We’re coming a little late to this one but still think that it’s an excellent campaign which does a very good job of highlighting the way Cigarettes are still advertised. Make sure to click through and check out the whole series of adverts on YouTube.

As a regular donor I thought I knew my stuff but there are some pretty cool and suprising facts burried within this easily consumed sheet (did you know that cats have 11 different blood types, and Cows over 800?) so click through the jump and take a look at the ful sized version.

Cool huh. =)

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Up until 2 weeks ago I didn’t know it was possible to get potato flowers (ours were small and purple) and I had less idea that potatoes produced fruit, but now I know better. Specifically they produce  small, hard, green fruit about the size of a cherry tomato an example of which  now hangs proudly from the top of our spud plant much to the disbelief of my friends and has led to some thorough googling to find out what the hell is going on.

I can proudly tell you now that although potatoes don’t usually fruit it’s not hugely uncommon (it is pretty uncommon really) and even more confusingly, they aren’t even a real vegetable! The potato it appears belongs to the same family as tobacco, tomato, belladonna, mandrake and aubergine… all members the “deadly nightshade” or Solanaceae family and its fruit is highly poisonous being as they are, rich in solanine.
The potato itself actually grows on the potato plant, differing it from other vegetables where they are more commonly defined by the virtue that the body of the plant is the bit you eat. The potato is more like a fruit in all respects and can probably be most correctly classified as a tuber. The actual fruit itself is much more interesting in that it contains approximately 300-500 seeds and that the seeds will not come true, meaning they will not produce the same type of potato that spawned them. In order to grow the same potato type you planted it absolutely HAS to be by planting a potato of that same type and not through seeds of the same plant, as such nobody seems to bother planting potato seeds at all unless they are attempting to create a new potato type.

So there we go, in a few weeks we will have a handful of mystery potato seeds and presumably when we liberate the spud from its bucket later in the year a lot of Sainsburys variety baking potatoes, isn’t gardening fun!

” Patient TN was, by his own account, completely blind. Two consecutive strokes had destroyed the visual cortex of his brain, and consequently, his ability to see. His first stroke had injured only one hemisphere of his visual cortex. About five weeks later, a second stroke damaged the other hemisphere. An assessment of his brain function revealed that after two strokes, TN, in his 50s, was clinically blind.

Known as selective bilateral occipital damage, TN’s unusual injury made him the subject of much interest while recovering at a hospital in Geneva. Researchers began examining him and discovered that despite his blindness, he had maintained the ability to detect emotion on a person’s face. He responded appropriately — with emotions such as joy, fear, and anger — to a variety of facial expressions. Observed activity in his amygdala — the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions — confirmed the curious results.”

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Just incredible reading, I’m constantly amazed by the brain’s capabilities even though by now I really shouldn’t be.