Picture Sundays: I’m One Taco Short of a Combination Platter

It’s a huge non sequitur, but today’s impending Superbowl made me think of the gatefold for the ZZ Top album Tres Hombres. Perhaps it was the publicity person who wanted me to promote a birria meat stew concocted by a celebrity chef (and celebrity flag football participant–who knew there was such a thing?) in conjunction with the Superbowl. Or maybe I’m having a Proust moment, except with nachos instead of madeleines. So...

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Picture Sundays: Your Livestock Can Survive Fallout from Nuclear Attack

The US Department of Agriculture published this handy pamplett circa 1962. The USDA’s main recommendation? Get yourself a “two-story, basement-type barn with a hay-filled loft,  to “reduce radiation exposure [to your animals by] as much as 80 percent.” Thanks to the interwebs you can download your own copy here. And, something for the kids. There’s a film version–featuring marionettes!...

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Picture Sundays: Bile Beans

ETA: Kelly says: Bile beans on Easter Sunday? Oh, Erik. I’m adding the following photo to this post. It’s really exciting that a Barred Rock is featured in the photo, plus, it illustrates the ambiguous relationship between rabbits and eggs that marks Easter: a persistent ambiguity that leads little kids to believe bunnies lay eggs, or at least the chocolate ones. Here, the bunny seems to have domesticated the hen as both an...

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Picture Sundays: A Native Bee Hotel

Don’t know much about this native bee house other than that it’s near Paris. For more info on native bee habitats, see our post from earlier this year. Update: reader Drew left a comment to say that this habitat is in the Jardin des Plantas in Paris which is attached to the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (http://www.mnhn.fr/le-museum/). Thanks to David Dalzel for the tip....

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Picture Sundays: Harvard’s Glass Flower Collection

Photo ©President & Fellows Harvard College, photo of Blaschka Glass Model by Hillel Burger. This cactus is made out of glass. Root Simple reader tworose tipped me off to the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s collection of glass flowers. According to the museum’s website: This unique collection of over 3,000 models was created by glass artisans Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolph. The commission began in 1886, continued for fi...

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