Cool facts about butterflies

1. Butterfly wings are transparent.

How can that be? We know butterflies as perhaps the most colorful, vibrant insects around! A butterfly wing is actually formed by layers of chitin, the protein that makes up an insect’s exoskeleton. These layers are so thin you can see right through them. 

 Thousands of tiny scales cover the transparent chitin, and these scales reflect light in different colors. As a butterfly ages, scales fall off the wings, leaving spots of transparency where the chitin layer is exposed.

2. Butterflies taste with their feet.

Taste receptors on a butterfly’s feet help it find its host plant and locate food. A female butterfly lands on different plants, drumming the leaves with her feet to make the plant release its juices. 

Spines on the back of her legs have chemoreceptors that detect the right match of plant chemicals. When she identified the right plant, she lays her eggs. A butterfly will also step on its food, using organs that sense dissolved sugars to taste food sources like fermenting fruit.

3. Butterflies can’t fly if they’re cold.

Butterflies need an ideal body temperature of about 85ºF to fly. Since they’re cold-blooded animals, they can’t regulate their own body temperatures. The surrounding air temperature has a big impact on their ability to function. If the air temperature falls below 55ºF, butterflies are rendered immobile, unable to flee from predators or feed. 

When air temperatures range between 82º-100ºF, butterflies can fly with ease. Cooler days require a butterfly to warm up its flight muscles, either be shivering or basking in the sun. And even sun-loving butterflies can get overheated when temperatures soar above 100ºF, and may seek shade to cool down.

Malala Yousafzai

At first, the Pakistani girl blogged anonymously about her desire to go to school without fear in a part of the country where the Taliban had once imposed strict Sharia law. Then, with the surprising encouragement of her devout Muslim father, Malala Yousafzai wrote in her own name and revealed her face to the world, a symbol of young women around the world seeking empowerment. She became the subject of a documentary and a celebrity of sorts in the world of nonprofit organizations. 

Who knew that such prominence would put her life at risk? 

On Oct. 9, 2012, Taliban gunmen boarded her school bus, sought her out and shot her in the head. Eventually airlifted to a hospital in Britain, she survived her severe wounds. 

In the meantime, Malala, now 15, has become an inspiration not only in her native Pakistan — where the culture wars over women's rights and religious diversity have taken many violent turns — but all around the globe.  

Malala is now a first name that hundreds of thousands of people know. But in a way, hers is an even more moving story, because the saga is not just of a brave young girl but also of a father willing to risk local opprobrium to raise his daughter — not a son — as a proud example for the world. It is among the tenderest of stories in the world of conservative Islam.

The Evolution Of The Eye

“Some very simple animals have nothing more than light sensitive spots, that enable them to tell the difference between light and dark. But if a patch of such spots formed in even the shallowest of pits, one edge of the pit would throw a shadow and so reveal the direction of light. If the pit got deeper and started to close, then light would form a blurred image. Mucous secreted by the cells would bend the light and focus it. If this mucus hardened it would form a proper lens and transmit a brighter and clearer image.

All these different, fully functional, stages at different levels of complexity are found in living animals today. Some single-celled creatures have one of those light-sensitive spots. Flatworms have a small pit containing light spots, so they can detect the shadow of a predator. A snail’s blurry vision is good enough to enable it to find its way to food. And the octopus has an eye with a proper lens and can see as much detail as we can. So the structure of the human eye does not demand the assistance of a supernatural designer. It could have evolved gradually, with each stage bringing a real advantage - as Darwin’s theory demands.”

► David Attenborough

There Will Never Be Peace

 

 

"Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

"We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in...

"We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in;
 Sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

"There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalising this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.

"We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.

"ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"

- The Gaza Youth Manifesto

Seeing Faces

What makes us see Jesus in a taco, or a human face on Mars?

Photographer Todd Terwilliger calls this picture “Skull Flower,” for reasons that should be obvious. Its resemblance to a human cranium is, of course, purely coincidental — yet the urge for our minds to register this plant as a piece of human anatomy is all but impossible to resist. But why?

The one-word answer, as some of you may know, is “pareidolia.” But here’s what you don’t know: scientists this week presented some of the most compelling evidence to date that this pscyhological phenomenon is mediated by a region of the brain known as the fusiform gyrus. 

How did they find this culprit? Simple: by jolting that part of the brain with electricity, and watching their test subject’s perception of reality liquefy into mind-bending absurdity.

