#sea grass reproduction

[bethanythebogwitch]

I am a survivor of Florida, having gone to college there for 4.5 years. There's a lot (a LOT) to not like about Florida, but the wildlife is not one of those things. So for this Wet Beast Wednesday, I'm gonna talk about the most famous Florida resident, the manatee. And why stop there? I'll discuss all the sirenians in one go.

(image: three manatees facing the camera. They are rotund, resembling a potato in shape. Their heads are smaller and end in squarish snouts. They have two flippers at the front of the head. The tail is flat, wide, and round. They are grey all over)

The sirenians are a taxonomic order of marine mammals consisting of 4 living members: three species of manatee and the dugong. They are the only herbivorous order of marine mammals, a trait that has given the the nickname "sea cows". The name Sirenia comes from the sirens of greek myth. In the original story, the sirens were bird with the heads and breasts of women, but later stories turned them into mermaids and that's the version that's stuck. There are unconfirmed stories that European sailors (the most common story uses Christopher Columbus) mistook manatees for mermaids, which is why they're named after sirens.

(image: a manatee facing the camera. Its face is visible, revealing two nostrils on a broad, flat shout covered in whiskers. It's eyes are located above the snout and are small and black. It is grey, but has patches of greenish algae growing on it)

Sirenians all have a pretty similar body plan. They are fusiform (bulky in the middle and narrower at the ends) and very bulky animals not built for speed. They don't ned to be fast (though are capable of short bursts of speed) because unlike other marine mammals, they are herbivorous. The vast majority of a sirenian's diet consists of sea grass and most of the rest is other aquatic plants. All species have been known to supplement their diet with invertebrates, mostly during times of poor food availability. When feeding, they move their snouts through the sediment, letting sensory bristles detect plants. They then use their flexible and muscular lips to pull up the sea grass, roots and all. While an individual can eat up to 15% of their body weight a day, they are known to seek out seagrass patches with higher nitrogen content instead of eating everything they can get. This reliance on seagrass limits the range of sirenians to shallow coastal areas, rivers, and estuaries in warm climates. Hearing and touch (with the bristles that cover their bodies) are their main senses. Their eyes are weak, making them almost blind. Sirenians are large, with the largest ever known, Stellar's sea cow, growing up to 10 meters (33 ft) and 11 tons. Mature sirenians are large enough to have no natural predators. Like all marine mammals not named sea otters, sirenians have a thick layer of blubber to keep them warm. Their bones are extremely dense and likely act as ballast to counteract the buoyancy of the blubber. In the marine mammal breath-holding competition, sirenians do pretty bad. They can hold their breath for about 15 minutes at max.

(image: a dugong. It is similar in appearance to a manatee, but skinnier. Its tail is a fluke with two points. Its head is larger and the snout and mouth point downwards)

Sirenian reproduction is somewhat poorly-understood. They only have a single calf at a time (with a gestation period of about a year) and mothers will raise them for one to two years. Calves mature quickly, reaching sexual maturity in around 2-5 years in manatees and 8 years in dugongs, though most females do not give birth until between 6 and 15 years. Their nipples are located behind the flippers, making a nursing calf appear to be sucking its mother's armpit. Sirenians are solitary animals who typically only congregate in groups when females are in estrus. Males are believed to compete for the right to mate and may engage in lekking. Lekking is when a male will claim a territory and mate with females in this territory while chasing opposing males out. Sirenians live long lives, with the oldest known individual being a female dugong that lived to 73. Despite how long they live, each female will only get pregnant a few times in her life.

(image: a manatee mother with calf. The calf looks like a smaller version of the mother and is suckling, making it appear to be biting the mother's armpit)

As with all marine mammals, sirenians are descended from land mammals. The study of sirenian evolution has led to a surprising conclusion: the closest relatives of sirenians are elephants. It sounds weird, but there is substantial DNA evidence supporting this conclusion. In addition, the tusks of a dugong (see below) and flexible and prehensile lips of sirenians are based on the same structures as the tusks and trunks of elephants. It gets better, the next closest relative of both groups are the hyraxes, who look more like rodents than anything that should be related to an elephant or a manatee. All three are part of a clade called paenungulata, which is part of a clade called afrotheria. The other main group within afrotheria is afroinsectiphilia, which consists of aardvarks and various shrews. The afrotherian family reunions must be wild.

(image: a scientific diagram showing a cladogram of afrotheria and the groups within it. source)

The dugong (Dugong dugon) is the last surviving member of its family, which also included the now extinct giant Stellar's sea cow. The easiest way to tell a dugong apart from a manatee is its tail, which is shaped like a dolphin's fluke instead of the round tails of manatees. Internally, there are also multiple differences, many of them relating to the skull. The skull has a very distinct shape, with the upper jaw bending down at a sharp angle. The tip of the upper jaw has two short tusks emerging from it. These tusks are found in moth males and females, but develop differently. In males, they emerge when the calf reaches sexual maturity, while those of females only emerge later in life and sometimes not at all. It is believed that these tusks are used by males to fight over females, as males are often found with scars matching the shape of the tusks. Dugong teeth as simpler than those of manatees, being simple pegs. While manatee teeth will be replaced continuously through life, dugongs only get one set and have to make it count. Dugongs reach an average length of 3 m (10 ft) and 420 kg (930 lbs). Dugongs have the largest range of any sirenian, stretching from east Africa to the Solomon islands east of Australia. This range is fragmented rather than continuous and dugongs are separated into multiple isolated populations. The largest population is believed to exist in northern Australia.

(image: a dugong feeding on seagrass, seen from the front. It's snout is being dragged through the sediment, leaving a cloud of dirt behind it. Small yellow fish surround it)

The west Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus) does not live in west India. It lives in North America. I dunno who named it, but you had one job. The species is divided into two subspecies: the Florida manatee (T. m. latriostris) found in the Gulf of Mexico and east coast of the United States, and the Antillean manatee (T. m. manatus) found in the Caribbean and down south to Brazil. The Antillean subspecies is much more poorly known compared to the Florida subspecies. The Florida manatee may be the most well-studied of all manatees due to the extensive conservation efforts regarding them since the 1970s. Like other manatees, the WI manatee has a round, paddle-like tail and fingernails on its flippers. Their diaphragms are divided into two hemidiaphragms, each of which contracts one lung. They have the northernmost territory of all manatees, which comes with some consequences. They are susceptible to stress and even death when exposed to water under 20 degrees C (68 F). They travel south during winter, usually to southern Florida, but conservationists still have to rehabilitate manatees harmed by cool water every year.

(image: tourists in transparent kayaks observing a west Indian manatee swim below them)

The Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis) is the only sirenian that lives entirely in freshwater, residing in the Amazon river basin. They move seasonally inhabiting flooded areas during the wet season and lakes during the dry season. They fast during the dry season, subsisting off of their fat stores. There are believed to be multiple relatively isolated populations of Amazonian manatee, but studying them is difficult due to them preferring to live in areas away from humans. The Amazonian manatee is the smallest sirenian, reaching between 160 and 230 cm (5 ft 4 in to 7 ft 7 in) and 120 to 270 kg (265 to 595 lbs). Scientist Marc van Roosmalen has proposed the existence of a related species, the dwarf manatee, that lives only in one tributary of Aripuanã river, which is in the habitat range of the Amazonian manatee. Their existence is debated, but most manatee scientists think that they are misidentified juvenile Amazonian manatees.

(image: an Amazonian manatee with calf, seen from ahead and below. they have the same body plan as the above images, but are a darker grey with a white patch on the stomach)

The African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis) is the only species found in the old world, in west Africa from Senegal to Angola. They occupy the largest range of habitats of all sirenians, from tropical islands to flooded forests, to offshore sand flats, to lakes and rivers. They will swim up river during the wet season and back down during dry season. Some isolated populations live exclusively in rivers, never venturing out to sea. They are the most omnivorous of the sirenians, seeking out invertebrates to eat and stealing fish from nets. Many cultural groups in their range consider the African manatee sacred, some saying they used to be people and that killing one requires paying a penance. Mami Wata, a water spirit revered in throughout west, central, and south Africa, has been identified with manatees by some folklorists.

