“Truck eating bridge” gets new look for Shark Week The sign says “I eat trucks”
Life
How I deal with the unbearable hypocrisy of being an environmentalist | Environment | The Guardian
How to enjoy being single | Psyche Guides
‘Happily ever after’ is a romantic myth. Defy society’s singlism and discover ways to embrace a joyful, independent life
Life Kit : NPR
That's right, sunscreen. It's mid-July, and since sheltering-in-place through an anxious spring, summer has arrived and it's time to (safely, and with a mask) get out of the house and see the sun. And yes, you must protect yourself from the sun's rays — UVA, UVB, the whole gang.
Preppers with their pants down
Preppers with their pants down … 👖
I follow some prepper groups on the Facebook, and I have to get a chuckle from the preppers down south in Texas and other states that really struggled with the cold. It seems like a lot of preppers are more concerned about zombie attacks and armed insurrections then practical things like black outs or severe weather that pose a much more immediate risk people’s life and well being.
Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain
As a biological concept, the inheritance of acquired characteristics has had a wild roller coaster ride over the past two centuries. Championed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck at the beginning of the 19th century, it soared to widespread popularity as a theory of inheritance and an explanation for evolution, enduring even after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Then experimental tests, the rise of Mendelian genetics, and the wealth of discoveries substantiating chromosomal DNA as the principal medium of genetic information in complex organisms all but buried the idea until the mid-20th century. Since then, the theory has found at least a limited new respectability with the rise of “epigenetics” (literally, around or on top of genetics) as an explanation for some inherited traits.
Most recently, some researchers have found evidence that even some learned behaviors and physiological responses can be epigenetically inherited. None of the new studies fully address exactly how information learned or acquired in the somatic tissues is communicated and incorporated into the germline. But mechanisms centering around small RNA molecules and forms of hormonal communication are actively being investigated.
Why Don’t More Men Take Their Wives’ Last Names?
But the prospect of a married man adopting his wife’s last name hasn’t always been so startling in Western cultures. In medieval England, men who married women from wealthier, more prestigious families would sometimes take their wife’s last name, says Stephanie Coontz, a professor of marriage and family history at Evergreen State College. From the 12th to the 15th century, Coontz told me, in many “highly hierarchical societies” in England and France, “class outweighed gender.” It was common during this period for upper-class English families to take the name of their estates. If a bride-to-be was associated with a particularly flashy castle, the man, Coontz says, would want to benefit from the association. “Men dreamed of marrying a princess,” she says. “It wasn’t just women dreaming of marrying a prince.”