Clink Glasses - Cheers!

I wrote recently on my origins blog about why "toast" is not only that heated bread but also what we do when we drink to the health or in honor of (someone or something) by raising one's glass together with others. As a corollary to that, I wondered why we also might clink glasses together after a toast before we take a sip.

The toasting of someone’s health is an ancient ritual, rooted in Greek and Roman drinking culture and quite likely long before. These ancient civilizations may have also knocked their mugs and cups together and the more delicate clink likely became fashionable in the 17th century. Here are 3 origin stories.

The most common origin story I found seems unlikely. In medieval times, clinking cups or glasses hard enough would cause liquid to slosh and spill from one vessel into another, so if your drinking companion had poisoned your cup, they’d be consuming poison too. This seems like a petty weak way of preventing drinks from being spiked. Yes, belladonna, hemlock, arsenic, mercury, or any other common toxin were popular ways of eliminating one’s rivals in the Middle Ages, especially among the nobility, but that origin is very doubtful.

An alternative theory, of no precise origin, suggests that clinking glasses was meant to frighten away evil spirits. In medieval Europe, there was a superstitious belief that evil spirits lurked in alcohol or hovered around celebrations. The high-pitched sound of touching glasses, according to the theory, would chase them away. This sounds possible, but I found no evidence to support it being the sole, or even partial, origin of this toast ritual. 

How about another theory that suggests the practice was a way to complete the sensory experience of drinking? Sipping wine and toasting already involved sight, touch, smell, and taste — and the clink added sound, the last of the five senses. Historian Margaret Visser argues that clinking grew in popularity during the 17th century, when Venetian glassmakers perfected the art of clear, resonant crystal. For the first time, drinking vessels produced a beautiful ringing tone when struck together, and that sensory pleasure became part of the ritual.

Leonardo da Vinci - so much undone

It’s the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, born Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, in Vinci, Italy (1452). 

He’s best known for his Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, two of the most famous paintings in the world, but he left fewer than 30 paintings when he died, and most of those were unfinished. 

He was a perfectionist and procrastinator, having worked on the Mona Lisa on and off for the last 15 years of his life. The Last Supper was likely only finished because his patron threatened to cut off his money. Today, he would be described as having attention deficit disorder.

He spent much of his time drawing up plans for inventions like the submarine, the helicopter, the armored tank, and even the alarm clock, none of which came to fruition in his lifetime. He also created very detailed anatomical drawings from life and cadavers to understand how to draw and pain the human form.

Remaining today are at least 6,000 pages of his drawings and notes on everything from astronomy to anatomy — mostly written backward, decipherable only in a mirror. 

Despite being easily distracted by other interests, he accomplished a lot. I find it sad that when he was dying, he apologized “to God and Man for leaving so much undone.”

Leonardo's drawings

Biography by Isaacson

Did Magellan Circumnavigate the Globe?

For more than 500 years, Ferdinand Magellan has been famous for being the first person to circumnavigate the globe. 

Ferdinand Magellan did not actually circumnavigate the globe. 

What did he do?

On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, with five ships and a crew of about 260 men. His mission? Find a "backdoor" route to the East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). He was ambitious, determined, and—to be frank—a bit of a handful. Fast forward two years, and the expedition had reached Mactan Island in the Philippines. Magellan was roughly three-quarters of the way through his epic journey, but this is where the map ended for him. 

Magellan wasn't just exploring; he was also trying to spread Christianity. This didn't sit particularly well with the Indigenous peoples of Mactan. After a skirmish broke out on April 27, 1521, Magellan was struck by a poison arrow and killed. He died thousands of miles away from the finish line, leaving his dwindling crew to figure out how to get home without their leader. 

If you think your last long-haul flight was rough, consider the stats of this expedition:
Starting Crew: ~260 sailors
Total Ships: 5
Duration: 3 years
Survivors who made it home: 18 

On September 9, 1522, only 18 men limped back into Sanlúcar de Barrameda on a single ship. That’s a survival rate of about 7%. 

