A vital platypus update, and a sheep on a train.

• Benn Jordan saved a PNG to a bird: an excellent clickbait title for a deep dive into the incredible world of birdsong, mimicry, and ultra-high-resolution audio recording. Recommended. (Thanks to the many people who sent this over!)
   
• Abby Cox, who's been on Lateral a few times, has a great and occasionally-unhinged video on the history of using toxins for beauty. It starts with 'Henry VIII as a podcast bro' and goes places from there. (Very strong language.) She is getting some flak in the comments for briefly mentioning homeopathy as if it was just regular medicine, but given that her areas of expertise are history, beauty and culture, that's a bit like if I accidentally described a blazer as a "suit jacket". Although I guess the consequences are a bit less important if you get those two mixed up.
   
• Ushanka Show is a channel run by Sergei, who grew up in the then-Soviet Union and now lives in the USA. He's answering questions, in a style that sounds like someone's who's just telling stories to a friendly group in person: here's the surprisingly engaging "everything you need to know about Soviet garbage collection".
   

• What went wrong inside these recalled power banks? Lumafield are a CT scan company, and this is a heck of a corporate blog post that uses their scanner to dive inside failing battery packs and diagnose the problems. It's technical, but worth it.
   
• Adam Aaronson drank every cocktail. A fun, completionist travelogue.
   
• "ScotRail said there is nothing to say sheep are not allowed on trains and the animal complied with its rules that pets should be on a lead."

And finally: new instrument unlocked.

All the best,

— Tom