Leahgates

Alllll aboooooard!

Tickeets. Tickeets please.

Chub Chub train’s leaving the station.

Chubba Chubba,

Choo chooo-oo.

Oops, we have a loose caboose.

Eight miniature piglets (5 girls, 3 boys) born this spring at Zoo Basel, Switzerland. Via Zooborns.

(Warning: These photos are simply off-the-scale QTE. We advise sitting down when viewing. Don’t look at these on your phone while jogging, or you’ll hit a pole. OK, let’s proceed.)

BRAND NEW GOLDIE PUPPEH ALERT! Cuteporter Josh sent us these, and he could use YOUR help. His Goldie Furball needs a name. We can do this, can’t we, People? Hit those comments hard with suggestions! Speaking of comments, here are Josh’s with each photo. Take it away, J.

UPDATE 1 From Josh, just in:
“I’ve been reading the comments. Lots of great suggestions in there! I think I’m going to go through all the comments in detail when I’m home from work tonight and make a list of my favorites! Thank you for getting this posted. I’ll send you more pics and videos once I pick him up!”

UPDATE 2: We have some video. It’s, well, swell. Clickee.

Hi there! I recently went to pick out my first dog ever – a Golden Retriever! This little guy is who I picked out!

Thought you might enjoy the photo sequence my friend took of me getting a puppy kiss!

They were born May 7th, so that’s too young to bring home- I’m waiting until he is 8 weeks old.

The pups are in Atlanta but I live in Florida.

I’ll be road-tripping to Atlanta with a friend to pick up The Furball then driving back with him.

I’ve always wanted a Golden Retriever!

I work at a camera store….

…..and he’ll be with me at work keeping my feet warm every day!

Josh has also promised photos/video when he heads up to Atlanta..so we’ll get a SEQUEL!

DUKE (US) — Scientists have found distinct personalities in grey mouse lemurs, the saucer-eyed primates native to Madagascar.

Anyone who has ever owned a pet will tell you that it has a unique personality. Yet only in the last 10 years has the study of animal personality started to gain ground with behavioral ecologists, says Jennifer Verdolin of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center.

In a study published in the journal Primates, Verdolin gave fourteen gray mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) living at the Duke University Lemur Center a personality test.

U. YORK (UK) — As climate change forces birds in Tanzania to head west, protected areas set aside for mammals are keeping them alive.

Using data on savannah birds from the Tanzanian Bird Atlas project, which has documented Tanzanian bird distributions over recent decades, the researchers found that they are using protected areas as stepping stones as they move to areas further west where dry seasons are getting longer, with movements of up to 300km noted.

Much debate has centered on the effectiveness of the current protected area network to protect biodiversity in the face of climate and environmental changes.

MICHIGAN STATE (US) — Sustainability programs are a Goldilocks proposition—the environment benefits when the size of a group of people working to save it is just right, say researchers.

Scientists have found that there is a sweet spot—a group size at which the action is most effective. More importantly, the work reveals how behaviors of group members can pull bad policy up or drag good policy down. The work is published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This paper finds that group size does matter—and the answer is right in the middle,” says Jianguo “Jack” Liu, chair of sustainability at Michigan State University and director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS).

U. PITTSBURGH (US) — A 350-year-old math mystery could lead to a better understanding of medical conditions like epilepsy or the behavior of predator-prey systems in the wild, say researchers.

The mystery dates back to 1665, when Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Christiaan Huygens, inventor of the pendulum clock, first observed that two pendulum clocks mounted together could swing in opposite directions. The cause was tiny vibrations in the beam caused by both clocks, affecting their motions.

The effect, now referred to by scientists as “indirect coupling,” was not mathematically analyzed until nearly 350 years later, and deriving a formula that explains it remains a challenge to mathematicians still.

Those of us concerned about the sexual assault epidemic ravaging the military can all the chill out, thanks to some really awesome news: women who join the military are pathological freaks who make up stories about being raped out of spite, for money or for attention. This, at least, is the opinion of esteemed (by fellow homophobic-racist- misogynists) “journalist” John Derbyshire. If that name sounds familiar, you’re either a FHRM (fellow homophobic-racist-misogynist) or you remember when Derbyshire urged white parents to follow his lead and have that really important, life-saving talk with their children about the birds and the bees the blacks. He advised his own children to, among other racist tricks, “(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally,” “(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods,” “If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date.” This got him fired from The National Review.

