I don’t wanna have kids bc I don’t want to get put in a home when i get too old to take care of myself… i want to die from falling down the stairs and for my neighbors to find me when i start to smell bad. The way god intended
just thinking of how our meaning or purpose in life is merely to experience. eating an orange segment, hoping for snow, being in love, returning over and over to one painting, stepping outside for the full moon, submersion in water, having a favourite colour, knowing beauty, feeling alone, feeling connected, feeling longing… it is enough.
Meet Elizabeth Anne, a very special black footed ferret. Black footed ferrets are critically endangered; all currently living black footed ferrets are descended from the last seven animals that were taken into a captive breeding program to save the species.
Well, all but one. Elizabeth Anne is a clone of a ferret named Willa whose genetic material was cryogenically preserved in 1988. She is the only living black footed ferret to not be descended from the original seven founder animals, and that makes her a beam of hope for the genetic diversity of the species.
Last year, the same company responsible for Elizabeth Anne’s birth cloned a critically endangered Przewalski’s horse, which you can read more about here.
Sherds of willow-pattern from the banks of the Thames
The willow-pattern has a story behind it.
Once there was a wealthy Mandarin who had a beautiful daughter, more
beautiful than a flower. She fell in love with her father’s humble
assistant notary, but was already promised to a nobleman. Her father
built a high fence around his house to keep the lovers apart, and
arranged her wedding to take place on the day the blossom fell from the
willow trees. Her grand fiancé arrived by boat in good time to claim his
bride, bearing a box of jewels as a gift. But on the eve of the
wedding, the heartbroken notary disguised himself as a servant, slipping
into the palace unnoticed. As the lovers escaped with the box of
jewels, an alarm was raised. Running over a bridge, they were chased by
the bride’s enraged father, whip in hand, and a little army of men in
boats. The gods, moved by the couple’s plight, transformed them into a
pair of doves locked in a perpetual kiss.