Victoria, the sole ship of Magellan's fleet to complete the circumnavigation.
Detail from a map by Ortelius, 1590.

If Magellan didn't make it, who was the actual first person to circle the globe? The answer depends on how you define "first." 

Juan Sebastián Elcano, after Magellan’s death, took command and navigated the final stretch back to Spain. He is the man historians usually point to if you're looking for the person who completed the full, continuous loop on one trip. 

Enrique of Malacca is an interesting contender. he was a Malay man that Magellan had captured and enslaved in the East Indies back in 1511. Enrique traveled from the East Indies to Europe, then accompanied Magellan on the 1519 expedition heading west. By the time the ships reached the Philippines, Enrique was essentially back in his home region. If he managed to slip away and make it back to Malacca after Magellan’s death, he would technically be the first person to complete a full circle of the planet, though in two separate stages. 

The first circumnavigation was less of a solo victory and more of a brutal, three-year survival horror story. Whether you give the "win" to the captain who finished the job or the enslaved interpreter who may have beaten everyone to the punch, one thing is true. Magellan really started it.

A Trio of Stars

Apep is a trio of stars with distinct shells of dust swirling around them. Images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope are the crispest view we have of the star system to date. 

Apep is one of those rare places in the galaxy where chaos and abundance seem to spill out in equal measure, almost like a cosmic cornucopia. From far away it looks like a single star, but Webb’s astonishingly sharp mid‑infrared view reveals something far richer: three stars bound together, two of them belonging to the extraordinarily rare Wolf‑Rayet family. These stars are massive, hot, and nearing the end of their lives, shedding material so quickly that their surroundings glow with the dust they cast off. Only about a thousand Wolf‑Rayet stars exist in our entire galaxy, yet Apep contains two of them orbiting each other, with a third supergiant star circling farther out. It’s a stellar arrangement so unusual that astronomers haven’t found another like it.

Before the James Webb Space Telescope, telescopes could make out only a single swirl of dust around Apep. Webb changed that instantly. Its mid‑infrared vision peeled back the darkness and revealed four distinct shells of dust, each one a shimmering layer drifting outward like the rings of a slowly expanding onion. These shells form because the central pair of stars moves in a long, looping orbit that takes 190 years to complete. For a brief window of that orbit—about twenty‑five years—the stars pass close enough to each other to unleash a burst of dust that races outward at thousands of miles per second. Over centuries, these bursts stack up, creating layer after layer of cosmic sculpture.

The beauty of Apep’s spirals is complicated by the presence of the third star. Its powerful stellar winds slice through the expanding dust like a blade, carving gaps and slashes into the shells. The result is a pattern that looks both delicate and turbulent, as if the universe were painting with fire and wind at the same time. Even the faintest outer shell, barely visible at the edge of Webb’s detection, adds to the sense that this system is overflowing with material—an astronomical horn of plenty.

It’s tempting to see Apep as just a distant spectacle, but its story reaches all the way to us. The dust pouring from these stars is rich in the heavy elements that make planets, oceans, and living things possible. When stars like these eventually explode as supernovae, they scatter those elements across space, seeding future generations of stars and worlds. The carbon in our cells and the iron in our blood were forged in the hearts of dying stars, much like the ones in Apep. Studying this system is, in a way, studying our own origins.

Cornucopia

Apep also helps scientists understand some of the most energetic events in the universe. One of its stars may eventually produce a gamma‑ray burst, an explosion so powerful it can reshape the space around it. Apep is far too distant to pose any danger to Earth, but learning how these events work is essential for protecting future astronauts and satellites from high‑energy radiation elsewhere in the galaxy. And beyond the science, there’s something deeply human about the fact that we can see faint dust shells drifting through space from 8,000 light‑years away. Webb’s clarity is a reminder of what curiosity and collaboration can achieve.

In the end, Apep is a portrait of cosmic generosity. Even as its stars approach their final act, they are pouring material into the galaxy, enriching the space around them, and shaping the future long after they’re gone. 

It’s chaos, yes—but it’s also creation, abundance, and the quiet truth that the universe is always giving more than it takes.