Posts

PETA’s president urged pet owners to use the terms “animal companion” instead of “pet” and “guardian” instead of “owner.” PixabayPETA says that the word “pet” is demeaning, insinuating our animals are inanimate objects instead of sentient beings. The animal advocacy organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has come out with a new educational campaign that they argue will help promote better treatment of animals in our care. The biggest feature of the new campaign is pushing to change the words that we use, particularly the words “pet” and “owner....

California’s Lake Oroville was once a destination spot for boating and swimming, but a five-year drought has decimated its water level. Lake Oroville, July 20, 2011, before California’s historic drought truly took hold. Photo: Paul Hames/California Department of Water Resources via Getty Images It may sound strange, but in March hundreds of California residents traveled to a rural lake to celebrate as engineers opened its spillway to release surplus water....

Jarmoluk/Pixabay A new study vindicates all the hippies and stoners who have long advocated for the beneficial properties of hallucinogenic drugs: A chemical in magic mushrooms might help treat depression. The 12 subjects of the study — conducted by Imperial College London and published in The Lancet — suffered from depression that had been deemed “untreatable.” All of them had tried at least two methods of relieving their symptoms, and one subject reported living with depression for 30 years....

When he took the podium to deliver the “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King wasn’t even going to utter that immortal line — then fate interceded. On August 27, 1963 — the night before one of U.S. history’s most momentous demonstrations — Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues set up shop in Washington, D.C.’s Willard Hotel, where they made some final preparations for King’s “I Have a Dream” speech that was to be delivered the next day....

Whether the subject was a U.S. president or an unidentified commoner, these Mathew Brady photos are breaking down in gorgeous ways. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 37 Haunting Portraits Of 19th Century Mental Asylum Patients The Smithsonian Just Acquired Rare 19th-Century Portraits By America’s First Black Photographers 40 Chillingly Beautiful Abandoned Photographs 1 of 34Former president Andrew Jackson, 1845....

As earth-friendly art continues to garner acclaim in many creative communities, the whimsical wood work of Patrick Dougherty shines bright. Source: Don’t Panic Online Patrick Dougherty is yet another contemporary sculptor whose eco-friendly artwork blurs the line between art and the environment. By manipulating saplings into spectacular shapes and images, he flawlessly builds green artwork that has garnered worldwide praise. Dougherty is yet another artist interested in earth-friendly artwork, and his success confirms that the green art trend is here to stay....

Although Pete Frates helped raise $250 million, he can no longer sustain the health care costs of his own ALS. You may not know his name — or that he even existed at all — but there was, in fact, one man behind the Ice Bucket Challenge. His name is Pete Frates, the challenge he inspired has raised more than $250 million for ALS research, and now he and his family are unable to afford the costs of his own ALS....

In an effort to test one of his theories on social behavior, psychologist Muzafer Sherif released 22 twelve-year-old boys into a sparsely supervised wilderness camp — and then covertly provoked them to fight each other. The British Psychological Society/University of AkronSome of 22 12-year-old boys unknowingly en route to participate in Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment. In the summer of 1954, world-renowned social psychologist Muzafer Sherif toted 22 boys to the foothills of the San Bois Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma....

No matter how carefully you plan out your life, sooner or later it’s all going to fall apart on you. When that happens, and the divorce papers show up or the parking fines get to be too much to bear, you might find yourself tempted to throw it all away and run off to join the Foreign Legion or something. Thanks to Beau Geste and that one Laurel and Hardy movie, Americans all have the idea that the Légion étrangère is the kind of organization that will let you sign up and get a new start on life by traveling all over the world and doing a romantic, dangerous job that really impresses women in sleazy North African bars....

Also known as Titan arum, the 5-foot tall plant weighs 40 lbs and smells like dirty diapers. Live ScienceA rare ‘corpse flower,’ which is native to Indonesia, blooomed for the first time in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. A rare natural phenomenon recently happened in New York. A gigantic corpse flower made its first bloom — and it took 10 years for it to happen. According to Live Science, the corpse flower, known by its scientific name Amorphophallus titanum, arrived at the Arthur Ross Greenhouse at Barnard College in 2013 as a gift from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden....

