my internet collection.
yes! i’ve been waiting to read about wild chickens… longreads: A history of how chickens went from the jungle to dinner tables all around the world: Europeans arriving in North America found a continent teeming with native turkeys and ducks for the plucking and eating. Some archaeologists believe that chickens were first introduced to the New World by Polynesians who reached the Pacific coast of South America a century or so before the voyages of Columbus. Well into the 20th century, chickens, although valued, particularly as a source of eggs, played a relatively minor role in the American diet and economy. Long after cattle and hogs had entered the industrial age of centralized, mechanized slaughterhouses, chicken production was still mostly a casual, local enterprise. The breakthrough that made today’s quarter-million-bird farms possible was the fortification of feed with antibiotics and vitamins, which allowed chickens to be raised indoors. Like most animals, chickens need sunlight to synthesize vitamin D on their own, and so up through the first decades of the 20th century, they typically spent their days wandering around the barnyard, pecking for food. Now they could be sheltered from weather and predators and fed a controlled diet in an environment designed to present the minimum of distractions from the essential business of eating. Factory farming represents the chicken’s final step in its transformation into a protein-producing commodity. Hens are packed so tightly into wire cages (less than half a square foot per bird) that they can’t spread their wings; as many as 20,000 to 30,000 broilers are crowded together in windowless buildings. Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian See more #longreads from Smithsonian

yes! i’ve been waiting to read about wild chickens…

longreads:

A history of how chickens went from the jungle to dinner tables all around the world:

Europeans arriving in North America found a continent teeming with native turkeys and ducks for the plucking and eating. Some archaeologists believe that chickens were first introduced to the New World by Polynesians who reached the Pacific coast of South America a century or so before the voyages of Columbus. Well into the 20th century, chickens, although valued, particularly as a source of eggs, played a relatively minor role in the American diet and economy. Long after cattle and hogs had entered the industrial age of centralized, mechanized slaughterhouses, chicken production was still mostly a casual, local enterprise. The breakthrough that made today’s quarter-million-bird farms possible was the fortification of feed with antibiotics and vitamins, which allowed chickens to be raised indoors. Like most animals, chickens need sunlight to synthesize vitamin D on their own, and so up through the first decades of the 20th century, they typically spent their days wandering around the barnyard, pecking for food. Now they could be sheltered from weather and predators and fed a controlled diet in an environment designed to present the minimum of distractions from the essential business of eating. Factory farming represents the chicken’s final step in its transformation into a protein-producing commodity. Hens are packed so tightly into wire cages (less than half a square foot per bird) that they can’t spread their wings; as many as 20,000 to 30,000 broilers are crowded together in windowless buildings.

Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian

See more #longreads from Smithsonian

biomedicalephemera: Internal Anatomy of the Grass Frog [Genus Litoria] As different as frogs are from you and I, you can clearly see how similar vertebrates are to each other when you dissect one. One heart, two lungs, a stomach, liver, spleen, gall bladder, intestines, kidneys, bladder, and gonads are visible in this particular dissection, as well as the extraordinarily strong leg muscles. Brehms Tierleben, Bd. 1. Alfred Brehms, 1911.

biomedicalephemera:

Internal Anatomy of the Grass Frog [Genus Litoria]

As different as frogs are from you and I, you can clearly see how similar vertebrates are to each other when you dissect one. One heart, two lungs, a stomach, liver, spleen, gall bladder, intestines, kidneys, bladder, and gonads are visible in this particular dissection, as well as the extraordinarily strong leg muscles.

Brehms Tierleben, Bd. 1. Alfred Brehms, 1911.

