Leahgates

I Dare You Hoooo!

So, this is Smudge. Hi Smudge! Smudge is a little owl. No, not a little owl, a Little Owl.

“I met Smudge the Little Owl at Loch Lomond Bird Sanctuary in Scotland. She is owned by the centre and was hand reared from only 5 weeks old. This has resulted in her friendly nature believing she is human. It is common for little owls of this breed to become aggressive after 1 year old but Smudge is now 4 and still adores cuddles, kisses and attention from visitors.” -Hazel W.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Birds

Squeaky Furball Alert in The Big Easy. Three endangered African Blackfooted penguin chicks have made their debut at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans!

Cuteporter Nick B. on the case with this one. Photos and video from the aquarium. Bonus points if you get the headline reference.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Penguins

I could seriously not love this woman more. In an ESPN profile, basketball phenom Brittney Griner, who recently became the first openly gay athlete to sign with Nike, talks about the bullying she experienced growing up and the more recent pressure she faced to keep quiet about her sexuality as a college player at Baylor.

“I am 100-percent happy. When I was at Baylor, I wasn’t fully happy because I couldn’t be all the way out. It feels so good saying it: I am a strong, black lesbian woman. Every single time I say it, I feel so much better.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about gender, sexuality, and sports lately for this Atlantic piece. As I mention there, when Griner “came out” oh-so-casually a couple months ago, it didn’t create the splash as Jason Collins’ announcement a couple weeks later, because it just confirmed the stereotypes people have about pro female athletes. But, as Jessica Luther explained, that’s not to say there isn’t a lot of homophobia in women’s sports. Griner’s experience at Baylor is a good illustration of the kind of backlash these stereotypes can create.

And that’s why it’s so inspiring that Griner consistently demands to have both her gender expression and sexual orientation recognized and respected. While her coach, Kim Mulkey, defended Griner in the face of insults about her gender, Griner said she felt like Mulkey was only sticking up for part of her. “If you’re up here protecting me, then protect all of me,” she says. “We can talk about gender, but we can’t talk about the fact that I’m a lesbian?” Meanwhile, outside of the sports world, she resists the pressure–felt by so many female athletes–to adopt a more feminine image. In fact, she’ll be wearing both men’s and women’s clothes for Nike. 

But what I love more than anything is how fully Griner embodies the huge gap between mere acceptance and celebration that Alexandra recently discussed. Griner hasn’t just come to “accept” herself after years of struggling with others’ judgements–she’s grow into her own identity, and she knows she’s the shit. “So many people exist between the two ends of the spectrum, but no one wants to admit it,” she says. “If you’re in between, they say something is wrong with you. ‘We can fix you.’ Well, I don’t need fixing.”

Joss Whedon wants more superheroine movies. Seconded!

Sexual abuse is rampant in juvenile detention centers–and it’s mostly committed by staff.

The Anonymous hacker involved in exposing the Steubenville case may spend more time behind bars than the rapists will.

The number of women in farming has risen to 1 million, accounting for 30 percent of U.S. farmers.

Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes.

kissingwrinkles:

Good morning campers! (at Cape Henlopen State Park)

pickleandharveybulldogblog:

Pickle would not give Harvey a turn with their shared favorite toy…so Harvey decided to sit on it.

beatonna:

abject-reptile:

Squidge (1915)

Once more unto the breach, dear Squidge, once more 

ze could build a whole library in there

franklindbulldog:

Mom, I’m too tired for pictures.

FDB is having a rough day

thefluffingtonpost:

Bulldog Appointed Chief of Staff for First Dog Bo

The White House has announced the appointment of Buddha, a bulldog, to as the new Chief of Staff for First Dog Bo. The Obama family pet has been without a Chief of Staff since the start of the second term, so this political appointment is long overdue.

Buddha, who graduated suma cum puppy from Harvard, will help Bo set his second term agenda. Though the position of First Dog has no official powers, he is historically very influential in dictating national canine policy.

Among the issues the two are expected to tackle are closing puppy mills, harsher punishments for dog fight promoters, and an educational campaign aimed at dogs about the danger of chasing cars.

Via _the_goat.

Your Wonkette PRISM Explainer, Part 2 Of Infinite: Which Morons Are Saying ... Wonkette (satire) This jaunty looking fellow is Stewart Baker, who is using his platform at Foreign Policy to patiently G-Mansplain to us why the government “needs” your phone calls and phone information and why you “shouldn't worry about it.” See, there is at least the ... and more »

chompsky:

Snugglepup

cooperschronicles:

All the space on the Heath…cooper decides to sit on my lap!

bigmamaunikorn:

the1johnson:

volkshaus:

apolitepunk:

This is the best dog ever.

Aw oh my god

Quite the dapper gent.

STOP OMG

leftbehindtime:

:’ oh my goodness

kissingwrinkles:

Sunning her spots (at Cape Henlopen State Park)

“With any of that Miley Cyrus shit, or any of that Vanessa Hudgens shit - I would never issue an apology for my life and for who I am. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry I took a naked, private picture that someone else is an asshole and sold for money. I’m sorry if someone else is a dick.’ No. You shouldn’t have to apologize. Someone betrayed Vanessa, but no one’s angry at that person. She had to apologize. I hate Disney for making her do that. Fuck Disney.”

-

Megan Fox (via lamegirlblog)

I wonder if I would like Megan Fox in real life

(via a-cheshire-cat-smile)

I had never wondered that before but I am wondering it now

“Long-time reader, first-time submitter. I would love to introduce you to Puddles, my 4 month old Shorkie. He enjoys walks, barking, smelling, farting and being a puppy! I would love to see him on your site!” -Missy L.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: puppies

STONY BROOK (US) — A new non-chemical solution literally stops bed bugs in their tracks.

