The Taint of the Quagga

In my ongoing effort of consolidating interesting stories I come across on the information superhighway known as the Internet, I have recently found some lulu's to wow my loyal readers.

First, an amateur scientist from South Africa says he can bring an animal back from extinction: the quagga. A large mammal that descended from the zebra, the quagga filled South Africa's plains for thousands of years. But it fell to trigger-happy European colonists and was last seen alive in 1883. Yep - quaggas were fun to shoot.

And while there exist several objections to reviving the quagga, the following is most definitely mi favorito - A popular 19th-century theory held that men and animals inherit traits not just from their parents but also from their mother's first partner. This supposed phenomenon was called "the taint of the quagga" because it was said to have been discovered in the animal.

The taint was alluded to by journalists of the era and in the writings of Goethe, Strindberg, Ibsen, and Zola. It reinforced the taboo of miscegenation and encouraged men to keep their women under lock and key. Your damn right. The taint of the quagga. Holy shit. And I thought taint was just another word for nifkin, fooch or grundle.

Second fun little fact for the day, well, less a fact and more something interesting to watch. Want to learn about the universe and its creation without getting way too mathy? Well, click here. This isht is even interesting to a definite math idiot such as myself. Enjoy.

How about some smooth hip-hop for musical selections? Let's rok Peanut Butter Wolf "Styles Crew Flows Beats" and Mad Villain aka MF Doom "Accordion." Werd.