Rafaelh.souza

Capybaras That Look Like Rafael Nadal

Australia MAY just take The Big J’s place in our Global Cute Hierarchy. (And there wasn’t even such a thing. Until now.) When you realize The Big A has Quokkas…Wombats…AND Koalas; well…whadya think? The Big J…or The Big A? (Although we’ll knock some points off The Big A for those horrendous big ol’ honkin’ spiders.)

Koala photo from Imgur.

Frugalhound has absolutely no idea what’s going on here. And that makes two of us.

[*Note: Be looking for the Easter Bunday Mini-Marathon beginning this Bunday at 6am (PT.) We’re rockin’ the Easter Bunday QTE for 12 straight hours up ’til 6pm (PT.) Or ’til we pass out in a Cadbury Cream Egg coma. -Ed.]

The Mashable story says that a couple forgot to tell their kitteh that they just had a bebeh hoomin. #Whoops

SHOCKED KITTEH-HANCE!

Or a blanket, maybe a space heater. What I’m sayin’ is, I’m frickin’ cold here!

An African Gray parrot baby from Papooga.

You are so snarfable…to me.
You are sooo snarfable—to me.
can’t you seeeeee?

You’re everything I hoped for
You’re everything I neeeeeeed
You are…so snarfable… to meeeeeeeee! [voice cracking]

[Throwback Thursday Original Posting™. -Ed.]

I’m not kidding. The email says he wrote it with help. Here’s what we got.

“Hello Cute Overload!

My name is Westley. I was named after the hero in the Princess Bride. I am a young explorer living in the Pacific Northwest. I’m still discovering all the world has to offer me. I LOVE squeaky toys, chewing on sticks, and meeting new friends- both furry and human kind. I finally conquered my biggest fear: climbing down stairs. Yahoo! Now I can focus on the fun things with my human! You can visit my Instagram page. Take care!! (Excuse any typos in the message, my human had to write for me.)

Westley

Sent from my iPhone

WESTLEY has an iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone. Grumble grumble.

The stories of a unique bond between a child and their pet are as timeless as they come, but rarely does the pet have wings. Such is the case with photographer Cameron Bloom whose son Noah happened upon a baby magpie in 2013 when the family was out walking near their home in Newport, Australia. After consulting with a veterinarian, the family learned to raise the orphaned bird, who they affectionately named Penguin.

A year later, the curious bird has deeply integrated with the family. Despite being free to come and go outdoors, she always returns to the Bloom household where Cameron, his wife Sam, and their sons Rueben, Noah, and Oli eagerly await her return. On rare occasions, Penguin even shows off her adopted family to other magpies who have followed her inside the house.

For the past year, Bloom has dutifully snapped photos which he publishes on a wildly popular Instagram account. Seriously people, it’s amazing; follow it now, ask questions later. The feels. Penguin pretty much gets the run of the house and is free to snuggle with the family in bed, get tangled in their hair, or help with homework.

Just yesterday, New York Times bestselling author Bradley Trevor Greive announced that he’ll be writing a book about Penguin and the Blooms, accompanied by Cameron’s photography. You can see more on his website. All photos shared here courtesy the photographer. (via Beautiful Decay, ABC)

A trio of researchers at Stanford recently published an article in Nature that explains the curious attraction found in droplets of everyday food coloring. The paper is the culmination of hundreds of experiments that began in 2009 when Nate Circa was working on an unrelated experiment as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. Circa noticed that when drops of food coloring were placed on a slide they exhibited bizarre behaviors: identical colors would find matches while different colors would seemingly hunt each other.

Circa soon teamed up with Manu Prakash and Adrien Benusiglio who began working on a series of increasingly refined studies to understand why these single droplets appeared to mimic biological processes, resulting in behaviors that looked like chasing, dancing, or avoidance. One of the keys was the interaction of two different compounds found in food coloring: water and propylene glycol. Tom Abate writing for Stanford explains:

The critical fact was that food coloring is a two-component fluid. In such fluids, two different chemical compounds coexist while retaining separate molecular identities. The droplets in this experiment consisted of two molecular compounds found naturally in food coloring: water and propylene glycol. The researchers discovered how the dynamic interactions of these two molecular components enabled inanimate droplets to mimic some of the behaviors of living cells.

This complex behavior is something called artificial chemotaxis which Manu Prakash explains in layman’s terms in the video above:

The physical properties of these fluids give rise to this immense complexity of behavior. For example, chasing and sensing each other, and very much what we call artificial chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is the idea in biology that one single cell can sense where its enemy is, and it brings up all its machinery, and it chases that enemy to try to eat it.

