Mary Jo Marchnight from Savannah, GA
I suggest you and your audience would benefit from a study of Dr. Paul Kammerer (the most famous biologist in the world in 1920), particularly in this case his scientific studies of ‘seriality’. He wrote a book to prove that what we call coincidence is in reality a manifestation of a universal principle in nature which operates independently from the known laws of physical causation. And because we are trained to ignore ‘coincidence’ in general, we miss manifestations which would stare us in the face if we were conscious coincidence-collectors. Arthur Koestler’s “The Case of the Midwife Toad” is about Kammerer; and I have a wonderful book of Kammerer’s on the subject of ‘The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics”. He is a case of someone whose reputation was destroyed and needs to be reinstated for the benefit of science
—
—A Desert Inn
Heading into the vast, barren Kalahari Desert of southern Africa soon, and need a place to crash? I’m sure the peculiar Sociable Weaver bird (Philetairus socius) will be happy to accomodate you. They live in organised colonies and are expert architects, building the largest tree nests in the world out of sticks, grass and cotton. These often honeycomb around telephone poles, for lack of suitable trees. The birds are “sociable” because they’re not in the least territorial, and kindly let other nest in their giant homes too, regardless of species. The nests are popular because the insulate from both the heat and the cold, and they accommodate up to 400 birds at any given time—the South African pygmy falcon, the pied barbet, familiar chat, red-headed finch, ashy tit, and rosy-faced lovebird all find shelter there, nesting right alongside the Sociable Weavers. Vultures, owls, and eagles also roost on the roof of the nest. It’s believes that the Weavers are so willing to share their homes because the other birds can show them new sources of food, and can help keep an eye out for danger—so, amazingly, the teeming nests are like regular inns. Over the years, they just keeping growing and growing, some reaching 6 metres wide and 3 metres tall, and they give wonderfully quirky personalities to inanimate poles.
(Image Credit: Dillon Marsh)
DRUG-MAKING MACHINE
Hypnotic Mercury
That’s over 1,000 images of the planet Mercury stitched together in a copper-blue disco ball of hypnotic animation. Launched in 2004, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft has been studying the smallest member of the Solar System for nearly two years with phenomenal success.
A single solar day on Mercury takes over 58 Earth days, so this GIF’s rotation would take you nearly two months to see with the naked eye … you know, should you be in space, near Mercury. Check out another shadowy video of a Mercurial day from NASA.
BONUS: Did you know that craters on Mercury are named for authors, artists and musicians? Dr. Seuss and Andy Warhol each have one.
(via Gizmodo, for higher-res GIF check here, and in video form here)
—
universalequalityisinevitable:
We live in a highly scientifically illiterate global society that puts more stock in “science fiction”, which is an oxymoron, and what it offers us in terms of interplanetary warfare, than in scientific fact—like the fact that a resource-based economy is actually highly feasible and serves every person’s needs unlike any other system before it.
(via zeitgeistrama)
—
Evil Media at Transmediale
Stephen Fortune biophreaker, interstitial practitioner, obsessive obfuscator
