HOW TO: Fish in the desert
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
In the United Arab Emirates, a freshwater lake has appeared in the middle of the desert. The oasis is beautiful and full of life, and it’s risen 35 feet since 2011. It’s also probably accidentally man-made.
Hydrologists believe the lake formed from recycled drinking water (and toilet water). The nearby city of Al Ain pumps in desalinated sea water, uses it for drinking and flushing the toilet, cleans it in a sewage treatment plant, and then re-uses it to water plants. All of that water ends up in the soil and, at the lake site, it comes back up.
The water is clean, writes Ari Daniel Shapiro at NPR. Don’t worry about that. Instead, the major side-effect of the lake is change, as scientists watch the desert ecosystem that used to exist on the site decline, and a new one rise to take its place. It’s a great story that shows how complicated discussions about ecology can be. On the one hand, you’re losing something valuable. At least in this one spot. On the other hand, you’re definitely gaining something valuable, too.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
To understand art, it helps to understand the mind, says Eric Kandel. “I see psychoanalysis, art, and biology ultimately coming together”... more
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Long dinosaur is long
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Diplodocus is a sauropod – one of those dinosaurs whose shape you probably associate with the name “brontosaurus”. Except that Diplodocus was long. Really long. At an average length of 90 feet, it’s longest dinosaur ever found.
Also: It might have had spines up and down its neck.
Check out this LiveScience piece by Kim Ann Zimmermann for more fun Diplodocus facts.
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Touched by a mountain gorilla
via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin
This video clip has been around since 2011, but it may be new for you. It documents photographer John King’s “amazing chance encounter with a troop of wild mountain gorillas near Bwindi National Park, Uganda”, and at around 3 minutes in, shows a cameraman being curiously poked and cuddled by a female and her babies. Definitely a cure for any case of the bummers you may be experiencing today. Don’t miss the look the gorilla gives the human around 5:11, before it walks away. As a commenter put it, “ALPHA AS FUCK”.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Forgery at its finest. The biggest art scam in history netted millions for a German hippie and his wife. Then they lost it all... more
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Haunted House – Quest for the Magic Book
via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game you embark on a quest into a haunted house to search for a magic book – a search that will have to be conducted room by room in order to successfully make your way through the house.
Will your quest be successful or will you go home empty handed?
Asian Angel’s walk-through may help you or you may decide to brave all those ghosts and other things by yourself.
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Iron Horse: 1923
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Washington, D.C., circa 1923
“Bethlehem Steel – Washington Terminal Co”
National Photo Company Collection glass negative
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Some dream of a theory of everything, a unity of knowledge. But maybe disciplinary boundaries are not so much an accident of history as a result of how we understand the world... more
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working the room
via 3quarksdaily by Morgan Meis
When Lincoln finished with a remark, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “He looks up at you with a great satisfaction, and shows all his white teeth, and laughs”. Lincoln had an ear for entertaining, collecting anecdotes like the drunken hog-stealing tale and keeping them at the ready to make a point.
“I remember a good story when I hear it,” he said, “but I never invented anything original. I am only a retail dealer.” We should perhaps take the comment as something of a dissemblance. It is difficult to imagine who else could have originated this snide remark in a letter to Gen. George B. McClellan, his eventual opponent in the 1864 election, when the general failed to advance against the Confederacy with the speed Lincoln would have liked: “If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while”.
more from Michael Phillips-Anderson at Lapham’s Review here
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Demon Destroyer
via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game you are on a mission to destroy all the demons you encounter, but your only weapon is an army of enhanced tadpoles. Wait a moment…tadpoles?!!
Can you succeed using this most unlikely of weapons or will the demons have the last laugh?
Check it out using Asian Angel’s walk-through or take a chance that the tadpoles don’t turn into frogs before you can get rid of the demons by going straight to the game
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