links for 2009-03-01

The evolutionary role of cookery

Why the real Shaq is awesome

Seven-Month Slump, The (n.): The point in a relationship when you might begin to feel antsy and annoyed all the time. The honeymoon phase has been over for a while now — he's started to fart in front of you and doesn't bother trying to hide it! You find yourself easily irritated by him and are constantly evaluating whether the relationship is working. You might even make a list of his pros and cons.
Don't worry, it's just a phase. By 10 months, you two will be back to normal.

It looks like something out of a science fiction film. At the end of a long dark tunnel, deep beneath the Cheshire countryside, a mechanical monster groans into life.
It judders forward – its skin caked in clay, its menacing steel claws lunging into the rock face ahead. A wall of salt millions of years old succumbs in seconds. It drops onto a conveyor belt where it's carried away to be crushed into tiny pieces.
It's all masterminded by remote control. Where once teams of miners spent a lifetime hacking at the rock with handpicks and shovels, now the same thing is achieved by three men and a keypad. This is what 21st Century mining looks like.

"Successful men in their 20s and 30s today are the sons of a pioneering generation of high-achieving career women. Their mothers serve as role models for how a woman can be nurturing and successful at the same time,