(Source: dr0peverythingnow, via passionatecynic)
The State of State Science Standards
The Fordham Institute released grades on how states’ science education standards stack up. We know that students need to do better when it comes to STEM education. But when states are undermining science education, how can we even begin to improve?
What grade did your state get?
(via Greg Laden’s Blog)
TENNESSEE IS WORSE THAN TEXAS AND MISSISSIPPI! D:
But oh hey! LOL Oregon, Wyoming, Alaska, and Oklahoma!The third graders at my new school get 40 minutes of science per week. That’s it. But don’t worry! They have daily spelling lessons! Who cares if they’re grossly behind in their science education if they have nice spelling and handwriting?!
Ugh it’s appalling. And Ohio is one of the better states, which makes it even worse.
How is this possible?
I think this must be graded on a curve. I bet if you included Europe California wouldn’t have an A. I’m even in the Bay Area and I feel like we’re not doing enough. I guess that then pushes those F’s down to F-’s. This is appalling. I really expected better out of Oregon. C’mon!!!
It’s estimated that more than 150,000,000,000 non-human animals are slaughtered for human consumption every year.
To put it into perspective, that’s like one and a half September 11th attacks happening every second of every day.
Two Pearl Harbors every second.
A “Fat-Man” atomic bomb every fifteen.
Almost three Holocausts every hour.
“Every year our nation’s experimenters kill 100 million lab animals, hunters kill 200 million ‘game’ animals, and motorists kill nearly 400 million road animals. Only America’s meat-eaters take a larger toll than its motorists.” (link)
Before I researched this statistic, I’ve been thinking a lot about eating animals, and I don’t think it’s so bad to eat them. I just think we way we go about it is the problem. I know what the reality of the situation is, and I don’t think the whole system is going to change any time soon. I certainly have cut back my meat consumption since animal cruelty was really something I focused on, and I also tend to buy more expensive/hopefully more humane meat products. I’m doing what I can. But, I end up feeling worse, somehow, for the roadkill animals. There are far fewer of them, but thekind of animals are far greater. This stat is just for the US, but habitat destruction is a terrible problem all over the world. There’s not much we can do about the land we’ve already taken from the rest of the animals, but we know they have as much right to it as we do now, and we should be able to stop it. This is how I feel about the meat industry - it’s too late for me, but I’m going to try my best to show my kids the joys of imitation meat that I just can’t handle. I figure if they’re exposed to it as children, they’ll be much more inclined to stick to it when they’re old enough to make the decisions themselves. These statistics show 4 kinds of animal cruelty. We see protests of experimenters, hunters, and meat eaters, but not much for drivers. I feel like the people who don’t want us to eat meat should be just as upset at people who drive, no? Drivers don’t kill nearly as many animals as consumers, but 400,000,000 (in US alone) is still quite a bit (notice the headline doesn’t mention US or Worldwide - I have to imagine it’s Worldwide, so give a huge boost to the 400mil and we’re getting close to our original stat for consumption). I really do think hunters are in the most deplorable position of the statistics mentioned above. I mean, killing animals for fun, what the fuck is wrong with you? I mean, there has to be some other outlet. We don’t just let people kill humans for fun, we lock them up. The same should be done with all hunters. Find a new way to spend your time, or give the animal a chance at least! Go in with a hand axe that you actually made and fight! Have you ever seen those hunting shows with the hunters dressed in camo hiding in tents with long range rifles like cowards!? I can’t tell you how pissed off I was when I watched these fucking people kill a deer and pose with it.
(via bonedust)
SPOTTED HYENA
Dispatch #2: Labor of Love
Crocuta crocuta
©Joel SartoreThe spotted hyena, also known as the laughing hyena or tiger wolf, is a species of hyena native to Sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN on account of its widespread range and large numbers estimated at 10,000 individuals. The species is however experiencing declines outside of protected areas due to habitat loss and poaching. The species may have originated in Asia, and once ranged throughout Europe for at least one million years until the end of the Late Pleistocene.
The spotted hyena is a highly successful animal, being the most common large carnivore in Africa. Its success is due in part to its adaptability and opportunism; it is both an efficient hunter and a scavenger, with the capacity to eat and digest skin, bone and other animal waste. In functional terms, the spotted hyena makes the most efficient use of animal matter of all African carnivores. Source
Joel Sartore drives his mobile studio to U.S. zoos to photograph endangered species from around the world.
Other posts:
Look at them!!!!
Huge manta rays are being killed so quacks can sell their gill rakers. (via Manta Rays Endangered by Sudden Demand from Chinese Medicine | Extinction Countdown, Scientific American Blog Network)
Stupid sods.
So much killing for the sake of stupid traditions and beliefs.