(image: an African manatee seen from the side in an aquarium. It looks almost identical to the west Indian manatee)

All sirenians are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN, except for the Antillean manatee, which is endangered. As they have few to no predators as adults, the primary threats for all sirenians come from humans. Boat strikes and getting tangled in nets kills and injures many individuals, possibly more than die of natural causes. This is not helped by them lacking fear responses to predators, meaning they don't flee from humans and boats. All species were historically hunted for their meat, blubber, and bones, reducing their populations. While all species are now legally protected, poaching and legal hunting by indigenous groups still occurs. They are also threatened by habitat loss as coastal development, pollution, and climate change reduces the range of seagrass. Damming has also reduced their ability to travel up rivers, cutting off valuable feeding ground. Learning about freshwater ecology will make you despise dams. In the United States, the west Indian manatee has become an icon of conservation, especially in Florida, where they have extensive legal protections. Controversially, the US government reduced their legal protections in 2017, much to the ire of many conservation groups. The manatee is the state marine mammal of Florida, presumably narrowly beating out dolphins and meth heads wandering around the everglades.

(image: two juvenile manatees who were abandoned by their mothers. They are being bottle fed by employees of the Cincinnati zoo. Ideally, they will be able to be released into the wild once weaned)

#wet beast wednesday #sirenia #manatee #dugong #west indian manatee #amazonian manatee #african manatee #marine biology #biology #zoology #ecology #animal facts #marine mammals

[typhlonectes]

Venom trade-off shapes interspecific interactions, physiology, and reproduction

Surum et al.

Abstract

The ability of an animal to effectively capture prey and defend against predators is pivotal for survival. Venom is often a mixture of many components including toxin proteins that shape predator-prey interactions. Here, we used the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis to test the impact of toxin genotypes on predator-prey interactions. We developed a genetic manipulation technique to demonstrate that both transgenically deficient and a native Nematostella strain lacking a major neurotoxin (Nv1) have a reduced ability to defend themselves against grass shrimp, a native predator. In addition, secreted Nv1 can act indirectly in defense by attracting mummichog fish, which prey on grass shrimp. Here, we provide evidence at the molecular level of an animal-specific tritrophic interaction between a prey, its antagonist, and a predator. Last, this study reveals an evolutionary trade-off, as the reduction of Nv1 levels allows for faster growth and increased reproductive rates.

Read more:

Venom trade-off shapes interspecific interactions, physiology, and reproduction | Science Advances

#cnidaria #anemone #animals #nature #science #ocean #marine biology #venomous

[puffpuffponcho]

A climate scientists recommendations on climate change books :D🌎📚

For Absolute beginners!

•The Intersectional Environmentalist -Leah Thomas Gives a look into how social justice issues such as racism, sexism, and classism, further the climate change problem

•The uninhabitable planet -David Walles-Wells is an introductory level to the effects of climate change such as rising sea levels, greenhouse effect, etc

•Silent Spring -Rachel Carson, the book that is credited as one of the foundations to the start of the environmental movement. Explains how early observations of birds migration patterns from Carson hinted at the change in climate back in the 60’s

You’ve been to a rally or two

•This changes everything Capitalism v The Climate -Naomi Klein A lengthy read but highlights just what systems of power are in play in a global capitalistic economy, and how those systems abuse their power in name of profit over well being

•A (very) short history of life on earth - Henry Gee Gee explains the way life has existed on earth and just what extinction events took them out. Good intro to the geologic time scale but i don’t recommend if you don’t know basic biology as Gee uses a lot of vocab words

•Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid -Thor Hanson Highlights how animals are adapting to climate change, a gentle reminder every extinction event has had climate change correlated to it. Hanson shows what species are doing as a response to a biological hazard and the early steps of potential evolution (great adaptations kenneth catania is a similar read i havent gotten to yet)

You know what intersectional environmentalism is and support land back

•Braiding Sweetgrass- Robin Wall-Kimmerer- lengthy read again as Kimmerer highlights the struggles of bringing indigenous values into a white male dominated field as biologist and a white male dominated society through a collection beautiful essays (top 3 fav books)

•Countdown - Shanna H Swan Using many scientific terms but attempted to be simplified Swan uses her research on reproductive systems both human and animal to correlate pollution to decline in reproductive health. (for queer people! this book has an uncomfy chapter on intersex in animals and i dont think queer people were consulted when it was written tbh. I myself am queer and found it an odd chapter to read but it wasnt hateful, more just confused)

•As long as grass grows - Dina Gillo-Whitaker Whitaker explains the indigenous communities/allies fight for environmental justice indigenous values. Touching on just what those values are and the long history of fights to give indigenous communities the rights to their land and also incorporate indigenous values about land into the fight against climate change

#geology #stem student #climate change #climate justice #climate action #environmental science #stem academia #landback #intersectional activism #intersectional environmentalism #stem aesthetic #geoscientist #climate science #sustainable #science

[1up-girl]

Primaveral (Pt 1.) Summary:  

“Your first kiss usually isn’t anything special.” Something in his chest tightens, mostly because the idea of Princess Zelda herself whining for a kiss is proving to be far too stimulating a notion. “It’s really just something to get over with. Really, no one’s first kiss is a good one.” “Oh.” Zelda goes quiet, curiosity muted and replaced with a scintillating silence that promises something more. Link lowers his guard down, and his shoulders have only just settled a smidge before her soft request has tension knotting in them once again. “So,” she drones, fingers mindlessly clamping around the stray scorpion grass along her thighs, “if it isn’t anything special…might you be willing to kiss me, then?”

Words: 6.7k Pairing: Zelink Rating: E, for sexual content

Written for @cooking-with-hailstones for Midna's Merry Mixup! You can also read on Ao3 here:

Beneath dappled light, something in the wind changes. 

“I have a question.”

There is something potentially devastating in Zelda’s voice when she says it. Her tone is flat, like an ocean blanketed by the lull of warm air; the calm before a promised storm. In the shade of the old oak tree, she sits at attention, her hands folded demurely upon her lap, and in spite of how prim she looks perched amongst the cornflower splash of sleepy forget-me-nots, an unmistakable flash of mischief thunders across sea green eyes. 

At her right, her knight attendant’s finely tuned ears catch the way her voice intones, and it’s enough to send his stomach twisting with a trepidation that’s usually reserved for journeys far more perilous than a brief excursion to the plains. Crisp narrow blue flares with a gentle warning, but he stays silent—a familiar invitation for her to carry on.

“You promise you’ll be honest with me?” His princess wiggles gloved fingers upon her lap and cants her head to the side, her voice deliciously bright with all the spirit of a skylark on the wing.

An impassive Link finds himself pressed up against the tree beside her, his leg extended with one foot tucked beneath the other as though he’s settled upon an extravagant chaise and not the earthen blanket of blunted roots. “Depends,” he says, flattening his own tone into something unrelenting. It’s almost humorous, the way his dull voice floats among the birdsong careening around the northwestern skies, a call answered by the whistle of wind through the grass like a primaveral duet. He drives a jaded expression in his charge’s direction.

“Oh, don’t give me that look! It’s nothing terrible. It’s just that…” Zelda brushes a bit of stray bark from atop her golden head, “…well, as you surely have learned by now, I’m a rather inquisitive person…and there are many things that I find myself curious about…”

Still, her tone promises something inauspicious. 

Link inhales. “Are you going to ask how children come to be?” 

Zelda harrumphs, and the back of her hand comes to meet his shoulder with a playful swat. “Nonsense! Of course I know how they’re made! I’ve studied reproduction. It was a very…brief lesson, but I gathered all of the important elements.” She thinks for a moment, bites her lip before she’s rushing on: “But, you are on the right track—I want to know more than what any of the tutors will offer on the matter.”

It’s perhaps slightly worse than he’s imagined. Link rubs at his temple with a half curse set at his lips. 

“No, Link, please !” Zelda has most certainly anticipated such a reaction from him, because she’s quickly latching onto his arm, tugging at the angled pattern of orange along his arm wrap while nervous laughter spills from the both of them. Link can only turn an incredulous face on her, and he eyes her with a mixture of both disbelief and improper amusement. 

