Elizabethan era noblewomen had a ruff life

A portrait of Maria Serra Pallavicino by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).  For more on Elizabethan ruffs, see my previous post on the subject.

Via Large Size Paintings.

Ignore the environment

From the weekly cartoon collection at The New Yorker.

A graphic depiction of "grade inflation"

From an article in the New York Times based on data compiled by Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy.

The researchers collected historical data on letter grades awarded by more than 200 four-year colleges and universities. Their analysis (published in the Teachers College Record) confirm that the share of A grades awarded has skyrocketed over the years...

Most recently, about 43 percent of all letter grades given were A’s, an increase of 28 percentage points since 1960 and 12 percentage points since 1988. The distribution of B’s has stayed relatively constant; the growing share of A’s instead comes at the expense of a shrinking share of C’s, D’s and F’s. In fact, only about 10 percent of grades awarded are D’s and F’s...

More at the link. Via The Dish.

Two-year-old carrots

Last year I planted a bed of vegetables specifically for butterflies - cabbages for Cabbage Whites, carrots and bronze fennel for Black Swallowtails, and hollyhocks for several other species (had to fence it in because we are the only house in the neighborhood without a dog, so the rabbits seek refuge here, to the detriment of various plants).

The Black Swallowtails never found the carrots (or at least never oviposited on them).  When autumn came I just cut the tops without harvesting the carrots, mulched them, and left the roots in place over the winter.  This year they used the energy stored in those roots to generate marvelous inflorescences -

- which totally resemble those of Queen Anne's Lace (the "wild carrot").  Compound flowers like these are magnets for bees, flies, and butterflies, who greatly prefer these as food sources rather than large showy single flowers.  Here is a Hairstreak nectaring on the carrot blossom -

The tiny little "tail" at the back identifies this as a member of the "hairstreak" family; I think this is a Banded Hairstreak rather than a Hickory Hairstreak or Edwards' Hairstreak, but it's not important.  What's most interesting is that he/she has a through-and-through hole in the hindwing (a bit of green shows through) probably as a residuum of escaping from a bird attack.

A most interesting image of Rupert Murdoch

All the more so because it was broadcast on Faux News.  Via Reddit.

How Istanbul got its name

After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the late 15th century, the name "Constantinople" fell into disuse, with no obvious replacement.  But over the centuries in which Constantinople was the urban hub of the area (and, as you'll see, even after its fall), people referred to it as "the city."  The Greek phrase for "in the city" is "εις την πόλη" which is pronounced "is tin Poli."  Over time, this became  "Istanbul."  

Found at Now I Know, via Reddit.  Reminds me of the story of the naming of Torpenhow Hill, which I was sad to recently learn is probably not quite accurate.

Clever sign

Via Reddit.