com)?

[Interview](https://www.ft.com/content/1526ce4c-c8f0-48ab-9aa9-b52741902959?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) with Shigeru Ban.

Patricia Lockwood [among the mystics](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/patricia-lockwood/that-shape-am-i?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

[New book-sorting algorithm](https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-book-sorting-algorithm-almost-reaches-perfection-20250124/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) almost reaches perfection. I have my books sorted in a way that makes perfect sense to me: favourite books, books that I consult frequently, books that I purchased recently, philosophy, mathematics, science, sociology, economics, architecture, design, general non-fiction, British, American and Irish novels, novels in German and French, novels in translation by country. And I can instantly find any book I'm looking for! 

An [exhibition](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/02/13/urgent-messages-from-eternity-franz-kafka/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) of Franz Kafka’s postcards, letters, and manuscript pages rekindles our sense of him as a writer deeply connected to his own time and place.

A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called [kissing problem](https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-discover-new-way-for-spheres-to-kiss-20250115/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

John Banville on [the enduring mystery of "Las Meninas](https://www.ft.com/content/7b6fc0fb-35c7-4af6-9b21-96f1848f4966?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com)".

For two generations Sienese painters and sculptors engaged in [a nonstop flurry of experimentation and innovation](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/02/13/a-half-century-of-artistic-genius-siena-the-rise-of-painting/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com). 

The idea that living beings have no free will might sound scientific today, but [it remains as dogmatic as it has always been](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/02/13/turtles-all-the-way-up-determined-robert-sapolsky/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

The return of the (original) [celebrity philosophers](https://www.ft.com/content/7db1137d-a13d-4c35-aaaa-5c5666b3a1e8?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com).

Los Angeles has never seen [this level of destruction](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/the-destruction-in-pacific-palisades-is-at-a-level-los-angeles-has-never-seen-everything-is-burned-down?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com). Los Angeles will forever have a special place in my heart so this hurts.