A wonderful story from science journal Nature’s(!) short fiction column. [via Nature]

The Thief of Unpublished Books
For years, someone has been scamming authors big and small out of their unpublished manuscripts. Noone knows why. [via NYT]

The Biggest Project in Mathematics
A short animated lesson about the quest to synthesize the many foreign languages of mathematics into a unified understanding. [via Quanta Mag]

World’s Best Skateboarding Cat
Just another day in the life of skateboard cat. [via CATMANTOO]

Kim Stanley Robinson: Rethinking Our Relationship to the Biosphere
Stan Robinson argues that the political decisions needed to create a future eco-utopia are a matter of… deciding to. [via Bioneers]

Louis, The King Who Never Was
The Magna Carta was a failure, and it almost led to a unification of France and England. [via Jason Lefkowitz]

The Infinite Flea Market
How eBay became a harbinger of the Internet to come. [via The Guardian]

Rasputin, Played on the Toothbrush
A very dedicated human brings together an orchestra of household gadgets. [via Device Orchestra]

How to Play the Shovel
That all he had was a garden implement did not stop him from creating music. [via Justin Johnson]

The Tyranny of Time
Does the clock measure time… or create it? [via Noema Magazine]

Take Back the Future!
Optimism is not a belief. It’s an action. [via Kernel Magazine]

Space Mining Is Here, Led by… Luxembourg?
It turns out that a tiny country can cast a very large shadow… on the Moon. [via Bloomberg Quicktake]