I remember reading something in a science book when I was much younger that listed all the things that made humans unique in the animal world. It had things such as writing, agriculture, tool use, teaching, etc. In the last couple of decades I have seen almost everything on that list be left at the wayside as each thing previously considered unique to humans was found to be not-that-original after all.
The world is a wonderfully weird place indeed.
so i made a trip to the guitar shop,
had to purchase picks
and since this activity required
a quick lap to run envious eyes
across the equipment on display,
i happened to see
not one, but two!
young guys
wearing iron maiden shirts
each of them towing
a pretty young girlfriend
The future is just around the corner, and it’s driving an orange bike.
That’s Bellingham resident Ken Trough on the bike - silent, packed with batteries and smoothly zipping down the sidewalk.
Is it a bike? Is it a man riding a battery? Is it a motorcycle?
It’s the G2 - an innovative all electrically powered cycle being developed here. And it has the power to change the way we get around.
Street theatre at its finest. We need more of this. These folks got a bunch of people together and invaded a Home Depot. No damage done, just fun.
I know that when you go into the military you are basically giving up your rights as a citizen, but this is crazy if it goes through.
A Florida company wants to get under the skin of 1.4 million U.S. servicemen and women.
I was walking through one of the local parks a while back and stumbled upon a bench along one of the paths. I thought it was a great design because it was so simple and elegant. I took some pictures hoping to copy the design and promptly forgot about it. Then yesterday I stumbled upon it again on the internet, so I thought that I’d post the plans.
From wikipedia:
Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism.
Any questions?
Nitric oxide is the starter fluid of your brain. That is SOOOO funny.
As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to another part of the brain, the thalamus, which then directs it elsewhere.
Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for more complex brain operations, according to a new study.
sleepless night, beautiful morning; figured i might as well go to the library
as i’m walking back i see a large moth following its own logic beside a corporate structure. cool-looking creature; oranges and browns, black lines setting out the pattern
Seems that mammal sperm can withstand being frozen for a long long time in permafrost. So long that they may be able to get viable sperm from 27,000 year old frozen mammoths. And they think they can breed them with asian elephants. Wow.
Bodies of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday.
File it under ‘odd games to play with your brain’
I’m taking at least a two week hiatus from drinking, this is day eight.
It’s a short step from Artistic Integrity to slovenly stagnation. When your heroes include such people as Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson, it’s a safe bet that you’ve got more than a passing familiarity with booze, and I most certainly do. I’ve already spent more than enough words on the positive aspects of intoxication on the artistic mind-set, and I continue to stand behind all of them.
after a sleepless night
spent with a thousand thoughts
about the futility
of dwelling on your failings
the seven a.m. sky sings of
deep-blue potential,
partially hidden by hot breath
exhaled into cold air
the world feels inviting,
soft and forgivable
despite what the papers tell you,
the uneven hop-scotch court,
scrawled in some child’s earnest hand,
and covered in cigarette butts
seems beautiful . . .
or at least poetic
It is a strange, strange world that we live in. Doubt me? Well read the article.
Scientists in England have gathered definitive evidence that a kind of cancer in dogs is contagious — a peculiar exception to the age-old medical wisdom that you can’t “catch” cancer.
Although no human cancer is known to spread naturally from person to person, the finding of such a disease in dogs — and emerging evidence that a different contagious cancer is spreading among marsupials in Tasmania — is a reminder, scientists said, that under the rules of evolution, DNA will try anything to perpetuate itself.
I only put this book down last night because I literally could not keep my eyes open anymore. Then I woke up, made an omelet and finished reading Adverbs. Daniel Handler delights in language, and plays with it liberally. What’s so impressive is that it never becomes intrusive or confusing; and that is really saying something about a novel told in short chapters where there is simply no way of knowing if the Andrea you are currently reading about is the Andrea from an earlier chapter or some new person entirely; at times each will seem plausible.
Hey guys, I have bad news. Your Y chromosome is slowly dissolving (on a genetic timespan). Eventually it could go away if it continues on its current trend. But what will be next?
The pending demise of the Y chromosome could give rise to a whole new species of human, a professor of comparative genomics says.
Scientists have been speculating about the demise of the Y chromosome for some years now but Professor Jenny Graves of the Australian National University in Canberra has come up with a bold new twist on the theory.
With temperatures rising like gas prices, scooters may seem the perfect mode of transportation.You get up to 100 miles per gallon, on top of the hipster factor and the feel of the wind in your hair. But there’s one imperfection to these sassy little two-wheeled machines: A March 2005 study by the Environmental Protection Agency shows most scooters on the road pollute more than SUVs.
Here is a very interesting article concerning a cat parasite that may have played a role in changing human culture from the bottom up. Great read.
Kevin Lafferty is a smart, cautious, thoughtful scientist who doesn’t hate cats, but he has put forth a provocative theory that suggests that a clever cat parasite may alter human cultures on a massive scale.
His phone hasn’t stopped ringing since he published one of the strangest research papers to come out of the mill in quite awhile.
With the latest frenzy of discussion regarding the good doctor, I figured it might be worth my while to snip apart an interview I recently came across for a few of the tastier nuggets and present them for your enjoyment.
Hunter S. Thompson was one of those rare individuals whose true legacy has yet to be fully understood, a genius and a giant of american letters. This world desperately needs more like him. If nothing else, those who attempt to inform their lives from the lessons of his legacy are bound to keep things interesting . . .
Every once in a while you stumble across something that just works so damn well you can’t hardly believe it. I had one of those experiences the other day; what seemed especially fascinating to me was the fact that I’d had this particular piece of ‘perfect poetry’ in my possession for quite a number of years, and while I’d enjoyed it, it had never really struck me the way it did when I stumbled back across it a few days ago.
If you’ve always had a nagging feeling that dna isn’t the only thing that passes information on between generations, you were right.
Swiss scientists say they’ve determined plants pass memories of stressful events from parent to progeny to help them adapt to difficult conditions.
Heat, pathogens or other stresses may trigger an increase in the frequency of genetic mutations and rearrangements, but it was largely unknown whether the increased rate was inherited by subsequent generations
