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After nearly 20 years of trying to increase the red-headed vulture population, this endangered baby vulture was born in March at the Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo in northeast Thailand. The endangered bird is the first red-headed - also known as Asian king vulture - to be bred in the continent and only the second in the world. X

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Ethiopian wolves feed on the sweet nectar of a local flower, picking up pollen on their snouts as they do so – which may make them the first carnivores discovered to act as pollinators.

The Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is the rarest wild canid species in the world and Africa’s most threatened carnivore. Endemic to the Ethiopian Highlands, fewer than 500 individuals survive.

Sandra Lai at the University of Oxford and her colleagues observed wild Ethiopian wolves lapping up the nectar of Ethiopian red hot poker (Kniphofia foliosa) flowers. Local people in the mountains have traditionally used the nectar as a sweetener for coffee and on flat bread.

The wolves are thought to be the first large carnivore species ever to be recorded regularly feeding on nectar.

“For large carnivores, such as wolves, nectar-feeding is very unusual, due to the lack of physical adaptations, such as a long tongue or specialised snout, and because most flowers are too fragile or produce too little nectar to be interesting for large animals,” says Lai.

The sturdy, nectar-rich flower heads of the poker plant make this behaviour possible, she says. “To my knowledge, no other large carnivorous predator exhibits nectar-feeding, though some omnivorous bears may opportunistically forage for nectar, albeit rarely and poorly documented.”

Some of the wolves were seen visiting as many as 30 blooms in a single trip. As they lick the nectar, the wolves’ muzzles get covered in pollen, which they could potentially be transferring from flower to flower as they feed.

“The behaviour is interesting because it shows nectar-feeding and pollination by non-flying mammals might be more widespread than currently recognised, and that the ecological significance of these lesser-known pollinators might be more important than we think,” says Lai. “It’s very exciting.”

Lai and her colleagues at the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme now hope to dig deeper into the behaviour and its ramifications. “Trying to confirm actual pollination by the wolves would be ideal, but that would be quite challenging,” she says. “I’m also very interested in the social learning aspect of the behaviour. We’ve seen this year adults bringing their juveniles to the flower fields, which could indicate cultural transmission.”

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gen z is not falling for media propaganda because we have alternate independent sources of information! look at this video:

[2 minute tiktok full of conspiracy theories, racism, and history distorted like a pretzel]

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/18/gaza-looting-aid-convoys-israel-famine/

Officials said criminal looting has become the greatest impediment to distributing aid in the southern half of Gaza, home to the vast majority of displaced Palestinians. Armed bands of men have killed, beaten and kidnapped aid truck drivers in the area around Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point into Gaza’s south, aid workers and transport companies said. The thieves, who have run cigarette-smuggling operations throughout this year but are now also stealing food and other supplies, are tied to local crime families, residents say. The gangs are described by observers as rivals of Hamas and, in some cases, they have been targeted by remnants of Hamas’s security forces in other parts of the enclave. An internal United Nations memo obtained by The Washington Post concluded last month that the gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israel Defense Forces. One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”

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Gold, emerald, diamond, and enamel signet ring with clock, crafted by Johannes Butz of Augsburg, Germany, 2nd quarter of the 17th Century AD.

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i think a lot of liberals need to confront the fact that they don’t actually believe everyone should have basic human rights. a homeless person could call me every slur under the sun and i would still want them to have housing, food, etc. the belief that everyone is entitled to basic human rights should not hinge on whether you “like” someone or not. at that point the entire ideology crumbles.

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Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz sent young women thousands of dollars on Venmo for the reasons of “Reimbursement,” “Being my friend,” “🤗,” “xtra 4 u,” and “Just because”

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Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz sent young women thousands of dollars on Venmo for the reasons of “Reimbursement,” “Being my friend,” “🤗,” “xtra 4 u,” and “Just because”

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a 1985 Senegalese stamp from a series on marine fauna

[ID: a postage stamp with an image of a Norway lobster. end ID]

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URGENT HELP

Look at the suffering in winter. There is no warm place for me and my children to live. We have no shelter. There are no children’s clothes for protection.

I ask you help us

Donate and reblog please 👇

@90-ghost @el-shab-hussein @sayruq @nabulsi @neptunerings @dlxxv-vetted-donations @appsa @a-shade-of-blue @sar-soor @moayesh @commissions4aid-international @paper-mario-wiki @dlxxv-vetted-donations @gaza-evacuation-funds @wild-digs @the-ballerina-battle @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @just-browsing1222 @girlinafairytale @khanger @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness @maoistyuri @dahyun @acepumpkinpatrick @thetownwecallhome @tsaricides @feluka @brutaliakhoa @dlxxv-vetted-donations @vakarians-babe @the-bastard-king @aria-ashryver @malcriada @bat-luun @mangocheesecakes @violetlyra @nightowlssleep @self-hating-zionist @startes @friendshapedplant @yokohama-crackhouse @omiteo777

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“Babel” by Cildo Meireles (2001)

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I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

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Meet Mohammed

Mohammed @mohammedalhabil lives with his mother Ibtisam, his sister Noha, and his sister Nour. They are a loving family, but have had more than their fair share of struggles. Mohammed’s father was martyred by the occupation in its 2014 aggression. Ibtisam and Omar, Mohammed’s older brother, supported the family themselves for many years. Then, in December 2023, Omar was martyred by the occupation while he and Mohammed were out gathering firewood. Mohammed was severely injured in the same attack.

This was not the last time Mohammed was injured by IOF violence. Mohammed has been injured on four separate occasions, resulting in his left leg being critically wounded. He had to have a full cast put on, rendering him unable to move any part of his leg.

He undergoes regular physiotherapy when it is safe enough to travel to the clinic, but unfortunately this is not enough to heal his wound. Mohammed is going to require intense, specialized treatment in order to fully heal his leg and regain as full of function as possible. Due to the occupation’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s medical infrastructure, this cannot be done in Gaza.

Mohammed will need to travel abroad to treat his leg, which will be a complex and expensive proposition. Just passing from Gaza into Egypt costs thousands of dollars, not to mention the costs of lodging, food, medication, and medical appointments. He is trying to raise funds so that when the border reopens, he will be able to arrange passage into Egypt, and begin his journey to fully healing.

His family is already struggling to survive, relying on mutual aid for food and other basic necessities. They lost their home due to IOF attack, and none of them are able to work. This means Mohammed has no way to pay for his travel and treatment costs without your support.

Please help Mohammed be able to afford the treatment he needs

Thank you❤️❤️

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Bahamas, Gemini V.

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THE AGGRESSIVES (2005) dir DANIEL PEDDLE