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It is a species so endangered that just five years ago only 20 birds returned from the species' annual migration. But 81 orange-bellied parrots have returned to Melaleuca in Tasmania's remote south-west from the mainland to breed, the largest number seen in 15 years. The orange-bellied parrot is one of the most endangered birds in the world, and the program saving it from extinction is starting to focus on the next phase of the birds' survival plan.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:53 PM PST - 5 comments

YouTuber Jeffiot goes digging for the origins of skull trumpet / doot doot / mr skeltal, and ends up taking a trip to the early web heyday of animated gif art, and ruminating on creativity and legacy
posted by jason_steakums at 9:38 PM PST - 11 comments

It’s Solstice 2023, the dark nights are at their peak (at least in the northern hemisphere) and The Magnus Protocol has crowdfunded and is forthcoming. Anyway, here’s another roundup of weird audio dramas! They may help you spend time while doing chores, or coping with personal, global, or holiday stress, or simply ease the pain of living in this terrible world with stories about even more terrible worlds. Most of the series are audio dramas with paranormal elements, but anthologies, fantasy, and science fiction are included. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:12 PM PST - 6 comments

Since I know you expect to be updated on the latest SFF YA writer drama, here you go: … since the infamous Lauren is trying to delete her racist tweets while simultaneously still harassing BIPOC authors, I guess we're doing this instead.
posted by signal at 5:30 PM PST - 47 comments

Christmas just isn't Christmas without a little Roddenberry. Please enjoy a Holodeck Holiday, this year's present from the fabulous (MeFite!) John C. Worsley. Previously. Previously. Previously. The whole collection (all of which I love). [more inside]
posted by kristi at 4:17 PM PST - 4 comments

Cows have friends and enemies in the herd. Pigs help each other out of traps. And goats... well...
posted by clawsoon at 4:17 PM PST - 22 comments

Here's another Christmas special for you all - the downright charming Coots and Critter in: Santa's Magic Book, directed by animator, cartoonist and cartoon historian Mike Kazaleh. [more inside]
posted by BiggerJ at 3:55 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

What can board games say that other art forms can’t? (SLNewYorker ungated, archive)
posted by ShooBoo at 9:53 AM PST - 19 comments

NYTimes notices the Hallmark Christmas movie meme trend and analyses the movies. gift link [more inside]
posted by theora55 at 9:16 AM PST - 24 comments

Watch Papa Noel read the story in his delightful Cajun accent during a swamp tour earlier this month
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Rare turtle lays eggs to edge species back from brink of extinction. Conservationists say it was incredible to find that a Manning River turtle had laid a dozen precious eggs as part of a breeding program aimed at saving the critically endangered species.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:32 AM PST - 2 comments

On Thursday, 34 years after the game's original release, a human player crashed NES Tetris for the first time. The game's original programmers assumed that nobody would get past the "killscreen" where speed doubled at level 29, but using the "rolling" technique discovered in 2020, players have been playing deeper into the game than ever before. It was known that a crash was possible after level 155 due to flaws in the scoring code, but no human had ever reached this point. 13 year old "Blue Scuti" was on level 157 and had been playing at killscreen difficulty for over half an hour, with a world-record highscore over 6.8 million, when he became the first human player ever to crash the game (full game video).
posted by automatronic at 2:07 AM PST - 16 comments

I like this idea of sweet watermelons coexisting with bitter ones, each type influencing our perceptions. The watermelon is a generous fruit: the flesh of one can feed a dozen people and can parent hundreds of melons with its seeds. Cultures throughout the ages have, and still do, interpret the watermelon as a symbol of good luck and fertility, a plant whose great fecundity might be shared with you. But in the United States, more than a century of racial denigration has cloaked and clouded this primordial symbol of solidarity, generosity, and abundance, transforming it into something almost unpalatable for many Black people. Of course, the watermelon itself is not to blame, but throughout its botanical, cultural, and social history, it has been a vehicle for our ideas about community, survival, and what we owe the future. from Tell Me Why the Watermelon Grows
posted by chavenet at 1:19 AM PST - 9 comments