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The Gopher Tortoise Council The Gopher Tortoise Council was founded in 1978, to learn more about these creatures; teach about them, and preserve them. They are found in the American Southwest, burrow, these burrows provide housing for more than 350 other species. There is some controversy about how to perserve their habitat, but being endangered is because their pine forrest ecostystem has not been taken care of. This is a good explainer The 2020 meeting of the Council has been disrupted because of Covid, so the theme is "stay in your burrow" There is merch
posted by PinkMoose at 10:13 PM PST - 10 comments

HUMAN ORGAN TIER LIST "Skin? Truly horrendous. F tier at best." Medlife Crisis (aka Dr Rohin Francis) stayed up too late watching Tier Zoo on YouTube and decided to rate the human organs. [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 7:53 PM PST - 17 comments

The Lounge Kittens are a (recently defunct) comedy/lounge cover band from Southampton, England. Their youtube channel features such treats as full music videos of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, a swingin' cover of Alice Cooper's Poison, a tango version of Don't Want to Miss a Thing, an earnestly soft version of Party Hard, a medley of reggae artist Sean Paul, and their last ever performance from February.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 12:16 PM PST - 5 comments

Why do people often vote the weird ways they do? What can Democrats learn from that? David Shor, a college Marxist turned into one of the most influential data scientists in Democratic politics, has some thoughts (and a lot of data). [more inside]
posted by Ouverture at 9:42 AM PST - 93 comments

One man’s quest to eat Dunkies’ new Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut proves to be euphorically strange—and simply life-affirming (The Ringer)
posted by adrianhon at 9:16 AM PST - 34 comments

L. D. Lewis writes "A FIYAHCON Retrospective": a detailed narrative of why and how organizers put together an online convention for BIPOC+ in speculative fiction. Included: "Below, you’ll find a fairly extensive overview of the costs associated with set-up of our virtual convention, as well as some notes on what worked and what didn’t." Including how much it cost to set up two "Calm Room" live cams with Monterey Bay Aquarium. [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 7:58 AM PST - 5 comments

Pfizer announces it will seek emergency use authorization in UK on the announcement of a 90% effective vaccine tested in 43500 volunteers. This comes as somewhat expected news after Pfizer stated in September it would fight a US FDA EUA after US Administration Officials announced they might seek one before Phase 3 trials were complete before the November 3 US elections. The FDA has stated it would like more 2-month follow-up data on half of volunteers. [more inside]
posted by rubatan at 7:18 AM PST - 169 comments