Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness

July 16, 2014

Golden Tabby Tigers

I love big cats, especially tigers! This is one I hadn't seen a lot of.

This is one tabby cat you might have second thoughts about leaving a saucer of milk out for.

Stunning Golden Tabby tiger Sapphire is magnificent to behold as he relaxes after a swim at Olmense Zoo in Antwerp, Belgium.

Golden Tabby tigers are coloured like an ordinary domestic tabby cat but have the powerful claws and jaws of any other tiger.

Sadly there are only thirty Golden Tabby tigers known to exist on the planet and experts believe there are none left in the wild.

Keepers hope this nine-foot-long king of the jungle, named Sapphire after the colour of his eyes, will prove a hit with the lady-tigers he will one-day breed with.

Management assistant Alida Jorissen, 52, visited local Olmense Zoo in Antwerp, Belgium where she captured the rarely seen animal.

Keepers hope this nine-foot-long king of the jungle, named Sapphire after the colour of his eyes, will prove a hit with the lady-tigers he will one-day breed with.

Management assistant Alida Jorissen, 52, visited local Olmense Zoo in Antwerp, Belgium where she captured the rarely seen animal.

The first was recorded in India over one hundred years ago, and the handful that remain are descended from white tigers that carry the recessive golden gene, but do not themselves look golden.

Olmense Zoo specialises in breeding white tigers and lions, which are critically endangered in the wild. The 30 acre site is home to over 200 other exotic animal species.

By Daniel Miller

This story and pictures with thanks to The Daily Mail.

More information:

The Golden Tabby Tiger is an extremely rare colour variation of this exquisite wild cat, and not a separate subspecies. This tiger is characterised by its gorgeous fawn-coloured (or pale gold) fur with its light-orange stripes and pale (sometimes white) belly and legs. The fur is thicker and softer than other tigers’ fur, giving it a distinctly luxurious look and feel. Usually, a Golden Tabby Tiger (or a Strawberry Tiger, as it is sometimes known by the public) is simply a different coloured version of the Bengal Tiger subspecies.

Interestingly, the Golden Tabby Tiger is usually considerably larger than the average Bengal Tiger. When two of these golden tigers are mated with one another, the offspring may be white, since this variety of tiger carries the gene for White Tigers.

The Golden Tabby Tiger is, to the best of modern knowledge, only in existence in captivity today. And, even in this protected environment, there are only about 30 or fewer of these animals in the world, testifying to its great rarity. However, there are more tigers that carry the gene (although they display no physical characteristics thereof), slightly improving the chance of more being born. The more that Golden Tabby Tigers are allowed to breed only with one another, the more likely they are to produce more such colour variations, although this is not guaranteed.

Golden Tabby Tigers are known for being highly intelligent.

Genetically speaking, this tiger has the genes of a normal orange-coloured cat, but also two copies of a recessive wide band gene. This is what lends the Golden Tabby its gorgeous white and ginger markings. Usually, a Strawberry Tiger is the result of a zoo’s breeding white and common orange tigers together (whether intentionally or by accident), rather than a deliberate attempt at breeding Golden Tabbies.

The first Golden Tabby Tiger ever born in captivity came from two Bengal Tigers at the Adriatic Animal Attractions in Florida, in 1983. One or both of these parents carried the gene for such a colour variation, but neither of them displayed any of its characteristics. Therefore, this cub was a complete surprise to those at the park.

Because this is not an individual subspecies of tiger, biologists and scientists will not spend excessive time, effort or money on studying or protecting the Golden Tabby. However, the zoos and conservation parks in which they live value these rare creatures for their beauty and intelligence.

by Amelia Du Plessis

With many thanks to Tabby Tigers.

Below: Picture with many thanks to @AwkwardGoogle via Twitter.

This picture above with thanks to @Fascinatingpics.
Others from Twitter also.

