![]() At twenty-one minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins. and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 P.M. Thanks to ten minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10:24 the Earth is covered in the great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow. trilobites swim onto the scene, followed more or less immediately by the shapely creatures of the Burgess Shale. ![]() Then, finally, the first sea plants appear, followed twenty minutes later by the first jellyfish and the enigmatic Ediacaran fauna first seen by Reginald Sprigg in Australia. Not until almost 8:30 in the evening, with the day five-sixths over, has Earth anything to show the universe but a restless skin of microbes. ![]() “If you imagine the 4,500-bilion-odd years of Earth's history compressed into a normal earthly day, then life begins very early, about 4 A.M., with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() All but one.Įven now the ominous signs are appearing: the violent winter storms and volcanic eruptions that are said to herald the approach of the Red Star and its lethal spawn. And most of the Lord Holders are prepared to protect their people, to provide sanctuary, to assemble groundcrews to search out and destroy any Thread that might be missed by the dragons soaring overhead. Only the dragons, originally created to be a weapon against Thread, are still around to remind people that once before their population was decimated, their hopes and dreams and livelihoods almost destroyed forever.įor two centuries the dragonriders have been practicing and training, passing down from generation to generation the Threadfighting techniques learned on the fly by their besieged ancestors. ![]() There's no sign of it anywhere in the world. No one alive remembers that first onslaught. Who could believe that such a horrible thing could exist? After all, it's been two hundred years since Thread supposedly fell on Pern. Thread: deadly silver strands that fall from the sky like rain, devouring every organic thing in their path - animals, plants, and people alike. ![]() ![]() Kora's career started to take off, and everything proceeded according to plan, when during one of her business trips, she lived the most beautiful night of her life, the night that will change everything. Where words fail, perfumes release the most intense and hidden emotions of the ego, awakening the darkest and most primordial instincts of human beings." "Perfumes are the essence of life itself. This is precisely what Kora Night does, creating new essences drawing inspiration from the smells and sensations of her lovers around the world. The only thing that exists is sex, pure, violent, wild, a breathtaking combination of sensations of pleasure and new fragrances to explore. ![]() The love told in the movies doesn't exist. ![]() It's just the smell of my skin, combined with the adrenaline generated from the moment I saved you, the pleasure I'm feeling on this bed while I'm laying on top of your naked body." "What is this perfume on your neck? Tell me, I want to know." ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Millions of Australians feed wild birds in their gardens. Music: ‘Strange Stuff’ by Sonic Wallpaper - . Feeding the Birds at Your Table is designed to provide detailed, comprehensive advice and suggestions for people wishing to feed wild birds in Australia from their own backyards and balconies. ![]() Music: ‘Strange Stuff’ by Sonic Wallpaper. If you do want to know more about how to feed the birds in your garden make sure to grab a copy of Darryl's two books "The Birds at My Table: Why We Feed Wild Birds and Why it Matters" and "Feeding the Birds at Your Table: A Guide for Australia".įollow Darryl on Twitter us on us on Instagram We talk about what impacts our bird feeding behaviours can have on birds, and, if you do feel compelled to feed birds, how you can do it responsibly. In this episode of In Situ Science we talk about Australia's bird life and how adopting bird feeding strategies developed in other parts of the world is inappropriate for our unique birds. Darryl has turned his focus towards understanding what food we are giving birds and why we feel so compelled to do this. Despite how common it is, there has been very little research into the impacts of this interaction on birds' behaviour and ecology. One of the most common and widespread interactions between animals and humans is bird feeding. OK, if you must make sure you do it properly.