If you have ever seen or heard of the baobab, then you will know how imposing it is. With their thick trunks, they look like bulbous roots that grew out of the ground. They could grow as tall as 30m (around 100ft) and can reach a diameter of about 16m (or 52ft). They also live very long, with some even reaching 2,500 years.
But these deciduous trees can usually be found in Madagascar and Africa, so how did they travel to Australia? There are three key theories about the journey that the baobab took to get to Australia which you may read on The Conversation.
A tape recording of what researchers believe to be Frida Kahlo reading a passage from her own essay was discovered by the National Sound Library of Mexico. They are analyzing the voice if it could really be the painter's because it's different from what one might expect.
The recording was found in the archives of late radio personality Alvaro "The Bachelor" Galvez y Fuentes. On it, a female voice reads from Kahlo's essay "Portrait of Diego" for a radio program about Mexican artist Diego Rivera, Kahlo's husband.
Why is it that we're celebrating Father's Day on the third Sunday of June every year for the past 100 or so years? Well, it's thanks to Sonora Smart Dodd, who suggested and campaigned for such a holiday to be held, in honor of her father which later became a national celebration.
Dodd had the idea to begin a national day for dads while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Her father, a Civil War veteran and widower, had raised Dodd and her five brothers by himself.
A year later, Dodd’s plans to host a day-long celebration honoring her dad came to fruition. On June 19, 1910, the city of Spokane honored its first official Father’s Day at a local YMCA. Dodd had originally hoped to celebrate the day on June 5, her father’s birthday, but it was pushed back until the third Sunday of June. -Atlas Obscura
It's Father's Day and it's time for us to give some love to our dear fathers and father-figures out there who showed us how to love and be loved. So, maybe just for this day, we could indulge them even with just the little things. Like say, listen to their sometimes funny, sometimes cringy, innocent humor we call 'dad jokes'.
The thing about dad jokes is that it seems everyone has some kind of experience with them. Though the term only became widespread in the last five years, corny jokes have been around for quite some time. However, why they are mostly associated with dads today is something worth investigating.
Bad jokes have come to be strongly associated with middle-aged men with children. Though it’s mostly since 2014 that the mildly pejorative term “dad jokes” really caught the attention of the general public enough to enter dictionaries, the idea of an uncool father regaling his kids with corny jokes seems to be widely relatable to lots of people.
Though dad jokes may be perceived as just bad jokes, if you look at them closely, they represent something that actually tries to subvert the idea of humor without it being its primary goal. Dads genuinely find such jokes funny and when they tell it, they do it with full expectation that others will think it's funny too.
Humor researchers don’t always agree, but one thing seems clear. So-called “dad jokes” take what we know about joking and turn it upside down—and not just because they’re horrendously bad. Dad jokes are a kind of anti-joke, different from other ways of joking in their performance, even formulaic jokes.
No special kind of comedic performance or timing is needed—so anyone can tell a dad joke. The jokes aren’t new, they’re the easiest jokes to understand, and no one can possibly fail at getting them. A listener is meant to groan at what is obviously a bad joke… yet if they do laugh, all the better.
We might be going too far with some of the medical procedures we are experimenting with nowadays. There was the controversial gene-edited babies which caused quite an uproar with the scientific community due to its ethical implications. Now, the FDA has stepped in after a poop transplant went wrong.
One patient has died and another became seriously ill after fecal transplants inadvertently seeded their innards with a multi-drug resistant bacterial infection, the Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday.
The FDA shared minimal details from the deadly transplants. Its warning only noted that the cases involved two patients who were immunocompromised prior to the experimental transplants and received stool from the same donor.
It appears that the stool carried a strain of E. coli which was resistant to multiple drugs and that prior to the transplant, the patients' immune systems had been compromised. However, no details surrounding the procedure were released to the public. Only that the FDA will be more stringent in regulating fecal microbiota for transplantation (FMT) procedures.
Usually, FMTs are conducted in order to help revitalize the gut microbiome. They say it has potential in treating intestinal infections and regulating the bacteria in our gut. However, it's still in the trial phase and due to this recent incident, it might not have bright prospects for any further developments.
For adrenaline junkies who are looking new ways to feel some thrill and get pumped, Airbnb has launched a new set of experiences which they can try out. Even though these experiences are more on the extreme side, Airbnb offers it to everyone. It's basically just the same as their main product but extends it to a wider range of activities.
This isn’t something reserved for pros like Tommy Caldwell Opens a New Window. who spend days in the sky on precarious climbs. You can do it, too. It’s one of the 200 guided excursions that comprise Airbnb Adventures Opens a New Window. , a new set of extended Experiences the brand rolled out this month. They include everything from checking out paranormal activity in Utah and Nevada to activities geared toward adrenaline junkies like this one.
The beauty of these Adventures is you can immerse yourself in something wholly foreign. For me it meant finding out I am, it turns out, sort of afraid of heights—and subsequently trying to hide any apprehension from my girlfriend and a couple strangers.
For more information on how Airbnb Adventures works, check out this small guide by Men's Journal to find out how it is different from Experiences and what you need to be able to book one of these adventures.
Gary Schiro feels a deep connection with Laurie Colwin, who was a novelist and food writer who published two volumes of essays on food and recipes. The late foodie had unexpected passed away almost 27 years ago from a heart attack. She was only 48. Schiro revisits her recipes to reminisce what might have been.
If time travel were possible, and I could somehow hop back as my current self to the early 1990s, I would like to have met Laurie Colwin at a party somewhere. Or even better, drop into her book-filled garden apartment in Chelsea for supper one night. Once we got to chatting, I think we both would have been delighted by how many things we had in common.
