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Zara Phillips: Can and Will.

Animal Fun

Trap Ostrich. Gorgeous photo of a cardinalfish, taken... - I fucking love science. Baby meerkats in Botswana - in pictures. Walk on the Wild Side. ROLLIN' SAFARI - 'Vulture' - what if animals were round? If All Animals Were Fat. Rollin Christmas. Wildebeest. From Fitzgerald to Reagan, 5 Letters of Fatherly Advice from History's Greate... By Maria Popova “The secret of success is concentrating interest in life… interest in the small things of nature… In other words to be fully awake to everything.”

From Fitzgerald to Reagan, 5 Letters of Fatherly Advice from History's Greate...

With Father’s Day around the corner, let’s take a moment to pay heed to some of the wisest, most heart-warming advice from history’s famous dads. Gathered here are five timeless favorites, further perpetuating my well-documented love of the art of letter-writing. In a 1933 letter to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie, F. Scott Fitzgerald produced this poignant and wise list of things to worry, not worry, and think about, found in the altogether excellent F. . ↬ Explore In this beautiful 1928 letter, culled from American Letters 1927-1947: Jackson Pollock & Family, Jackson Pollock’s dad, LeRoy, offers his son a sincere, optimistic lens on what matters most in life and how to cultivate it. Dear Son Jack,Well it has been some time since I received your fine letter. Originally featured here in February. The World of 100: Our Global Village. By Maria Popova The real minority report, or what the world would look like if it were a village of 100.

The World of 100: Our Global Village

The World of 100 : Toby Ng Design. Look at Life - Down In The Dumps 1965. Look At Life - Living with Cars 1964. Next Time Someone Tells You That Immigrants Are Destroying Our Country, Show Them This. Hollie McNish: He said, "Those goddamn Pakistanis and their goddamn corner shops.

Next Time Someone Tells You That Immigrants Are Destroying Our Country, Show Them This

Built a shop on every corner, took our British worker's jobs. " He said, "Those goddamn Chinese and their goddamn China shops. " I told him, "They're from Vietnam," but he doesn't give a toss. I ask him what was there before the damn Japan man shop. He looks at me and dreams a scene of British worker's jobs, of full time, full employment, before the goddamn boats all came, where everybody went to work for full time, full weeks every day. "A British business stood there first," he claims, before the Irish came. The Daily Show: Extended Interview: Malala Yousafzai.

Bored Shorts TV

Mashup Masterpiece: Cookie Monster Sings Tom Waits. By Maria Popova A lip-synced case for the art of remix, or what Sesame Street has to do with the need to evolve copyright law.

Mashup Masterpiece: Cookie Monster Sings Tom Waits

Remix culture is a frequent fixation around here and a central premise of my beliefs about combinatorial creativity. But while intellectual, academic, and legal debates about the role of remix in creative culture certainly have their place, the best way to appreciate the art of remix is through a brilliant manifestation. Case in point: Cookie Monster sings Tom Waits’ “God’s Away on Business” in the best mashup I’ve seen in ages. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month.

Inspiring Stories

Cicero’s Web: How Social Media Was Born in Ancient Rome. By Maria Popova How the dynamics of papyrus scrolls explain Facebook.

Cicero’s Web: How Social Media Was Born in Ancient Rome

We’ve already seen that modern social media come from a long lineage of primitive predecessors — from the florilegia of the Middle Ages, which predated Tumblr by half a millennium, to Voltaire’s Republic of Letters, the Facebook of its day, to Edison’s early “viral” cat videos to Félix Fénéon’s analog “Twitter” of early 20th-century France. But it turns out social media originated even earlier than that, in ancient Rome. How to be more satisfied with your life, according to science.

Conservation

2CELLOS - Thunderstruck [OFFICIAL VIDEO] The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2011. Hairless hero: Iranian teacher shaves head in solidarity with bullied pupil. When Iranian schoolteacher Ali Mohammadian noticed that one of his students was being bullied after going bald as a result of a mysterious illness, he decided to show solidarity and shave his own hair.

Hairless hero: Iranian teacher shaves head in solidarity with bullied pupil

In no time, his entire class shaved their heads and the bullying stopped. Now, Mohammadian, who teaches at Sheikh Shaltoot's elementary school in Marivan, a Kurdish city in the west of Iran, has become a national hero. President Hassan Rouhani has praised him, the government has offered financial support for the pupil's medical treatment and his story has reached the four corners of his country. "I'm so happy that this has touched many hearts and people reacted enormously positive," the 45-year-old teacher told the Guardian by phone from Marivan. The 60 Most Powerful Photos Ever Taken That Perfectly Capture The Human Exper...

Motojumble.

Travels with my Shirt: Simon Fenton

Science. Environment. Cruelty to Cockroaches. 8 November 2013Last updated at 22:09 ET Critics say that the 'electronic backpack' is inhumane A US company that has developed an "electronic backpack" that fits onto a cockroach allowing its movements to be controlled by a mobile phone app has defended itself against cruelty claims.

Cruelty to Cockroaches

The Backyard Brains company says that the device is intended to get children to be interested in neuroscience. A spokeswoman told the BBC that the device - being formally launched on Saturday - was not a gimmick. But critics say that the company's stance is "disingenuous". For the "electronic backpack" to work the cockroaches have to be placed in icy water to subdue them before sandpaper is used to remove the waxy coating on the shell of the insect's head. Continue reading the main story.