White-striped will only mate with tan-striped. Also, the colour scheme things are on the chromosome pair that's turning into a new set of sex chromosomes. I'd misread the summary-white-striped females defend territories just like normal male birds. So every pair has a tan and a white, and a male and a female.
ASI made a coffee maker that works in space. It's called ISSpresso, because apparently ASI likes puns. EDIT: correctly credited the Italian space agency instead of NASA
One of my favorite little facts is that the age of the samurai and the age of the cowboy had very brief historical overlaps. The first recorded cattle run was in 1866 and the last true samurai died in 1877. For a very short time, there were both *sword slice* and "yeehaw" at the same time.
I saw a tumblr post with that! There was a Victorian gentleman thief, an exiled ex-samurai, a cowboy and an old pirate in one adventuring party, noted as being 'historically possible' as all those eras overlapped.
TIL Why Walking through a Doorway Makes You Forget. (It's not because doorways are magic.) (Doorways are still magic, though, probably.)
on Saturday i learned what an afterburner takeoff sounds like. also what a sonic boom sounds like. both are very loud and felt in areas that are not the ears: everywhere for the AB takeoff and in the chest for the sonic boom. also i learned what a sunburn feels like. ow. (i went to an airshow.)
usually airshows here don't involve that sort of thing-i'm from New Zealand, we are an island nation whose air force is a bunch of helicopters and some 50 year old military transports and cargoes. but this was the international airshow thing, so there were Australian f-18s which did a fake bombing of the airfield (explosives hidden behind a hill, triggered after the plane went over them), and Singaporean f-15s, and USA f-16s. which, incidentally, can apparently do J-shaped takeoffs. it was very loud.
Miconia is FORMALLY RECOGNIZED as having "the purple plague" and "the green cancer" as two colloquial/common names!!! holy SHIT. also: if you misspell recognized in allcaps on kintsugi it will have no idea what word you want—on the other key if you get it lowercase you're all g
TIL a USB-C plug has no "upside down" position and can fit in either way. MIND BLOWN (look, I just got my first USB-C device and have only had to charge it like three times in the last two weeks, I just thought I was having really good luck figuring out which way the plug went until I took a good look at it this morning and tried it both ways)
Kudzu has edible flowers, prickly pears have edible fleshy bits, and there's an invasive iguana population in Florida that people have started trying to deal with by eating them. Also there is an entire site called Eat The Invaders that documents invasive species in the northern hemisphere, and how to eat them.
Important fact: if you're in the Caribbean or nearby areas and "Ornate Butterfly Cod" is on the restaurant menu, order it. It's invasive lionfish, and apparently tastes quite good.
i can't try it because there's no lionfish here, but if i ever go somewhere where there are lionfish i will try it!
Problem: invasive species with no natural predators Solution: eat them I can't help feeling we should have figured this out long ago
