For context: My linguistics professor and I got into a discussion after a test she did with us, and I was of the opinion that the reason for the results was different from the one she offered, so she encouraged me to test my theory.
What I need
All you need to do is draw a coffee cup (with a handle, not the disposable stuff) and then answer three questions.
I don't need to see the coffee cup. You can draw it wherever you like; on a piece of paper, digitally, in the sand, on a foggy window. Anything works. It does not have to be good. A doodle is fine.
You have to draw the coffee cup before you see the questions. This is very important. If you decide to help me with this, please doodle the coffee cup before you keep reading.
Assuming you have drawn the coffee cup, I now need you to answer these three questions:
On which side did you draw the handle?
Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Do you primarily write using the Latin alphabet or a different one? (please specify which)
More context
Most people will draw the handle on the right side. My professor says it's because most people are right-handed, so they draw the handle in the direction that would be comfortable for them to pick up.
I said drawing it on the right side just felt more comfortable to my hand and argued it's probably because we write a bunch of letters like that. B, b, D, P, p, R all look like a tiny "handle on the right side" and are all a straight line followed by a round one (so "cup first, handle second," like most people draw cups). The Latin alphabet doesn't have letters like that that face the other way, except maybe d, depending on how you write it, so it makes sense to me that people writing mostly Latin letters would go with the handle on the right side.
Which means that I need to know what Asians, Arabs and Greeks do and if the distribution of left and right sides of handles differs from the Latin alphabet group. Cyrillic seems to favor right, too, though it'd be interesting to see if there are differences.
If there are, my theory is right. Doubly so if there is a sizeable increase in a group whose alphabet has letters that benefit the left side choice.
So feel free to spread this to as many people as you like and put the answers in the comments or the tags of a reblog. The more answers I get, the better I can assess whose theory is better.
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Moo Deng’s caretaker (the guy in the photo) responded to a vegan, pro-Peta American TikToker — who (falsely) accused Khao Kheow zoo, the Thai zoo Moo Deng’s from, of abusing Moo Deng and other animals (when the zoo’s actual known for having been saving animals, rehabilitating them and treating them with kindness) and said that Moo Deng should be in the wild (her species, pygmy hippo, is considered endangered and therefore she could not be in the wild) — by saying that he doesn’t speak English, therefore he doesn’t know what this person is yapping about, therefore he does not care. And I honestly think he’s a legend for that.
Moo Deng is loved and is well taken care of. Her caretaker loves her and has been taking care of her since her birth, way before she’s gotten famous.
Not everything is about America and not everything needs to be “saved” by American.
The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according t
Camera-trapping data revealed in a new study show a steady recovery of tigers in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex over the past two decades.
The tiger recovery has been mirrored by a simultaneous increase in the numbers of the tigers’ prey animals, such as sambar deer and types of wild cattle.
The authors attribute the recovery of the tigers and their prey to long-term efforts to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to restore key habitats and water sources.
Experts say the lessons learnt can be applied to support tiger recovery in other parts of Thailand and underscore the importance of the core WEFCOM population as a vital source of tigers repopulating adjacent landscapes.
The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data.
Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam over the past decade due to poaching, habitat loss and indiscriminate snaring...
Fewer than 200 tigers are thought to remain in Thailand’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, only a handful of which are sufficiently undisturbed and well-protected to preserve breeding tigers.
The most important of these protected areas for tigers is the Huai Kha Khaeng Thung Yai (HKK-TY) UNESCO World Heritage Site, which comprises three distinct reserves out of the 17 that make up Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM). Together, these three reserves — Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thungyai Naresuan West and Thungyai Naresuan East — account for more than a third of the entire WEFCOM landscape.
Now, a new study published in Global Ecology and Conservation documents a steady recovery of tigers within the HKK-TY reserves since camera trap surveys began in 2007. The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007.
Healthy tiger families
The study findings reveal that the tiger population grew on average 4% per year in Hua Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest and longest-protected of the reserves, corresponding to an increase in tiger density from 1.3 tigers per 100 square kilometers, to 2.9 tigers/100 km2.
“Tiger recoveries in Southeast Asia are few, and examples such as these highlight that recoveries can be supported outside of South Asia, where most of the good news [about tigers] appears to come from,” said Abishek Harihar, tiger program director for Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organization, who was not involved in the study.
Among the camera trap footage gathered in HKK-TY over the years were encouraging scenes of healthy tiger families, including one instance of a mother tiger and her three grownup cubs lapping water and lounging in a jacuzzi-sized watering hole. The tiger family stayed by the water source for five days during the height of the dry season.
The team of researchers from Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Kasetsart University, and India’s Center for Wildlife Studies deployed camera traps at more than 270 separate locations throughout the HKK-TY reserves, amassing 98,305 days’ worth of camera-trap data over the 19-year study period.
Using software that identifies individual tigers by their unique stripe patterns, they built a reference database of all known tigers frequenting the three reserves. A total of 291 individual tigers older than 1 year were recorded, as well as 67 cubs younger than 1 year [over the course of the study].
Ten of the tigers were photographed in more than one of the reserves, indicating their territories straddled the reserve boundaries. The authors conclude that each of the three reserves has a solid breeding tiger population and that, taken together, the HKK-TY landscape is a vital source of tigers that could potentially repopulate surrounding areas where they’ve been lost. This is supported by cases of known HKK-TY tigers dispersing into neighboring parts of WEFCOM and even across the border into Myanmar.
Conservation efforts pay off
Anak Pattanavibool, study co-author and Thailand country director at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Mongabay that population models that take into account the full extent of suitable habitat available to tigers within the reserves and the likelihood that some tigers inevitably go undetected by camera surveys indicate there could be up to 140 tigers within the HKK-YT landscape.
Anak told Mongabay the tiger recovery is a clear indication that conservation efforts are starting to pay off. In particular, long-term action to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to boost the tigers’ prey populations seem to be working, he said.
“Conservation success takes time. At the beginning we didn’t have much confidence that it would be possible [to recover tiger numbers], but we’ve been patient,” Anak said. For him, the turning point came in 2012, when authorities arrested and — with the aid of tiger stripe recognition software — prosecuted several tiger-poaching gangs operating in Huai Kha Khaeng. “These cases sent a strong message to poaching gangs and they stopped coming to these forests,” he said."
...ranger teams have detected no tiger poaching in the HKK-TY part of WEFCOM since 2013.
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"Pa Pa Ya!!" is a song by Japanese kawaii metal band Babymetal featuring Thai rapper F.Hero. It was released on June 28, 2019, just ahead of the band's performance at Yokohama Arena the same day.
Similar to other Babymetal songs, "Pa Pa Ya!!" gathers influence from various genres while preserving the band's J-pop and electronic music. With its name referring to the papaya, "Pa Pa Ya!!" contains components of southern lands, Japanese festivals, Papaya Salad, and a chaotic tune, for a "hot upper tune" in the summer. The song is composed of an infectious synth line and bouncy guitar riffs.
"Pa Pa Ya!!" peaked at number two on the Oricon Digital Singles weekly chart, and at number 56 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. In the US, "Pa Pa Ya!!" charted on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart at number twelve. In October 2019, the band became the first Asian act to reach the peak of Billboard Top Rock Albums Chart with their third studio album Metal Galaxy. The music video for "Pa Pa Ya!!" was filmed during a live performance at Yokohama Arena.