zillatamer:

unimpressedcats:

food? no… friend

I like how the hamster’s fear response is to just eat faster like

If I’m going to die, it should be with a full stomach.

mothernaturenetwork:

If Hoyoung Lee’s concept printer becomes reality, you’ll never throw away another pencil stub or buy another ink cartridge. The pencil printer separates the wood from pencils and uses the lead to print documents. There’s even a built-in eraser component that allows you to remove text from a page and reuse the paper, so you’ll be saving money and trees.

See more of bizarre green inventions.

8bitfuture:

Caffeine shown to increase memory in bees.

A new study has revealed that some plants, like the coffee plant Coffea, use caffeine to enhance long-term memory in honey bees. The nectar in their flowers contains low levels of caffeine which the bees also find rewarding, increasing the chances the bees will visit again.

While caffeine is thought to have primarily developed as a toxin to repel herbivores such as slugs, it seems it also gives the bees a real buzz.

“We show that caffeine—a compound whose ecological role is mainly to deter and poison herbivores—actually acts like a drug in an ecologically relevant context,” Wright said. “The plant is secretly drugging the pollinator. It may help the bee, but the plant cares more about having a pollinator with high fidelity!”

The effects of caffeine on learning and memory in people is not as clear. “But I think there is overwhelming evidence that we return again and again to consume caffeine because of the way we feel after drinking it,” Wright said.

amandaonwriting:

Literary Birthday

Happy Birthday, Dr Seuss, born 2 March 1904, died 24 September 1991

Seven Dr Seuss Quotes On Writing

1. Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.
2. You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room. 
3. I start drawing, and eventually the characters involve themselves in a situation. Then in the end, I go back and try to cut out most of the preachments. 
4. Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
5. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.
6. Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.
7. You make ‘em, I amuse ‘em.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist who published 46 children’s book including Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat. His works have been adapted for television, film, and theatre. Geisel also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, and as a political cartoonist. During World War II, he worked in an animation department of the United States Army, where he wrote Design for Death, which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
His birthday has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day.

by Amanda Patterson for Writers Write

scinerds:

newstatesman:

David Attenborough: A life measured in heartbeats

David Attenborough interviewed for the New Statesman by Brian Cox and Robin Ince.

For 60 years, David Attenborough has brought the wonders of the world around us to TV viewers hungry for science and natural history. He talks with Brian Cox and Robin Ince about the BBC, Darwin and what keeps him moving. Robin Ince writes:

No other individual is held in such awe by as broad a group of people as Sir David Attenborough. On seeing him, one eloquent friend felt he must say something, and so he bounded up, blurted out “Thank you”, then scarpered. I have seen people held in high regard reduced to gibbering fan-kids on finding themselves in the same room as him. After 60 years in broadcasting, a career that has included commissioning Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, as well as astounding investigations into the varieties of life on this planet, he continues to work every day of the year with the occasional exception of Christmas Day.

The landmark series Life on Earth was my introduction to the theory of evolution and the work of Charles Darwin, a man who increasingly fascinates me the older I become. The writings of Darwin convey a mind restlessly ­attempting to understand the life he sees before him and driven to explain why it seems to be as it is. David Attenborough has allowed us to stay in our armchair and dwell on the complexity of living things on this small but densely populated planet. Contemplating the seeming rarity of life in the known universe, he once described the earth as “a meadow in the sky”.

Whenever the case against television is brought up, the work of Attenborough is called by the defence. In the television world, where so much is required to be fake, from the smiles to the feigned interest of the interviewer, Atten­borough conveys passion, a wish to communicate not defined by pay packet or celebrity. He is not making a film about tribal art or bowerbirds or environmental crisis because it’s a job; he is doing it to share ideas, convey wonder and to learn for himself. This is not a tired academic going through the rigmarole of explaining life one more time; this is someone able to capture the excitement of the adventure because he is still on it. Where cynicism and ironic distance can seem the way of the 21st century, here is an unashamed enthusiast. As he leaned forward during this interview and told us of seeing the hasty and flamboyant mating ritual of a hummingbird slowed down so each intricate detail could be examined, he reminded me that it is criminal to feel bored in a world so rich.

Of walking in the Brazilian jungle, Darwin wrote: “The delight one experiences in such times bewilders the mind. If the eye attempts to follow the flight of a gaudy butterfly, it is arrested by some strange tree or fruit; if watching an insect, one forgets it in the stranger flower it is crawling over … The mind is a chaos of delight …” David Attenborough has helped stimulate minds into that state of chaotic delight.

Read the interview in full on the NS website.

This man right here.

teachingliteracy:

amandaonwriting:

Six Types of Courageous Characters

by K.M. Weiland, author of Dreamlander

1. Heroic Bravery

When we think of heroes these days, we generally think of those who qualify for heroic bravery.

What is it? This is the kind of bravery that makes a character do crazy dangerous stuff, either to protect others or to advance a cause in which he passionately believes. He’s not a fool. He knows what he’s risking, but he believes the danger is worth it.

2. Steadfast Bravery

Steadfast bravery isn’t as flashy as heroic bravery (although it exhibits bursts of heroism), but its patient doggedness challenges fate every single day.

What is it? This is the kind of bravery we see from someone who is enduring a bad or dangerous situation day in and day out. A POW, a soldier in the trenches, or an informant in enemy territory will probably exhibit steadfast bravery.

3. Quiet Bravery

This one is perhaps the least flashy of any type of bravery. It can even occasionally be confused with cowardice.

What is it? Quiet bravery gives a character the courage needed to endure bad situations with grace and patience. It’s basically an offshoot of steadfast bravery, but it usually surfaces in situations that are less physically dangerous. Cancer patients, overworked single mothers, and trod-upon servants who maintain their sense of self-worth and hope all exhibit quiet bravery.

4. Personal Bravery

Not all brave characters are going to face death or save the world. Sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is take a chance to advance his own lot in life.

What is it? Personal bravery demands characters reach for the stars and chase their dreams. Instead of remaining in a bad situation and taking it and taking it, they risk everything for a chance at a better life. Personal bravery is perhaps the most common kind of bravery of all, since it’s something every single one of us chooses to exhibit at one point or another in our lives, whether it’s in dreaming of a better education, a better career, or just a life-changing trip around the world.

5. Devil-May-Care Bravery

Here we find the domain of the anti-hero and the fatalist.

What is it? Devil-may-care bravery isn’t bravery so much as a cynical realization that death (or whatever the worst-case scenario may be) will come no matter what we do, ergo let’s meet it with arms stretched wide. Characters who have nothing to live for can often exhibit insane courage, but they’re doing it from a place of negativity.

6. Frightened Bravery

Finally, we have the most dichotomous, and often the most compelling, bravery of all.

What is it? Frightened bravery finds the hero a knee-shaking, gut-churning, terrified mess. But he rises above it. He enters the fray in spite of his terror, and, in so doing, becomes the bravest of all characters. Frightened bravery can go hand in hand with any of the other types (save perhaps devil-may-care bravery), since the very act of overcoming fear is what makes a character brave.

None of these categories are exclusive. A character may well exhibit all six types of bravery during the course of your story, and often you’ll find the categories overlapping. In creating a strong character, it’s important not only that he qualify for at least one of these types of bravery, but also that you identify which is the strongest category, so you can further strengthen it on the page. Once you’ve done that, it’s almost a cinch readers will find your character fascinating. 

Source for Article by K.M. Weiland, author of Dreamlander