auckie

[auckie]

This image haunts me

[auckie]

[auckie]

[auckie]

#dude I literally didn’t read it so I’m rbing this one and keeping the other and gonna compare and contrast after I build snoopys new enclosu #enclosure #lest I look like more of a jackass

[auckie]

What candy you buy from me at concessions says about you

Swedish fish: you have unaddressed antisocial and narcissistic traits. People in your life are afraid to tell you how they really feel about you

Hot tamales: you’re just plain fucked up

Snickers bar: you’re hungry. Your kids made you see this movie

Haribo goldbears: Manchild/womanchild

Milk duds: you’re normal

Sour patch kids: You lack impulse control

Reese’s cups: You lack dignity

Plain m&ms: You’re an “old soul”

Peanut m&ms: you’re deluding yourself

#cmon what about rasinetres #rasinettes #I always do them or cookie dough balls which I think is a man/woman child second option too #I used to do Reese’s but I grew up #nowadays it’s the first two and popcorn and diet soda and then I feel violently ill but I’ll never learn #both m&ms are a good option but I also think those stupid fucking dibs are too #movie pizza and hotdog and pretzel and nachos always suck but I’m craving them now #Gd and the overpriced shitty drinks you can buy. oh fuck if they sold sugar free haribos I’d buy those for sure

[auckie]

THIS IS SO COOL! So animals can get fungal infections, as can plants and even other fungi. We've seen fungi like Cordyceps produce fruiting bodies on insect hosts postmortem. But this is the first known observation of a fruiting body on a live host! And the frog apparently seemed to be in good health otherwise.

It's likely a situation with an opportunistic spore of Mycena landing in a wound or other small vulnerability on the frog's skin, and since amphibians have to stay wet, the fungus had plenty of water. I'm not sure what it's been consuming since Mycena normally is a decomposer of dead plant tissue; maybe dead skin cells and bacteria?

Before people start leaping to conclusions, this is NOT the start of some sort of zombie apocalypse. Mycena and Cordyceps engage with their hosts in very different ways, and neither are anywhere near related to any fungi that parasitize human hosts and which do not cause any sort of altered mental state of that sort. I find it kind of sad when people have to sci-fi a new scientific discovery in order to find it interesting enough to think about, instead of just appreciating how awesome, weird, and scary nature is all on its own.

Regardless, this is a really spectacular find, and we'll see if any other crop up or whether this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime discoveries.

[auckie]

Collection highlight:  man leading a sheep (the Passover sacrifice) - detail of an 18th century Galician matzah cover

[auckie]

[auckie]

Okay. This is a pretty big deal in the world of mycology. Historically fungi have been divided up into either parasites that siphon resources from plants, mutualists that cooperate with them, or saprotrophs that break down decaying organic matter (plant and otherwise.) The genus in question, Mycena, has traditionally been made of saprotrophic species feeding on decaying wood.

However, what scientists are observing is Mycena fungi displaying primitive mutualistic behaviors, specifically providing living plants with nitrogen and getting carbon in return from a living partner, or getting to chow down on the plant's remains once deceased. This shows a significant level of adaptability that hasn't been observed in fungi beforehand, though given how much we don't know about fungi there's a good possibility this isn't an unprecedented event.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that we're seeing this in Mycena. These fungi are especially opportunistic; in fact, that mushroom growing out of a frog's skin that we saw a while back was also a Mycena species. Perhaps we need to add bonnet mushrooms to raccoons, dandelions, and other hardy generalists as symbols of scrappy survival in spite of environmental pressures.

[auckie]

Hundreds of Jewish anti-war demonstrators have been arrested during a Passover seder that doubled as a protest in New York, as they shut down a major thoroughfare to pray for a ceasefire and urge the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to end US military aid to Israel.

The 300 or so arrests took place on Tuesday night at Grand Army Plaza, on the doorstep of Schumer’s Brooklyn residence, where thousands of mostly Jewish New Yorkers gathered for the seder, a ritual that marked the second night of the holiday celebrated as a festival of freedom by Jews worldwide.

The seder came just before the US Senate resoundingly passed a military package that includes $26bn for Israel.

[auckie]

Can I please have a cappuccino but with oat milk and a big pump of sugarfree chocolate syrup and... Lol I remember your stupid ass from 2,300 years ago. We were living in seleucis on the tigris river during the same span of summers... do you rememver a red ibis bird with beautiful plumes? Yeah U were a sort of dull brown goat that didn't train and dint make milk or kids. Yeah? No? Eventually the Zoroastrian homesteaders who owned you started feeding you contaminated barley to try and kill you lol. Maybe you remember the ergotism? Anyway. also I want one of these 🫵stupid little breads in the case

[auckie]

Mark Catesby (English,1683-1749)

Cat’s Claw (Mimosa circinalis), 1731-1743

Hand-colored engraving

[auckie]

for several weeks now this tweet has been causing wars on twitter

[auckie]

The vague and crippling anxieties of my youth have been replaced by a more targeted yet equally devastating sense of not having enough jigs, reels, and hornpipes memorized

[auckie]

[auckie]

Wataru Takahashi Spirit of the Sea 1938

#best

[auckie]

Egg mass of a conical moonsnail illuminated by the moon. ©Kandy Curran

#sp