Informative Links

The difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England, explained in a hurry. Which leaves time to then explain the British Empire, the Commonwealth Realm, Crown Dependencies, and Crown Colonies. Go that?

A biologist at Colorado State University working with the Department of Defense is training plants for national security. Genetic engineering is making plants react to threats they never encountered in nature -for human benefit. (via Fortean Times)

Guillermo del Toro’s Monsters. A biography and interview, with some clues about the characters you’ll see in The Hobbit. (via Metafilter)

The Big Picture has a roundup of disturbing, scary, uplifting, and certainly historic photographs from Egypt. Despite interruptions in internet service, journalism rises to the challenge.

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code. The tickets are mass-produced, but cannot be completely random because the lottery company must control the number of winners -how do they do it? (via Metafilter)

5 Complaints About Modern Life (That Are Statistically B.S.) We never had it so good as you kids do, so get off my lawn! NSFW text.

7 Myths Mythbusters Proved That We Still Can’t Believe Are True (with video evidence). Probably because we are so used to seeing myths “busted”. (via Gorilla Mask)

6 Obscure Sports To Try This Summer. Sign me up for watching them instead.

Darcy Padilla documented Julia’s life in words and photographs over an 18 year span. The grind of poverty, drugs, HIV, and childbirth played itself out over and over for all of us to see. (via Metafilter)

Explaining the Chinese Zodiac (Just in Time for Chinese New Year). Which is today! Happy New Year!