Climate Deniers: By Type

climateadaptation:

• Honest skeptics (ordinary folks who genuinely and sincerely don’t understand the science, and raise questions accordingly)
• Independent deniers (ordinary people who just don’t understand the science, and choose to be very noisy about their ignorance)
• Astroturfers, as described by George Monbiot (these are apparently ordinary members of the public, in fact paid by PR companies to swamp websites with misinformation and inaccuracies, they hide behind anonymity and post furiously in comment threads, and only on climate change issues)
• Media deniers (Fox News, even though Rupert Murdoch himself is not a denialist; Melanie Philips, etc)
• Scientific deniers (almost invariably, denialist scientists are not climate scientists; some are no doubt paid to be sceptical, and others are sincere; the overwhelming majority of working climate scientists do not doubt the fundamentals of human-induced climate change science)
• Proxy interests (Think tanks: Cato Institute, Heartland Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Senator James Imhoffe, etc)
• Industry associations (American Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute)
• Vested interests (Big oil, big coal: the likes of Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, and possibly the Russian intelligence services)

More, here: Lepageblog

these bones are going to do a lot of work for me in the next few weeks - on a bike. moshita: iliac bone study SarahIntemann

these bones are going to do a lot of work for me in the next few weeks - on a bike.

moshita:

iliac bone study

SarahIntemann

(Source: frolicingintheforest)

treeporn: Dockey Wood is a magical place. (Taken by me with instagram)

treeporn:

Dockey Wood is a magical place. (Taken by me with instagram)

(Source: hannahkc)

Wow! Levitation is real.

thekidshouldseethis:

ZeroN, a project by Jinha Lee, Rehmi Post, and Hiroshi Ishii at MIT’s Media Lab: 

What if materials could defy gravity, so that we could leave them suspended in mid-air? ZeroN is a physical and digital interaction element that floats and moves in space by computer-controlled magnetic levitation. 

From It’s Okay to Be Smart: 

By using computer-controlled magnetic field manipulations, a metal sphere is suspended in mid-air. Even more, it can be made to follow complex paths, “remembering” and repeating actions. If that somehow isn’t enough, just wait until he lights it up like an orbiting planet, and demonstrates Kepler’s Laws [of planetary motion]!

Most Americans Support Federal Funding for Sidewalks & Bikeways

visualoop:

Via

subtilitas: Alberto Campo Baeza with Paulo Henrique Durao - Proposal for the Porta di Milano, Milan. “We would like to build the most beautiful space in the world. The most luminous. The most fascinating. With just the mechanisms of Architecture. The simplest, the clearest, the most beautiful… It would be like a cloud. The most mysterious space, the most surprising, the most exciting.”

subtilitas:

Alberto Campo Baeza with Paulo Henrique Durao - Proposal for the Porta di Milano, Milan.

“We would like to build the most beautiful space in the world. The most luminous. The most fascinating. With just the mechanisms of Architecture. The simplest, the clearest, the most beautiful… It would be like a cloud. The most mysterious space, the most surprising, the most exciting.”

scientificillustration: Cicada indica now called Tacua speciosa by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

scientificillustration:

Cicada indica now called Tacua speciosa by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

"Then, I read a study about what happens to your brain when you get drunk, and everything started to make a lot more sense. The study found that the higher a person’s blood alcohol level, the more conservative their thinking became—it didn’t matter whether the drinker identified as liberal or conservative while sober. When drunk, their thought processes became streamlined—they reached for the simpler narrative, not the nuanced one. Related research has found that liberals start to think more like conservatives at times when they’re particularly distracted or overwhelmed. The same can be said for our romantic thinking. These big universal tropes catch hold of us when we get stressed, tired, sick, older."
Cornbread and Butter Beans: How to Ditch Happily-Ever-After and Build Your Own Romantic Narrative   (via rubiksboob)

(Source: youtastelikenachos)

think-progress: How the House Republican budget hurts kids. 

think-progress:

How the House Republican budget hurts kids. 

aseaofquotes: Charles de Lint, “Small Deaths”

aseaofquotes:

Charles de Lint, “Small Deaths”

[image: twistedsifter]

[image: twistedsifter]

(Source: thedailywhat)