SPARROW

Sound & Picture ARchives for Research On Women: "A trust set up in 1988 in Mumbai to build a national archives for women with print, oral history and pictorial material."

Fovant Badges Society

WW1 military badges: "Carved in the chalk downlands of Wiltshire."

Paul Bowles

Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site

Jew is unacceptable

Sorry I haven't been posting much just recently. I have a new habit via my iPad. The Words with friends app is like crack for me. I have always loved Scrabble more than is respectable but my partner is not a big Scrabble fan, to say the least. When my daughter introduced me to the free app where I could play 24/7 with random people it was was like The. Best. Thing. Ever.
So, that's where I've been, and… I understand that the dictionary is limited (no, 'RADIONS'?) and there have to be some controls and my attempt to play 'cunt' recently might have offend my opponent but, 'JEW'. Give me a break.

Also: If there's a way to screen dump the iPad screen please let me know. Photographing the screen is so pants.

PS: I went with 'CREW"

Plastic surgery

Project facade: "The First World War was a war dominated by high explosives and heavy artillery. Battlefield casualties included an unprecedented number with horrific facial injuries - injuries so severe the men were commonly unrecognizable to loved ones and friends. Often unable to see, hear, speak eat or drink, they struggled to re-assimilate back into civilian life. This secondary tragedy - the living unable to 'live' - catalyzed Surgeon Sir Harold Gillies to transform the fledgling discipline of plastic surgery based on his unrivalled observation of the profoundly wounded and his ability to push the parameters of the profession beyond all known techniques."

Mainframe dark age

The Long Now Blog: "mainframes have peculiarities that date back to punch card. The job that runs the program that handles and stores your financial transaction must be submitted using a maximum of 72 characters per line because that's the how many holes a punch card had."

A little tin solder

Lead poisoning: "as possible cause of deaths at the Swedish House at Kapp Thordsen, Spitsbergen, winter 1872-3"

Oyster Herpes

Latest Symptom of Global Warming?: "New strain can kill 80 percent of an oyster bed in a week, experts say."

Lappers

Norwegian pictures: "from the University of Bergen."

Plague in prairie dog towns

Carnivorous mice spread deadly plague: "Grasshopper mice have no respect for prairie dog territories,' Jones said. 'They're nasty little beasties, and when they eat the carcass of a prairie dog that's died of plague, the fleas climb aboard the mice. The mice then schlep the fleas around to different territories, connecting family groups that otherwise wouldn't be in contact."

Portus

New discovery at Portus, the ancient port of Rome: "Archaeologists from the University of Southampton, University of Cambridge and the British School at Rome, have discovered one of the largest canals every built by the Romans. They believe it linked Portus with the nearby Roman river port of Ostia."

Patience is a virtue

Yes, I am very patient but I've been waiting for more than a year and I'm feeling somewhat unvirtuous.

Canoe Plants

The Canoe Plants of Ancient Hawaii: "tracks the path of various important plants carried in voyaging canoes crisscrossing Oceania, and finally to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii."

Species of the day

Natural History Museum: "365 days, 365 species.

We are publishing a fact file on a different species every day during 2010 to celebrate the UN's international Year of Biodiversity.

Each species we explore has been chosen and written about by a Museum scientist. All the information, images, facts and stories contained within the species files has also been provided by them."

British Lichen

Parasites: "These are often recorded and studied by lichenologists since they are frequently found when looking for lichens."