Quickies: Unnecessary parades, necessary legislation, music, space, murder birds…

It’s Friday and time for a wrap up of some stories from this week. Does anyone else have a debate-hangover? Well, we have some mostly good news to chase that down with.

• Well let’s get the crappy one out of the way… the so-called “straight pride” parade has been granted a permit in Boston for Aug 31. I’m going to go ahead and ignore them because I’ll be talking science and geekiness at DragonCon that weekend.
• The House Science Committee in the US Congress has approved a bill to combat sexual harassment in science. It’s likely to pass in the House, but will probably run into trouble in the Senate. Still, it’s a step in the right direction.
• A study of high school students shows that music lessons are correlated with better performance in math and science. Of course, you can always blend arts and sciences over at Mad Art Lab.
• And from our good friends at Universe Today, an article with lovely video of a simulation of how humans might explore the galaxy. You know, assuming we make it that far…
• Again, this is an animal, but not exactly a cute animal but a half-tonne MURDER BIRD that lived alongside early humans, revealed by the finding of a large thighbone.

All our cute animals today come courtesy of Rhuu and Muscadine, who are truly amazing cute animals curators:

• The amazing biodiversity of a hidden Central American jungle, with the CUTEST little eyelash viper.
• Rowers get a close-up with a humpback whale.
• Cuteness is in the eye of the beholder, as proven by this year’s winner of the ugly dog contest, Scamp the Tramp.

Have a suggestion for the Quickies or a cute animal to share? Contact us!