If you really want to get into the nitty gritty of fluid dynamics and molecular physics you can read the full paper in Nature and a bit of a summary on Stanford News. (via, appropriately, F*ck Yeah Fluid Dynamics)

Flipping through the Ewok Dictionary, that translates to “Over the top silly.” As far as this Ewok Puppeh photo goes, that would be 100% yesh. (Correct.)

(Imgur.)

pancakethedoxie:

People on the street lose their minds when Pancake wears her raincoat.

On March 31 the Swedish Museum Of Natural History opens a new exhibition called Fossils & Evolution. My part of this production was to provide illustrations of the animals in their natural environment. With permission from the museum, I’m releasing the material on my website. I couldn’t have done these images without the help from the following people at NRM: 

• Thomas Mörs - Senior Curator, Fossil Vertebrates 
• Stephen McLoughlin -Senior Curator, Paleobotany
• Christian Skovsted - Senior Curator, Fossil Invertebrates
  
• Daniella Kalthoff - Curator, Zoology
  
• Tove Frambäck - Producer

For the full series, go here.

For information about the exhibition go here.

barrageofnerdery:

guy:

mistressmalfoy:

my dad doesn’t believe that dogs can smile so here is a compilation of 10 of my fave smiling dog pictures

I can’t wait to grow up and own 30 dogs

The happiest post on the internet.

[*Note: A few C.O. Readers brought up “Where’s Bea?” in the Comments section of yesterday’s Winter post. Five years later, here’s Bea. -Ed.]

Sense of direct-shons? No.

CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP:

Eve S., Where’s Bea!?

[Now you guys hold still. EVERYONE gets a turn! Just quite yer’ squigglin,’ OK?]

(Mashable.)

(via sizvideos:Video)

In 2009, Canadian economist Ross McKitrick was asked by a journalist for his thoughts on the importance of the annual one-hour event in energy self-flagellation and green nitwitery known as Earth Hour, which takes place today, March 28, at 8:30 p.m. Here is his excellent response (my emphasis):

I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.

Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water.

Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases. Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that’s how the west developed.

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity.

People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.

I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.

Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply.

If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.

No thanks. I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.

MP: The winner for Earth Hour every year since 2003 has been North Korea (see photo below of the Korean peninsula at night). Odds favor them to be the winner again this year.

The post Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty, and backwardness appeared first on AEI.

airyairyquitecontrary:

The vet suggested a shirt instead of a cone for my cat.

I FUCKING HATE THIS PICTURE PLEASE I NEED EXPLANATIONS

4gifs:

Not sure what these are but I think they need petting. [video]

(Had another headline in mind but wanted to have a word with an Umlaut in there.)

“My friend, Autumn, just got a new puppeh and gave me permission to send her prosh photos in. Her name is Sjöfn Skye, after the Norse goddess of affection/reconciliation. She is a Blue Merle Australian Shepherd and is 7 weeks young.” -Jenn from Virginia.

P.S. “I just asked my friend how she pronounces her puppeh’s name. “Sjöfn” is pronounced “See-yo-fun”….I thought this was cute.” -Jenn.

4gifs:

Fearow used Drill Peck. A critical hit! It’s super effective! Hamsterdog fainted.

4gifs:

Don’t mess with me. I’m a cat. [video]

yencid:

yoshi-the-navy-beast:

kinedafish:

dilapidatedragamuffin:

Can we talk about Spy Kids 3 for a second because it’s just the MOST BAFFLING CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE EVER

First we open to LITTLE BABY SELENA GOMEZ

THE PRESIDENT IS GEORGE CLOONEY?

Later we see Juni’s grandpa who is KHAN??

who spends the whole movie chasing a butterfly

THE VILLAIN IS SYLVESTER STALLONE

WHO GETS VILLAIN ADVICE FROM THREE OTHER SYLVESTER STALLONES

ELIJAH WOOD SHOWS UP

ONLY TO DIE IN THE NEXT SCENE

Then we find out that the president was actually the villain the whole time which makes ZERO SENSE but leads to this glorious George Clooney Sylvester Stallone impression

Then we get Antonio Benderez doing this?

AND THEIR UNCLE WHO IS STILL MACHETE

AND THEN STEVE BUSCEMI SHOWS UP ON A FLYING PIG FOR NO REASON

HOW WAS THIS A MOVIE???

what the fuck

Someone was high…. Scratch that, several someone’s were high

but the best part is that its the actual machete from machete kills and machete kills again

ok but like imagine watching this in theaters where the 3d transfer was so bad everything just looked red green and brown while this nonsense was happening. It was a cinematic bad trip