Thais have cultivated rice for a long time and have improved it continuously. In the past, Thais had "Pin-Thong" rice, a Thai rice’s species and the best species of the world, but now it has become extinct. Currently, Thais have Jasmine rice which is well-known around the world.

Rice usually serves as the Thai main course, both regular rice and sticky rice, and the Thais consume rice three times daily. Rice is also an ingredient in Thai desserts such as Khaoneaw Moon and Khaoneaw Sangkayha. Rice is part of Thai culture, inherited from generation to generation, and it will continued forever.

คนไทยได้มีการพัฒนาเรื่องการปลูกข้าวมาช้านาน ครั้งหนึ่งเราเคยมีข้าวพันธุ์ "ปิ่นทอง" ซึ่งนับว่าเป็นข้าวพันธุ์ดีที่สุดในโลก แต่เป็นที่น่าเสียดายอย่างยิ่ง ที่ ณ วันนี้ข้าวพันธุ์ปิ่นทองของเราได้สูญพันธุ์ไป อย่างไรก็ดี เรายังมี "ข้าวหอมมะลิ" ซึ่งเป็นที่นิยมและรู้จักแพร่หลายไปทั่วโลก

ข้าวนั้นเป็นอาหารหลักของคนไทย (ทั้งข้าวเหนียวและข้าวเจ้า) และคนไทยบริโภคข้าววันละ ๓ เวลา นอกจากนี้ ข้าวยังสามารถนำมาปรุงเป็นของหวานได้อีกด้วย เช่น ข้าวเหนียวมูล ข้าวเหนียวสังขยา เป็นต้น ข้าวนั้นเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของวัฒนธรรมไทย ที่ได้สืบทอดกันมาชั่วลูกชั่วหลาน

และวัฒนธรรมข้าวกับชาวไทยนี้จะยังคงอยู่ต่อไปตราบชั่วนิจนิรันดร์

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US CultureMost visitors to the United States arrive with their own ideas as to what Americans are really like. These notions derive, in large measure, from the worldwide distribution of U.S. television and films. The international student who spends a year in the United States will soon discover that the stereotypes presented in these media do not reflect the complexity of U.S. life and culture.

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Spiders, Carnivorous Plants Compete for Food—A First

In the battle for bugs, wolf spiders are outwitting carnivorous plants, according to the first study to show members of the plant and animal kingdoms competing for prey.
In parts of Florida and southern Georgia, two species of wolf spider eat the same insects as the pink sundew—a type of carnivorous plant.
Sundews catch bugs using a sticky mucilage on the tips of their leaves. The small plants then release digestive enzymes, which begin to process the trapped animals, leaving only their exoskeletons behind.
Sosippus floridanus spiders, meanwhile, build funnel webs slightly off the ground, at the same height as the sundews. And a wandering wolf spider species, Rabidosa rabida, actively hunts for the same insects the sundews tend to trap. (See spider web pictures.)
In the field the team saw that, when S. floridanus is in close quarters with the sundew, the spiders build larger webs farther away from the plants, presumably to snare more meals than the sundews' leaves.
This led the team to suspect that the spiders were hurting the plants via competition.
Laboratory experiments with the hunting spider R. rabida later confirmed that the presence of spiders can deprive the plants of bugs—and thus vital nutrients.
The plants become weaker overall, producing smaller leaves and fewer seeds, according to study co-author Jason Rohr, an ecologist at the University of South Florida.
There's no evidence so far that the plant responds in any way to the spiders' presence, though research is underway to investigate that, Rohr added. (Related: "Plants Can Recognize, Communicate With Relatives, Studies Find.")
Overall, the discovery contradicts a long-held assumption that competition for food mostly occurs among closely related taxa, or categories of organisms, he said.
"We have pretty convincing evidence that you get competition between very distantly related taxa."

Pea-Size Frog on Pencil Perch

A newfound, pea-size frog, Microhyla nepenthicola, sits on the tip of a pencil.One of the smallest frogs in the world, the species was spotted inside and around pitcher plants in Malaysian rain forests on the island of Borneo (map), which is divided among Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
(See pictures of a hairy-nosed otter and other rare animals captured recently by camera traps on Borneo.)
The new species was announced Wednesday, but the frogs have been hiding in plain view for more than a century.
"I saw some specimens in museum collections that are over a hundred years old," co-discoverer Indraneil Das said in a statement.
"Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species," said Das, a herpetologist at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak in Malaysia. "But it turns out they are adults of this newly discovered microspecies."

Unicorns, Roses, and Star "Bells"--Oh, My!

