by Grania
Today in 1886 Coca-cola was sold for the first time, a non-alcoholic version of coca wine, but still with the cocaine. It’s a wonder any of our ancestors lived long enough to reproduce.
It’s the birthday of David Attenborough (1926), Alex Van Halen (1953), and Enrique Iglesias (1975), and the anniversary of the death of Robert A. Heinlein (1988) one of my favorite weirdo sci-fi writers.
On Twitter today, 13th century constellations.
Unimpressed cat is unimpressed.
Eric Idle has a new version of his FCC song. (Warning: language. Unlikely to be suitable for the office unless you work from home.)
Teasing the cat
Lava in Hawaii
And finally, our raison d’être with a motivational message. Demotivational message?
Hili: What was there before the Big Bang?A: A horrible silence.(Photo: Zuza)
Hili: Co było przed Wielkim Wybuchem?
Ja: Straszna cisza.
(Foto: Zuza)
22 Comments
This might interest some of you-
Male contributions during mating increase female survival in the disease vector mosquito Aedes aegypti
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002219101730330X
Of course if the female Aedes fails to mate, living longer is of no benefit to her. If she does live longer, it is of definite benefit to both her and her mate (die-hard Darwinist speaking).
The look on that Cats face….
Yep! That’s a REAL cat face!
What do you call a cat that doesn’t stare daggers at its owner?
A dog.
Ha ha! Very good!
Idle, FCC, EPA, … ROTFL!
Here’s a Twitter thread for Sir David’s birthday.
I wonder what his carbon footprint is?!
… “heresy!”
Does anyone know the email for submitting nature photos?
Please use Dr Coyne’s University of Chicago one, Mr Wilson.
Upper right margin – side of W E I T here.
He does not outright publish it nor any other.
Blue
I recently moved to the birthplace of Robert Heinlein, which is Butler Mo. His house still exists, but sadly has been covered with ugly vinyl siding.
Thirty years without Heinlein.
Before it was decocainized, Coca Cola was probably no more harmful than the coca tea widely available in South America. Cocaine orally ingested is a mild stimulant.
Actually, our ancestors were far more sane about drugs than we are.
I love that short video where the cat’s glass is taken away. Although it is only one instance and, therefore, not a proper scientific study, I think you can see that the cat’s immediate reaction is that a person took the glass, as opposed to it having magically disappeared. The cat is looking at the people as if to say, “Why did you do that?” If this is true, it is close to demonstrating the cat has a theory of mind. (Yes, I know it isn’t quite there.}
“Why did you do that?”
I believe the correct translation is rather more pungent than that. The cat could burn holes with that gaze.
Yes! Evil eyes!
Van Halen was amongst the collection of posters I had on my bedroom wall as a teenager.
Eruption blew my socks off when I first hewrd it around eleven years old. It’s not about how fast or complicated the playing is — when I started playing guitar, I realized it’s not nearly as hard to play as it sounds — but the awesome sound. Eddie had enormous talent, but he also had a sound that made you shudder. I’m not a hair metal guy, but I love most VH songs just because of Eddie
Yeah, that’s basically me too.
If Coca-cola goes back that far, both Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud could have imbibed- the most famous fictional and real cocaine-users of the late 19th century.
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I had a love-hate relationship with Robert Heinlein who was both ingenuous but also weirdly sexist is a way I find somehow harder to forgive that other writers of that period. (Why I am able to let go the sexism of the 1960s Star Trek but not that of Heinlein is difficult for me to answer.)
However, although he has an ideology superficially similar to Ayn Rand, he was a far far better novelist than she.
A few years ago, I found out the exact address of Heinlein’s home in a very remote town in the forests above the California shore. Although he passed away in the 1980s, the property is still far more heavily fenced and protected than the neighboring ones.
The sweetest picture of Hili I’ve seen.