A great linguistic video, and double echidna news!

• How do you sing in a tonal language like Chinese? This is a linguistics question that I've definitely thought of asking before... I just never got around to looking it up. Well, now I have the answer -- and it is, of course, more complicated than the initial answer might suggest. This video by Julesy does a good job of breaking it down. (Thanks to Matt for sending this over.)
   
• Florence Ryan is cycling across Africa, and has just arrived in Ethiopia. This was fascinating to watch: I'm clearly arriving in the middle of the story, but this can be watched as a standalone episode -- and it's from someone who's attempting a far greater challenge than anything I've ever tried. It's a snapshot of a dangerous time and place, with the cyclists, exhausted, just passing through.
   
• I keep linking to Alexis Dahl's videos, because they keep being excellent, and in this case made a squishy, biology-based subject interesting to this very non-biology nerd: did you know Michigan isn't supposed to have earthworms?
   

• How the LA General Hospital finds the names of patients who can't provide their own: "It is possible for a person in this situation to be stuck at L.A. General for the rest of their lives."
   
• Double echidna news from the southern hemisphere! Eddie the echidna has been released, and Attenborough's echidna has been rediscovered. Nope, I'm not giving any more context on those without clicking through.
   
• Drama in the world of curling, as World Curling tightens the sweeping rules and bans firmer broom foams. Every sport has its technicalities.
   

And finally, a spectacular Instagram video: driving into a hailstorm. Particularly remarkable if you have a device that displays HDR video.

All the best,

— Tom