Basically, we humans have this niggling habit of extracting what we believe to be significant information from patently insignificant stimuli. It’s where we get Jesus-toast, and why we find familiar objects in shape shifting cumulus, like this face on the surface of Mars:



And, of course, skulls (not to mention other anatomical features) in flowers. Point being: our brains are wired-up in such a way that we often see things that aren’t really there — but again: why? For pareidolia in general the answer is somewhat muddled; but on the subject of faces, specifically, scientists have some very strong leads.

The leading hypothesis is that our tendency to recognize faces in nonhuman objects is a highly evolved survival trait. As Carl Sagan wrote in The Demon-Haunted World:

As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper. These days, nearly every infant is quick to identify a human face, and to respond with a goony grin.

This makes a lot of sense. Being able to not only spot a face, but decipher the emotional, social, or sexual cues signalled by that visage, could score you a meal, save your life, or land you a mate — all things that are crucial to the propagation of your genes.

Scientists have traced our ability to perceive faces to a few key regions of the brain. Functional MRI, positron emission tomography, and other brain-imaging studies, for example, have shown that the fusiform gyri and the inferior temporal gyri light up when a person is shown pictures of faces, or objects resembling faces. 

Damage to the fusiform area is known to give rise to prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder (more commonly known as “face blindness”) characterized by the inability to recognize faces.

The Decline Of The Human Race

Is the human species doomed to intellectual decline? Will our intelligence ebb away in centuries to come leaving our descendants incapable of using the technology their ancestors invented? In short: will Homo be left without his sapiens?

This is the controversial hypothesis of a leading geneticist who believes that the immense capacity of the human brain to learn new tricks is under attack from an array of genetic mutations that have accumulated since people started living in cities a few thousand years ago.

Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, has put forward the iconoclastic idea that rather than getting cleverer, human intelligence peaked several thousand years ago and from then on there has been a slow decline in our intellectual and emotional abilities.

Although we are now surrounded by the technological and medical benefits of a scientific revolution, these have masked an underlying decline in brain power which is set to continue into the future leading to the ultimate dumbing-down of the human species, Professor Crabtree said.

His argument is based on the fact that for more than 99 per cent of human evolutionary history, we have lived as hunter-gatherer communities surviving on our wits, leading to big-brained humans. Since the invention of agriculture and cities, however, natural selection on our intellect has effective stopped and mutations have accumulated in the critical “intelligence” genes.

“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues,” Professor Crabtree says in a provocative paper published in the journal Trends in Genetics.

“Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues. I would also make this wager for the ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia, India or the Americas, of perhaps 2,000 to 6,000 years ago,” Professor Crabtree says.

“The basis for my wager comes from new developments in genetics, anthropology, and neurobiology that make a clear prediction that our intellectual and emotional abilities are genetically surprisingly fragile,” he says.

A comparison of the genomes of parents and children has revealed that on average there are between 25 and 65 new mutations occurring in the DNA of each generation. Professor Crabtree says that this analysis predicts about 5,000 new mutations in the past 120 generations, which covers a span of about 3,000 years.
Some of these mutations, he suggests, will occur within the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that are involved in human intellectual ability, for instance by building and mapping the billions of nerve cells of the brain or producing the dozens of chemical neurotransmitters that control the junctions between these brain cells.

Life as a hunter-gatherer was probably more intellectually demanding than widely supposed, he says. “A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate,” Professor Crabtree says.

However, other scientists remain sceptical. “At first sight this is a classic case of Arts Faculty science. Never mind the hypothesis, give me the data, and there aren’t any,” said Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London.

“I could just as well argue that mutations have reduced our aggression, our depression and our penis length but no journal would publish that. Why do they publish this?” Professor Jones said.

“I am an advocate of Gradgrind science – facts, facts and more facts; but we need ideas too, and this is an ideas paper although I have no idea how the idea could be tested,” he said.

          

THE DESCENT OF MAN

Hunter-gatherer man

The human brain and its immense capacity for knowledge evolved during this long period of prehistory when we battled against the elements

Athenian man

The invention of agriculture less than 10,000 years ago and the subsequent rise of cities such as Athens relaxed the intensive natural selection of our “intelligence genes”.

Couch-potato man

As genetic mutations increase over future generations, are we doomed to watching  soap-opera repeats without knowing how to use the TV remote control?
 
iPad man

The fruits of science and technology enabled humans to rise above the constraints of nature and cushioned our fragile intellect from genetic mutations.

