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[MarsDragon]

There was a typhoon on the planned date for invading Japan in WWII. Probably wouldn't have changed anything in the long run, but would've hampered the invasion out the gate.

Feel free to use this for all your counterfactual history needs.

[Friday]

That somehow makes me even more sad.

[Mongrel]

Wow, that's actually kind of wild, considering the historical frequency with which armies invading japan were wiped out by typhoons.

[Mongrel]

There was one confirmed, recorded instance in human history of a person with some number of completely immortal cells.

The cells were from a sample of an extremely aggressive cancerous tumour which was what killed Henrietta Lacks, a black woman (living in Dundalk MD, no less) from a poorer family who died young. 

A doctor noticed the cells in a sample (taken without her permission, though at the time permission was not normally asked for), isolating a single, perfectly immortal human stem cell. That cell has been cultured more than than any human cell in history, was the first human cell to ever be cloned or mass-produced, and has been used in thousands of medical research applications since then.

Whoa.

[TA]

Yeah, it's kind of a thing.  Since her family is getting no share of the commercial use of her cells, and neither her nor her family consents to the continued harvesting and replication.  Went to the Supreme Court, even!

[Classic]

To top it off, she was a person of color.
The first time I'd heard about her (and her fatal cancer) was in a list of examples where PoC have been exploited or their contributions diminished.

[Ocksi]

all i'm saying is why isn't their white history month

[Lottel]

There are a few books about her that are very very popular (in the science section of bookstores).

The one that immediately pops to mind is this one. I've not read it but I've heard it's really a pretty good read.

[Smiler]

One of the reasons one of my videos has so many views is because it was literally embedded on io9.

[Disposable Ninja]

A surprising number of anti-feminists are actually women disenfranchised with the movement, like Erin Pizzey, founder of Europe's first modern women's shelter.

[TA]

Apple Cores Are a Myth

[Mongrel]

Is this like how there was that whole deal about "This is how monkeys eat a banana" and then everyone nodded and just went back to peeling them the regular way? 

Anyone who wants to eat the "Whole" apple will just do it the way I do when so inclined: Cut apple in half (or quarters); remove seeds, remove stem and whatever the "apple asshole" is properly called; eat.

EDIT: Ah, it's both the Stamen and the Calyx. So actually the apple penis.

[Classic]

You can probably eat the stamen and calyx those parts just fine, but I was given to believe that those crevices shielded pesticides from being washed off, and if you eat a lot of that stuff it starts to have adverse effects.

BTW: When I can't pop the stem of a banana off easily, I still use monkey style as a backup. Much like how I'll use my teeth to cut stuff that my keys or nails can't pop.

[Mongrel]

Well, yeah. Cores aren't GOOD to eat either. Like the article says, seeds have a small amount of freaking cyanide in them and the surrounding bits aren't particularly tasty. The thing is that the space between the stem and the core, as well as the space between the bottom and the core is all perfectly edible.

[R^2]

Well fuck, you can eat orange peel too. I just can't imagine why anybody would want to. (I usually pop the stem and blossom ends off the core and give them to my rat, throwing away the bit in the middle with the seeds.)

(And I always peel bananas from the blossom end. It's a good trick if you ever have to peel fifty or so at once, as I occasionally have to at work.)

[MarsDragon]

The orange part of the peel isn't very good, but I like to just barely scrape that off and eat the pith with a tiny bit of...orange zest or whatever you call it in there before eating the actual orange. It's good! I swear!

And Classic you should always wash fruit before you eat it. You don't know where it's been.

[R^2]

Th... the orange part of the peel is the zest.

[Büge]

Is it true that in the original TMNT comics that April O'Neil was intended to be mixed race?

[Thad]

Eastman says yes and that she was based on his then-girlfriend (who was also named April).  Laird says if that's the case then he wasn't aware of it.

Her first appearance, in issue #2, has her looking much as she would in her later animated appearances, but starting in #4 and for the duration of the original Mirage run she had curly black hair.  Her complexion usually tended toward the tan on the occasions when she appeared in color.

So basically I find it fairly plausible that both creators are telling the truth, that Eastman intended her to be biracial and Laird didn't, and it's hard to say what the "original" intent was when her appearance changed pretty substantially a few issues in.

(It does seem a little odd that Laird wouldn't notice that April had the same name as Eastman's girlfriend and also looked like her.  My guess is he knew the name was an homage but didn't know the appearance was -- given that Mirage April also bears a passing resemblance to Julie Strain, it could be that Eastman just has a type.)

[Mongrel]

Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release.
Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.

Huh.

Still on v5.61. Works fine.

I had assumed this was still the default player for most people on PC. I actually have no idea what other people are using these days.