RenoVous

  A teddy bear gifted to me as a child. We cut up an old shirt of my dad's and bought a guitar from Build-a-Bear so I could pass him on to my nephew.  Grandpa Bear. Perhaps you've heard that the term "Teddy Bear" was inspired by President Teddy Roosevelt, but here's the whole story. On this day in 1902, Roosevelt was hunting in Mississippi when he was called to a lassoed bear.  He refused to shoot it, and is quoted as saying, "I couldn't be proud of myself if I shot an old, tired worn-out bear that was tied to a tree." This made it around to political cartoonist, Clifford Berryman, who used it as a metaphor for Roosevelt's indecision over the Mississippi boundary dispute. Printed November 16, 1902. This became well known, and by 1903, candy store owners Morris and Rose Mitchom decided to make the first stuffed bear toy.  They obtained permission from the President to use his name. They created the Ideal Toy Company and soon became a multi-million...

  Kim Petras Malin Akerman Phoebe Waller-Bridge Kelsea Ballerini Lainey Wilson Cynthia Erivo Rachel Zegler Lupita Nyong'o Katharine McPhee Cate Blanchett

  Back in 2019, China's Chang'e 4 lander planted cotton seeds on the lunar surface, (but not in lunar soil). It only took a couple weeks for the plant to sprout, marking the first biological experiment on the moon. But additional study was needed to determine if lunar crops are less productive or more fragile than those on Earth.  And now, two new papers suggest that the plant may actually prefer low gravity. By comparing growth in replicated conditions on Earth, they found the less gravity speeds up germination.  There also seemed to be no issue with the long lunar night, which can drop to -61* and last about 18 days - the plant was still green and upright when light returned.  Back on Earth, the plants died. The researchers suspect the low gravity triggered a freezing resistance some polar plants have developed. The lander also planted rapeseed, potato, and rock cress - none of which took. Experiments on the International Space Station have already shown that plant...

  Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, died on this day in 2004. The collection includes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  He had turned in the manuscripts just months before his passing. He therefore missed all the acclaim for his work - the novels as well as the adaptations in film and comics.  By 2019, the series had sold more than 100M copies worldwide. Born in Skelleftehamm in Northern Sweden, Stieg moved to Stockholm in the 60's with his parents, where he began working as a graphic designer for a news agency.  He later became an investigative journalist, exposing right-wing extremist groups. In the series, Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist as well, initially hired to prove the story he's being accused of libel over.  Lisbeth Salander is the gifted private investigator and a skilled computer hacker.  In the first, they take down a CEO who has been abusing and murdering...

 I had an urge to see some Fall trees - it's like I knew big winds would be coming the next day. Mighty sees another dog to play with. We're in for a cold winter, I hear. Currently 37*

 With Lily Gladstone on the red carpets, I wanted to take a moment to know her history, and that of the movie she's campaigning. She is of Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce ancestry, having grown up on a Blackfeet reservation in Montana.  One of her great-great grandfathers is Red Crow, a Kainai Nation chief. In the movie, she is Mollie Burkhart of the Osage. In 1897, oil was discovered on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma.  The Department of Interior managed leases on land owned by the Osage through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  Royalties were paid out, and by 1920, they were making millions of dollars. So in 1921, Congress decided that the Osage could not properly manage their new wealth, and a new law required the courts appoint a guardian for each Osage with half-blood or more in ancestry. White opportunists were on board, and some were later suspected of murdering their charges to gain the headrights. In these early 1920's, eighteen Osage and three non-natives wer...

  Salma Hayek Kirsten Dunst Lupita Nyong'o Lily Gladstone Quinta Brunson Rosé Heidi Klum Paris Hilton Andrew Garfield