Manta Rays is a new one for me.
best couple ever
(via zombiehypnosis)
![flapjackstate:
[image: screencap of Lisa Simpson at a school desk pointing forward and saying “the whole damn system is wrong!”].
positivelydisintigrating:
GPOY](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqyqeudL4Q1qfrrv2o1_500.png)
cwnl:
HowStuffWorks “How Love Works”:
There are a lot of chemicals racing around your brain and body when you’re in love. Researchers are gradually learning more and more about the roles they play both when we are falling in love and when we’re in long-term relationships. Of course, estrogenand testosterone play a role in the sex drive area (see How Sex Works). Without them, we might never venture into the “real love” arena.That initial giddiness that comes when we’re first falling in love includes a racing heart, flushed skin and sweaty palms. Researchers say this is due to the dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine we’re releasing. Dopamine is thought to be the “pleasure chemical,” producing a feeling of bliss. Norepinephrine is similar to adrenaline and produces the racing heart and excitement. According to Helen Fisher, anthropologist and well-known love researcher from Rutgers University, together these two chemicals produce elation, intense energy, sleeplessness, craving, loss of appetite and focused attention. She also says, “The human body releases the cocktail of love rapture only when certain conditions are met and … men more readily produce it than women, because of their more visual nature.”
Researchers are using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to watch people’s brains when they look at a photograph of their object of affection. According to Helen Fisher, a well-known love researcher and an anthropologist at Rutgers University, what they see in those scans during that “crazed, can’t-think-of-anything-but stage of romance” — the attraction stage — is the biological drive to focus on one person. The scans showed increased blood flow in areas of the brain with high concentrations of receptors for dopamine — associated with states of euphoria, craving and addiction. High levels of dopamine are also associated with norepinephrine, which heightens attention, short-term memory, hyperactivity, sleeplessness and goal-oriented behavior. In other words, couples in this stage of love focus intently on the relationship and often on little else.
Another possible explanation for the intense focus and idealizing view that occurs in the attraction stage comes from researchers at University College London. They discovered that people in love have lower levels of serotonin and also that neural circuits associated with the way we assess others are suppressed. These lower serotonin levels are the same as those found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders, possibly explaining why those in love “obsess” about their partner.
Interesting take on love, in reminds me of the article I featured a few months back on ‘Your Brain in Love’ only this one is a bit more specific and focuses on what your brain goes through when it’s in love with someone else while the other focused on how this study can be applied to aid those under depression or a ‘heartbreak’.
(via zombiehypnosis)
Or 43% of people interviewed on this matter are retarded, especially 54% of republicans.
I can’t get over this. I think most of the players (coaches, workers, fans) in the NFL are religious and pray every week. But, we see at least 50% of the teams losing each week.
If it was divine intervention, why wouldn’t god just make Tebow a good football player? I mean, I don’t know if most of these people actually believe what they say they do. But a significant amount of people probably really do. This is crazy. How can you say you believe god is helping Tim Tebow win games and still consider yourself a thinking person?
SOOO INTO THIS!!!!
I’m also REALLY into this. That’s lovely. So much better, especially because that’s inclusive and doesn’t exclude LGBTQ people. Since “virginity” is…
Capital idea!!!!
(Source: pontificatorymasturbation)
Mayans right about world ending in 2012.
Just like they were right about the world being created a few thousand years ago by the land rising from the (already existing) deep, dark waters in the form of a gigantic turtle. They also knew that the Sun and Moon originated from the two sons of the god of corn after they defeated the lords of death in the underworld in a ball game.
How did they figure it all out?
A fantastic Isaac Asimov quote, found over at 30-n-flirty.
-Tyler
I H8 RELIGION
“Being a leftist is a calling, not a career; it’s a vocation, not a profession. It means you are concerned about structural violence, you are concerned about exploitation at the work place, you are concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, hatred against peoples of color, and the subordination of women. It means that you are willing to fight against, and to try to understand the sources of social misery at the structural and institutional levels, as well as at the existential and personal levels. That’s what it means to be a leftist; that’s why we choose to be certain kinds of human beings.”
- Cornel West
(Source: thesubversivesound, via flapjackstate)
"
“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” Santorum begins. “I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”
Santorum did not elaborate on why he singled out blacks who rely on federal assistance. The voters here didn’t seem to care.
"—
-Rick Santorum (via brainguts)
That’s funny, because the people who benefit most from welfare programs are white people.
Among the poorest of the poor—single mothers, living below the poverty line with minor children to support 39.7 percent of AFDC clients are Black single mothers and 38.1 percent are White women with children. Food stamp recipients are 37.2 percent Black and 46.2 percent White. Medicaid benefits are paid to 27.5 percent Black recipients compared to 48.5 percent White clients. source
(via face-down-asgard-up)
(via mohandasgandhi)