Luckily for him, and us, Taki’s Magazine, which describes itself as “a Libertarian webzine” and calls itself by the affectionate nickname “Takimag,” welcomed Drebyshire with open arms and he joined the ranks of FHRM columnists like Pat Buchanan. In an article for his cleverly named “Derbtown” column, called “The Sexual Harassment Panic” (I love it already), “the Derb” (if you will, and I hope you will) explains that he’s just here to help: “My work here aims to be constructive: to apprise the US military of some true facts that might assist them in pushing back against the USC tsunami.” He then lays out his points with the same organization and clarity he did in his article on the blacks. I paraphrase but also include his original language to demonstrate the importance of his argument, the precision of his language, and the shocking fact that I’m not exaggerating or distorting his screed. But perhaps my greatest motivation for pasting screenshots instead of linking to the article is this plea that appears when I copy and paste the text:

“Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki’s Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don’t get paid for their work.”

So, in italics, I present my translation of “The Derb” and below each translation is a screenshot from his article.

1. What do you expect to happen when you mix the sexes? This is why women shouldn’t be in the army, and integration will be the ruin of civilization. I also cannot concentrate when any women are around, because I’m a pathological horndog.

2. When men outnumber ladies they can’t control themselves. It’s hard for them and they suffer all sorts of feelings. They can’t get anything done. I know because I’m a pathological horndog.

3. Powerful men make women horny. Men know this and unless they relieve themselves suffer extreme blue balls. I am in pain as I write this.

4. Men like to blow shit up because of their DNA. While normal women stay home, pop out kids and love needle point, women who join the army are freaks-of-nature nut jobs, who lie about sexual assault for ulterior motives. But also, if there are any real cases of sexual assault, it’s because human nature and women in the army. See above.

5. If a woman says she was sexually assaulted, she probably just means she regrets having sex with the guy. And I know because I asked a real-life lady friend about this, this one time.

6. Shouldn’t the army be more worried about fighting wars than about a little bit of mass, systemic, entrenched and widespread sexual assault. And am I a funny, clever sarcastic guy, or what?

Vote Morris For Mayor, that is. It seems that Morris The Cat is running for mayor in the town of Xalapa, Mexico. He’s got his social media strategy working, with FB & Twitter accounts getting out the word. (Helps to speak Spanish if you’re gonna click those, FWIW.)

Morris’s platform, judging from this video, is to…knock things off the table. According to Time.com, Morris wants to “get the rats out,” -you can take that two ways- and “do what other politicians do, namely sleep and do nothing.”

Good luck to Big Mo!

Think we’re gonna need a tow truck here to haul Jaz’s keester outta the sack.

Discovered while randoming viewing The Tube.

academictyra:

WHAT. THE. HELL. 

Apparently, not everyone got the memo, or maybe y’all thought I was joking with #5, so it’s on the list again as #7. 

Read More

U. MISSOURI (US) — Survivors of intimate partner violence aren’t getting the mental health services they need, but family physicians are in the position to change that, say researchers.

“More than half of the women participating in our study suffered from depression, PTSD, or both illnesses,” says Mansoo Yu, an assistant professor of social work at University of Missouri.

DUKE (US) — Video game players capture more information faster for visual decision-making, but lose information as quickly as non-gamers do.

Hours spent at the video gaming console not only train a player’s hands to work the buttons on the controller, they probably also train the brain to make better and faster use of visual input.

CALTECH (US) — People judged faces as more attractive after their brains were stimulated with a weak electrical current.

Scientists say the results suggest the tool used to deliver the electrical stimulation could be used to noninvasively manipulate deep regions of the brain—and perhaps serve as a new approach to study and treat a variety of deep-brain neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.

U. PITTSBURGH (US) — Universal access to paid sick days would reduce flu cases in the workplace by nearly 6 percent, a new analysis shows.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people with flu stay home for 24 hours after their fever breaks,” says lead researcher Supriya Kumar, a postdoctoral associate in the University of Pittsburgh’s Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology.

“However, not everyone is able to follow these guidelines. Many more workers in small workplaces than in large ones lack access to paid sick days and hence find it difficult to stay home when ill.

MCGILL (CAN) — The nervous system may play more of a role in arthritis than previously thought, a finding that suggests reducing levels of nerve-growth factor (NGF) could lead to better pain treatments.

Arthritis is poorly managed in most patients, since adequate treatments are lacking—and the therapies that do exist to ease arthritis pain often cause serious side effects, particularly when used long-term.

Researchers say any hope for developing more effective treatments for arthritis relies on understanding the processes driving the condition.

Bugsy the bulldog babysitter is at it again – this time tenderly looking after little Malone, the orphaned orangutan.

Fave Frame:

Bulldog kisses orangutan via YouTube.

blitheslife:

I am so into this it hurts.

U. CHICAGO (US) — By examining marine bivalves—scallops, cockles, and oysters—a new study shows that most evolutionary lineages started in the tropics and expanded outward.

Although scientists have known since the middle of the 19th century that the tropics are teeming with species while the poles harbor relatively few, the origin of the most dramatic and pervasive biodiversity on Earth has never been clear. New research sheds light on how that pattern came about and that the tropics have been and continue to be the Earth’s engine of biodiversity.