National Geographic Magazine: "Zombie" Ants Bite at High Noon, Then Die | Infected bugs are "chimeras: part ant and part fungus," expert says.

karnythia:

nationalgeographicmagazine:

A parasitic fungus is turning ants in Thailand into “zombies,” and now scientists have a better idea how and when the infection does its gruesome work.

Zombie ants? Look that’s all my nightmares squished together in a way that means I would have to use a flamethrower until every single one of crawly little fuckers was dead. Ya’ll need to fix that. Now.

CORDYCEPS!!!  Leaf fossils showing ant bite-marks show that Cordyceps was live and well and living in brains 45 MILLION years ago. So brilliant. Amazing life form.

There are dozens of types, and one that infects a caterpillar (C. sinensis, aka. yartsa gunbu) on the Tibetan Plateau is cooked, with the caterpillar, as a delicacy. It’s shown promise in treating cancer, too. Nature is awesome.

(Source: National Geographic)

Life has taught me…

Never attribute to ignorance what can be explained by misogyny.

If you are not watching Ill Doctrine, I have only one question for you: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF?  You deserve to be watching Jay Smooth. Seriously. This awesomeness is only a sample.

Original location of video. ILL DOCTRINE.

bana05: The chief Raoni cries when he learns that brazilian president Dilma released the beginning of construction of the hydroelectric plant of Belo Monte, even after tens of thousands of letters and emails addressed to her and which were ignored as the more than 600 000 signatures. That is, the death sentence of the peoples of Great Bend of the Xingu river is enacted. Belo Monte will inundate at least 400,000 hectares of forest, an area bigger than the Panama Canal, thus expelling 40,000 indigenous and local populations and destroying habitat valuable for many species - all to produce electricity at a high social, economic and environmental cost, which could easily be generated with greater investments in energy efficiency.   Please if you are reading this take 30 seconds of your time to reblog or at least read this. Even if it doesn’t match the “theme” of your blog or if you think it does not affect you. LOOK at that man crying. He is you SO FUCKED UP This is so awful.  have some empathy and read this I fucking hate my country sometimes. Hate it. This is heartbreaking. Ugh, I hate this world sometimes. I think my heart is in pieces. I am so sad for this man. I want this to stop so badly, and I didn’t even know it was going on. Where the fuck is the INTERNATIONAL media?  This is horrible, crushing.

bana05:

The chief Raoni cries when he learns that brazilian president Dilma released the beginning of construction of the hydroelectric plant of Belo Monte, even after tens of thousands of letters and emails addressed to her and which were ignored as the more than 600 000 signatures. That is, the death sentence of the peoples of Great Bend of the Xingu river is enacted. Belo Monte will inundate at least 400,000 hectares of forest, an area bigger than the Panama Canal, thus expelling 40,000 indigenous and local populations and destroying habitat valuable for many species - all to produce electricity at a high social, economic and environmental cost, which could easily be generated with greater investments in energy efficiency.

 

Please if you are reading this take 30 seconds of your time to reblog or at least read this. Even if it doesn’t match the “theme” of your blog or if you think it does not affect you. LOOK at that man crying. He is you

SO FUCKED UP

This is so awful. 

have some empathy and read this

I fucking hate my country sometimes. Hate it.

This is heartbreaking. Ugh, I hate this world sometimes.

I think my heart is in pieces. I am so sad for this man. I want this to stop so badly, and I didn’t even know it was going on. Where the fuck is the INTERNATIONAL media?  This is horrible, crushing.

(via unholyglee)

whatsajuthika: what if this person was trying to hide a boner  If they believed what’s on that paper, they’d be using their boner instead of covering it up. So they’re either honest and not aroused or aroused and a big fat liar. *g*

whatsajuthika:

what if this person was trying to hide a boner 

If they believed what’s on that paper, they’d be using their boner instead of covering it up. So they’re either honest and not aroused or aroused and a big fat liar. *g*

(Source: flydutch, via juthikaforpresident)

GPOY ON THE RIGHT. Someone needs to do one of these for us weirdos lost in suburban momdom. It’s hell out here.

GPOY ON THE RIGHT. Someone needs to do one of these for us weirdos lost in suburban momdom. It’s hell out here.