Some related posts:

Earliest Big Cat Fossil Found in Tibet

The Serengeti Lion: An Exquisite National Geographic Project

Buddhist Monks and The "Tiger Temple" of Kanchanaburi

Lion Cub Triplets Raise Hope for The Endangered Asiatic Lion

The Siberian Tiger

Bornean Marbled Cat: An Ultra-rare Cat Species Captured On Camera

Iranian Cheetah Sighting Gives Hope To Conservation Efforts

Cincinnati Zoo Cheetah Sets New World Speed Record!

Snow Leopard and Cubs at Magdeburg Zoo

Swimming Tigers at Australia Zoo

Clouded Leopard Cubs At Houston Zoo

Another Chance for Three Orphaned Tiger Cubs

Lion Protector, Shivani Bhalla Helps Big Cats and People Coexist

Surprising Facts About Our Favorite Big Cats

Asher Jay: Art Of The Matter

India’s Wild Tiger Population Has Increased 30% Since 2010

Clouded Leopard Born at Florida Zoo

World Lion Day: Some Stunning Images Of The King Of The Jungle

Two Snow Leopard Cubs Born at Brookfield Zoo

White Lions - A Royal Family

Lions Gain New Endangered Species Protections

Leopard Hunting Banned in South Africa For Remainder of 2016

A Hidden Population Of Up To 200 Lions Has Been Found In Ethiopia

Africa’s Big Five Animals

Tigers Are Coming Back!

Tracking Sumatran Tigers

Russia Builds A Huge Tunnel To Save A Near-Extinct Group of Leopards

30 Tiger Zoos In Thailand Face Nationwide Checks

The Truth Behind The Tiger Temple

The Black Panther

Russia's 'Extinct' Persian Leopards Reintroduced To Black Sea Mountains

Why Big Cat Rescue Doesn’t Have Cheetah or Jaguars

The Best Big Cat Videos Come From The Wild

Pallas's Cats To Get Their Own 'Palace' In Siberian Mountains

Amur Tiger Release

Over 100 Tigers Killed And Trafficked Each Year

Last Wild Ocelots In Texas Get New Paths To Safety

Sabrina:A Sumatran/Bengal tiger,

Mr Wikipedia, Sverker Johansson, Wrote One In Ten Entries!

Wikipedia is a great place to start any research. You are bound to find something on a topic you are searching for.

I have to say that Sverker Johansson has done a truly remarkable thing - outstanding actually - and no doubt I have seen some of his pieces.
He must have a phenomenal degree of knowledge.

My only reservation is that since Wiki contains editable text it is always wise to check out a few other sources.

That is not to say Sverker Johansson made any mistakes. It simply means that anyone else could have re-edited his work. That is why I always use it with caution.

A SWEDISH academic has emerged as the author of nearly three million entries on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

Sverker Johansson, who has written about one in ten of Wikipedia’s 30 million pages, told The Times yesterday that he would make sure every author in the British Library’s catalogue had an entry in the encyclopedia. He will turn to the matter once he has chronicled every species of animal and plant, living or dead.

Wikipedia is a collaboratively written, not-for-profit online service that allows anybody with an internet connection to write and edit its pages. It has half a billion viewers every month.
Mr Johansson’s prolific authorship has been made possible by software that sucks information from the internet, databases and other digital sources, pieces it together and publishes it as Wikipedia entries. The software, known as Lsjbot, was designed by the 53-year-old Swede.

He began testing Lsjbot late in 2011 before a full launch in February 2012. Lsjbot allows him to create up to 10,000 new Wikipedia entries a day.

“I thought about the ultimate vision of Wikipedia, which is to provide the sum of all human knowledge to everybody on the planet,” he said. “You do this by taking knowledge that’s only available to specialists and making it available to everybody. I really believe in that vision. This is the best way I can help achieve it.”

He said that he saw other people “doing similar things on a small scale” but believed he could do it “better and bigger”.

His methods have not been welcomed in every quarter of Wikipedia’s community of editors. “The majority are happy and they share the same vision, but there’s an unhappy minority,” he said. “This is for a couple of reasons.