Australian Child Sex Abuse

The Prime Minister said the terms of reference for the royal commission would be worked on in coming weeks, before the persons to lead the inquiry were appointed.

“I want to get this right,” Ms Gillard said in Canberra.

“So, over the next few weeks, we will be consulting with the organisations that represent the survivors of child abuse, with religious organisations, with state and territory gov

ernments, to ensure the terms of reference are right.”

The inquiry will not be confined to the Catholic Church, but extend to all religious organisations and to children in state care, and into other institutions including schools.

Mr Gillard said she had already spoken to the premiers of NSW and Victoria, states which are already pursuing their own inquiries.

“Both of them are prepared to take a cooperative approach,” she said.

Mr Gillard said any instance of child abuse was a vile and evil thing.

 

 

ABOUT FUCKING TIME

Basic Political Terms

Absolutism. System where the rulers have unlimited control.

Anarchism. Society without government, laws, police or other authority. System of self-control.

Aristocracy. The privilege of social class whose members possess disproportionately large percentage of society's wealth, prestige and political influence.

Autocracy. Supreme political power is in the hands of one person whose decision are unregulated.

Capitalism.  Right-wing political system where the principle means of production and distribution are in private hands. 

Communism.  Extreme left-wing ideology based on the revolutionary socialist teachings of Marx. Collective ownership and a planned economy. Each should work to their capability and receive according to their needs.

Conservatism. Governmental system where the existing institution are maintained, emphasizing free-enterprise and minimal governmental intervention.

Democracy. Government by the people usually through elected representatives.

Dictatorship. Government by a single person with absolute control over the resources of the state.

Egalitarianism. Belief where all citizens have equal rights and privileges.

Fascism.  Extreme right-wing ideology where the existing social order is protected by the forcible suppression of the working class.

Imperialism. The extension of power and rule beyond established geographical boundaries.

Liberalism. Representative government, free-speech, abolition of class privilege and state protection of the individual.

Marxism. Developed by Marx and Engles, it proposes that all is subject to change and resistance to change necessitates the overthrow of the system through class struggle.

Maoism. Interpretation of Marxist communism emphasizing the development of agriculture.

Monarchy. A form of rule in which the head of state is a King or Queen.

Nationalism. The unification of the state and release from foreign rule.

Oligarchy. A system of government in which virtually all power is held a small number of wealthy people who shape policy to benefit themselves.

Populism. Collective noun for the ideologies which demand the redistribution of political power and economic leadership to the 'common people'.

Socialism.  Left-wing political system where the principle means of production, distribution and exchange are in common ownership. 

Theocracy. Rule by the church.

Totalitarianism. Government control of all activities.

Trotskyism. Form of Marxism incorporating the concept of permanent revolution.

THE LEFT

liberty.  The freedom of speech and the right to dissent. 

equality.  A classless society with the redistribution of wealth through a welfare state. 

fraternity.  The communal brotherhood, working and living as one.

THE RIGHT

authority.  The preservation of order through an evolved authority. 

hierarchy.  The continuation of the existing social order. 

property.  The right to private ownership.

NOTHING IS GONNA CHANGE FUCK HOPE

TWO TERMS MOTHERFUCKER, LOOK AT THIS FUCKING GUY, HIS GRIN IS ABLAZED WITH GLORIOUS SATISFACTION AND VICTORY,AWWWWWWYEAHHHHHHHHHHH

Today was the day America decided on socialism and welfare over independence and capitalism.

But in reality nothing much will change internally. The Democrats control the majority of the Senate, while the Republicans control the House. No matter who is President, the bills they try to pass will no doubt be blocked by the opposition in Congress and vice versa.

Here we fucking go again.

And i was looking forward to laughing my ass off as everything went to shit, maybe it still will.

 

HOLD THE FUCK UP

>Black President sworn in a second term
>Weed has been legalized in some states
>State Governor publicly announces he is gay
>Same-sex marriage legalized in some states

vs

if Romney was around

>Banning abortions 

> Tax cuts to rich coporation buddies

>0 fucks given about healthcare and the poor

>Shipping millions of jobs to China 

>Having everyone pray to God and wear magic underwear. 

SOME HOPE????

I wonder how Romney'll feel when he wakes up tomorrow morning and realizes he just wasted 6 years of his life only to fail and permanently destroy any chance of getting back into politics?

It makes my dick hard just thinking about it.

WOMEN IN AMERICA, YOUR UTERUSES ARE SAFE FOR ANOTHER 4 YEARS REJOICE