The Missing Links – March 11, 2011

The Missing Links is just what it sounds like – a collection of links to interesting things I found on the interwebs this week. I hope you enjoy them. This is the seventh in a never-ending series.

Winner! Mental_floss has a short article (with video) of Mr. Rogers’ Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech. I loved me some Mr. Rogers growing up. Hell, I still Mr. Rogers. Here’s a few reasons why.
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A Close Second: In this TED Talk, Dr. Anthony Atala prints a human kidney.
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Best in Show: Stephen King on taxes and unions and the Tea Party. It’s no secret that King is punk rock.
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And this week’s Crazypants Award goes to… the woman with a monkey in her bra. Not really much more to say about this one.


Random Links – About species that get diseases (humans) and species that do not (sharks)

Independent experts have found that the drug companies did not influence the WHO’s handling of the H1N1 pandemic. In lighter news, the WHO’s ineptitude means that if H1N1 had been bad, millions of people would have died.
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After all these years (ok, I’m still quite young), sharks are still fascinating to me. Here’s the mystery of Helicprion, the whorl-toothed shark.
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Here’s an interactive map of the well-being of the U.S. See how your county matches up (but don’t get too bummed if all your neighbors are depressed, ok?)

Language – The Official American Language and Where She’s From

Johnson at the Economist explains what grammar really is and why National Grammar Day means power to the people!
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Here’s a guest post on Schott’s Vocab by Robert Lane Greene about THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH and y itz a lode of craps, y’all.
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Stan Carey explains where she is from.
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The Hot Word on the hardest words to translate into English? I know from experience that Finns will tell you sisu is the hardest Finnish word to translate, but I think it’s just a matter of context. In my opinion, tsemppi is the toughest one.
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The U.S. finally has an official language. Rejoice!

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