(Source: , via s0ulf00d)

bruisedlimbs: “Erna and Hrefna are eleven-year-old identical twins from Iceland. I started to photograph them when they were nine years old in 2009, and this will be an ongoing project until they are sixteen years old. I will visit them every year. My intention for this project is to capture the very precious period of their growth from child to teenager, physically as well as psychologically. The relationship between identical twins is an interesting subject matter. I often hear that identical twins have telepathic connections. This is true of Erna and Hrefna. They are always together. They almost never fight with each other. Spending time with them, I feel such comfort in their companionship but at the same time I feel strange because I have never seen such a powerful connection between any two human beings. They say to me, ‘From time to time, we dream the same dreams.’” Exquisite.

bruisedlimbs:

“Erna and Hrefna are eleven-year-old identical twins from Iceland. I started to photograph them when they were nine years old in 2009, and this will be an ongoing project until they are sixteen years old. I will visit them every year. My intention for this project is to capture the very precious period of their growth from child to teenager, physically as well as psychologically. The relationship between identical twins is an interesting subject matter. I often hear that identical twins have telepathic connections. This is true of Erna and Hrefna. They are always together. They almost never fight with each other. Spending time with them, I feel such comfort in their companionship but at the same time I feel strange because I have never seen such a powerful connection between any two human beings. They say to me, ‘From time to time, we dream the same dreams.’”

Exquisite.

(Source: forestmilk)

fyeahpdp: [Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with glasses and light shadow wearing a sweat shirt over a button down and short black hair. Has a smug, arrogant facial expression and crossed arms. Top text: “’Racism equals privilege plus power’?” Bottom text: “That’s not in the dictionary.  You’re not speaking English.] This is what it’s like trying to discuss social justice issues with my brother.

fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with glasses and light shadow wearing a sweat shirt over a button down and short black hair. Has a smug, arrogant facial expression and crossed arms. 
Top text: “’Racism equals privilege plus power’?” Bottom text: “That’s not in the dictionary.  You’re not speaking English.]

This is what it’s like trying to discuss social justice issues with my brother.

ragnell: dcwomenkickingass: Power Girl by Francis Manapul A beautiful, confident Power Girl. Yes, the artist does make a difference. Yes, the pose does make a difference. I love Manapul. This is lovely and iconic. She looks heroic instead of looking assembled for the benefit of the male gaze. Too often, comic book heroines look like the product of a recipe of Western recipe for mass-produced wank material (F-cups boobs, one splash bubbles, one small uniform finely-shredded, generous helping of bleached hair, two blue eyes, one gallon skim milk). I always like seeing them depicted as heroes who happen to be female-bodied.

ragnell:

dcwomenkickingass:

Power Girl by Francis Manapul

A beautiful, confident Power Girl. Yes, the artist does make a difference. Yes, the pose does make a difference.

I love Manapul.

This is lovely and iconic. She looks heroic instead of looking assembled for the benefit of the male gaze. Too often, comic book heroines look like the product of a recipe of Western recipe for mass-produced wank material (F-cups boobs, one splash bubbles, one small uniform finely-shredded, generous helping of bleached hair, two blue eyes, one gallon skim milk). I always like seeing them depicted as heroes who happen to be female-bodied.

cassket: GPOY This is me, editing a novel.

cassket:

GPOY

This is me, editing a novel.

Something I really dislike about myself:

court4short:

I am such a bad nail-biter. I wish I could stop.

Oh, me, too. I am always so disappointed in myself when I fall off the wagon.

(via court4short-deactivated20111013)

karnythia:

I grew up in a family where colorism ruled. My hair was permed at 3 because it was too nappy according to whichever aunt was caring for me that day. The kitchen beautician that did it used a super perm and gave me 2nd & 3rd degree chemical burns. At 3. I wore a weave until my hair grew back, and had it pressed until I was a teen when I promptly started getting relaxers again. My brief moment of rebellion? Going natural for a few months after a bad relaxer experience that left me bleeding.

My grandmother used to tell me to pinch my nose so I could give myself the “right” nose shape since my nose was spread all over my face. My aunt scrubbed the black off my cousin J with Comet one day. Yeah, I said the black. Shockingly my cousin didn’t stay that funny shape of pinkish brown after her skin grew back. I was the light one for a while which just made things tenser between me & the other children. Light was right, especially with a narrow nose, and straight hair. We all knew the family standard of beauty and we adhered to it or suffered the scorn of our elders.

