Can Peacocks Be Emotional Support Animals?

It’s Complicated.

 

Steampunk Sculptures by Artūras Tamašauskas

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Fake Tattoos by Oliver Jeffers

These beautifully illustrated characters are pulled from Oliver Jeffers’ books, including his latest, Here We Are, which debuted as #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list.
 The eight animals include Blue Peacock, Crocodile, Great Panda, Orangutan, Penguin, Ruby Octopus, Sperm Whale, and Zebra. Jeffers was one of Tattly’s earliest artists, and the Wildlife Set is the first collaboration using artwork from his picture books.
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Why Dogs Have Floppy Ears: An Animated Tale

Why do dogs look different from wolves? The question bedeviled Charles Darwin.
 Now scientists have a fascinating theory that links droopy ears and splotchy coats with domestication.

 

Rise and Fall of the Mighty Minoans

In the epic poem The Odyssey, the Greek poet Homer praised an island that lies “out in the wine-dark sea . . . a rich and lovely sea-girt land, densely peopled, with 90 cities and several different languages.” This sophisticated place is not just a random spot in the Mediterranean—Homer is describing Crete, southernmost of the Greek islands and home to one of the oldest civilizations in Europe. Located some 400 miles northwest of Alexandria in Egypt, Crete has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, around 7000 B.C. The culture that developed there during the second millennium B.C. spread throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean world. Crete’s command of the seas would allow its stunning art and architecture to deeply influence the Mycenaean Greek civilization that would succeed it.
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The kind of night Donald Trump loves best – when he can applaud himself.

This was the kind of night Trump loves. A night of unending applause from a Congress that ridicules him behind his back; a night when he could applaud himself when all else failed. Above all, it was a night when he could pretend to be the president he never is.

 Richard Wolffe
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Trump Collapses From Exhaustion After Ninety Minutes of Faking Empathy.

Donald J. Trump collapsed from exhaustion after approximately ninety minutes of pretending to be a human being with empathy, the White House doctor has confirmed. “In all my years of practicing medicine, I have never met a patient as healthy and vigorous as President Trump,”
Dr. Ronny Jackson said. “But the sustained effort of simulating compassion proved too much for someone who has never exercised that part of his brain before.” Shortly after Trump spent a gruelling ninety minutes pretending to care about immigrants, the unemployed, and other people whom he normally dismisses as losers, aides noticed that he was turning from a bright orange to a slightly paler orange before crumpling to the ground in a giant heap. “If you have never spent a moment thinking about a human being besides yourself, imagine trying to pretend you are doing that for a solid ninety minutes,” Jackson said. “It’s physically punishing.” Immediately following his collapse, Trump was rushed to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where a brain scan showed that his brush with human feelings did no permanent damage. “I just visited with him, and he was sitting up in his bed, trashing Jay-Z on Twitter,” Dr. Jackson said. “It was such a relief to see that.”
 Vice-President Mike Pence, who reportedly reacted to Trump’s collapse by leaping to his feet and exclaiming, “Am I President now?,” was not available for comment.
 The Borowitz Report

 

President Trump in the seat of power.

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The brain can make the body do remarkable things, but at what cost?

Humans test their limits in an endless variety of ways, but none is simpler or more elemental than breath-holding. There’s no pacing, no tactics, no bonus points; you simply deprive your body of its most urgent need until you can’t anymore. As a result, it offers a convenient laboratory for exploring the nature of human limits, for parsing the gradations of meaning between “won’t” and “can’t.” Scientists have long speculated that what feel like physical limits are often merely warning signals generated by the brain’s protective circuitry. In the case of breath-holding, a spate of recent studies offers a glimpse of what it takes to tap into the hidden reserves beyond these boundaries—and what price you might pay for access.
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Swearing is Good For You.

In her new book, Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language, London-based artificial intelligence researcher and writer Emma Byrne dives into the science of why we curse – and how it can best help us achieve rhetorical effect. Through highlighting the work conducted by psychologists and sociologists, Byrne explains the psychological reasons we spit out swears and explores the positive impact foul language can have on an audience.
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Bordalo II 2011 – 2017.

“And in this world where we choke the planet with out incessant rubbish, let us celebrate those alchemical artists like Bordalo II who have that rare gift of being able to turn shit into gold.”
Carlo McCormick
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Now, what shall I do with today?

From Agatha Christie ‘Autobiography’.

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Three-legged Bird

Marc Johns

 

Hiding the Shell

personal message

 

Posh Pigeons

Parakeets are the new pigeons in London, and congregate at night in large groups.
 Photograph by Sam Hobson.

 

President Trump in the seat of power.

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Vlady Art. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1905-2004)

Stockholm Street Artist Vlady Art says that he waited through all of the seasons of a year to install a poem throughout his city that speaks to the season of loss, and remembrance. Using recycled real estate lawn signs, Vlady reprised in portions the poem “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep”, written in 1932 by the American Mary Elizabeth Frye.
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A Conversation

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The Classics, Isabelle van Zeijl

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Delicate Layered Paper Sculptures of Birds and Other Animals by Calvin Nicholls.

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