european (american) alligator

albino alligator digs thai food, recycling, and mutual funds.



source: http://atcloserangephotography.blogspot.com/2008/03/have-you-ever-seen-white-alligator.html

dont cross the streams!

Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!





A team from University College London finds that when we gaze around in a poorly-lit context, it can fool our brains into seeing things that are not really there.

In the journal PLoS Computational Biology, Prof Li Zhaoping and her colleagues say that the context surrounding what we see is all important - sometimes overriding the evidence gathered by our eyes and even causing us to imagine things.

They were surprised to find that a vague background context has more influence on what we see than one that is bright and well defined, and speculate that this might explain the power of some abstract art and why we can see vivid details in the vague brush strokes of impressionist paintings.

"Everything we see is an hallucination generated by the virtual reality machine inside our head," comments Prof Mike Morgan of The City University, London.

"Normally these hallucinations are vetoed by the information coming through our senses, so we can call perception 'controlled hallucination.'

"But when the input is ambiguous we can see all sorts of things, like the faces de Quincy saw in clouds and carpets. There are hundreds of faces hidden in the textured floors of the platforms at Euston Underground Station, if you look for them."

To reveal the haunting power of context, 18 observers were asked by the UCL team to concentrate on the centre of a black computer screen. Every time a buzzer sounded they pressed one of two buttons to record whether or not they had just seen a small, dim, grey 'target' rectangle in the middle of the screen. It did not appear every time, but when it did appear it was displayed for just 80 milliseconds (80 one thousandths of a second).

"People saw the target much more often if it appeared in the middle of a vertical line of similar looking, grey rectangles, compared to when it appeared in the middle of a pattern of bright, white rectangles. They even registered 'seeing' the target when it wasn't actually there," says Prof Zhaoping.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/02/21/scighost121.xml

hey fattie...

it's not glandular, it's the government!






We’ve all heard the figures. We know that meat production uses significantly more land and fossil fuel resources than a vegetarian diet. But, then, why on earth is it cheaper to eat meat than fresh fruit and vegetables?

Almost 75% of U.S. government subsidies go into meat and dairy production, but less than half a per cent goes into fruit and vegetable production.

source: http://www.celsias.com/2008/02/22/why-eating-a-big-mac-is-cheaper-than-eating-a-salad/

are you having a laugh?

a short essay by ricky gervais about the day he became an atheist.
link: http://www.rickygervais.com/bestlife.php

fish walks on land, then eats a human!

A SAVAGE fish that eats everything it comes across, including people, has been hooked by a British fisherman — sparking fears of a deadly invasion.

The giant snakehead, originating from South-East Asia, has a mouth crammed with teeth.

It’s deadly in the water, but it can also “crawl” on land and survive out of water for up to four days.

The discovery of the fish in Linconshire, northern England, has caused widespread panic amongst conservationists and anglers.


source: http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23245195-5005940,00.html

"you're all a bunch of fukin idiots" - c. darwin 1850

florida aint so dumb no more.




The word "evolution" is to be used in Florida's science classes for the first time.

Many people in the state oppose the teaching of evolution as scientific fact, proposing instead that teachers offer "alternatives" such as creationism or "intelligent design", which claims to be a rival theory purporting that life on Earth is so irreducibly complex that the random processes of evolution could not explain it.

Despite Darwin's ideas being overwhelmingly accepted in the scientific community and backed by a century's worth of compelling evidence, a recent Gallup poll showed that roughly half of all Americans do not believe that evolution is a fact.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/02/19/sciflorida119.xml

for an ass-handingly good argument against intelligent design, creationism, or any other fairy tales read the blind watch maker by richard dawkins.
link to amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393315703/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203635278&sr=8-1

reanimated...

The Reanimation Library is a small, independent library based in Brooklyn. It is a collection of books that have fallen out of mainstream circulation. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles across the country and given new life as resource material for artists, writers, and other cultural archeologists.






tons of great photos at source.
source: http://www.reanimationlibrary.org