I remember my mother punishing me for some infraction by refusing to let me get my hair done. She was a cruel bitch on a good day, and no one intervened even if they saw her punch me, unless she went too far. Too far in our family = not getting my hair straightened. Then all hell broke loose until she started sending me to the shop every two weeks like everyone else in the family. I was in my 30’s before I was comfortable enough with my own hair to wear it natural, and there are still times when I contemplate a relaxer despite everything I know about them and about beauty aesthetics. But then I look at all the women in my family who are balding after years of getting monthly relaxers and I get over it. Nothing about this video shocks me, but then my bio family was full of colorstruck middle class black folks and this is what happens when they pass on the cultural ingrained racism that passes for truth in their reality.

tressiemcphd:

Maybe my family  raised me in a bubble but I never heard a single thing like this in my life…until I was surrounded by supposedly educated black people. Never. I’ve had a man every moon phase since my first period, never been called darkie or anything else or been ostracized for being brown by black people some would consider ignorant. 30 days in academia? I’d heard it all.

Protect your space, people.

tallblackguy:

I was lucky in that I never really grew up with colorism, being an odd skin color myself, but Jeebus H, this is heartwrenching.

sagittariusthoughts:

I am sooooo sad now

Watch the video. Read the other comments. Really, go do it. 

Jay's Other Stuff: “The thing with the ‘n word’..."

jsmooth995:

“The thing with the ‘n word’: it’s very very confusing for white kids who have a lot of black friends and are accepted. And I can’t stand here and say that when I was 9 years old, and all my friends were black, and they were telling me ‘you’re basically black,’ that I…

Brother Ali speaks truth. So much love.

whatsajuthika: nelsoncarpenter: manlovesmanatees: musicians are hot. especially shirtless violinists. of course I go topless in the beach with my violin. I totally want to write a story about this.

whatsajuthika:

nelsoncarpenter:

manlovesmanatees: musicians are hot. especially shirtless violinists.

of course I go topless in the beach with my violin.

I totally want to write a story about this.

(via juthikaforpresident)

Esoterica: Abortion Saved My Life

karnythia:

So, there’s this lawmaker out of Kansas who has lots to say about abortion. He’s currently best known for saying that women should plan ahead in case of rape and not expect their regular insurance to cover an abortion if they want one after being assaulted. And we could spend a lot of time going…

First: Important post, please read it. As I said on Twitter, it made me cry and I am very grateful that Karnythia survived this experience.

Second: I am frustrated at some reactions that have come across my radar that seem to be waving this post around because it justifies the need for abortion access because someone (rather awesome) could have died without one, see, and there really is a need for abortion WHEN THINGS ARE SERIOUS (and, also, especially when the fetus is non-viable). I could just be super sensitive to any implication of the sort because I used to be in the “well, if it’s REALLY important and serious and if she’s sad about it” camp… once upon a time.

Anecdotes (even data) like this are NOT the final nail in the forced-birth coffin because their solution is TO LET THE MOTHER DIE. I feel it is so bad for us to go down that road, seeking for some acceptable circumstance in which abortion is okay, looking for outlier experiences, and pulling heart strings. Danger to mother/non-viable fetus is a situation that is no more or less valid a reason to get an abortion than “I can’t be pregnant right now”.

For me, this post is an example of one of the many ways in which forced birtherism produces ambient violence and hostility toward women. Forced birth politics are about women not being human and potential humans being more human than women. They are about the moral high ground of never having done a procedure that resulted in the removal of a fetus that did not become a live birth being more important than a sacred duty of care to a living, aware, developed human being.

I feel that the only answer to forced birth politics is choice. Our society needs to have in place a basic agreement that a woman’s body is her own and it is her choice to complete a pregnancy or not and that she is a valuable life that needs to be sustained and respected. Women’s right to choose is denied because, fundamentally, that agreement does not exist. Because that agreement does not exist, women like the one who wrote the original post are endangered by people whose entire framework for living is built on a stone that says that their politics are more important than her life.

So, for me, this post is not an “abortion DOES matter because ______!!” post. This is a “forced birtherism and misogyny kills women and choice—all choice—saves lives” post. This is says to me that an inherently valuable woman was almost lost because the system doesn’t have the groundwork of respect and equality that underlies choice—and until it does, to ensure it does, choice must be legislated and defended without exception, because this will happen again to women whose voices we will never hear because they will be gone.

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