“I didn’t realize that being your knight attendant meant that I had to teach the Princess of Hyrule about sex .” The pink on his cheeks seems to shade deeper with each word, and in her shadow, he feels like a schoolboy admitting something shameful. 

Indignation quickly mutes the cunning gleam in her eye. “You’re not teaching me about it, per se,” she reasons, “you’re simply advising me on the matter with a first-hand account. A primary source. Does that sound amenable?”

Link squints. “Is there really even a difference?”

“Tutors only tell you about how it works. They would never dare elaborate on why one might actually want to engage in such a thing,” she huffs, shaking her head. “Isn’t that just preposterous?” 

When they had first set off for Irch Plain beneath the soft bristle of morning sun, he hadn’t anticipated lounging with the Princess of Hyrule in the cool meadow air like this. He’d expected that she’d collect her flora and set back off for the castle, their bellies filled with a light lunch and their sinuses irritated by whirls of pollen. But they find themselves here, in the sweet taste of the open air of the wild with only the horses to witness them—the Princess eager to strike up a conversation about sexual intercourse , of all things. 

“I’m tired of not knowing things.” A new tone—something much softer—displaces his silence. “I hear the maids whisper in riddles. I’m not a child anymore…don’t I have a right to know these things?”

He dares a glance at her through the corner of his eye to find that she’s right; she’s no longer the tempestuous girl baring fangs in the grip of insecurity, but a young, resilient woman handling all shortcomings with grace—bearing burdens upon her shoulders with thunderous resolve. She’s picturesque as she sits upon her field, a familiar gleam twinkling in her eye—the one that sparkles when she’s on survey, becoming one with the world that dwells beyond any turret or battlement. And then, as if she can’t bear to simmer in her thoughts any longer, she turns that breathless look on him again and grips his arm just a little tighter. 

“Please, Link, enlighten me!”

His brow furrows. “Shouldn’t you speak to Urbosa about something like this?” 

“I love Urbosa to bits but I am in no need of a sermon. I want to talk to a companion. A friend . ” 

Oh, how good it feels to hear that, he thinks. Link yields to the warmth bubbling up in his chest, and Zelda is so eager, so endearing that he can’t stamp out the playful smirk that begs to ripple across his face. 

“Does it drive you a little wild to know that there’s finally something I know about that you don’t?”

Beneath narrowed eyes, Zelda’s lips quirk at the edges. “…Perhaps only slightly.” There’s a subtle hint of a whine in her voice when she says it before she sighs. “I am perfectly willing to admit that, yes. So share your wisdom, oh wise knight.” She dips her head in mock regality.

Link scrunches his face up, unconvinced. 

“Unless…” Zelda pops back up to attention and raises a thin finger to her chin in thought, “…unless you haven��t actually been with a woman before.” She doesn’t give him a moment to object before she’s pressing on, a flick of her hand fluttering at her side: “Well, that’s alright. I suppose in that case, I shall find someone else to ask. Perhaps someone at the stable by the exchange might—” 

“—I’ve been with women, Princess.”

Link’s head snaps to look at her, a small flicker of triumph dancing in his limpid blue eyes; but he finds Zelda’s own verdant set narrowing smugly, and Link, having fallen right into her trap, quickly finds himself withering in despair.

“ Women ! Plural!” Laughter rumbles up through the Princess’ chest, her joy undeniable in the way that the observation practically explodes from her. “Even better—so then, you should be able to shed much light on the matter.” 

Link glances around as though he were discovering the plain for the first time, anguished eyes soon fixating on the distant silhouette of Hyrule Castle that looms on the horizon. Hylia help me, he thinks. 

“…I suppose.” He grumbles his concession through half-clenched teeth.

“Oh, fantastic !” He hears Zelda clap her hands together in victory. “Believe me, you are providing a wonderful service!” Link isn’t entirely convinced that he is, but before he can say anything else on the matter, the Princess is quickly chirping up again: “So! How does it all start, then? Walk me through it precisely .”

Link inhales deeply, nearly choking on the loamy scent of the plain that fills his head as it wraps him in one explosion of backwoods. He notices the way curiosity flickers up again in her eye. It’s disarming—has him less secure than any monster the kingdom’s grueling terrain has thrown his way in months past. She has him firmly set in the crosshairs, and there is little he can do but submit. 

So the ever resilient Link steadies himself and begins. 

“Alright...well…imagine you’ve gone to a festival,” he starts, blood already simmering. “And let’s say that when you’re there, you meet someone who you think is really handsome. And they’re so handsome that you can’t stop looking at them.” He fights to keep from sneaking over at her himself. “You realize that you want to touch them. And…you can tell they want to touch you, too.”

“How do you know?” Her voice is small, laced with curiosity.

“You just…do,” he replies. “Maybe you find their eyes lingering on you a little longer than normal. They find little reasons to get close. You’ll just know. There’s a little spark that happens…and you follow it.” He smiles as an unfamiliar sense of ease comes to nestle against him. “It’ll tell you what to do.”

“I see,” Zelda says, nodding. “And then what? You lock eyes with a pretty maiden at the local tavern and rent a room? Do you already have a special one set aside?” There’s a giggle breaking through her voice before she’s even finished the thought. Though Link has come to know the many shades of the Princess over the last few months, he thinks that he might hate the way mischief looks on her—charming. Enticing. A delicious little blade set against the small of his back at all times.

“It’s not like I prey on women!” He nearly spats, the pink across the bridge of his nose shading into scarlet. “It’s only happened a couple of times, and when it did…I just spoke to her. Got to know her. Tried to figure out her personality and get an idea of what she might enjoy.”

She cants her head. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you make those calculations?”

“Oh. Just..trial and error, I suppose.” Link wets his bottom lip nervously. “You want to figure out what she likes. Touch her, or...or kiss her in certain spots. Things like that.” He clears his throat. Zelda turns her attention out towards the plain and hums in consideration, and Link’s grateful that she’s tucked away in thought, unaware of the way he’s grown so close to detonation; the last thing he wants is for her to see the way he tints pink at such things.

“Hypotheses. Experimentation. Analysis,” she whispers out across dandelion seeds that sail past her lips. 

Ever the scholar, he thinks fondly. 

“Simpler than that, even. You’re overthinking. You have good instincts–you just need to follow them.”

There’s a small, inquisitive sound that hums warmly in her throat. “I suppose I never gave much consideration to the different ways you might pleasure someone.” Her voice is only a little more than a squeak, splits around her penultimate word as though she’s cursing Hylia above.  

Her knight does well to answer in spite of the way his tongue ties. “You never let your fantasies get the best of you?”

“You know as well as I do that I don’t have a spare thought for fantasies these days.”

Link nods. “I understand.” 

He does, really. He’s well-versed in her fears, in her goals and in the unbidden anxieties that wrestle her until the small hours of morning. What he doesn’t truly understand is how he can listen to such a plaintive thought and still find himself wholly burnished by the prospects of fantasies she might grant herself.

“Some examples, then?” she asks, brows raised. Oddly enough, Link finds it a little easier to carry on now; beneath the nerves, there’s something quite nice about speaking to her this way, so open and amicable. But with each passing word that falls from him, something flickers at the base of his throat, a squall of embarrassment knotting at the edge of his voice as their exchange drags him further into unknown depths. 

“One can use their hands…their mouths…either can be more pleasing than just intercourse. Important for pleasing a woman, I’d say. Anyway,” he carries on with haste, acutely aware of perspiration beading beneath his collar at certain thoughts that dart across his mind. “Once you’ve connected with this person and the progression feels natural, you’ll end up with a kiss, and…is something wrong, Princess?”

He turns to find her lips pressed together in a thin line and her chin crinkled with tension, but Zelda’s soft laugh breaks through such an apprehensive look when she finds his glance laid on her. “Nothing. It’s just that…I’ve yet to experience my first kiss.” She unveils the truth quietly, her cheeks as pink as spun sugar. It’s hardly a revelation; Link has never once assumed she’s ever been with a man in any capacity before. 

