On:

Our magical daughter came to visit us for an overnight, and we were thrilled to see her. You can have a child who isn’t related to you by blood, but by love, and that’s why our God-daughter is so precious to us.

I vividly remember when her mother asked us to take the godparent role. We were flattered but for us it was no honorary title. A god-parent has a very serious duty to perform, but in her case it has hardly been necessary to steer her in the direction of the spiritual. She is very spiritual just by nature.
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On:

Over the past few months, Arctic reporting stations have been reporting an unexpected increase in the outgassing of methane from thawing permafrost. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. In the past, the sudden release of methane from arctic tundras and methane hydrates under the Arctic Ocean have been connected to the spikes in heat that mark the end of interglacials. Methane readings from the station in Alert, Canada, are showing an increase in methane of 20 parts per billion over one year, an increase of 2-3 times over the global average from the past five years, and readings from Barrow (Alaska), Summit (Greenland), and Svalbard (Norway) all show similar trends.
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On:

My tubes that I have been living with since January are out! The doctor took them out yesterday, and the last one came out with a loud “pop!” Now I can taste food again, but I can taste medicine, too, and most of it tastes—well—icky.
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On:

A renowned paleontologist and his team of pioneering geneticists are looking to genetically re-create a dinosaur, using DNA from a chicken. And no, we’re not lifting this story from a Steven Spielberg movie.

Paleontologist Jack Horner, of whom not only worked on the film "Jurassic Park" as a technical advisor, but also served as inspiration for one of the main characters, proposed his ‘chickenosaurus’ concept in his 2009 book, “How to Build a Dinosaur”. The idea is to use existing DNA found in modern chickens to regress features of the animal, so as to resemble a small dinosaur-like creature. Most birds still hold latent genes for the features previously exhibited by their reptilian ancestors.
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