
Something for the Weekend


Lots of science (though hopefully nothing hard) and lots of history in this issue of links to items you might have missed the first time round.
The more scientists look, the more they realise that many of us are not just a single person but may contain elements of another. In other words many of us are chimeras and it is common amongst many species.
Meanwhile up the Himalayas biologists have found some 211 new species in the last few years: that’s 133 plants, 39 invertebrates, 26 fish, 10 amphibians, one reptile, one bird and one mammal. The latter is a noseless sneezing monkey. We still really do not know what’s out there!


Learn Anatomy By Dissecting Knitted Animals — well almost!

Today Dora, my mother, should be celebrating her 100th birthday. But sadly she died towards the end of May, thus missing out by just over four months. As a tribute, and as this week’s photographs, I thought we should have what are I think the first and last images I have of her.
As far as I know I don’t have any photos from Dora’s childhood (but I should scour the family albums again), so this first is of a self-portrait in oils she painted when she was about 21 (she couldn’t remember exactly when), could be the earliest I have.


In a couple of days time my mother should have been celebrating her 100th birthday, but sadly she died earlier this year. So for this month’s Ten Things I thought we should do something to reflect on the momentous events my mother saw in her lifetime.
Ten Historical Events from My Mother’s Lifetime before She was 21 (in October 1936)
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And that is just the tip of the iceberg!
Soheil Rezayazdi has suggested the following Nihilistic Password Security Questions:
Lots stupidity in this vein over at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
The World Beard and Moustache Championships were held recently in Austria and attracted over 300 contestants. Here’s one particularly fine specimen …

I spotted this at the A21 road-widening scheme on the way back from Rye a few weeks ago and we were travelling so slowly that I was able to grab a photo (no I wasn’t driving). I couldn’t quite work out whether it was construction site pole vault of tossing the caber.
