‘We seem to be living in a world that is getting less hospitable every day. Look closely at any endeavor our species has engaged in and it appears we are unaware of the harm we do, we ignore the harm we do, we intentionally do harm for our own gain, or sadly in some cases we do harm for our own pleasure and enjoyment.Has no one taught us to do no harm?‘…If you think you are a member of this nonprofit non-organization, you are.
Via Aeon, ‘The death of a fly is utterly insignificant – or it’s a catastrophe. How much should we worry about what we squash?’
Via Vulture, ‘The best horror writer of the 20th century youve probably never heard of was a British woman who looked like a benign but mildly dotty Hogwarts teacher.
But do not miss the occult mischief behind those 1980s mom-glasses; in a fairly standard Angela Carter story, Harry Potter would be mauled to death by a werewolf before a pan-species initiation of Hermione’s pubescent sexual power.
She made things weird like that, which is why she was great. Carter, however, was not a horror writer in the same sense as Anne Rice or Stephen King; the bulk of her work is classified as magical realism a made-up, jerk-off genre that permits English departments to acknowledge the existence of the human imagination, but her most celebrated book is a high gothic collection of short stories called The Bloody Chamber that you should read immediately if the genre holds any appeal for you.
Or even if it doesn’t — though Carter never broke into the mainstream, an incomplete list of her devotees includes Salman Rushdie, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Jeannette Winterson, Tea Obreht, Rick Moody, and Ian McEwan…’
I’ve been reading her all along, and I agree.
Via Boing Boing, news that a (highly contagious) infected woman in Sierra Leone fled her quarantine with the assistance of her family. She is at large, presumably among the million-plus people living in Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown Authorities are asking for assistance in tracking her down. In other news, the first death in the Nigerian capital Lagos means that the outbreak, already the largest in history, has reached Africa’s most populous nation and one of its biggest cities (with an estimated 17.5 million people).
Via IFLScience, ‘While many dog owners will tell you that their canine companion gets jealous if attention is diverted away from them, given the complex cognitions thought to be involved in this emotion many have assumed that jealousy is in fact unique to humans. Some have even proposed that jealousy requires self-reflection and the ability to understand conscious intentions. However, much research into this area has primarily focused on jealousy within romantic relationships over infidelity, neglecting to investigate other forms of this emotion, especially in other species.
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers describe the first experimental test of jealousy in dogs which found that these animals displayed jealous behaviors when attention from owners was directed towards a fake pooch. This suggests that a form of this emotion exists in at least one other social species alongside humans.’
Via IFLScience, ‘Monkeys living in forests near Fukushima have levels of radioactive caesium in their muscles that may be dangerous. The monkeys were also found to have lower counts of both red and white blood cells than monkeys living further north, which may indicate health effects to come.
The doses detected in the monkeys are far short of those that would cause radiation sickness, and any influence on cancer rates can be hard to pick out from other factors.
The affected monkeys also had decreased counts of both red and white blood cells, consistent with results in people living near Chernobyl. Immature monkeys appeared to have been more affected than adults. No signs of ill health were observed, but healthy white blood cells are essential to protect against infections.’
Via Gizmodo, ‘The biggest building boom in the history of astronomy is upon us. In Chile and Hawaii and in space, astronomers are getting powerful telescopes that dwarf the current state-of-the-art instruments. When the mountain blasting and the mirror polishing are all done, we will have the clearest and most detailed views of outer space ever.’