“Sorry. Well, I mean, not sorry ,” he fumbles, “there’s nothing to be sorry about…It’s perfectly fine that you haven’t…you shouldn’t feel bad...” Hylia, have mercy ; he’s powerless against the avalanche of words.

Golden hair brushes against her shoulders when she shakes her head. “But I do , because I’d like to know what it feels like,” Zelda whines.

“Your first kiss usually isn’t anything special.” Something in his chest tightens, mostly because the idea of Princess Zelda herself whining for a kiss is proving to be far too stimulating a notion. “It’s really just something to get over with. Really, no one’s first kiss is a good one.”

“Oh.” Zelda goes quiet, curiosity muted and replaced with a scintillating silence that promises something more. Link lowers his guard down, and his shoulders have only just settled a smidge before her soft request has tension knotting in them once again. 

“So,” she drones, fingers mindlessly clamping around the stray scorpion grass along her thighs, “if it isn’t anything special…might you be willing to kiss me, then?”

Link swears that the entirety of Hylia’s creation stills beneath them. That the notes of birdsong are plucked from the air, swallowed into silence so that the warblers can steal their furtive glances and see what happens next. That the winds cease their sighs to hear his response and that the hordes plaguing Hyrule go silent in a moment of respect for the poor Hero. Surely, the brilliant Princess ought to comprehend the magnitude of such a request?

“Princess…that is…”

A terrible idea , is the phrase that sits heavy on his tongue. Tugs gooseflesh across his arms and wrenches something familiar behind his sternum. But low in his belly, it isn't terrible. And it isn't terrible for a few rather terrible reasons; he imagines he’d like it. Would like it tremendously .

Perhaps, then, ‘a terrible idea’ might truly suffice.

“Oh, but it would be so beneficial!” Zelda rushes to add before he can find the end of the thought. “I’m so utterly lost with things of this nature, and I’m certain that the first time I shall ever kiss a man will be on my wedding day. And with a stranger, no less.” Her voice falls to a hush. “It would be nice to have this moment with a friend. Please?” And before Link can grapple with an adequate breath, Zelda turns, doe-eyed and pliant, sunlight flickering across the seafoam of her eye and she’s suddenly far too beguiling for his luck. “I know it’s a bit odd to ask you to do something like this with someone you aren’t attempting to…” her eyes flit away for a moment, just long enough to find a thought, “…rent a tavern with. But it would really mean a great deal to me.”

Link doesn’t quite know where to start. Perhaps at the absurdity of it all. Perhaps at the quiet truth that, if she were any other girl, in any other lifetime, he would spend an evening with her; wouldn’t think twice about making her breakfast the next morning and every morning after and he’d slip a ring on her finger and raise children with her in one of the sleepy villages out east. He’s held those thoughts since the day he’d knelt before her and pledged his life. But he doesn’t lead such a life that would ever allow him to do just that, so he holds his tongue and pretends to have never known such things at all. 

He’s in danger, he knows—but her eyes are flitting back and forth between his own and there’s the faintest please at her lips, and Link finds himself lost to the perfect storm of her.  

“Okay. I can do that for you.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything quite like the squeal she lets out. 

“Perfect! Oh thank you, Link, thank you!” 

She’s quickly bounding to face him, settling upon her shins and tucking gold strands behind her ears. Zelda leans in, expectant and willing; deep breath , Link thinks. He tries to ignore her shy smile, her eyes widening in curious jest as she watches him assess just exactly how to approach such a thing. 

She’s fully ignorant to the way he burns.  

“How about this—close your eyes. Let me lead. And if you need me to stop, just tell me so. You promise you’ll tell me?”

Zelda nods curtly and obeys, folding gloved hands and resting them upon her lap. Eyes gently closed, she looks so well-behaved, the docile student that he knows her to be. Link leans forward, suddenly a little overwhelmed as their faces grow closer to one another; he sees every spot in the dim constellation of freckles across her cheeks, conspicuous under the natural lighting, and he’s suddenly painfully aware of the length of blond eyelashes fanning out across her cheeks, demure and soft, her eyelids close enough to place the gentlest of kisses upon them.

Her brow trembles slightly when she feels his fingers meet her skin, the leather of his gloves following as he traces her jawline up to her ears. And then, she feels her head being angled, primed for him, and she nearly opens her eyes to inquire something when suddenly there he is, lips ghosting against hers, feather light until he presses just a little harder. She can’t deny herself the small hum that melts from her when she feels Link’s tongue sneaking across her lip, softening her up, encouraging her—convincing her to melt against him in return. His mouth works like a small ripple of a wave, detaching from her lower lip for just a moment before surging against her once more, and when he’s finished with her, he pulls away, his parting so achingly slow that both are certain they’ll kindle if he moves too fast.

Electricity and wires and temptation run between ears in lieu of the divine whispers they’d been designed for. 

“Was that okay?” 

When Zelda opens her eyes, Link’s own fall to the spot where his lips had just been, his fingers still against her and a mindless thumb grazing along the apple of her cheek. Between his tender touch, she blinks as though stirring from a nap. “I thought you said it wasn’t supposed to feel like anything special.”

His tunic hides a pounding heart. “I tried to make it nicer for you.”

“You succeeded.” Her stammer is barely contained. 

Link can only accept the compliment with a humble nod and pulls away, pressing himself back up against the tree and shifting uncomfortably in his place (for reasons Zelda will never be able to detect with such inexperience.) Whatever soft sounds have melted between them fall into uneasy silence, and it's the gentle swells of curiosity and panic that come to rest in the space between them. The memory of one another—her skin beneath his fingers and his thumb brushing across the bloom of her cheek—proves haunting, imprinting against them and dragging both down into a brume of incredulous thought. It feels like hours spent in the hush, and when Zelda’s small voice finally commands his attention at this side, it sends him shivering like the air isn’t bright and sweet and singing with a song of spring. 

“Link?”

“Yes, Princess?”

Quiet, and then:

“I feel the spark.”

She sounds almost forlorn as she speaks. As though he’s torn something apart within her.

His lungs feel like they’re overflowing with water when he tries to swallow. “…you do?”

“Yes.” Her whisper flees from her harshly, her heavy stare still focused out across the plain, avoiding his own. 

He could stop— should stop, if he’s being entirely truthful. But in the end, he’s only a man, one crafted of stardust between the Goddess’ adoring hands for her descendant, a construct of affection that has transcended the ages. How much longer is he expected to sit idly by and simply acknowledge it? Fate has brought him this far—perhaps he’s meant to let it carry him further.

“...will you tell me more?” he mumbles, inching closer. 

Zelda’s voice lulls beneath such a curious flare. “It’s like my body is asking for more of something, but I don’t know how to oblige it.” He notices that yearning in her eyes, glassy and distant. “Will you tell me more?” she asks, the inquiry threaded through unstable air. 

There is an invitation edging between her words that has his voice failing him. Shoulds and woulds and coulds battle for dominance behind the blue of his stare, swirling among the storm of ifs and buts . And when she can no longer bear his silence, she finally turns to him, eyes needy and bursting with longing.

His answer comes silently, as nothing but an easy shift in her direction.

“Relax,” Link begins. “Close your eyes again. Think about your kiss again. He might kiss you in other places, too.” Hesitation follows, a silent thought, and then he presses his thumb to her jaw, his half lidded eyes meeting her own, “—here—” against her neck “—here—”, at the slight crest of her collarbone, “—and here. And the spark will keep growing. And then—forgive me, Princess—he’ll undress you, and if he has any sense at all he should kiss you some more. In places that are normally covered. Your chest…your legs…” His voice falls to a whisper that rings with the colors of twilight. “Down there .” He watches the way she tips her head back against the tree and sighs, something so distant in her silken eyes.

“You okay?”

“Yes. It just all sounds very nice,” she whispers back, the hint of a smile flickering at her lips.

“What do you feel?” he murmurs, preoccupied by the way her mouth curls at the edges—missing the feel of her against him. 

“Something—” she lets her hand float against her abdomen, “—here.”

