Of the roughly 225 hostages Hamas captured in Israel and is holding in Gaza, 54 are Thai nationals. Thai nationals also make up the largest group of foreigners killed by Hamas on Oct. 7. This article from Quartz looks at issues surrounding the prevalence of Thai migrant workers in Israel's agricultural sector: qz.com/why-so-many-hamas-hostages-are-from-thailand-1850963541

This geo-graphic plots state cigarette taxes against state smoking-related death rates.  (Graphic from www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/republican-politics-south-midwest-life-expectancy/.)

Some may enjoy this cartoon series featuring various philosophers dressed up for Halloween. www.existentialcomics.com/comic/104

Mount Vesuvius is arguably the most famous volcano near Naples, Italy, but it's not the largest: the supervolcano Campi Flegrei sits just to the west of Naples, and a swarm of earthquakes over the last few months suggests the volcano is stirring. Campi Flegrei ("Phlegraean Fields") is not a conical stratovolcano like Vesuvius; instead it is a bowl-shaped caldera, eight miles wide, with 24 craters, a park showcasing its geothermal features, vineyards producing Campi Flegrei wine, and a population of about 500,000. The last major eruption of Campi Flegrei was in 1538. An eruption about 39,000 years ago is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. upload.wikimedia.org/wikiversity/en/2/27/Campi_Flegrei_caldera.jpg

For those looking to learn more about the context of the current fight between Israel and Hamas, Foreign Policy magazine has asked its experts and assembled a list of book recommendations: foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/22/israel-hamas-war-books-about-palestinians-gaza-history-conflict/

With so much going on in the world, it might be useful to know where to turn for more in-depth information. Now that "Intelligence Matters" has stopped creating new shows, podcasts I particularly like for world affairs: "The Foreign Affairs Interview" www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview (from Foreign Affairs magazine), "FP Live" foreignpolicy.com/podcasts/foreign-policy-live/ (from Foreign Policy magazine), "Pod Save the World" crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-the-world/ (from Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes, who worked on national security issues during the Obama administration), and, for an economic lens on world affairs, "Ones and Tooze" foreignpolicy.com/podcasts/ones-and-tooze/ (also from Foreign Policy magazine).

Above ground is not the only place to live. Historically, some communities have lived underground for safety, most prominently the complex near Derinkuyu, Turkey that is thought to have supported a community of 20,000 people and their livestock underground. In the Australian Outback and, more recently, in southwestern China, people have started living underground to escape the heat. This article looks at Coober Pedy, an underground community in and around abandoned opal mines in Australia: www.bbc.com/future/article/20230803-the-town-where-people-live-underground

In the past year, more than 500 schools in the U.S. have been subjected to fake calls about school shooters. This map looks at the prevalence of fake school shooter calls, by state, in that time.  (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/04/school-swatting-hoax-active-shooter/.)

In this piece, Stanford University neurobiologist and MacArthur "genius" grant recipient Robert Sapolsky argues that we are biological machines and that makes free will an illusion: www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/science/free-will-sapolsky.html

For those looking for STEM activities in the DC metro area, the Rockville Science Center hosts a weekly makerspace, clubs for math and chess aficionados, engineering and robotics teams, and frequent events for children, teens, and adults, like this upcoming workshop on the biotechnology of gene silencing: www.rockvillesciencecenter.org/event-details-registration/gene-silencing-workshop

When looking at a world map, it is easy to overlook that North Korea and Russia have a small -- roughly 11-mile long -- land border, shown on this map from the BBC (UK). The only transportation route in this border region is a single railway bridge over the Tumen River that separates the two countries. A surge of rail traffic across this bridge recently has suggested to observers that North Korea is sending munitions to Russia (and Russia is thought to be sending oil back across the bridge in return).
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The U.S. government has become, rather accidentally, one of the world's largest holders of bitcoin. "Uncle Sam’s stash of some 200,000 bitcoin was seized from cybercriminals and darknet markets. It is primarily offline in encrypted, password-protected storage devices known as hardware wallets that are controlled by the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service or another agency. What the federal government does with its bitcoin has long been a topic of interest among crypto traders because any sale could potentially swing prices or cause other ripple effects in the $1 trillion digital-asset market. ... [T]hat big pile of bitcoin is more a byproduct of a lengthy legal process than strategic planning. ... Even after selling some 20,000 bitcoin, the U.S.’s holdings are still worth more than $5 billion, the analysis shows. The size of the government’s total stash is likely much larger. ... When a government agency takes control of a crypto asset, Uncle Sam doesn’t immediately own that asset. Only after a court issues a final forfeiture order does the government take ownership and transfer the tokens to the U.S. Marshals Service, the primary agency tasked with liquidating seized assets. ...“Our goal is to dispose of assets in a timely manner at fair-market value,” a representative for the agency said. In many cases, the proceeds from the government’s sales go toward reimbursing victims." www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/federal-government-bitcoin-5-billion-78ce0938