ĭr Darryl Jones is an urban ecologist who has spent years studying the interactions between humans and animals in towns and cities. ![]() ![]() ![]() In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation’s history for forty years. ![]() Though she and Friedman are in many ways the "Adam and Eve" of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told. ![]() There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. Joining the ranks of Hidden Figures and In the Garden of Beasts, the incredible true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II. “Not all superheroes wear capes, and Elizebeth Smith Friedman should be the subject of a future Wonder Woman movie.” -The New York Times ![]() ![]() (Clearly, Chris doesn’t follow the Jack Donaghy rule of post-6:00 p.m. Why ‘Queen Charlotte’ Says Yes to a Very Specific Wedding DressĬhris starts off as a frog in a slow social boiling pot of water when he’s the only one at this charity gala not dressed up. As the on-screen string-puller directing a cast and crew of hundreds through a thoroughly choreographed set of circumstances, Brown plays coy with whether or not the goal is to get main subject Chris to actually go through with it or to get him to the point where he can choose for himself. ![]() The set-up is simple: Take one unsuspecting person, chosen for his human suggestibility, and lead him through a series of tiny tasks that slowly make him more perceptible to carrying out an unthinkable task. Purporting to answer the question of whether or not a random individual could be psychologically coerced into justifying the killing of another person, the twisted entertainment of “The Push” comes in all the moments before that fateful ending task. ![]() ![]() Magician/sociologist Derren Brown unveiled this elaborate TV experiment in the UK back in early 2016, but it’s just now making its way to the States via Netflix. ![]() For a special that seems almost entirely geared to answer one climactic question, “The Push” is surprisingly spoiler-resistant. ![]() ![]() Meanwhile, Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars who is engaged to the evil Lucy Steele. Willoughby, causing her to fall in love with him. Marianne is rescued from a giant octopus by Mr. Dashwood is eaten by a hammerhead shark his daughters Marianne and Elinor, along with their sister and mother, are sent to Pestilent Island where they meet Sir John Middleton, owner of the islands, and squid-faced Colonel Brandon. ![]() ![]() Using the familiar plot structure of Austen's first novel, and a few of the most famous lines, the mannered life of early nineteenth century gentry is stripped of witty dialogue and replaced with monsters, vulgarity, and violence. ![]() This latest effort to combine Jane Austen mania and pop culture horror takes the same format as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies minus the innovation of being the first to do so. ![]() ![]() ![]() Forced to flee France for England, Nancy is trained by an elite espionage group under the codename Hélène. When Nancy falls in love with a handsome French industrialist, no sooner has she become Mrs Henri Fiocca than the Germans invade and Nancy adopts another name, a codename – the first of many.Īs the elusive Lucienne Carlier she smuggles people across borders and earns the nickname ‘The White Mouse’, along with a five million franc bounty on her head courtesy of the Gestapo. ![]() ![]() In 1936 intrepid young Australian journalist Nancy Wake is living in Paris after witnessing firsthand the terror of Hitler’s rise in Europe, firing her resolve to join the fight to defeat the Nazis. A rollercoaster ride full of danger and intrigue based on the extraordinary true story of Australia’s most beloved war heroine, Nancy Wake, now optioned for a television series starring Elizabeth Debicki. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Black women are going to be able to talk about the details of this alternate history novel and how it examines racism, slavery, and Black lives being treated as a commodity in a way that I can’t. Honestly, I feel like I could talk about this book for hours, but I want to take a moment to link to another review, first.Īs a white reader and reviewer, I think it’s important to use this platform as a way to highlight the experts. Now, this is going to be a bit of a different review. ![]() Whether you are interested in history, zombies, or just a good story, this is a book to pick up. It was breathtaking, it was intense, it was all consuming in the way the best books are. I have been thinking about this book nonstop since I finished it. ![]() The author is also on twitter here, and has a website over here. It just hit the NYT Bestsellers List, it should be absolutely everywhere. Having a Black leading lady say so, and so matter of fact, makes this even more significant. Why it’s on this list: Although the identity language isn’t there, considering the era, it is still made explicit that the main character is attracted to boys and girls, and a secondary character admits to being attracted to no one at all. it’s zombies, and the Native and Negro Reeducation Act, which is what ‘ended’ slavery and forced young Black children to go to schools to learn how to fight the undead instead. What it is: a novel where the dead start rising at the battle of Gettysburg. ![]() |