“Good, that’s good. And then you proceed the way the tutors taught you. Add in a few things here and there, depending on what you like. And when you’re ready to give in, you’ll be warm and wet and…” his breath is heavy against her, like warm air blown against a chilled windowpane. “…and perfect for him.” He conjures up a man to play along in the dangerously delicious fantasy, and it isn’t long before he’s stepping into the role himself —imagining her warmth and wetness around him, and oh Goddess, what a divine thought it is.

Zelda’s eyes fly open, malachite daggers carving into him. 

“For him . And what shall it feel like for me?”

He swallows. “Hard to say, exactly. I’m not a woman.”

“But you’ve been with them—how did they feel after?” Zelda’s voice softens when an afterthought works its way into her brain. “Did you kiss them all that way?” 

Their eyes lock.

“No. I didn’t.”

He’s playing with fire, a pyromaniac far too comfortable in the waxing heat. He’s grown close enough to see the enchantment of such a thought wrapping around her and watches as she wrestles just free enough to form another thought: “And what happens when you…” she licks her lips, eyes darting south before meeting his own again, “…what does that feel like?”

She is an enchantress, power lingering in her hushed tones and softly wrenched features. The slight intonation of her voice like a siren’s call luring him into Kitano Bay.  

“It tingles,” he mumbles, newly immune to even the slightest hint of embarrassment. “Sometimes it gets a little hard to see straight. Like my body just shuts down. Hard to explain.”

Link, as wild as he’s been driven by the predicament, does not know the true extent to which Zelda finds herself spiraling: indeed, it becomes difficult for her to imagine pleasure and pain uniting to serve her in such a way. But when she considers the ache in her belly, the strain between her thighs and the thought of Link feeling good—that Hylia had blessed her with architecture that could make him feel good—everything becomes a little too unbearable. 

“So you really cannot tell me about what your lady friends feel?”

“Not exactly, no. But…it would be so easy for you to find out.” He inches even closer, craning his neck as though he might press a kiss along her pulse point. “When you’re alone in that big, fancy bed of yours…and you think about your handsome man…and your spark comes to life. You just take care of it.”

“I don’t know how to fix it,” she murmurs, eyes quietly searching for something in his own. 

He would slay ten thousand beasts if it meant she’d hold that same gleam in her eye each time she looked upon him. 

“You experiment,” Link whispers in a tone forged of fire and ice. 

Zelda exhales, and she leans back against the tree and brings the soles of her boots to lay flat on the ground, her knees creating slight peaks. She spreads her legs gently and places a hand between them, winces when she brushes against herself. “Would it be…here?” She hardly notices the way Link pales, the way the slight wrinkle in his brow smooths out when his idle expression heats up.

“I’d say higher,” he mumbles, eyes fixed on the soft bend of her wrist.

She slides her hand up. “Here?”

Link cocks his head to the side. “Little more.”

“Here?”

“Seems too high now.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Link just— show me.”

It takes a moment—a long moment thickened with dread and embarrassment—for both to realize exactly what happens next. It isn’t until Link’s fingers are curling tensely against Zelda’s own that she realizes what she’s done, and it isn’t until he watches the swallow work its way down her pretty little throat that he understands just exactly where his hand is. Their eyes lock, wholly sunken into a type of fear neither recognizes—and yet he hasn’t torn away, and she hasn’t writhed out from beneath him, and their hands are still simmering against one anothers as they sit cradled between straining limbs.

“I should have asked—”

“No, it’s—”

They fall silent together. And even still, neither moves, and it’s as though both are adhered to spot, their hands still connected between her legs and practically pinning her to the base of the tree. Link can see how her brow rumples, the way her cheeks lift in slight apprehension beneath such an appealing flush, the shallow breaths urging her chest up as she braces for his touch. Composure fractures.

“Please?” 

Link stills, though his silence isn’t marked with indecision; in the respite, he calculates. He weighs and reasons, and, truthfully, it doesn’t take very much to concede to the hunger that’s worked its way up from the depths of him—to the boiling blood that threads among muscle and bone. Beneath dilated pupils, he surrenders to her needs; really, hasn’t that been his purpose since the very beginning?

“Does this help?”

And then, without the slightest hint of effort, he presses two flattened fingers against a spot that sends her reeling.

“ Oh !” 

“And then you can move like this.”

The Princess gasps beneath his touch, and it fuels Link in a way he hasn’t expected; has him thinking he could move the Dueling Peaks if she asked for it. He can practically see sparks in incandescent irises, slivers of jade thinned out by pupils blown wide. Link softens the taut strain of his hand and diverts the focus into his fingertips, and Zelda can only watch them as they trace along her body in a circular motion. She soon closes her eyes, and he feels her hips twitch up into him—something involuntary. Each gentle pulse against her clothed core sends a promising burst of heat up through her body. 

And suddenly, she is the predator, seeking that rose-colored destination with an intensity that’s flared to life from nothing. And she has no one to blame but herself; she’s allowed her curiosity to best her, yet again, and now she finds herself trembling beneath his hand, an indelible appetite gnawing away at her, teasing her with the promise of something far grander than anything she’s come to know. Zelda brings her hands to the hem of her riding trousers, and Link feels something grow taut deep within him as he watches her fumble with the buttons along the front.

“Can you—can you…try to…?”

“Sure. Sure .” His voice is so harsh when it falls from him. Strangled, though both are far too preoccupied to notice. 

Link’s skin pricks up at the sight of the soft color of undergarments poking out from beneath the dark fabric of her trousers. She slows him, only briefly, taking his fingers and placing them against the last barrier separating him from a spot more sacred than any temple or altar in Hyrule, and Link has to squeeze his eyes tight to keep from shuddering against the hint of damp fabric. With each fraction of surface he crawls across, his breath grows more and more shallow, air escaping him entirely when he coaxes the lip of her underwear up and finds the hint of fine golden hairs caressing his fingers.  

“Princess…” he breathes against her, and though his voice is full of warning and wanting, Zelda only seems to heed the latter; she bucks forward, inching Link’s hand further, closer to a drenched core that begs for more of him. “Fuck,” he closes his eyes and whispers, the expletive soon lost in the soft sigh of the wind. There’s hardly any room to breathe past the thought of her—past the reality that he’s touching her, that the teasing fantasies he’d swallowed down long ago are fashioning themselves into reality. And even just the hint of her beneath him is more marvelous than any daydream that’s ever kept him simmering in the privacy of his quarters.

Zelda gasps when he drags his touch around her, against her—as he skims against the edge of her garments. “That’s—that’s very nice…that’s…oh…” Her voice is nothing but a string of consonants tapping against air, headless and ethereal.

“Do you like that?” he asks, eyes dark and his finger dangling against curls.

“ Very much so,” she whines, her eyes watching as his fingers disappear further beneath the fabric. Zelda bites her lip and squirms around in search of something— anything to get more of this feeling. She leads him there, and Link can’t keep from dropping his head and sighing into her flushed neck when he finds a patch of soaked gold.

“Hands work differently than cocks,” he says, attention concentrated so squarely on her that he doesn’t notice the way he strains against his trousers. “Hands are helpful.”

Zelda’s lips part around a gentle oh, back arching slightly as she wills more of herself into his hand. “I’m sure your lady friends were satisfied—it seems you're quite capable with them.” She can hardly manage to speak past the fragmented breaths.

“No complaints yet.” The slight hint of humor in his voice doesn’t make it all the way to his hungry eye, and Link tears another cry from her when precise fingers begin to move with waxing speed. “What does it feel like Princess? Maybe you can teach me a little something today.” He hums, voice manipulated into a gentle purr. “Tell me.”

“It’s like something is climbing.” She swallows, fingers curling into the soil around her. “Rising…”

“That’s good. Let it. Go there.” Please. 

“L-Link…” she whines, thighs tightening around his hand. She writhes beneath him, her rear wriggling further into the base of the tree as she arches into him.

“Yes, Princess?” 

This feeling doesn’t just run through her—it burns her veins as it courses through her, singes her spine. It cradles her in its iron grasp and whispers into her skin; leaves her frantic and wholly at his mercy. Begins to unravel all that holds her together. 

