appendixjournal:

Participants in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance c. 1900, a vestigial pagan ceremony performed every year in a small English village. The antlers are from reindeers and have been carbon-dated to the 11th century.

theolduvaigorge:

My Primate Family Tree, Edinburgh Zoo

• Images and text by artist Russell Dempster

“I was approached a while back by Edinburgh Zoo to design ‘My Primate Family Tree’ for the Living Links department of the zoo. It was to be an educational mural to show a few representatives from the hundreds of living primates, and tell us how closely related we are to each with the bonus of being able to take part in the picture and then completing the link. It fills an outside space of 2.3m x 3m. Every monkey and ape was drawn individually and all pieced together at the final artwork stage and then printed onto 3 panels.

The base of the tree represents the evolutionary origin of primates about 65 million years ago. The Capuchin and Squirrel monkeys on the bottom left represent the primates of the ‘New World’ (The Americas) that split from other evolving primates about 35 million years ago. Next, the Gelada Baboon, Japanese Macaque and Diana Monkey on the top left represent the ‘Old World’ monkeys of Africa and Asia that split from the apes shown on the right about 25 million years ago. Our closest relative is the Chimpanzee, then it’s the Gorilla and then the Orang-utan. These great apes and ourselves are a family that share a common ancestor about 14 million years ago.”

For more information about the divergence of humans and apes see:

• Langergraber, K.E. et al. 2012. “Generation times in wild chimpanzees and gorillas suggest earlier divergence times in great ape and human evolution,” PNAS 109(39):15716–15721
• Pontzer, H. 2012. ”Overview of Hominin Evolution,” Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):8 (open access)

lexlexington:

calmingmanatee:

We’re going to answer a bunch of questions! Not advice questions, just some of the other questions we get asked sometimes.

Read More

My favourite bit:

Do you really love me?

Yes. Always and forever.

I can’t.

calmingmanatee:

[Image description: A photograph of a manatee in the sea, facing the camera. TEXT: “You can’t change people. Sometimes you will do everything right, and it won’t help. It’s hard to accept, but people have to want to change and you can’t force that. Do what you can, but remember to take care of yourself first.”]

[image credit]

There are going to be people in your life who need help. And while I think you should help them as best you can, that’s the key to it: as best you can. At the end of the day, you’re a person. You can provide support and love, but not change. That’s up to them.

And sometimes it’s going to reach a point where you can’t help anymore without hurting yourself. And when that happens, you have to step back and look after yourself too. You are your own first priority.

My take on this has always been that it’s like that warning in flight safety videos to “put your oxygen mask on before you help your neighbors”. If you don’t put your mask on first, you could lose consciousness before you can help anyone else. If you’re not taking care of yourself FIRST, you’re not going to have enough emotional strength to take care of anyone else, however important they are to you, before falling apart first. So take care of yourself first, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

ladyludele:

gallifrey-feels:

yolanda-pepperwood:

whenyouwishupondisney:

princessmaypage:

mydetheturk:

poco-loki:

nah, he ran into her knife

he ran into her knife ten times

he had it comin.

he only had himself to blame

if you’d have been there

if you’d have seen it

I betcha you would have done the same

marceddy:

inbox:

why are they called cookies when you bake them

shouldn’t they be called bakies?

romanticizing-death:

sixcatsandtwodogs:

gifcraft:

Stop the bullets. Kill the gun.

I held my breath at the last one.

IT WAS COOL AND THEN IT GOT SCARY AS SHIT