When she was just four years old, Shanti Devi began telling her parents eerily specific details about her old life in a town 75 miles from where she was born — and a place she’d never been to before. GoodreadsShanti Devi claimed to recall her previous life in shocking detail, and her account drew the attention of reincarnation researchers the world over. Religion and philosophy have long discussed the possibility of souls, but it was the claims of a young girl named Shanti Devi from Delhi, India, that made a rather convincing case for reincarnation in the 1930s....

Nearly one-third of New York’s ultra-Orthodox students aren’t fluent in English. When Naftuli Moster was applying to college, he had never written an essay in English, never attended a gym class, and never heard the word “molecule.” As a Hasidic Jew in New York, he was part of an ultra-Orthodox community in which secular subjects — like science, English, and math — weren’t considered an important part of the curriculum and often weren’t taught at all....

After allegedly murdering four of his neighbors in Butler Township, Ohio, Stephen Marlow claimed his victims were “telepathic” government agents that were “activating” mass shooters. Douglas County Sheriff’s OfficeStephen Marlow believed he was a “targeted individual,” a term used by people who suffer from paranoid delusions. “I want to be very clear, this will not be an active shooter event,” 39-year-old Stephen Marlow said in a video he posted to social media last week — just after allegedly murdering four of his neighbors in cold blood....

Theorists have long claimed that our ancestors could not have formed large societies and cities without fear of vengeful gods to motivate people — but this controversial new study says otherwise. PixabayThe Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza. Philosophers of religion, historians, and social theorists have long argued that early humans — and their significant transition from small tribes to cities of more than a million people about 12,000 years ago — required having faith in “moralizing gods” in order to come together and construct those expansive, functioning societies....

Farhan and Tanvir Towhid left an 11-page note on Instagram blaming depression and disappointment with the direction of the sitcom for the murder of their parents, sister, and grandmother. FacebookFarhan and Tanvir Towhid, left, murdered their entire family in Allen, Texas. The Instagram post had a chilling start: “Hey everyone. I killed myself and my family.” Friends of 19-year-old Farhan Towhid immediately notified police, who rushed to the Towhid home in Allen, Texas....

Endemic to the Philippines, the giant golden-crowned flying fox is a nocturnal creature that only eats fruit — but that doesn’t make them any less terrifying. The notion of human-sized bats roaming the skies is genuinely nightmarish. Fortunately for us, the biggest bat in the world survives on a vegan diet of figs and other fruits. Nonetheless, the giant golden-crowned flying fox’s size is truly something to behold — and viral images of these megabats have shocked social media users into sheer disbelief....

Devastating images of the Halifax Explosion, a cataclysm so great that some victims were blinded simply by looking at it. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 35 Photos Of Chernobyl Today After Being Frozen In Time By A Nuclear Meltdown The Forgotten Explosion Of The Sultana, The Worst Maritime Disaster In American History Joachim Ronneberg, The Resistance Fighter Who Sabotaged Nazi Nuclear Weapons, Dies At 99...

On Halloween 1993, Tupac Shakur tried to stop two white off-duty cops from harassing a Black driver in Atlanta. But when one of them pulled his gun, Tupac shot first in self defense. Georgia State University LibraryTupac listens in Fulton County Court as Henry County police officer Mark Whitwell testifies about the shooting on Dec. 1, 1993. The son of a Black Panther, Tupac Shakur promoted self-defense in the face of societal racism, particularly against police brutality....

Bloodthirsty crowds reveled in venationes that saw the mass slaughter of animals like lions, elephants, and bears as the Romans forever altered the ecosphere of an entire region. Wikimedia CommonsA mosaic depicting popular forms of entertainment in ancient Rome, including venationes. In ancient Rome, nothing could spice up a night like attending a venatio. These battles, usually held at the Colosseum or in Circus Maximus, involved exotic animals like lions, bears, and hippos....

Tennessee grandmother Leimome Cheeks now faces two counts of child endangerment after driving around with her caged grandkids in sweltering temperatures. She was caught on video transporting her two young grandchildren in pet kennels and now she’ll have to answer for it. Footage recorded by a passerby on Elvis Presley Blvd. in Memphis, Tenn. on June 9 (above) shows 62-year-old local woman Leimome Cheeks releasing one of the children from the kennel situated in the back of her SUV....