2026-03-05
17 分钟When Johann Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later.
Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside,
but what it actually was was a warning delivered to the Hessian colonel letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces.
The next day when Rall lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls,
the letter was found.
unopened in his vest pockets.
As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there.
Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong.
I'm Marc Chrysler.
Every episode we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world.
Find us at constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to The World, The Universe and Us from New Scientist.
I'm Dr Rowan Hooper.
Now, two marsupial species, including one that's a completely new genus of gliding mammal,
have been found alive in New Guinea after it's thought they've become extinct at least 6,000 years ago.
Now,
the discovery is significant enough that one biologist we spoke to said it was more important than finding a living thylacine in Tasmania,
a living Tasmanian tiger.
One of the new species is our marsupial glider.
The other is the pygmy long-fingered possum.