Dr. Montague joined the many scientists who have long studied the remarkable abilities of cuttlefish, from their camouflage to their speed when hunting. In recent years, a string of high-profile papers has reported that they are capable of surprising cognitive feats, including rejecting easy meals while holding out for better food in the future, a version of the famous marshmallow test.
Given the vast evolutionary gulf between cuttlefish and creatures like apes and crows that perform similar calculations, some scientists believe the shimmering little decapods may help us understand why these mental abilities evolve.
I add scallions that I’m growing on the sill in the kitchen. I poach a chicken thigh skin on, then fry the skin in butter. I add the crisp skin and a half sheet of seaweed at the very last minute. I put my nose to the bowl and let the steam soothe my face. I suck up a noodle. I sputter and cough. Sometimes I take a sip of salty broth, but mostly I sit with my hands cradling the bowl, feeling warm, holding hope that next time will be the time I’ll be able to ask for more.
To mimic the flavor of the more-expensive arabica, they cooked the beans with butter or margarine, as well as sugar. Robusta beans have around twice the amount of caffeine as arabica, more bitterness, and less acidity. As a result, kopi, which means “coffee” in Malay, became the regional favorite for its caffeine content, sweetness, and cheapness.
Clearly, the anthology of speeches, as an institution, is ripe for a reboot. If it is to remain — in that cruelest of adjectives — relevant, it has to make room for new voices and for “talk” that reads, in many cases, like a transcript. And it must do these things while establishing, for readers who might assume otherwise, that we still have something to draw from the traditional wellsprings of rhetoric: the Greeks, British prime ministers, American presidents. The late Brian MacArthur, a British journalist, worked assiduously for years to update Penguin’s volumes of speeches; now we also have “Voices of History,” a compelling collection by the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore.