Entries tagged with animals

Crossposts: https://liveonearth.livejournal.com/1447585.html

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QotD: Man is an Animal

Man is
and remains
an animal.
Here a beast of prey,
there a housepet,
but always an animal.
~~Joseph Goebbels (German Nazi propagandist)
(source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/281832.Joseph_Goebbels)

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QotD: A Boat Rightly Made

If rightly made,
a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal,
a creature of two elements,
related by one-half its structure to some swift and shapely fish,
and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.

--Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

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Movie notes: Monte Walsh

It's an old western with Lee Marvin, really a wonderful movie about a cowboy who looses everything but maintains his center, his calm and his kindness. It seems to be about the end of the Wild West. There's a fantastic and long riding scene in which the cowboy named Monte "rides the grey down". Humorous too. I liked it. My mom complains that it was slow. She already deleted it from her direct tv.

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MERS and Camels

Arabian peninsula = Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Leb¬anon, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

MERS is the viral infection that's causing severe respiratory disease in lots of folks over there. There have been just a few cases in the US, starting in May. I'm wondering if military personel are coming back sick? Apparently pretty much all of the camels on the Arabian peninsula have this virus. We don't know if it causes chronic infections, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did, considering what we are learning about viral DNA mingled with our own.

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New Carnivore Species Discovered in South America

( His name is olinguito! )

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QotD: Motives

Maybe
some day
a chicken can cross the road
without having its
motives questioned.
--heard from Ed O

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ARSENIC IN RICE Warning from Consumer Reports, October 2012

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE RICE FINDING
**eat less rice
**vary rice products with other grains
**eat a varied diet and don't fret
**rinse before cooking
**cook differently: boil in excess water and then strain (removes 30% of inorganic)
**limit cereals to one serving/day esp for babies
**avoid baby formula containing domestic rice
( notes )

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Alpha Ape Intimidation

Nice acrobatics on the part of the ape who would like to frighten away a tall man.

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Gritty Dog Agility

This is a friend of mine. I remain super impressed. They are scoring well.

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another amazing painting by Shonto Begay

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Progressive Defined: QotD

“Progressive”:
a self-congratulatory word used by the lemming at the front of the pack to describe himself, as he and his fellows “progress” toward the edge of the cliff.
--Butler Shaffer

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Writer's Block: Free your mind

[Error: unknown template qotd]

NO. Because we are animals. Our instinct is to be wary of creatures that are much different. Unfamiliar races are too strange to our animal selves for us to ever completely override that instinct with intellect. It would take either a LOT of evolution as a global community, or substantial racial blending and homogenization, or both, to reduce this response. It appears to me that before either of these mechanisms is complete way we will have a substantial reduction in human populations and return to a more tribal way of living which will separate us and reduce the blending of races, thus slowing or reversing the process.

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QotD: on the Mammalian Response to Separation

This reading, from A General Theory of Love is helping me to understand myself. To summarize, mammals are the only creatures with a limbic brain, and it is where we form attachments--to our young, so that we will rear them, to our lovers, and to our other assorted dear ones notably including other mammals. Reptiles and amphibians don't attach the same way, they lay eggs and leave them behind. Birds care for their young but the attachment seems to be completely instinctive and not personal in the least. But mammals, we attach to individuals.
( more )

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Three nights of dreaming: snow, cash/acne, and baby mammal

Last night I dreamed:
( notes )

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Vocabababble: baculum

This from a racoon.

From a polar bear.
( What is it? )

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Males risk more when Attractive Females present

And this causes them to both perform more dramatically, and crash harder, as evidenced in a new study conducted on skateboarders ranging from their teens to 35. Obviously, we say. It turns out that these same males had higher levels of testosterone in their saliva when observed by an attractive female researcher, compared to when they were watched by a male researcher.
( links and abstract of the study )

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Pigs are Self-Aware

...As evidenced by the fact that pigs see themselves in the mirror. They even look at themselves from different angles, like a preening human. And pigs will immediately turn around when they see in a mirror someone putting a food bowl down behind them. Here's the abstract.

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Elegant Evolution

We humans are not designed for the lives that we are living. We are designed to survive, a thousand or more years ago. Evolution is slow, and modernity is probably slowing it down or confusing it. What is the best way to survive in today's world? To be a soft sedentary thing that lives in your mind?
( caution: words )

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Support HR 2890/S. 1271: Wild and Scenic protection for Rogue River Tributaries

The 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is the best way that a river can be protected in the US. A river designated "wild and scenic" cannot have roads built within 1/2 mile of the water. There can be no dams upstream. There can be no logging, mining, or construction of anything but trails along its banks. Non-commercial fishing and boating are permitted.
( more )

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Monkeys Glow with Jellyfish Genes

GENETICALLY MODIFIED MARMOSETS GLOW IN THE DARK
and these monkeys will pass the trait on to their young.
They've already made glow in the dark mice.
They use retroviruses to insert the genes.
See here for pics and article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8070252.stm

( text of BBC article )