Posts tagged: cool
Guy Beringer didn’t set out to invent a new meal. Then he had a few drinks…
Continue reading: The Genius Who Invented Brunch
this seal, lobodon carcinophagus, is called a crab-eating seal, but its main diet consists of krill, which it filters out of the water through its complexly cusped teeth.
Incredible!
This, quite frankly, makes me want to die.
Mary Doodles
I love her work, all of it.
Evolution Is Still Happening: Beneficial Mutations in Humans
Tetrachromatic vision. Most mammals have poor color vision because they have only two kinds of cones, the retinal cells that discriminate different colors of light. Humans, like other primates, have three kinds, the legacy of a past where good color vision for finding ripe, brightly colored fruit was a survival advantage.
The gene for one kind of cone, which responds most strongly to blue, is found on chromosome 7. The two other kinds, which are sensitive to red and green, are both on the X chromosome. Since men have only one X, a mutation which disables either the red or the green gene will produce red-green colorblindness, while women have a backup copy. This explains why this is almost exclusively a male condition.
But here’s a question: What happens if a mutation to the red or the green gene, rather than disabling it, shifts the range of colors to which it responds? (The red and green genes arose in just this way, from duplication and divergence of a single ancestral cone gene.)
To a man, this would make no real difference. He’d still have three color receptors, just a different set than the rest of us. But if this happened to one of a woman’s cone genes, she’d have the blue, the red and the green on one X chromosome, and a mutated fourth one on the other… which means she’d have four different color receptors. She would be, like birds and turtles, a natural “tetrachromat”, theoretically capable of discriminating shades of color the rest of us can’t tell apart. (Does this mean she’d see brand-new colors the rest of us could never experience? That’s an open question.)
And we have evidence that just this has happened on rare occasions. In one study of color discrimination, at least one woman showed exactly the results we would expect from a true tetrachromat.
woah cool
Qamar Hashim is an 8-year-old Iraqi photographer. He tours famous streets to picture Baghdadis with his single camera and is the youngest Iraqi photographer to win several local awards, according to the Iraqi Society Photographic (ISP).
Below, Qamar responds to a series of questions.
- When did you take your first photograph and what did it show?
I do not remember exactly the first picture but I had been mimicking my father since I was 4 or 5 years-old and started to take pictures of the Tigris river, the gulls, birds, old houses and heritage places.
- Why do you think photography is important?
Photography is very important. It documents life and pauses time. We can show the city, life and the people.
- What do you want to show people about Iraq?
I want to say through my pictures that Iraq is precious and Iraqis are very kind. Iraq is peaceful and has a great history.
- How do you feel about the U.S. troops leaving Iraq?
I am afraid of the U.S. soldiers, they destroyed the house my family rented in 2003, when I was a fetus. Thank God my family survived and I am happy now for their departure. I am free and not afraid of their tanks.
- What do you want to be when you finish school?
I like to act and I would like to be a child-activist.
- Which is your favorite photo you have taken and why?
My favorite picture is of a man sleeping who sells books at al-Mutanabi street. Also a picture of a bee on a rose, I ran a lot to follow the bee until I got this picture.
- Are there any photographers you look up to?
There a lot of good photographers and I learned from them (Adel Qassim, Fouad Shakir, Kareem al-Ba’aj, and Hameed Majeed).
- Are there any photos you wish to take but haven’t been able to yet?
The dangerous pictures like fire, blasts, other incidents but I have been sent off the site. They say I am a child. Also I wish to get a picture of the triangle of migrant birds.
- What does the future of Iraq look like?
I see a flourishing future for Iraq especially when my family owns a house. I love Iraq, my home, and it is more precious than anything else.
Hold on I’m about to go downstairs to get a book to find a quote from
Sherlock YEAH!
Mask worn by makeshift doctors during the Plague. The beak was often filled with scented materials such as amber, balm-mint leaves, camphor, cloves, laudanum, myrrh, rose petals, and storax.
I keep forgetting these were real and not fictional
Carve this in stone. Unless they’re super cute and dumb in that Puddy from Seinfeld way, natch.
