Uncategorized

Source: Robin Marchant / Getty

In a preview for the newest episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Drew Sidora‘s husband, Ralph Pittman, makes it known that what’s he’s seeking from their marriage is “respect and sex.” The couple, who sat together for a marriage counseling session, have a tense interaction about his expectations in their relationship and his feelings concerning her mother’s treatment of Drew’s father.

In the clip, the couple is sitting side by side across from their counselor. In an outdoor setting, the two begin to air out their dirty laundry in what looks to be a juicy upcoming episode.

When the counselor asks, “So Ralph, what would be your goals that need to happen in your relationship?” he responds, “respect and sex.”

Drew is then seen putting her head down and just smiling out of pure embarrassment. The counselor encourages Ralph to explain himself, asking, “What’s the preferred frequency for that?” 

“I would say minimum, minimum three times a week,” he said. “And I think that’s really, truly, very, very conservative.”

Then, when he’s asked what respect would look like in the relationship with his wife, Ralph throws major shade saying, “Respect would be someone not emasculating me. Drew tries to treat me like her mom treated her dad, and that’s never going to work with me.”

After that, the counselor asked Drew for her opinion on whether Ralph’s thoughts on her mother’s behavior were valid. While shaking her head, Drew got understandably defensive. 

“That’s not true. I mean I allow him to be the man that he is,” she said. “You know I see who Ralph is. I know he’s not my dad and I’ve had to let go of those expectations.”

Ralph, who was silently laughing as Drew spoke, then briefly put his hand on her shoulder. In a sarcastic and patronizing tone, he looked to her and said, “Okay.”

Drew seemed offended by the gesture and asked him, “What was that?” to which he replied, “You looked like you were about to cry.”

Looking less than comforting or caring as he pretended to console his wife, Drew told him, “That wasn’t even real.”

With a little bit of bickering and more dismissiveness from Ralph towards Drew and her feelings, the clip ends. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the awkward and contentious dynamic between the couple, but it’s always quite cringe-y to watch. While Ralph has already proven himself as a domineering and alpha male type of husband, here’s to hoping the couple’s counseling might make him change, or at least help him be a little bit nicer to Drew. 

Happy Holidays to all our patient and loyal listeners! Like James Brown's infamous band, The JB's, let's keep this post tight and out of sight!  Check out our post Xmas edition of Afronerd Radio's Grindhouse broadcast-airing this Sunday at 6pm eastern on BTalk 100.   The topics to be unpacked are as follows:  our impressions of the Christmas day release of two films (Soul and Wonder Woman 1984) that were slated for an early 2020 theatrical release but ended up on their respective streaming platforms due to the pandemic; yet another unfortunate death....John Fletcher a.k.a. Ecstasy from legendary classic hip hop act, Whodini passes at 56;

Did we ever talk about the fascinating and different animated landscape (Aztec/Mesoamerican culture) of Crunchyroll's Onyx Equinox and recently completed first season?; Dburt has apparently renewed his interest in anime during our current national difficulties (i.e. One Piece, Fire Force; Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, The Seven Deadly Sins, Haikyu!! & more); more charges of racism are being levied against the tech giant Google, especially as it concerns HBCU recruitment;  Lastly, as we approach the end of an extremely stressful year and election season, we will discuss the highlights of 2020 in the black blerd space as well as thoughts about what to expect in '21.  

*One thing that Dburt is doing (finally) is investing in cryptocurrency, courtesy of Roundlyx. We would implore our followers to investigate, discern and then explore by using our referral code: afro-87A4BF

Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!! 

or This link below.....
function openPlayer(s){window.open("https://radio.securenetsystems.net/v5/"+escape(s),"Player","height=630,width=940,modal=yes,alwaysRaised=yes")}

Now that humanity has a decent shot at sending people to Mars, it’s as good a time as any to think about the kinds of lifestyle challenges the Red Planet will pose. For instance, time itself will have to change in a significant way. As this new video from YouTube channel RealLifeLore explains, people will have to rethink what a “year” or “day” means to them. (Kind of like what happened in 2020.)

