Molecular biologist and cancer researcher, semi-popular YouTube content creator.
All cetaceans are classified as "even-toed ungulates" (Order: Artiodactyla), while horses are "odd-toed ungulates" (Order: Perissodactyla).
That means a giraffe is more closely related to a narwhal (58 MYA) than to a zebra (76 MYA).
(diagram by K. L. Mariott)
Today, it feeds 15M children in 90,000 schools across the country.
And we have the Black Panthers, in part, to thank for it.
The precedent & success of providing free breakfast led to increased community & federal support for breakfast programs that had already been piloted by the USDA. In 1975, as BPP was struggling against police opposition, the School Breakfast Program was permanently authorized.
They reportedly harassed volunteers, went door to door telling parents that the food contained poison, diseases & children were being taught racism.
In one case in Chicago, BPP members reported that police broke into a church & smashed up food stores & urinated on it.
It was so successful, it threatened government agencies who saw it as a dangerous enticement to leftist politics in Black communities.
The FBI (under J. Edgar Hoover) was determined to destroy the BPP.
Children were more alert, less likely to act out or complain of stomach pain. Even community members not in the BPP began to participate, volunteer, contribute.
It was community-based praxis: empowering children & their families to achieve more together than they could alone.
BPP members solicited donations from local grocers, worked with nutritionists to ensure the breakfast was well-rounded & nourishing.
At its peak, the program fed tens of thousands of children every morning in 45 communities. Feedback from school officials was very positive.
Let's talk about the Black Panther Party’s "Free Breakfast for School Children" program & how it changed America.
Started Sept 1968 in Oakland, CA at St. Augustine's Church, the aim of the program was to address the challenge of poor children in Black communities going to school hungry.
@DuBusGuy19
I would watch the hell out of that.
Fun reminder that Lucille Ball is the only reason that Star Trek exists.
As the head of Desilu Productions, she green-lighted a pilot; then when it was deemed "too cerebral" by the networks, funded a financially-risky SECOND pilot that got the series picked up by NBC.
@harriettmb
Technically, yes, but it's a rear-fanged snake with only moderate venom, so it doesn't pose a threat to humans.
It is also, and I'm editorializing here, adorable, as snakes go.🐍
(photo Singapore Geographic, David Wirawan)
3-D models of their movement have been constructed (see linked article in Phys.org) and show that the undulation prevent the Paradise snake from tumbling, keeping it oriented with the widest side against the wind.
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-d-paradise-tree-snake-aerial.html
This is Chrysopelea paradisi, the Paradise Flying snake of Southeast Asia. As you can see, it can flex its ribs into flattened strips, allowing it to glide from trees using "aerial undulation".🧪
It may be the only limbless vertebrate capable of flight.
(Photo by Lynette Ree)
The Somatic Mosaicism Across Human Tissues (SMaHT) has been funded ($140M) by the NIH to study genetic variations between your cells that arise during development and maturity, one of my favorite topics.🧪
My only complaint:
I can't read 'SMaHT' without hearing it in a Boston accent.
Weird chronology:
*1990* was the last year that the PGA permitted tour locations to restrict membership to "Whites Only".
Shoal Creek Country Club near Birmingham, AL under great pressure, allowed a single Black member. This is the only non-white member they admitted for the next 4 years.
The earliest documented version of "rock, paper, scissors" is from Japan, called 'Mushi-ken', 1809.
The 3 hand positions are called slug (namekuji), frog (kawazu) and snake (hebi). 'Slug' seems to have been mistranslated from 'poison centipede'.
frog beats slug,
slug beats snake
snake beats frog.
Weird chronology:
Wil Wheaton is 51 as of July 2023.
That's 4 years older than Patrick Stewart was when "Star Trek: Next Generation" first aired in 1987.
Nintendo, founded 1889 as a playing card company, is older than the zipper, the stop sign, the mousetrap or the rotary dial phone.
Their early success was due to laws against gambling that exempted their 'hanafuda' cards, which became popular in yakuza-run gaming parlors.