Slavenka & Obi: August 2014

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Dog Pageant - it's more about the owners than their pets

They dress up in extravagant gowns and parade up and down the catwalk getting judged in various rounds such as active wear, talent and evening wear. But this isn't a Miss America contest or even a scene from Toddlers & Tiaras - but a beauty pageant for little dogs.
The factual photo series comes from famous dog photographer Sophie Gamand, famous for her wet dog series and her pit bulls in flower garlands.

Little Yorkie petting his human

Little Known Beer Fact

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Your House’s Germs Are Yours, And They’ll Follow You If You Move

Your body is a city, a home to trillions of microbes. They live in your gut. They live on your skin.
They interact, eat, reproduce and die on and inside you. In some cases, you need them just as much as they need you. But your microbiome, the collective term for these hordes of microbial companions, doesn't stop at your fingertips. Your microbial city has microbial suburbs—a vast expanse of development stretching out from the urban core that is your body. And just as the sprawl of Atlanta takes on a different form from that of Berlin, or Tokyo or Phnom Penh, so too does your microbial suburbia differ from other people's.
Every time you move, says science writer Ed Yong, you transfer microbes into the environment—microbes that take up residence on their new turf. In as little as a day, says Anna Williams for New Scientist, you can seed a whole house with microbes that are characteristically “yours.”
In a study of the microbial diversity that exists in the homes of seven families researchers found that “[e]ach family had its own distinct microbial signature that could be used to identify them,” says Williams. But more than just each house having its own microbial flora, the microbes in each was an extension of the inhabitants. Researchers showed this clearly, because the microbes followed people when they moved house, says Yong.

Train Hopping

Photography by Amelia Merrick via

Joan Baez

Joan Baez has had an extraordinary life.

"I have a future to build."

Josh talks business.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Just Hangin’ Out…

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Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

Scientists haven't directly observed this going on in the brain after a coffee nap — it's all based on their knowledge of how caffeine, adenosine, and sleep each affect the brain independently. But they have directly observed the effects of coffee naps, and experiments have shown they're more effective than coffee or naps alone in maximizing alertness. In a few different studies, researchers at Loughborough University in the UK found that when tired participants took a 15-minute coffee nap, they went on to commit fewer errors in a driving simulator than when they were given only coffee, or only took a nap (or were given a decaf placebo). This was true even if they had trouble falling asleep, and just laid in bed half-asleep during the 15 minutes. continue

Artist Includes Media in Her Animal Drawings

Talented artist Karla Mialynne isn’t content with simply sharing her stunning hyper-realistic art with her 44,000 Instagram followers – she posts these mixed-media images together with the artistic utensils she used to create these pieces, as if to prove that these are indeed drawings and not photographs. The utensils, which include pencils, markers and acrylic paints, also show the beautiful rich color palette that Mialynne uses in each of her pictures.

Good night, New Zealand

If you want to get away from people and feel like you're not living on Earth while living on Earth, the places that come to mind are like Iceland for the out of this world alien paradise life or Montana for the punishingly beautiful outdoors or New Zealand, where the world looks like it hides magic powers.
The time lapse was made by Stephen Patience Photography. via

Amazingly Detailed Cake Looks Like the Interior of a Library

Kathy Knaus has recently been discovered for her creative capabilities with cakes. She designs everything from sugary sushi rolls to a scaled-down fashion studio, but her most exceptional work is her multi-tiered library cake. In this fabulous creation, Knaus has hand-designed the interior section of a public library.

Never

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Friday, August 29, 2014

The power of love

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This Stereo Comes with Two Sub-Woofers

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Airy biker

A new design for a hover bike – using fans to create the lift – has been launched via Kickstarter.
It is touted as the world’s first “flying motorcycle”. via

Word On The Street

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Will Everyone Shut Up Already About How the Nordic Countries Top Every Global Ranking?

The Nordic countries are paradigms of equality, good education, female empowerment, and progressiveness. We know this because we are told. And told and told and told. To take one example, the latest Global Gender Gap rankings from the World Economic Forum were topped by Iceland (for the fifth year in a row), followed by Finland, Norway, and Sweden. (Denmark came in eighth.) Iceland and Denmark took first and second place respectively in this year’s Global Peace Index (Finland was sixth, Norway took 10th, and the comparatively violent Swedes came in 11th). Sweden was deemed the least fragile country in Foreign Policy’s 2014 Fragile States Index . This year’s four best countries in which to be a woman, according to the Global Post? All Nordic. Four of the top 14 “greenest” countries in the world, according to this year’s Environmental Performance Index? Nordic. (Filthy Finland came in at a still quite green 18th.) The country examined by the Economist this summer to explore the benefits of paid paternity leave? Sweden. The country touted by long journalistic profiles and best-selling books alike for its education system? Finland. The country profiled by the BBC for its creative approach to bettering the lives of the homeless? Denmark. The first country profiled by Slate in its examination of how good life is elsewhere for working parents? Norway. Where did NBC welcome us to this summer? Sweden. If only we could be more like the Nordic countries, we say, looking sadly at our ill-assembled Ikea furniture. Then we, too, would be better educated. Then we, too, would be more equally paid. Then we, too, would be more peaceful. Then we, too, would have dreamy blond men narrate our coffee drinking. But we cannot be more like the Nordic countries. And so it is time—past time, in fact—to say enough already to these pointless comparisons.

Brad And Angie Got…Married?

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If A Fish Grows Up On Land, Will It Learn To Walk?

The old idiom about “being a fish out of water” just lost some of its luster. Researchers from McGill University in Canada successfully trained a group of fish to live on land and strut around.

New research shows that the first humans in the Arctic lived there for nearly 4,000 years

A new study, published in Science, shows that the first people to populate the Arctic regions of North America and Greenland were a group who moved into the area from Siberia around 3,000 B.C. They lived in isolation for almost 4,000 years, before disappearing. Previous research has indicated that there were three waves of migration from Asia to the New World; this new study adds a fourth. The first humans are thought to have crossed over the Bering Strait more than 15,000 years ago; this new wave of Paleo-Eskimos, which brought the first people to spread across the northern reaches of Alaska, Canada and Greenland, would have come after the first two waves, but before the Neo-Eskimo or Thule made the journey between continents. Archaeologically, people living in the North American Arctic between approximately 2,500 B.C. and 1,000 A.D. are referred to as the Dorset and Pre-Dorset cultures. (They're classified into those based on the tools and artwork they left behind.) This new study shows that not only did this group have different traditions and culture from the area's later populations but it was genetically distinct from them, as well. continue

Sell your crap, pay off your debt, and do what you love!

There’s something strange happening around the globe… but it’s awesome!
Lifestyles and needs are changing, and consequently, our houses are shrinking. The tiny house movement has blown up in the past few years, shifting the traditional North American housing models towards a more practical, finance-friendly blueprint. The movement is garnering attention from people fed up with the current consumerist/utility-based lifestyle which has placed millions of people in debt.
Now, the idea of living your dream is no longer a cliché.

Slavenka & Obi