The Trainwreck Labs Newsletter
Coming to your inbox every Monday with a brand new fun-fact and all the answers to Trainwreck Labs games from the past week.
This week, we have…
Metazooa fundraiser for WWF
A fun fact inspired by Chronogram
Answers to last week's games
Reader survey
Team Metazooa is halfway to our goal!
On May 3, our team of dedicated Metazooa players and hardcore (not really) athletes will climb all 1,776 steps of Toronto’s landmark CN Tower to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund, and we need your help making it the rest of the way. The goal is $5,000 for wildlife conservation, and every donation helps get there.
Are we going to give up when we’ve climbed just halfway up the tower? No! And we won’t give up on our fundraising goal either. When species are endangered, the stakes are too high to throw in the towel.
Please support us by donating to the WWF with the link below so we can make a real impact. 100% of contributions go directly to WWF. Even a small donation makes a difference, and sharing the link helps just as much.
Metazooa features 328 species. Every one of them deserves a future. If this game has ignited a passion for nature in you, here's a chance to do something that makes a difference.
Nostradamus was a Doomsayer who Couldn't Resist Dessert
Photo by Mateusz Feliksik on Unsplash
Long before he gazed into brass bowls of water to glimpse the future, Michel de Nostredame (a.k.a. Nostradamus, Chronogram Guest #1110) was busy perfecting the art of the perfect preserve. In 1555, the same year he published his famous book of prophecies, the French seer released another work that has been almost entirely forgotten by history: the Traité des fardemens et confitures, a sprawling treatise on cosmetics and jams.
The book is a delightful oddity. Alongside recipes for quince jelly and candied orange peel, Nostradamus offered instructions for whitening teeth, perfuming beards, and concocting a love potion involving the blood of seven male sparrows. His recipe for rose sugar, he claimed, could restore vitality to the gravely ill, and he personally credited his candied ginger with curing a bout of plague-like fever.
Nostradamus took his sweets seriously. He wrote with the pride of a man who believed that a well-made cherry preserve was nothing short of alchemy, capable of capturing sunlight in a jar. At one point, he boasts that his pear jam is fit to be served at the tables of kings, and by all accounts it actually was. Catherine de Medici, a devoted patron of his prophecies, reportedly enjoyed his confections as well.
It is a charming wrinkle in the legend of the brooding mystic. The man who foretold fire, famine, and the rise of tyrants also knew exactly how long to simmer a batch of apricots.
Learn more: Tasting History
Trivia
What did a group of soldiers reportedly do during the French Revolution in an attempt to channel Nostradamus's prophetic powers?
Answers to last week's games
Monday, April 13 to Sunday, April 19.
Globle
Apr 13 Guinea
Apr 14 Qatar
Apr 15 Kenya
Apr 16 Vatican City
Apr 17 Oman
Apr 18 North Korea
Apr 19 Dem. Rep. Congo
Apr 20 Play now!
Globle: Capitals
Apr 13 Port-Vila
Apr 14 Vientiane
Apr 15 Stockholm
Apr 16 Bandar Seri Begawan
Apr 17 Tirana
Apr 18 Havana
Apr 19 Cairo
Apr 20 Play now!
Chronogram
#1108 Jackson Pollock
#1109 Grover Cleveland
#1110 Nostradamus
#1111 John Keats
#1112 Ho Chi Minh
#1113 Erasmus
#1114 Jimi Hendrix
#1115 Play now!
Fictogram
#876 Terry Malloy
#877 Rhett Butler
#878 Cruella De Vil
#879 Ron Weasley
#880 Max Cady
#881 Mark Watney
#882 George Bailey
#883 Play now!
Metazooa
#987 ocelot
#988 mayfly
#989 burmese python
#990 beaver
#991 cheetah
#992 naked mole rat
#993 tuna
#994 Play now!
Metaflora
#926 chamomile
#927 red mangrove
#928 mistletoe
#929 rubber
#930 apricot
#931 buckwheat
#932 sugarcane
#933 Play now!
Linxicon
The following are the shortest paths from last week:
#791 construct → create → duplicate → similar
#792 lay → flat → surface → glass
#793 born → constructed → reinforced → reinforce
#794 lemon → color → style → mode
#795 compare → similarity → likeness → pose
#796 hardly → more → additional → addition
#797 investment → financially → simple → easily
#798 Play now!
Elemingle
#447 Xenon
#448 Sulfur
#449 Neodymium
#450 Iron
#451 Americium
#452 Californium
#453 Samarium
#454 Play now!
Stocktangle
#130 Texas Pacific Land Trust (TPL)
#131 Oracle Corporation (ORCL)
#132 Micron Technology Inc (MU)
#133 Tesla Inc (TSLA)
#134 Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)
#135 Emerson Electric Company (EMR)
#136 Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCL)
#137 Play now!
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
Before you go…
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