“Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song.”—Birds on the Wires
This is the sort of beautiful thing you’d like to think the internet makes possible, sharing a short work of art.
Secret island for elephants discovered off coast of Sudan | the Daily Mail
Hundreds of elephants escaped massive hunting on the mainland.
Article about Bernie Krause, a scientist working on how animals’ vocalizations change depending on their habitats.
A scientific study released recently revealed that humans contain some Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthals and humans are different species, so this means there was some freaky inter-species mating going on. Slate’s Explainer column today presents an article titled, “Can humans mate with other animals?”
Now, that title’s pretty badass on its own. I mean, who *wouldn’t *want to read about that? But it’s not until the second-to-last paragraph that it truly blew my mind (emphasis added):
Neanderthals weren’t our ancestors’ only dalliance with other primates. “Pre-humans” and “pre-chimpanzees” interbred and gave birth to hybrids millions of years ago. In the 1920s, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin sent an animal-breeding expert to Africa in hopes of creating an army of half-man, half-monkey soldiers. Attempts both to inseminate women with monkey sperm and impregnate female chimpanzees with human sperm failed.
How, I ask you, how could any journalist write an article containing those words — presented as fact — and not decide to write more on the topic? Half-human, half-monkey commies don’t deserve their own article? Here’s Slate’s source, for further reading.
Imagine this little guy on the wrong side.
How to make an artificial shark uterus
If you read one article featuring the term “intra-uterine cannibalism” this week, make it this one.
Wow. “In 1980, an oil company drilled through the bottom of Lake Peigneur and into a salt mine, draining a large portion of the lake into the mine.”
Pigeons like to hang out on our railing and poo on our balcony. Katherine’s become a bit obsessed about it and has strung razorwire a Slinky across it. It seems to have worked so far. I wonder what the neighbors think.