The false-color composite shows starlight in shades of blue and the nebula's warm gas and dust in red and green, as seen in four different infrared wavelengths.
At the rose's heart sits a cluster of young stars called NGC 2244. The most massive of these stars produce huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation, which erode the nebula and sculpt it into its flowery form.
The whole shebang is visible through a backyard telescope. In fact, the star cluster was first spotted around 1690 by an English astronomer, and the surrounding nebula was identified about 150 years later.
Also this week, an international team using the French-led Convection Rotation and planetary Transits (CoRoT) satellite announced that they successfully listened in to the sound waves coming from a star in Monoceros called HD49933.
For the first time, the scientists were able to use these stellar sound waves to monitor starspots—patches of intense magnetic activity on the star's surface, similar to sunspots.
What they found is that the distant star is going through a cycle of magnetic activity just like our sun's 11-year cycle.
"Essentially, the star is ringing like a bell," study co-author Travis Metcalfe, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in a statement.
"As it moves through its starspot cycle, the tone and volume of the ringing changes in a very specific pattern, moving to higher tones with lower volume at the peak of its magnetic cycle."So far CoRoT has made its name largely as a planet hunter. The scope has found 14 stars that have at least one planet, and half of them are also in the Unicorn, including a star that hosts the "most Earthlike" planet yet found, dubbed CoRoT-7b.
CoRoT searches for planets via the transit method, which involves looking for dips in starlight as a body passes in front of the star.
But the probe was also designed to look for stellar oscillations that can reveal a star's magnetic activity.
In our solar system, this magnetic cycle has plusses and minuses... stronger solar storms can trigger awesome auroras, but they can also spew radiation that can be damaging to astronauts, satellites, and even power grids.
(See pictures of auroras driven by a recent solar storm.)
Unlike the sun, the cycle for HD49933 seems to last less than a year, the shortest magnetic cycle yet observed on another star. But this difference could be a scientific boon.
In addition to offering a sort of sped-up view of what goes on with our sun, studies of more stars with short cycles could give insight into star cycles overall, which in turn sheds light on what makes a sunlike star a good place for hosting life as we know it.
"Understanding the activity of stars harboring planets is necessary, because magnetic conditions on the star's surface could influence the habitable zone, where life could develop," study lead author Rafael Garcia, of France's Center for Nuclear Studies of Saclay, said in the statement.
In other words, variations in a star's magnetic activity could affect the criteria for the so-called Goldilocks zone, the region around a star that's "just right" for life to evolve on another Earthlike world.
How's that for bringing the fairy tale full-circle?

Tiger Cub: Freed, Fuzzy Headed

The cat's out of the bag—at least for a woman caught smuggling a live, two-month-old, drugged tiger cub in a suitcase full of toys (pictured) at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport on Sunday.
The 31-year-old Thai national, whose identity has not been revealed by Thai authorities, was scheduled to board a Mahan Air flight to Iran. But when she was seen struggling with a large bag at check-in, airport officials decided to x-ray her luggage.
The x-rays revealed the tranquilized tiger cub among stuffed-tiger toys, according to a statement released Thursday by TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network. (Related video: "Tiger Trade Slashes Big Cats' Numbers.")
Officials are investigating whether the cub was wild caught or captive-bred, as well as where the woman intended to bring the tiger.All Asian tigers are listed as endangered or worse by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), mostly due to the illegal trade in tiger parts. (Read about how to save tigers with National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)

war zone in Bangkok

Bangkok turned into a war zone Wednesday as Thai military forces cracked down on anti-government protesters, ending a tense standoff that has troubled the capital for weeks.

The army surged into Lumpini Park, the area where Red Shirt demonstrators had amassed. Armored personnel carriers crushed bamboo and tire barricades; the protesters hurled M79 grenades at soldiers. The May sky quickly turned black from thick smoke billowing from landmark buildings set ablaze.

Finally, after hours of intense street battles, the Red Shirt leadership surrendered. The government imposed a strict curfew that barred people from going outside between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. The chaotic day left at least five people dead as Bangkok residents endured an edgy and unsettled night.

Thailand's prime minister sought to calm public fears with a televised address in which he expressed confidence that peace would soon be restored.

whitetiger

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"It's Powerful."

White tigers are a kind of tiger whose fur is white or almost white. This coloration is caused by a recessive gene. White tigers have been known to inhabit many parts of East Asia, including India and China. However, their current range has been much reduced due to excessive poaching.

Buddhists believe tigers have good power and Taoism sees tigers as evil. Through time, tigers became more closely linked to people's beliefs, the tiger was often symbolized as the guardian of the forest and protector against evil spirits.

"It's Formidable and Graceful!!."