“More, please—harder,” she whimpers. “ In .” 

“As you wish.” 

So further he delves, and Zelda cries out into the open air, her bliss a melody he’s never known; her body’s call, beckoning him closer. It’s scandalous. It’s sacrilegious. It’s delicious .

“Goddess—” she breathes into him, rocking frantic hips against his meticulous fingers. The timbre of her voice melts into something lower, deeper and darker as it sings for him. Link spirals his thumb in the same, perfect spot.

“ Gods, Link…” she’s whining in disbelief, crying under a blissful sigh. Hearing his name spoken like that—he doesn’t think much else can eclipse it. He’s drunk on the way it sinks squarely between his ears; sends tremors through his body like he’s on the verge of breaking apart entirely. He wants more of it, more of her—all of her. 

“Keep going. Keep going.” He can hear himself saying. Begging .

“Yes—I—” Her voice peals nervously. But he can see in the way her neck strains, the way the furrowed bark of the tree tousles her hair when she shoves her head back into it, the way her feet point inwards and her heels dig into the ground, in the way her mouth flounders open around the name that dies in her throat—he has her where he wants her.

And even more importantly, he has her where she wants to be. 

“Keep going, Zelda. That’s it.” 

“Link…” The broken whine of his name hangs in the air like a drifting leaf on the wind as she watches his knuckles pulse against her. Tunes herself to the call of his own wanting that comes in his powerful grasp and his heavy breathes. 

“Shh, it’s okay.” His whispers, a plume of smoke bristling past her reedy whimpers. “Keep going. Good girl, Zelda. What a good fucking girl you are.”

Her sharp gasp pierces the air. She turns to him, it’s only then that she can truly understand the depths they’ve fallen: she finds the electricity of blue eyes grown lupine through the thin ropes of blonde strewn across her face. His jaw is set, like that of a predator skulking through the thicket to sink teeth into a pulsing neck, and she nearly gasps aloud at the weight of such a look: he could devour her whole, and she’d thank him for it. 

“Cum for me, Princess. Please. ” 

She obeys like the good girl she is, stars exploding behind her eyes as she sobs his name once more.

| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |

The second time she comes crashing down, his mouth is on hers. She begs him for more almost as soon as she finds herself drifting in that headless space, floating for just a moment before she’s barreling back down the earth, practically commanding him when he teases a ceasefire. He starts again gently, lets her savor the faint taste of wildberries on his tongue before he drags her through the brilliance of pleasure again. 

“What have I done?” he asks, his smoky inquisition tugging a small laugh from his Princess. She only tugs at her lip and drives her hips further into him, and Link acquiesce to send her soaring again, her open mouth gasp dragging along his satisfied smirk. 

The shadows begin to spread as the sun slips into its initial descent. Against the tree, Zelda has collapsed against him, stretching the crisp blue of his tunic as she clings to his body. He admires her this way, wilted against him; a pliant pile of shambles at his side. His hand still dwells between her legs, and he lets a delicate fingertip trace along the inside of her thigh. Two hearts pound against one another, Link’s own quickly hammering inside his ribcage when he considers just how much of a soaking mess he’s left her. 

It takes a few moments for their breaths to settle, and Link finds himself turning an eye towards the throb that still yearns against the front of  his trousers.

“I imagine,” he hears Zelda start through fractured breaths, “that it must have been twice as enjoyable for your tavern acquaintances.” 

Link’s circle halts on her thigh. “Why?”

“Well,” she says, hazy eyes dwelling on the hand between her legs, “because they weren’t your friends. Because you chose to be with them…you weren’t just providing a favor.” She clears her throat, the fog clearing. “I must admit, Sir Link,” she laughs, a little weakly, and the reappearance of his title dawns a sense of doom low in his belly, “I…” she bites her lip, “...I admit I’m rather envious of them.” She smiles politely, humorously unaware of just how disheveled she appears at his side. “And I will not lie to you…the spark is still there.” She sits herself up a little taller. “But I don’t regret this in the slightest—you were…” 

She meets his eye, and one look has Link thinking he might like to lay her down and ravish her right there. 

“…you were enchanting . And I am very grateful for it. I shall remember this so fondly.”

He can only stare, all clouded eyes and parted lips.  She squirms beneath his look.

“W-what is it?” she squeaks, the melting pink at her cheeks deepening yet again. 

And still he is silent, eyes crinkled slightly at the edges.

“As far as favors for friends go…” he leans in and murmurs curtly into her, “...this is the best favor I’ve ever had to do for one. I’d be happy to grant more.” He dips his head and drags his tongue against her neck, and his stomach plummets when he catches her groan in his ear. 

As if they’d never paused at all, her breath is strangled. “And what…what other sort of favors might you do for a friend?”

The soft sound of lips pulling from her skin. “Whatever said friend wishes for.”

Zelda pulls her head back to look into his eyes. “What of your mouth?”

“I’ll taste her for hours, if she wishes.”

“Where?” she breathes, eyebrows knit and the ache between her legs grows needy again. Link wriggles two fingers against her slit and grins. 

“And what of your…” Her lips falter around a plosive consonant.

His grin widens.”My cock?”

“Yes,” she nearly gasps around the word.  

“I’ll make it so they hear her screams back at the castle, if that’s what she wants.” 

She melts into his touch, eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

“Do you mean that?”

“Would I lie to you?”

He wouldn’t dream of it. And, deep down, Zelda knows this—knows that he’d follow her to the ends of the earth and into hell if she asked him to. 

The gentle ache pulses between her legs, unsatiated. She can only tug at his collar and pull him closer, a soft no lost in the cradle of his mouth, thoughts of hell and the ends of the earth easily superseded by him : the slight slope of his nose, the way his throat bobs beneath her hungry eyes, the ridge of his shoulders—that part of him that haunts her from beneath stifling stretches of fabric. 

Bits of him to occupy her until that fateful day arrives. 

He for her, and she for him.

More, more, more .

#fanfic #loz #legend of zelda #zelink #botw #breath of the wild

[sweetbabymantykes]

Actually, Dhelmise isn't a single celled organism, that's a common misconception. Seaweed is a macroalgae, which is a multicellular form of algae. Single celled marine algae are diatoms, too tiny to see with the naked eye and also kinda what glass comes from I think?? I dunno I only know about the big stuff.

That said, research is still being done in regards to what type of seaweed Dhelmise should be classified as. While it seems many will develop a preference for green algae, it's rare for them to consist of that alone; most will still have traces of brown and red algae, and records exist of specimens that opted more for those than the usual green. Oh, but no correlation has been found between algae type and their color, I should mention— trying to figure out how and why exceedingly rare red Dhelmise form is an entirely different can of Orthworms, let me tell you. (Not as difficult as finding a way to ghost and anchor-proof a pokébean container, though...)

The issue is already complex just by virtue of the fact that they technically consist of multiple different organisms in the genetic sense, such as, say, both dead man's fingers and giant kelp. It's like trying to classify lichens. The real kicker is that the species consistently shares the same general body plan and shape, even between populations that primarily utilize entirely different types of macroalgae.

In fact, depictions of them from hundreds of years ago, when they were first encountered by sailors, share a remarkable amount of similarity in basic shape. Though, they did apparently vary in size to a greater degree; some used rocks and driftwood and would be small compared to today's average, usually described as shorter than a human. Others may have made use of entire Wailmer and Wailord falls— perhaps the remains of their unfortunate prey— if some other depictions and descriptions from those times are to be believed. (It is important to take into account the possibility of embellished stories and the like, as interesting as the latter sounds...)

Dhelmise really are quite the mystery, even among other ghost types! It still isn't well understood what causes them to form in the wild to begin with. We know from captive individuals that they are capable of asexual reproduction through fragmentation, similar to many other types of seaweed, but that creates genetic clones and wouldn't explain the diversity amongst wild populations. The prevailing theory involves souls lost at sea, but there is little conclusive evidence to support that.

Ah, I should probably stop rambling on about this now, though. I tend to get a bit carried away, which is weird given how I used to not be interested at all in this sort of thing... What getting reverse chosen by your first Pokémon while visiting family on the coast does to a mfer. Sorry 'bout the wall of text!

