No way like

The Government employed artists during the depression for the first time via the WPA and they supplied the first real American propaganda who's style led directly into WW2.

WW2 propaganda got oddly specific, and maybe effective.

Ah, yeah, sure, Government propaganda department!

Yay Bats!

Look at the development of a cute bat embryo! Or also, Bat See No Evil...

Aww! There are certain bats called "Flying Foxes". See why? And everyone loves foxes, right? Except chicken owners. But who loves chicken owners? No one, not really. They may love the eggs, but not the chickens.

The Motion

Click for big, as always.

Hey! Motion is a funny thing - everything is in motion. EVERYTHING! Whether you're sleeping or sitting or even dead, you're in motion. The Earth spins, the Earth rotates around the Sun, the Sun rotates around the galactic center, the Milky Way galaxy rotates around a shared gravitational spot with Andromeda, the Local Group rotates around a larger cluster of galaxies, and so on. So on... forever! And of course it goes down as well, as electrons rotate around nuclei, and quarks rotate around each other, and it's true: Reality is motion. There is not one thing standing still - it's literally impossible, in the literal sense.

Above, a truer view of our Solar System - as the planets rotate around the Sun, the Sun is speeding along on the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way, a backwater place far from the bustling galaxy core.

Also, I just drove across America in a huge truck towing a 67 Mustang. What a country! Always in motion!

Listen

Your eggs are talking to you. Are you listening?

Also, I'm off on a cross country drive. Not sure if I'll be able to report in, so if you don't hear from me in a while, blame the talking eggs.

Eggs within Eggs

Eggs within eggs within eggs. How far down (and up) does it go?

Question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The answer is: Egg. The answer to everything is: Egg.

Friends where you find them

Two different examples of dogs and leopards getting along famously. Are there more? I assume we'd only hear about the successful ones.

Theory: If you raise any mammal with a different mammal from day one, they will be friendly towards each other for a good while, even if it is against their nature. For example, raise a lion with a lamb and I bet they'd pal around. For awhile. Or how about a monkey and a dog?

Monkey tickling a puppy. Life! What a thing!

This theory only applies to mammals. Reptiles, fish, all the slimy stuff in the ocean, and most birds, don't give a damn, and will eat their own brothers and sisters if need be as soon as hatched from the shell. Lesson: Eggs are evil. Trust not creatures hatched therefrom!

Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

As a recent recipient of a melanoma, this pic makes me cringe. But some people can take the sun better than others - I have to now guard myself from overly bright lamps.

But it's true - we are just bags of mostly water. We are 70% water - if anything else were 70% of something, you'd say that is by far the dominant factor. Do you feel as if you are mostly water? Of course not. But it's true. Lesson: You can't always trust your common sense. Another example - does it seem like the Earth spins around the Sun, or the Sun spins around the Earth, based on your common sense? Yeah. And this is the true gift of Science - giving us the tools to reach beyond our own common sense, verily, our very senses.

Science - the systematic method of obtaining information through observation and experimentation. It allows humanity to exceed our biological limitations (senses) and perceive ever more deeply into the realities of time and space. For example - sunburns. They are literally the result of photons hitting our skin and damaging cells, causing them to "burn" as this physical impact imparts energy that heats up the target. I am in a perpetual state of awe as I learn more and more esoteric science facts but come to realize they are almost always grounded in processes we understand at a fundamental level - one object striking another. Fusion - the magic that runs this Universe - is the result of matter striking matter so often and so powerfully that it releases energy from the constituent matter in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which we ultimately see as light - which is defined as photons literally striking cells in our eye that then interpret this information as color and intensity, via our brain. Common sense is not common sense is common sense, in other words.

Also, too, remember Large Marge?

A passing resemblance.

We humans are special beyond compare, for we can perceive these High Truths of Science, while at the same time we are subject to the genetic imperatives that drive all life, everywhere (and there is life beyond this Earth, for sure. Just a matter of time before we have conclusive proof - which will happen in our lifetimes). We can, in theory, liberate ourselves from the genetic via our minds, via science, though this is exceedingly unlikely, for the genes are the drivers in most everything we do, and there's only one thing the genes want: To live on.

Sex and Mind. The two themes which define mankind. Which allows me to posit: Consider the miracle of the egg, which I recently heard described as "a way to bring the ocean with you wherever you go". And it's true - before the egg, all life had to give birth in water. After the egg, all the land was there for the taking, because the egg encases the ocean, and water is a requirement for life. For we are 70% water, after all. The rest is the dust and ashes cast off from generations of Stars that lived, swelled, and exploded, seeding the cosmos with oxygen, carbon, iron, indeed, everything we define as ourselves (not water).

Life is awesome, yeah?

King Kong Eggs

Born mad.

Also, in regards the age old debate involving the chicken and the egg, let me tell you that from an evolutionary viewpoint, it's clearly the "chicken". Not the chicken itself, but its ancient ancestor, our ancestor too. The first who came up with the whole "egg" concept. It was pretty long ago, but animals were born before eggs and continue to survive to this day. Thus, if our ancestors once produced without the use of eggs, the answer to this debate is clearly:

Chicken.

Surfin' Bird

Have you heard? I think I have posted this pic before, and I try never to repeat, but! I do so intentionally since I need it to ask the question: Is this picture above of the same birds as this?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm voting a qualified yeah. Also too: Check out the face on big bird here. Scary! Reminds me that birds come from dinosaurs, and dinosaurs were scary lifeforms - scary as in: eat your face off if given half a chance. Which I can respect as a part of the predator - prey cycle. I'd just not rather be on the prey side, if you dig.

Is that common knowledge now, or controversial? That birds evolved from the same line as dinosaurs? And I mean among rational people, not the Heebie Jeebies. The similarities are overwhelming proof in my opinion - such as egg laying, lung structure, skeletal structure, etc. Think of a giant ostrich and you can easily make a leap to small dinosaur.

Remember this the next time you come upon a swarm of pigeons. Beware!

Our Egg

Say hello again to our old friend the Heliosphere. In many ways, you can think of the Heliosphere as the shell of an egg, as it is the wall between us and the cold, uncaring larger universe. The sun is clearly the yolk.

Or, another analogy would be a cell, with the Heliosphere representing the cellular membrane, and the sun as the nucleus.

And then, of course, our entire universe can be thought of as an egg, with an outer wall and a central point of maximum energy (somewhere at some time - the Big Bang). So, in sum, the egg is a slick symbol for everything. And they're tasty, which makes them by far the best metaphor ever.

Spectrums of Ostrich Eggs

These are pieces of fossilized ostrich egg, found in an archaeological dig in South Africa. They are dated to between 60 and 70 thousand years old, and they represent some of the oldest human art ever discovered. Nothing too complicated - just lines and dots and stains. But that's all it takes, really, to show us that our long gone brothers and sisters were thinking abstractly, in symbols, for a long, long time. Another feature which separates mankind from our animal cousins.