September 2013 archive

Organism of the week #17 – Daughter of Ungoliant

Araneus diadematus in web [CC-BY-SA-3.0 Steve Cook]

I’d never noticed that a garden spider’s third pair of legs is much shorter than the others before.

Youth of today

Earth [public domain, NASA]

One consequence of being an evolutionary dead-end is that I do not get exposed to new cultural touchstones through watching crap children’s telly with offspring I haven’t produced. As an alternative, monitoring the dwindling intersection of history I share with my incoming undergraduates serves the same salutary purpose of reminding me how out-of-touch I am. The …

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