I feel like a fraud. I got a fact about aquatic pokemon wrong. It's fine, it's fine, I can still keep my reputation, Dhelmise isn't a water type, it's a grass type. And I actually don't know that much about kelp to begin with, so I guess that's what my problem is, haha.

That aside, man. I could listen to people tell me about other pokemon forever, don't apologize! My sister is really into ghost types but she's not really chatty, either, so it's really nice to hear about them from someone else. Previous Johto anon in a fight with your dad- give this a read! Everyone else, too, I had no idea about their historical 'chains'...

#pokemon #irl pokemon #pokemon irl #asks #dhelmise

[mariacallous]

Two consecutive summers of brutal heat and drought have left some parts of Texas with notably low water supplies going into 2024.

A wet year or a well-placed hurricane could quickly pull these regions back from the brink. But winter rains have disappointed so far. Last week’s downpours are the first in weeks for parts of the state and they won’t hit the watersheds that need them most.

Looking ahead, forecasters increasingly expect another scorching summer here this year.

That’s bad news for places like far-south Texas, where big reservoirs on the Lower Rio Grande fell from 33 percent to 23 percent full over the past 12 months. A repeat of similar conditions would leave the reservoirs far lower than they’ve ever been, triggering an emergency response and an international crisis.

“Pretty scary times,” said Jim Darling, president of the Rio Grande Regional Water Authority and former mayor of the city of McAllen. “We’ll see what happens.”

Worries stretch beyond the Rio Grande. In Corpus Christi, on the south Texas coast, authorities last month stopped releasing water aimed at maintaining minimum viable ecology in the coastal wetlands, even as oil refineries and chemical plants remain exempt from water use restrictions during drought.

Also last month, in the sprawling suburbs of Central Texas, between Austin and San Antonio, one groundwater district declared stage 4 drought for the first time in its 36-year history.

Texans don’t usually talk about drought in the winter. Damp soil and green grass may conceal the impending predicament today, but water planners in regions with low reserves nervously await what summer may bring.

“Signs are not favorable,” said Greg Waller, a coordinating hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Fort Worth. “Expect warmer and drier, again.”

Winter and spring rains offer the best hope for relief, he said, but weather patterns so far haven’t produced the sustained downpours needed to refill reservoirs.

Drought conditions in 2022 and 2023 struck with markedly acute severity. Last year was the hottest on record for Texas—and the Earth, according to NOAA—after a global heat wave shattered temperature records around the world.

These patterns, Waller said, are consistent with scientific understanding of climate change caused by carbon emissions.

“Climate change means the extremes are going to get more extreme,” he said. “The heat waves are going to get more heat. The droughts are going to get droughty-er and the floods are going to get floody-er.”

Texas rainfall typically peaks in May. If relief doesn’t come by then, some places will need to start bracing for impact.

Corpus Christi: Wetlands and Refineries

Corpus Christi, with 421,000 people in its two-county metro area, sits where the Gulf Coast marshes meet the semi-arid South Texas plains. The region’s combined reservoirs dropped from 53.7 percent full in 2022 to 43.6 percent in 2023 to 30.5 percent this month.

The city announced in December that it would no longer release water from its reservoir system to support basic ecology in coastal bays and estuaries.

“Due to the ongoing drought in our water supply,” wrote a city spokesperson in a statement. “NO water is being released from Lake Corpus Christi to the Bays and Estuaries.”

Wherever Texas rivers join the sea, these once-vast wetlands host critical reproductive cycles of many aquatic species, and they depend on freshwater inflows for their characteristically half-salty, nutrient-rich systems. When water supply gets tight, the bays and estuaries typically are first to see their allocations revoked while cities keep dam gates closed.

These ecosystems, which once benefited from all the water from the formerly undammed rivers of Texas, have adapted to natural droughts. Dry years severely decrease the amount of species reproduction, but when wet weather returns, the system can usually recover within a year, according to Paul Montagna, endowed chair of hydroecology at Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies in Corpus Christi.

“However, if a system is permanently impaired it is also possible that recovery will not reach former levels,” Montagna said.

Studies suggest that systems around Corpus Christi may already be “permanently impaired,” Montagna said, largely due to a sustained lack of fresh water.

Similar problems span the lower Texas coast. The Rio Grande hasn’t flowed consistently into the Gulf of Mexico since the early 2000s. On the Colorado River, which runs through Austin, authorities have kept water releases to the coastal wetlands at a bare minimum in recent years. Jennifer Walker, director of the National Wildlife Foundation’s Texas Coast and Water Program, called it “critical life support.”

“Water to meet environmental needs is frequently the first to be negotiated away,” Walker said. “Our bays and estuaries are a hugely important part of Texas and they’re not something that would be easy to go back and fix.”

In Corpus Christi, a major refining and export hub for Texas shale oil and gas, city authorities have imposed water use restrictions on residents, with more to come if reservoir levels fall below 30 percent. But the region’s largest industrial water consumers operate unabated, thanks to a purchasable exemption from drought restrictions for industrial users—$0.25 per 1,000 gallons—passed by the city council in 2018.

That includes users like ExxonMobil’s massive new plastics plant, which is authorized to use up to 25 million gallons of water per day—a quarter of the regional summertime water demand.

“Industry can continue full bore through all of these drought stages and the estuary gets cut off early,” said a water resource consultant from Corpus Christi who requested anonymity to preserve his business relationship with the city. “I think it’s a looming disaster. They are still trying to recruit all these water-intensive industries along the coast.”

Proceeds from the exemption program were supposed to fund development of seawater desalination plants that would expand the regional water supply and meet demands of a booming industrial buildout. The first plant was initially planned to begin operations early last year, but it remains mired in challenges and years away from breaking ground. Meanwhile, the industrial buildout continues.

Central Texas: People and Grass

Two hundred miles inland, the five-county region surrounding Austin, Texas’ high-tech capital city, has grown faster than any US metro area for 12 straight years. Its water supplies haven’t.

In 2022, less water flowed into City of Austin reservoirs than ever before, city staff said at a public water task force meeting on Tuesday. Last year was only slightly better. The largest reservoir serving Austin, Lake Travis, fell from about 80 percent full in January 2022 to 38 percent full at the start of this year.

Even in another extreme drought year, Austin can avoid heightened water use restrictions, which take effect when reservoirs fall below 30 percent full, until at least July, according to a water supply outlook presented at the meeting. But the outlook stopped short of August and September, the region’s hottest and (recently) driest months.

“It’s not looking good,” said Robert Mace, director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University and a member of the water task force.

Even if levels fall below 30 percent, water users in Austin will face only minor restrictions, focused mostly on car washing and lawn irrigation. During the summer in Texas, when water consumption can double or triple over wintertime use, major cities spray most of their treated drinking water onto grass.

The problem worsens as more land converts to suburban subdivisions amid a homebuilding boom, said Todd Votteler, a water dispute consultant and editor of the Texas Water Journal, a peer-reviewed journal focused on water management and research. Texas gained more residents and built more homes than any state in recent years.

“One of the challenges is the idea for home builders and the real estate industry that all these new houses need to have beautiful green lawns,” said Votteler, who has worked at groundwater and river authorities in Central Texas since 1994. “People moving here from some place else have not lived in a region with a limited water supply.”

Around the city of Austin, a patchwork of authorities manages various aquifers and reservoirs. Last month, the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Groundwater Conservation District declared stage four drought restrictions for the first time in its 36-year history. That required the oldest communities and major companies in the district to reduce water use by 40 percent, while 16 newer permit holders were cut off entirely.

The district’s customers include the small city of Kyle, the third-fastest growing US city in 2022, plus dozens of small water companies and utility districts.

“We’ve been concerned for years. We’ve been in one stage of drought or another for well over a year and a half now,” said Tim Loftus, general manager of the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Groundwater Conservation District. “We just really need rain.”

Loftus said his customers have “risen to the occasion” and complied with cuts. Another district hasn’t been as lucky.