“First, the articles are boring. They’re very simple and they’re all alike. They lack literary merit. I accept that completely but the purpose of Wikipedia is not to provide artistic flair. It is to provide information. Secondly, they believe certain things about the role of the writer.” Wikipedia, he added, “is not for the writers. It’s for the readers.”
Mr Johansson, who was born in Lund, southern Sweden, is the director of education and research at Dalarna University. He is the author of Origins of Language, which has been described as an “unusual” book. His most recently published academic paper examined Neanderthal speech.

He has focused on animal and plant entries in the Swedish version of Wikipedia. Once he has completed work in this area, he will focus on other projects. “Animal and plant articles in other languages,” he said. “And authors, for example. I want to go into the catalogue of the British Library and create Wikipedia entries for every author they have.”

The entries that Mr Johansson creates are known by Wikipedia editors as “stubs”. These are essentially the bones of an article which contain basic information, on to which other editors are expected to add flesh.

By James Dean

With thanks to The Australian

Wikipedia Uses Robot Editor To Flush Out Suspicious Changes
WikiWand: Modernizing Wikipedia

More about Wikipedia from You Tube:

Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia that is supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Volunteers worldwide collaboratively write Wikipedia's 30 million articles in 287 languages, including over 4.4 million in the English Wikipedia. Anyone who can access the site can edit almost any of its articles, which on the Internet comprise[4] the largest and most popular general reference work, ranking sixth globally among all websites on Alexa with an estimated 365 million readers.
Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001, the latter creating its name a portmanteau of wiki (the name of a type of collaborative website, from the Hawaiian word for "quick"and encyclopedia.

July 15, 2014

Dwight Yoakam Plots 'Revival' - New Album Out This Year

Dwight Yoakam is back in business with the record label that helped launch him to superstardom back in 1986. The singer-songwriter has teamed with Warner Bros. Records' Reprise imprint for a new album to be released later this year.
Its first single is a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Who'll Stop the Rain."

Also available here.

Yoakam will perform the tune a cappella on tonight's (July 14) episode of the CBS science fiction drama, Under the Dome. It will be his first of several appearances on the show as barbershop owner Lyle Chumley. The guest-starring role follows his run last year as the enigmatic Bruce on the FX comedy, Wilfred.

Yoakam will also guest-star on Eric Church's the Outsiders World Tour, beginning September 11th in Bossier City, Louisiana, and hitting 32 cities before wrapping in mid-December.

Brandy Clark, Halestorm and Brothers Osborne will share the opening act slot.

Yoakam has recorded 28 albums under the Warner Bros. label umbrella, with his last being 2012's critically-acclaimed 3 Pears, which spent a record-breaking eight weeks on top of the Americana albums chart.

One of the standout tracks from the album, "A Heart Like Mine", above, made Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Best Songs of 2012.

Article with thanks to Rolling Stone.

Written by Beville Dunkerley

Above: Singer-songwriter John Fogerty singing "Who'll Stop The Rain".

Many thanks to Annie for sending me this.

Above: pictures from my collection.

More to come soon, so stay tuned. Keep an eye on Dwight's official site, Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.

Pictures below from Dwight's Twitter Page.

Above: Dwight recently tweeted out this picture.@DwightYoakam.

Below: Picture from Dwight's Twitter feed.

Above: Picture credit - Gallery Hip

Gram Parsons - "Return of the Grievous Angel" - Another Favourite Song

Dwight Yoakam: New Album 'Second Hand Heart"

Dwight Yoakam: Meandering Through The Americana Camp

Dwight Yoakam’s Rock Roots

Dwight Yoakam Names His Top Five David Bowie Songs

Dwight Yoakam to Release Special Edition Vinyl

Dwight Yoakam's Latest Album Will Be Bluegrass

The Royal Jewels

I like jewellery! I like all aspects of it: the gems, the designers, the history of them and their owners, as well as the science of their creation.

Of course most of us will never own pieces like this but thankfully we can still see them and read about them.