Rare White Giraffe Is Spotted in Tanzania

This beautiful baby giraffe can really stand out in a crowd. Spotted over a year ago roaming the Tarangire National Park, she has been sighted again this year, alive and well. This is really good news because as lovely as her colouration is, it may also make her a greater target for poachers and natural predators in the wild. Christened by a local guide as “Omo” after a popular brand of detergent in Tanzania, she draws her rare white colouring from a condition known as leucism.

Leucism is a partial loss of cellular pigmentation which results in Omo’s pale, patchy colour. It is not to be confused with albinism, which is a reduction in just melanin; leucism is the combined lack of multiple types of pigments.

Via MyModernMet

The Story of L'Inconnue de la Seine

In the early twentieth century, a popular piece of art for the fashionable French home was L'Inconnue de la Seine (translation: “the unknown woman of the Seine”), a completely creepy death-mask (pictured at left) of a young woman whose body had been pulled from the Seine River in Paris, sometime in the 1870s or 1880s. 

As the (somewhat questionable) story goes, a pathologist at the morgue found the unknown woman’s face enchanting, so he made a death mask, a plaster casting of her face. The resulting cast was widely reproduced and became both a popular objet d'art, as well as extremely influential to writers, artists, and indeed young girls who attempted to replicate her (dead) looks.

The Real Deal

by Andy Weir

“I tell ya, it’s the real deal!” Ray said. “The real deal!”

“Oh yeah?” Bobby replied. “Tell me more.”

“She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met!” He snatched his cigarettes from the coffee table. “I mean, we’ve only had one date, but wow! I never met a chick I could really talk to before, ya know?”