Lackadaisical semaphores and a puddle of jam

(Source: noel-fielding-love, via sarahxmay)

aperture24:

cucumber yoghurt soup

fairy-wren:

little owl
(photo via sakertour)

Badlands National Park (by Laura Travels)

(via silenceisthevirtueoffools)

twefish:

Glass Tree frog in Costa Rica

(via karlayst)

heavenlylambchop:

Noisettes - Never Forget You

(Source: nickoush, via fuckyeahbritishcomedy)

li-o-n:

(via imgTumble)

(Source: jordanianishere, via karlayst)

“Cold Toes On the Cold Floor” - Cold War Kids

(Source: darth-hera)

My favourite people: A to Z

S: Stephen Fry

(via sarahxmay)

marycwells:

Simon & Garfunkel - “A Hazy Shade of Winter”

currently

tiny-forest:

Mushroom blog

cute little caps

I PORTEND YOUR GRISLY DEMISE FOOLISH MORTALS (also known as the gibbering mental breakdown following the realization of NO EARL GREY TEA at the daily tea-break, compounded by an unwanted human occupying the chosen spot of prime shadiness beneath the oak tree. Wearing matching socks no less. Tell me, shiny cockroach companion of mine with a bit of lint dangling from your left antenna, is the Universe telling me to start picking a hand-basket? I choose the cannibalised TARDIS one with bioluminescent polka-dots and free internet access. I can garnish it with demons’ claws when I get there.)

visual-poetry:

by marcel buehler

rhamphotheca:

The Secret History of the Domesticated Apple

by Sam Kean

Nearly every child has bitten into a crabapple (left) at some point and spit it back out—yuck! But a new study in PLoS Genetics shows that modern supermarket apples (right) are more closely related to crabapples than to other, better-tasting ancient species.

Apples originated in Kazakhstan, where they show incredible variety in taste and size, then spread along the Silk Road trading route thousands of years ago. The Romans brought sweet apples from western Asia into Europe (Europeans previously used the fruit for cider), but the domesticated apple’s history was murky after that. The new study looked at rapidly evolving DNA regions known as microsatellites in 839 apple samples representing five species ranging from Spain to China. Testing these microsatellites allowed scientists to tease out the impact of recent crossings with wild apples.

The researchers confirmed that modern apples were first domesticated from wild Asian apples, but they found that subsequent crosses with European crabapples—possibly selected for disease resistance, hardiness, or other traits—contributed the most DNA to modern domesticated apples. The scientists also found no evidence of genetic bottlenecks—a severe narrowing of genetic diversity—in domesticated apples, a pattern that contrasts with the earliest domesticated crops like barley, millet, and wheat. 

(via: Science NOW)      

(image: (left) Benjamin Cody/Wikipedia;(right) Éamonn Ó Muirí/Wikipedia)

Also as heard from the PBS documentary The Botany of Desire,
based on the eponymous book by Michael Pollan.

fairy-wren:

red tailed comet

(photo by PBannon)