We're passionate about this stuff, but every other tumblr about ecology/animal behavior/climate change seemed so stale and staid - biology is about life and diversity and beauty and not being afraid to get dirty in the name of science!
The tiny Waterfall Toad never evolved the ability to hop more than an inch, so it lets itself fall to escape predators. (Life - BBC)
(Source: headlikeanorange)
It’s no secret that, as nations continue to grow and develop, they alter the face of the Earth. Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s large-format photographs show how industrial development is restructuring terrains across the world. His work has taken him to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, which forced the relocation of more than one million people in China, to Canadian mines where tailings, or residue, run through lakes in Ontario, and, most recently, to the dryland agricultural fields of Monegro, Spain.
“These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence,” Burtynsky says in his Web site’s statement. “Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet set us into an uneasy contradiction.”
I think General Jack D. Ripper said it best:
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes, Jack?
General Jack D. Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, I can’t say I have, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Vodka, that’s what they drink, isn’t it? Never water?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, I-I believe that’s what they drink, Jack, yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Oh, eh, yes. I, uhm, can’t quite see what you’re getting at, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Water, that’s what I’m getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this Earth’s surface is water. Why, do you realize that 70 percent of you is water?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Good Lord!
General Jack D. Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes….
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation. Fluoridation of water?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh? Yes, I-I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?
Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, no I don’t know what it is, no.
General Jack D. Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?Tumblr, we can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
In American today, anti-evolutionism matters because it has become the vanguard of a genuine anti-science movement. To be sure, opposition to evolution isn’t new. State laws against the teaching of evolution actually go back nearly a century, and the famous Scopes trial took place 87 years ago. However, if you thought such things were behind us, guess again. Laws designed to encourage the teaching of non-scientific “alternative” theories to evolution were introduced in 11 state legislatures last year. This year, Darwin’s 203rd birthday, on February 12th, saw an anti-evolution bill, already passed by the Indiana State House of Representatives, awaiting action in the State Senate. Its fate there is uncertain, but there are plenty of reasons to be concerned.
Our Darwin problem is really a science problem. The easier it becomes to depict the scientific enterprise as a special interest immersed in the culture wars, the easier it becomes to reject scientific findings. We see this everywhere in American culture and politics today, from the anti-vaccine movement to the repeated assertion that global warming is a deliberate “hoax” rather than a straightforward conclusion driven by reams of scientific data. Sometimes this is done for deliberate political reasons, to secure advantage for a particular industry or financial group, but just as often it is motivated by fear of the implications of what science has discovered or might discover in the future.
Our Darwin problem matters for two reasons. First, it threatens the future of American scientific leadership in an increasingly competitive world. Convince enough young Americans that science is a close-minded system with a particular cultural and political agenda, and we will cede leadership to emerging countries that don’t share our Darwin hang-ups, and see science as the wave of the future. If you doubt this is happening today, look at the graduate programs of America’s research universities, still the greatest in the world. Increasingly, they are filled with bright, eager, creative students from around the world, taking places that American students just don’t seem interested in filling. Once trained, they will become the scientists of the future, while more and more of our own students have been persuaded that science has nothing to offer them. If this doesn’t change, scientific discovery will increasingly become something that happens elsewhere.
Second, and in my view just as important, our problem with science constrains and narrows our views and vision of the world. My personal concern for those who hold that view isn’t just that they are wrong on science, wrong about the nature of the evidence, and mistaken on a fundamental point of biology. It’s that they are missing something grand and beautiful and personally enriching.
Evolution isn’t just a story about where we came from. It’s an epic at the center of life itself. Far from robbing our lives of meaning, it instills an appreciation for the beautiful, enduring, and ultimately triumphant fabric of life that covers our planet. Understanding that doesn’t demean human life — it enhances it. We may be animals, but we are not just animals. We are the only ones who can truly appreciate, as Darwin put it, that there is “grandeur in this view of life,” and indeed there is. To accept evolution isn’t just to acknowledge the obvious — that the evidence behind it is overwhelming — it is to open one’s eyes to the endless beauty that life has generated and continues to produce. It is to become a knowing participant, in the truest sense, in the living world of which we are all a part.
"Gernot Wagner, in an interview—called “Why The Planet Doesn’t Care About Your Eco-Friendly Lifestyle”—regarding his new book.
more.
(via thesmithian)
Free market Environmentalism?Murray Rothbard on Freemarket EnvironmentalismLOLLOLOLOLOLOOLLLOLOLOLOOLOOOLL
No. Such. Fucking. Thing.
“Almost all uses of land will entail some infringement on some other piece of land that is owned by someone else. So how can that ever be permitted? No story about freedom and property rights can ever justify the pollution of the air or the burning of fuels, because those things affect the freedom and property rights of others. Those actions ultimately cause damage to surrounding property and people without getting any consent from those affected. They are the ethical equivalent – for honest libertarians – of punching someone in the face or breaking someone else’s window.”
- Matt Bruening,
Why libertarians must deny climate change, in one short take“Free market environmentalism” is an oxymoron. Even after studying environmentalism for a number of years, I’ve never seen the concept taken seriously.
(Source: moralanarchism)
the plants name is called “makahiya” and hiya in tagalog means “shy”.
whenever you touch the plants leaves, they immediately fold up together looking as if its really shy hence the name.
I use to see these in Mexico all the time xD u were suppose to say cierrate porque ya viene el diablo (close yourself because the devil is coming) and poke it xD
Bahahah in Puerto Rico we call it Morivivi as in diedandlived? something like that in English. When I was a kid I used to love these little plants a lot hahah
(Source: jaidefinichon)