October is considered the best time of year to visit China's stunning Red Beach in Panjin, northeast of Beijing.  The Red Beach is really a wetlands, not a beach, and the red vegetation that gives the site its name is seepweed, a kind of marsh grass, that sprouts green and becomes increasingly crimson throughout the summer as it soaks up salts in the soil. The Red Beach is an important breeding ground for the highly endangered red-crowned crane, a cultural icon throughout East Asia. www.atlasobscura.com/places/red-beach

The decennial U.S. Census is a reason to redraw congressional maps in many states. This topological map, based on data from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and the Electoral Innovation Lab, considers the level of gerrymandering baked into states' current congressional maps.  (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/07/illinois-congressional-map-gerrymandering/.)

Not for the first time, Sam Bankman-Fried's misdeeds at the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX have cast an unflattering light on "effective altruism" and the movement's argument that acting to benefit the greatest number of people is the highest ethical calling, allowing that moral peccadilloes might be overlooked if they are justified by a greater good. In her own trial this week, Bankman-Fried's former romantic and business partner Caroline Ellison testified that "the only moral rule that mattered [to Bankman-Fried] would be maximal utility" and that "[h]e didn't think rules like 'don't lie' or 'don't steal' fit into that framework."  www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-11/ftx-bribes-dating-diary-falsified-records-ellison-testimony

The maps in this article overlay Texas aquifers, fracking sites, and water wells that have been drilled to supply fracking, an industry that has used 1.5 trillion gallons of water since 2011: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/25/climate/fracking-oil-gas-wells-water.html.

For those looking for something to read that combines adventure, science, and geography, Science News reviews The Deepest Map, a new book by journalist Laura Trethewey about "the high-stakes race to chart the world's oceans": www.sciencenews.org/article/deepest-map-chart-ocean-earth

For those following the war between Israel and Hamas, the New York Times is posting maps here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-maps.html

In the simulation for my "Statecraft 2030" class yesterday, one of the student teams had to deal with an insurgency fueled by conflict over extractive resources. According to the United Nations, 40% of civil wars fought over the last 60 years have been associated with natural resources. Because the question often comes up about the difference between an insurgency and terrorism, I thought this short analysis worth sharing: www.terrorism-research.com/insurgency/

The rapid depletion of key American aquifers, highlighted in this article, reflects an intersection of physical and human geography that is arguably every bit as important as climate change but gets a fraction of the attention. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html

This 523 boarding schools shown on this map represent the most complete accounting to date of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., the first of which opened in 1801 and the last of which opened as late as the 1970s.  (Map from www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/30/us/native-american-boarding-schools.html.)

When is telling the truth also lying? When it is paltering. Paltering is using carefully selected truthful statements to mislead or confuse. Although it's an old word, paltering has come back into the ethics conversation with corporate public relations campaigns that try to give the impression that a company's products are environmentally friendly, for example, when an evaluation of actual practices does not bear this out. ("Greenwashing" is a kind of paltering.) A professor at the University of Rhode Island has looked at paltering in the fashion industry, an industry that is increasingly taken to task for unsustainability, as illustrated by recent protests at NYC and Paris "fashion weeks," and what happens when customers find out the truth.  www.uri.edu/news/2023/07/when-telling-the-truth-isnt-the-whole-truth/

Russia has long resisted Chinese involvement in Arctic issues, considering the Arctic to be Russia's special domain. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, though, Russia has started to allow China access to Arctic sea routes to transport Russian oil to Chinese markets. This map, from the Wall Street Journal, shows Russian oil shipments to China via the Arctic since July 15.  (Map from www.wsj.com/world/china-is-gaining-long-coveted-role-in-arctic-as-russia-yields-f5397315.)

If you want to follow the brown bears in Alaska's Katmai National Park during Fat Bear Week -- or check out other nature/wildlife vistas around the world -- Explore.com has dozens of live cams that allow you to partake virtually: explore.org/livecams

Gravity is not the same all over the planet. One of the factors that can have an effect on surface gravity is the density of the underlying rock: higher-density rock increases surface gravity (ever so slightly).  This map of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio is part of a Bouguer gravity anomaly map,  showing higher-gravity regions in pink/red and lower-gravity regions in blue. Because of the underlying rock, you will weigh more in southern Illinois than in eastern Ohio, for example. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/strange-maps-uneven-gravity