Laika

I just found out about Laika from a comment on a 9gag post. She was a stray dog from the Soviet that became the first animal to orbit the Earth as well as the first to die in an orbit. :(

Before the launch, one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children. In a book chronicling the story of Soviet space medicine, Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote, "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live."

Laika likely died within hours after launch from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload... After approximately five to seven hours into the flight, no further signs of life were received from the spacecraft.

Sputnik 2 was not designed to be retrievable, and Laika had always been intended to die. 

Seriously, what happened to the dog was completely unacceptable. I don't know if it is justifiable to compare this to animal testing, but I feel that all lives are equal. If you don't know whether it is safe to send a human into space, then don't, for goodness's sake. Just stay on Earth. Why send a poor dog out there? I can only imagine how frightened and confused the dog must have been, being trapped in the small spacecraft and heating up with no means of escape. Damn.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika)

Masks

I thought this was so beautiful, I just had to share this. Reblogged from deathtoallclones

My sunflower seedlings have all died. I really don't know what went wrong. One day they were perfectly fine, sprouting leaves; the next day they were drooping and turning brown.

I just went and got myself another two packet of seeds from fairprice. Hopefully these will fare better.

Day 11:
Ok so I accept that the other two seeds are just not going to germinate. The other seedlings are doing pretty ok. They are starting to grow their true leaves, but crowding is an issue and I'm afraid transplanting might kill them. :(

真的是求人不如求己啊。

随着成长，很多事，变得越来越不单纯，越来越不简单。曾经以为很要好的关系，在关系到金钱时变得紧张。 在金字面前，原形毕露。人人皆求自保。

人生真是场无止境的学习旅程啊。。。

My sunflower seedlings have sprouted!

Ok, so as expected that seedling didn't make it. Haiz. I thought it might be the transport that killed it, but the remaining seedlings at my uncle's house died too. Hmm... going to try growing from seeds myself. Bought a packet of seeds from NTUC and a 10-inch pot from Giant. But I'm worried that the pot might be too small, cos I read that sunflower roots can grow to 4 feet below the soil surface (!!). I don't know what species that author is referring to though...