I abound in lizards. Thoughts on the difficulty of learning Arabic and cultural misunderstandings. more inside

io9 The new(ish) sci-fi blog from the Gawker stable. For all your Dr Who, Star Trek, Batman, Cloverfield etc gossip. Plus cheesecake Imperial recruitment posters.

Nick Brandt depicts the animals of East Africa with an intimacy and artistry unmatched by other photographers who choose wildlife as their subject. Wildlife photography has become a holiday and adventure cliche: have telephoto lens, will snap view up rhino's nostril -- so uninteresting, so blah. And then there's Nick Brandt. Brandt eschews the telephoto lens in favor of patience combined with a rare courage, determination and an artist's eye to photograph wildlife. The results are animals so accustomed to Brandt's presence and so untroubled by him that his pictures are breathtakingly beautiful and touching in their honesty and emotion.

Safety Gear for Small Animals FLASH interface & I just threw my back ooch ouch

Burning a man's eyes with lime. The NY Public Library has scans of an 1804 book from China that shows 22 engravings of common punishment methods of the day. more inside

The 1908 New York to Paris automobile race's centenary this year will be marked by a 2008 version. more inside

Polynesian Chickens in Chile Eggheads have long assumed the Spaniards introduced chickens to the New World. But radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis now suggest that the Polynesians first brought chickens to South America.

What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC. By John Hockenberry, who was the first host of NPR's Talk of the Nation and is now a Distinguished Fellow at the MIT Media Lab.

What Kucinich Saw: Witnesses Describe Close Encounter. In a Democratic presidential debate in late October, Mr. Kucinich acknowledged seeing something airborne that he couldn't identify and then defused the issue with a joke about opening a campaign office in Roswell, N.M., the capital of unexplained sightings. Since then, the long-shot candidate has refused to elaborate on the experience.

I wish I was smarter 30 seconds ago A fun quick flash game where you . . well, you'll figure it out. One of you will, anyway. via KerfluffleFilter

That's OK, it's a rental.

GiveWell Spammer VS Metafilter

this peanut looks like a duck more inside

"Child raising in non-violent cultures." There are perhaps many reasons for the varying expressions of violence in different cultures, from historic patterns to genetic propensities to economic influences. But whatever the predisposing factors are, there seem to also be some characteristic child rearing practices common to most of the known non-violent cultures.

SAC Dean Tabreham feels like dancin'.

According to a study into our primate cousins which found that male macaques pay for intercourse by using grooming as a currency. [...] Michael Gumert of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore made the discovery in a 20-month investigation into 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, New Scientist reports on Saturday. [...] If there were several females in the area, the cost of buying sex would drop dramatically -- a male could "buy" a female for just eight minutes of nit-picking.[...] more inside

The Story of Stuff Possibly guilt and/or New years' resolution-inducing. Also, flash-based video. via.

Protagonize collaborative choose your own adventure stories more inside

Nanosolar - looks like some neat chemistry. There was quite a buzz around these guys last year; they won Popular Science's Innovation of the Year. And though Nanosolar isn't saying much about the technology, there are some worthwhile clues in their patents. more inside

Too Indigent To Quit? MC Hammer is back, grabbing a hold of that new "internet" thing, taking on YouTube with a dance video website (coming soon -- get your videos ready!). more inside