RealLifeLore has produced countless similar explainers, covering everything from how large the Pacific Ocean is to what Earth will look like in the case of catastrophic climate change. (Spoiler alert: like Tatooine.)

In this explainer, the channel notes that keeping time on Mars will be similar to but also “starkly different” from keeping time here on Earth. That’s essentially because Earth and Mars take different amounts of time to orbit the Sun. Likewise, while they both rotate on their axes, they do so at different rates.

RealLifeLore

These changes result in the Martian day (or Sol) being slightly longer than Earth’s, at 24 hours and 37 minutes. Mars’ year being much longer, at 687 Earth days. However, a “second” is equal on both planets; a second defined as a particular number of radiation cycles of a cesium-133 atom, which remains unchanged anywhere in the universe. But they still end up requiring different senses of how long a “day” or “year” is.

RealLifeLore

Along with developing a new sense of the length of days or years, settlers will also need a new calendar. For this, RealLifeLore notes The Space Science Institute has already set one up. The Institute’s calendar for Mars begins on April 11, 1955 here on Earth; making that day January 1 of the first Martian year. Which would mean as we celebrate New Years Eve 2021 on Earth, Mars is still finishing out its 35th calendar month. Which is confusing, until you remember the Martian “years” are much longer. And, as Einstein famously said, that time is just a “stubbornly persistent” illusion.

RealLifeLore

The post Here’s How We’ll Keep Time on Mars appeared first on Nerdist.

Earlier this year, scientists published a paper outlining how platypuses exhibit biofluorescence under ultraviolet (UV) light. That is, how the duck-billed mammals are able to glow like a black-light poster when lit up with the invisible light. Now, more reports of other mammals glowing under UV light are beginning to emerge. Although when it comes to understanding why they do so, it seems everyone’s still in the dark.

The New York Times recently reported on multiple instances of mammals exhibiting biofluorescence. It appears the paper on glowing platypuses inspired other members of the zoological field to take up a UV light and check their own animals—dead or alive—for the ability to glow. (And why wouldn’t it?)

Dr. Kenny Travouillon, the curator of mammals at the Western Australian Museum, for example, decided to douse his own specimens in UV light in early November. In the tweet above, he notes he “couldn’t resist trying bilbies,” which are rabbit-like marsupials. Lo and behold, the little bilbies glowed like bil-bulbs!

Jake Schoen/Toledo Zoo 

The Times notes Travouillon and his colleagues also tested a handful of other species of marsupial, and found more biofluorescence. The quills of hedgehogs, porcupines, and echidnas all shone white under UV light. As well as one species of wombat. Although another species of wombat did not, nor did any of Travouillon’s kangaroos.

Researchers at the Toledo Zoo in Ohio, likewise, used UV lights on some of their mammals. In a post on Facebook, they noted their Tasmanian Devils glow under UV light. And, in fact, say this is the first documented case of the feisty Australian carnivores doing so.

As for how the mammals are able to glow under UV light, that ability comes thanks to their having fluorescent proteins in their skin, hair, eyes, etc. These proteins absorb the UV light at one wavelength, but then emit it at another. This is why the mammals can absorb invisible UV light, but then emit it as visible light; the shift in the light’s wavelength brings it into the human eye’s visual spectrum.

The reason why these mammals exhibit biofluorescence, however, is still unclear. It’s possible there’s some evolutionary benefit to glowing under UV light—perhaps for covert signaling, or to confuse predators who hunt at night—although it seems there’s little evidence for that. Which may mean these mammals exhibit biofluorescence for the same reason we humans’ teeth and nails do. Meaning, the characteristic may simply be a fluke, and nothing more than a cool black-light party trick.

The post Scientists Finding Lots of Mammals Glow Under UV Light appeared first on Nerdist.