Links of the Past Month Or So

[baratron]

You know what I've been really missing since people started spinning off to other types of social media? Awesome links that people found. I only have a couple of people left on my friends list who post cool links, and it tends to be one or two at a time rather than massive linkspams. I miss them!

I myself am terrible at getting round to posting linkspams (indeed, I usually have 20 or more tabs open waiting until I have spoons to write coherent English), but here are some of the links that have been sitting around waiting:

Science Links:
Photos: Bear researcher Lynn Rogers keeps making tracks. This is the guy who's been on a couple of BBC TV programmes, and whose bear research I follow every day. Lovely photos of Ursus americanus. Bears!

So, we all know that people who think that people who think that cilantro is pleasantly astringent are normal, and people who think it tastes soapy are normal, and people who like it because it tastes soapy are complete weirdos. And we've known for a while that whether it tastes pleasantly bitter or soapy to you is because of genetics. Here are the actual genetics.

Carnivores pick meats over sweets. Apparently, lots of carnivores can't actually taste sweet things. I presume that bears are not among them.

Awesome animations. Unfortunately, the version of The Cambrian Sea shown here does not include the Opabinia. (stellarwind's favourite prehistoric creature).

otterylexa informs me that 8th-12th October are Cephalopod Awareness Days. All hail our future overlords!

Ada Lovelace Day is on Tuesday 16th October. Rather tempted to go to this event in London, anyone interested?

Cute Things:
Liz Climo's Tumblr. Adorable drawings of bears, bunnies, dinosaurs, foxes, and more.

Queer Things:
Illustrated Kinsey Scale. NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Now I want someone to do a female version, please. And a bi version with all genders of people.

Disability Links:
Found by accident: Sign language that African Americans use is different from that of whites. Very interesting.

Linked from that, and on a similar note: Gallaudet University’s new dorm designed with deaf students in mind. Will be generally interesting to anyone who cares about access issues.

How Things Work When Your Lover Is Also Your Caregiver. This is great.

Comments

The Illustrated Kinsey

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

Oh hello! :D

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Well, since bears aren't carnivores... :) As far as I can tell, cats at least still like sweet things even though they're not supposed to be able to taste them. I assume it's because of the other flavors present, since I haven't actually tried plain sugar on them.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Well, bears are classified in the order Carnivora, so plenty of sources say that's it, they're carnivores. But if you look at their teeth and diets, it's fairly obvious that they're evolving towards being omnivores. Ursus americanus, which are the bears I know most about due to following the daily Bear Research Updates, basically don't eat meat. They get their animal protein from sources like termites, ant brood, and bee larvae, topped up by occasional fish at the right time of year.

Even polar bears, which you'd think of as "true" carnivores, eat a fair bit of plant matter - especially in summer & when starving. Wikipedia claims that some biologists think their dentition shows they have evolved from pure carnivores to omnivores & are now going back to carnivores again, but if a source was given I didn't see it. Mind you, the whole theory of where exactly polar bears came from is controversial (most recent claim iirc is that they evolved from grizzlies, which is why they can so easily cross-breed with grizzlies to make "grolar" bears), but how many thousands of years ago is debatable from 10 to 50 - that's a big difference in evolutionary timescales!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Anything that depends as much on berries as bears do is not a carnivore in my book, ancestry aside.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

My reaction to the racial differences in ASL is twofold: OMG SO COOL, love it when there are interesting dialects you wouldn't expect; DAMMIT another prestige judgement on dialects that are both perfectly valid. Great article, though, thanks. (Note however that your link goes to page 3.)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Ah, I can't fix that until I'm on from a real computer. Can't tell from here what the correct link "should" be. Will fix when I get home.

[barakta]

Did you think it was judging? I read it as recognising the issues around judgement (and potential privileges) of Black ASL vs White ASL and who may or may not understand it and where it may/may not be commonly used. Also that the reason black signers sign differently is due to retention of manualism vs white people being pushed to the failure which was oralism...

I shall reread when not working and think more on it.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I did not think the article was judging; it describes a judgement that exists, which I do not think ought to exist.

[barakta]

Yes, I agree with that. I am glad there has been research into this and more discussion and awareness as by doing that people can be aware there is a difference and the importance of supporting the minority system so that it doesn't become "second class" or exploited or or or.

Thanks for pointing out the page3 linkage too.

I found it very interesting from a race/Deafness intersectionality perspective as I know a bit about Deafie history and relatively little about US race/segregation history. And seeing the two intersect like that is like whoa, can see how racism played a part.

In the UK we have Catholic/Protestant complications with sign language. In Glasgow Scotland until about 1980s or so the Protestant deaf people used British Sign Language (BSL) (if they signed) like the rest of the UK and the Catholic deaf people used Irish Sign Language (ISL) (if they signed) like ROI. This meant there were deafies in the same city who did not sign the same language - not just dialects like the White/Black ASL but TOTALLY different systems. I find this absolutely astoundingly boggleworthy.

By the 1980s Catholic and Protestant people were mixing more so the schools became less segregated and my generation of Deafies cross merged their signs a lot more - although I suspect more to the BSL side as that's the majority sign used in the UK so it's less extreme but just strikes me as sad in a community which is already small.

And the same for the Black ASLers - I mean they're marginalised and have all sorts of racism wossnames affecting the validity and use and awareness of their variant of the language.

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff. Thanks!