inkbluesky

naked flower 88 1600×1200 

World’s Largest Flower Skips Sex 

Now normally, plants and animals initiate some form of sex to pass along their genes, which are the software of life. Bacteria can swap hereditary information without sex, but its rare for such trades to occur in higher life forms.

So scientists were surprised to learn that mere physical contact — direct but not sexual — allows genes to pass from the host plant to this parasite flower and back.

I think that for some guys that ride subways this is a common fantasy.

The Envelope Collective 

It doesn’t take much to enlist in The Envelope Collective. Three simple steps will land you in their warm embrace:

1. Turn an envelope into a piece of art.
2. Stamp it.
3. Mail it to one of the Collective’s three thoroughly disclosed locations.

Assuming neither snow nor rain nor dark of night interfere, you should soon see your handiwork displayed in the group’s online gallery. This “collaborative experiment in art” welcomes graphic squares and squiggles, goblin renderings, rock star tributes, and penguin portraits of all kinds. Whether you fancy collage or illustration or 55-word tales, you will find a hearty welcome here. And if you feel like contributing multiple times, go right ahead. Some mail-art activists are nearing 100 deliveries.

There is a gallery if you just want to browse and not contribute.

Mormon Leaders Still Won’t Come Clean on Race-Tainted Past 

A sample of one of offending scriptural gems reads, “…wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing because of their iniquity…”

A public disavowal of passages such as this is not a meaningless academic exercise. Thousands of Mormons still doggedly cling to a literal interpretation of the Mormon book, and believe blacks are inferior.