The web consists of microfibers 50 times thinner than a human hair, which entangle and trap bed bugs and other insects.

USC (US) — Older women in China are much more likely to be in poor health and live in poverty than men are, according to a survey of general living conditions among the most rapidly aging population in the world.

The survey of 17,708 people over the age of 45 from both urban and rural areas, from a nationally representative sample of China except Tibet, found stark gender differences in how men and women age.

UC DAVIS (US) — Rounded pebbles on the surface of Mars indicate that a stream once flowed on the red planet, according to a new study.

Rounded pebbles of this size are known to form only when transported through water over long distances. They were discovered between the north rim of the planet’s Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater.

The finding, published in Science, represents the first on-site evidence of sustained water flows on the Mars landscape, and supports prospects that the planet could once have been able to host life.

U. PITTSBURGH (US) — There is a gender gap when it comes to behavior and self-control in American children—one that doesn’t appear to exist in children in Asia.

In the United States, according to a new study, girls have higher levels of self-regulation than boys. In China, South Korea, and Taiwan, the study found no gender gap when researchers directly assessed the self-regulation of children ranging in ages from 3 to 6 years old.

Self-regulation is defined as children’s ability to control their behavior and impulses, follow directions, and persist in completing a task. The results of the study appear in the most recent issue of the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

New evidence pushes back the origin of the turtle’s shell by about 40 million years, linking it to a 260-million-year-old fossil reptile from South Africa.

The connection to Eunotosaurus strengthens the fossil record and bolsters an existing theory about shell development while providing new details about its precise evolutionary pathway, researchers say.

“Now we’ve got an intermediate shell, a transitional form that bridges the gap between turtles and other reptiles and helps explain how the turtle shell evolved,” says Tyler Lyson, a curatorial affiliate of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University and a Smithsonian postdoctoral researcher. “Eunotosaurus is an early offshoot of the lineage that gave rise to modern turtles—it’s an early stem turtle.”

Molecular divergence studies indicate turtles split from a stem ancestor about 270 million years ago. But until 2008, the oldest turtle fossils, dating to about 210 million years ago, already had fully developed shells, leaving shell evolution a mystery.

That year a 220-million-year-old turtle-like fossil found in China showed a fully developed belly shell and broadened ribs, but not a full shell.

This demonstrated that the shell did not form through the accretion of ossified scales—as in all other animals with shells, such as armadillos, various lizards, and placodonts—but rather through the broadening of the ribs and vertebrae.

Published in Current Biology, Lyson’s analysis of more than 45 Eunotosaurus fossils—including new specimens and some of the most complete yet—reinforces and expands this view, showing some of the same features in an older animal and establishing a new proto-turtle.

The Eunotosaurus specimens have features found exclusively in turtles and in Eunotosaurus, researchers report—including nine broadened ribs, nine elongated trunk vertebrae, ribs that are T-shaped in cross-section, and paired abdominal ribs lacking lateral and medial elements. These elements emerge in this order in modern turtle embryos. And like turtles, Eunotosaurus had no muscles between its ribs.

“The first thing we see in a developing turtle embryo is the broadening of its ribs, followed by the broadening of its vertebrae, and finally by the acquisition of the osteoderms along the perimeter of the shell,” Lyson says. “Eunotosaurus fits neatly into this model.”

A histological analysis—the first of this kind for Eunotosaurus—confirmed other anatomical similarities.

“The consilience between the fossil and developmental data indicate that first the ribs broadened, found in Eunotosaurus, then the neural spines of the vertebrae broadened, found in later stem turtles, and finally osteoderms on the perimeter of the shell, found in most living turtles, formed, and everything sutured together to form the modern-day turtle shell.”

Support for the research came from Yale Peabody Museum, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Source: Yale University

The post Happy World Turtle day: How the turtle got its shell appeared first on Futurity.

U. YORK (UK) — Tiny wood-boring marine isopods are giving scientists clues on how to turn woody material into liquid fuel.

Known as gribbles, the crustaceans historically attacked the timber hulls of seafarers’ ships, and continue to wreak damage on wooden piers and docks in coastal communities.

UC BERKELEY (US) — Ancient Roman structures that have withstood the elements for more than 2,000 years are showing engineers how to make today’s concrete more durable and sustainable.

Using the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, engineers and geologists examined the fine-scale structure of Roman concrete. The findings showed for the first time how the extraordinarily stable compound—calcium-aluminum-silicate-hydrate (C-A-S-H)—binds the material used to build some of the most enduring structures in Western civilization.

GEORGIA TECH (US) — Animals that swim use a similar timing pattern to contract their muscles and undulate—including the sandfish lizard, which “swims” through sand.

Though differences in body flexibility may lead to different swimming styles, scientists have found “neuromechanical phase lags” in nearly all swimmers that are characterized by a wave of muscle activation that travels faster down the body than the wave of body curvature.

“A graduate student in our group, Yang Ding, who is now at the University of Southern California, was able to develop a theory that could explain the kinematics of how this animal swims as well as the timing of the nervous system control signals,” says Daniel Goldman, associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

Hello, my name is Ruby. I live in Norfolk, England. I get to spend time with my new best friend, Straw (she is 11 years old and we share the same great grandad). I love to play in the courtyard and when I am a bit bigger I will be able to play in the garden. I'm a bouncy, cheeky, playful girl who gets tired very quickly--but I will soon grow out of that.

Out of school, yeah
County fair in the country sun
And everything, it’s true, ooh, yeah, yeah
Hot fun in the summertime…

Lyrics by Sly Stone. Submitted by Anonymous.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Pigs