I wish I could remember what it was, this past February, that made me go find my copy of More Home Cooking. Maybe it was because I had been kicking around a few essays about life and food, making a general mess of things, which is what I like to do in early drafts (and in the kitchen), and I was craving inspiration from her clear, intimate, and comforting voice.
Schiro explores various essays and tries to roast chicken the way Colwin described it in her book, one of the most popular chapters, apart from her creamed spinach with jalapeno peppers and her damp gingerbread dish.
Michael Shainblum's long-awaited day finally came through for him when he got one of the best shots ever of the Golden Gate Bridge as a lightning storm rages in the background. He had wanted to take a photo of that scenery for a long time and after five years and many long, rainy nights, he succeeded in capturing the best stills of San Francisco's iconic bridge with lightning as a backdrop.
To capture this photo, Shainblum camped out in the Marin Headlands, a hilly peninsula across the Bay, on a particularly stormy evening. Once the lightning started to strike, he stayed for three hours, using a dust blower to wipe the rain from his lens in order to get shot after shot. Finally, when he was satisfied with his selection, he went home and consolidated his photographs into one awe-inspiring timelapse photograph.
In addition to this series of images, Shainblum also captured close-up shots of the bridge’s towers and a stunning seascape—all of which would not exist had Shainblum decided to abandon ship. “Sitting out in the rain for hours can be a little bit discouraging and there were multiple moments where I wanted to give up and leave,” he reveals. “I am glad I stuck it out to capture these incredible moments.”
Check out prints of his Golden Gate Bridge project here.
Many abandoned spaces and buildings are being given a second chance at being relevant by being repurposed into commercial spaces, recreational areas, museums, and heritage sites. Not only does this allow such spaces to be made useful but it also attracts attention which could possibly bring rebirth to certain areas.
We took a look at the High Line before which was a used and abandoned railway which was turned into a more modern space which people were able to appreciate more. Now, we have the former Thebarton Reverberatory Incinerator in Adelaide which has now become Wundenberg's Recording Studios.
There are many odd trinkets and treasures you can find at the beach, from washed-up letter bottles to pretty shells and pebbles. If you look for them hard enough, you might be able to find something quite interesting.
Clotilde Olyff had been collecting stones from the beach with a specific purpose in mind: to find stones which resemble letters in the alphabet. And she has finished one of her collections which you can see above. She uses these as inspiration for her type designs. You may find some of them here.
Nickelodeon is bringing back All That after almost 15 years and they have some good things in store. The reboot will feature a new cast but they will have some throwbacks and feature some of the original cast in their sketches.
In light of the upcoming release of the reboot on June 15, Nickelodeon set up an actual pop-up restaurant inspired by one of the popular sketches on the show, Good Burger. For some other sneak peaks, you may check out the Indy Star and Bustle.
Christi Milledge was simply enjoying watching a game between the Charlotte Knights and the Durham Bulls with her friend Jeremy Stephenson when suddenly after the batter made a late contact with the pitch, the ball sped past Stephenson's face.
He was startled and turned to see Milledge's reaction to what they just witnessed but as he did, he saw her face had been hit by the ball.
All he remembers for sure is a left-handed batter making late contact with a pitch, and in the next instant, the whoosh of a baseball as it sailed within a few inches of his nose.
“Did you see tha —” he started to say, turning toward Milledge.
“And I realize she’s holding her face, and there is blood everywhere,” Stephenson says.
Milledge, who works at Levine Children’s Hospital as a pediatric nurse, says she doesn’t remember the impact itself. But she does recall the blood pouring from her face, and using napkins to try to catch as much of it as she could, and looking down to see her front tooth — root and all — on the concrete in front of her.
Despite the harrowing experience, Milledge came out of it unscathed except for her dearly departed front tooth. It wasn't as painful an experience as she thought it would be. However, she said that she would rather have had one of her crooked bottom teeth struck instead of the straight upper ones. What a trooper!
The Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge area at Disneyland in Anaheim has recently been unveiled and it will become open to all in 10 days from now (June 24), so for those fans of the franchise, you may want to think about planning your road trip if ever you will be visiting the most magical place on earth anytime soon.
The Seattle Times gives us a road map with some of the places any Star Wars fan should visit if they will be going on a road trip from Seattle to Anaheim. It's chock full of great places and sites to see.
The world is in a political mess right now. With some of the world's major powers struggling to have a hold of their governments, nostalgia for strong leaders is surfacing among politicians.
On one hand, Brexit is still looming and yet not coming to terms with any deal, causing Theresa May to resign her post as Prime Minister. Trump has been facing so much backlash ever since the start of his term. And many other governments are having to deal with discontent and strong opposition.
But the question is whether the strong leaders of the past ever actually did it on their own terms or power. Many look to Margaret Thatcher's iron fist style of governance and how she lasted in politics for so long. Surely though, this wasn't the only reason for her long tenure.
In this short commentary, David Runciman explores the myth of the strong leader and how governing a state is more difficult than simply having a firm resolve and strong political will.
Education is a lifelong process. Nobody stops learning just because they attained a certain degree or graduated high school. But for some people, circumstances might make it difficult for them to get formal education. Nonetheless, that doesn't hinder them to keep trying. Like Joyce Clements who at 64 has finally graduated from the GED program at Rowan College in Gloucester County.
It took her 21 years to get to the podium, trying and failing so often to pass her GED exams that she thought this day would never come. So, she asked the audience rhetorically, “What took me so long?”
She married, raised two kids of her own, and became a security guard at Bally’s Atlantic City Hotel & Casino, "making more money and proud of my efforts,” she said, even getting promoted to a dispatcher role.