The neighboring Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District has fought for two years with a local subsidiary of a national investor-owned water supply company over violations of permit pumping limits, even as severe drought conditions have continued to deepen.

The company, Aqua Texas, has taken almost twice its permitted allotment for two consecutive years and has declined to abide by drought restrictions, according to Charlie Flatten, general manager of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District. This month, Aqua sued the conservation district in federal court. Its legal brief didn’t address whether Aqua had overpumped, but accused the groundwater district of violating due process and of “unequal application of its penalty policy.” It added that “Aqua Texas has voluntarily spent millions of dollars in water conservation.” The groundwater district, in legal documents, has denied Aqua’s allegations.

“We’re already seeing wells drying up, not just in specific sections but across the district,” Flatten said. “As we continue to use water and there continues to be no recharge, more and more wells will be affected.”

Another major nearby water source, the Canyon Lake reservoir, started last year 80 percent full, surpassed its record low of 68 percent in August, and is 60 percent full today.

The Lower Rio Grande: Texas and Mexico

The biggest water problems in Texas lie along its southern border, where some 6 million people in two countries depend on the dwindling Lower Rio Grande system.

At the river’s end, amid the irrigated fields of the fertile Rio Grande Valley, farmers have lost crops midseason in recent years due to water shortages. This year, many won’t plant at all, worried they will lose the investment to another summer drought, said Darling, the Rio Grande Regional Water Authority president.

That creates a spiraling conundrum for the flourishing cities of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, home to more than a million people, he said. The once-prosperous agricultural sector historically accounts for more than 80 percent of water demand here. Without its vast volumes flowing for irrigation, the region’s network of canals would almost dry up. Cities would lose more than half their water supply to evaporation and soil absorption along its 70-mile journey from the nearest reservoir.

There are two possible temporary remedies to this problem, Darling said.

One is the weather. The only other time the Rio Grande reservoirs fell as low as they have today, around 2000, a hurricane soon hit and refilled them almost entirely. A Pacific storm could also bring relief to the bulk of the Rio Grande watershed, which covers the mountains of northwestern Mexico.

Another is international politics. Because most of the water used by Texas farmers on the Lower Rio Grande originates as rainfall in Northern Mexico, a binational treaty governs water sharing between the countries.

Northern Mexico has experienced its own water crises lately, including a deadly riot at a reservoir dam in 2020 and months of water rationing in 2022 in one of the country’s largest cities. So, it’s been reluctant to release water for Texas farmers, contributing to low levels in the downstream reservoirs.

Since 2020, Mexico has fallen sharply behind on its schedule of water releases to Texas under the treaty, which was ratified in 1944. It has until the end of 2025 before it faces delinquency. But the Rio Grande Valley of Texas might not have another two years to wait, Darling said.

The political situation is managed primarily by the International Boundary and Water Commission, a small agency operated by the US and Mexico.

“We are negotiating an agreement with Mexico intended to improve the predictability and reliability of Rio Grande water deliveries,” said an agency spokesperson, Frank Fisher. “We hope this agreement will provide tools that will help users affected by supply shortages.”

North of the border, Fisher said, water restrictions will be managed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

A TCEQ spokesperson, Victoria Cann, said the agency “has warned users about declining storage and encouraged users to plan for water shortages.”

“TCEQ continues to advocate for water users on the Rio Grande by communicating to IBWC the need for Mexico to deliver on their water obligations under the 1944 Water Treaty,” Cann said.

[aaenvs3000w24]

The lovely muse; nature

I think most of us can remember being a kid and drawing a big flower with five pink petals with a sun in the corner of the page. This common experience goes to show that nature is the purest form of inspiration, the gift of beauty giving us the urge to recreate (Beck et al. 2018, p. 85) . Nature has continued to inspire me far past my days of drawing bright blue skies with crayon-scribble grass, and it remains my muse for the art I create today. 

Plants and sea life have been my main focus of interpretation, I love to apply nature to obscure concepts and play with surrealism. I believe my artistic interpretation of art centres around the gift of provocation, I want to create art that makes people apply their own meanings to it (Beck et al. 2018, p. 85). A personal favourite painting I have made is titled “Keeping you at arms reach”, where I incorporate hands with a venus fly trap. The inspiration behind this was the long stem that venus fly traps grow for their floral organs, far away from their lower chomping mouths. These flowers are kept high, as to not capture any beneficial pollinating insects, ensuring their chance of reproduction. This fact inspired me to think of human relationships and keeping people away from the painful realities deeper down, the things that could drive others away. I feel that this example perfectly encapsulates how I use art to interpret nature, to use an organism with no human expression to showcase human ideologies. 

I believe that using nature as an inspiration for art drives me to be a better interpreter. When a plant such as a pitcher plant inspires me, I learn more about it and explore reasons behind certain characteristics. This curiosity opens new doors to learning, and through this I have more information added to my interpretation toolbag. Having broad ranges of knowledge also makes me more adaptable to various groups of people! Kid that asks how mushrooms grow out of trees? I have learned about that! Adult who wonders if the bird they’re seeing is a crow or a raven? I can give them an annoying amount of information! 

Associating the tangible elements of my surroundings to attach a story/meaning through art makes me happy and aids in my ability to provide interpretation to those around me (Beck et al. 2018, p. 88). Although I do associate my own specific meanings to my art, I rarely share those meanings to others. I prefer to hear what they believe the concept to be, and it makes me so excited when people interpret my art in a way I never would have thought of myself. Thank you for reading, I wanted to leave off with a recent painting I did and possibly hear some of your interpretations!

Beck, L., Cable, T.T., & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage for a better world. Sagamore Publishing LLC. 

#envs3000 #nature #painting

[clumsiestgiantess]

I was thinking of posting some g/t dream plots after seeing this post because they do make good little stories but I also don’t want to start another another ANOTHER (x20) new story. Please take these two off my hands, and if people like them I’ll try to dig up some more.

A very out-of-the-blue g/t dream:

So there’s this ship of lively seafaring crew who deliver goods across the world like merchants.  They’re a tightly-knit family, taking in most people who ask to join because those who ask often come from nothing or very little.  It all started with a man and his wife who lost their son early on, and had since brought up their boat, business, and family through sheer willpower and determination.  The old couple are still the most powerful command on the ship despite having long given the role of captain off to one of their many adopted children/crew.  

One day during a storm, the newest member of the crew, a scrawny lil guy who everyone’s grown to love, falls overboard into the ocean.  The crew is heartbroken, especially the old couple, who saw their son in the boy.  However, once the storm subsides, the wife claims she still feels he’s alive.  At the next port, the couple announces that they’re going back to find the boy, and gather supplies for however long the journey might take.  Many of the crew doubt he’s alive, but go along anyway, they are a family after all.

They sail back to where the boy fell overboard, (altogether it had been months since then after finding harbor, and then supplies, and then the slow return trip scouring the ocean) and another storm blows in exactly where the original one was, dragging the whole ship down into the sea by massive waves.  By then, the rest of the crew had retreated below deck, but everyone blacks out the moment the ship goes down.  When they awake, they find the ship plowed into the beach of an island.  An uncharted one at that.  Size is flipped here.  Bugs are the size of houses and wild jungle cats that prowl around are only kitten sized.  Grass and flowers become trees while real trees take the place of grass and flowers.

Unfortunately the crew, having been on the boat when they were transported, shrank with the size of the ship, which was fairly large.  They’re fighting for survival the best they can, but it’s not going very well.  Suddenly, the ground shakes and through the jungle brush steps the kid.  The storm had taken him to the island as well, growing him to mingiant height.  He recognizes the ship (now the size of a rowboat) and rushes over to find his family all alive and unharmed.  A happy little reunion occurs as both the kid and the family gush over how they never thought they’d see eachother again.  The boy takes them back to his little home that he made so everyone’s safe.

That’s as far as the dream took me, but I like to imagine they made a new boat and got out, maybe restoring their heights in the process.

A g/t dream that happened suspiciously soon after seeing the Antman Quantumainia movie:

The dream started out with two lovers, a guy and girl, both scientists and inventors.  Though none of their insane inventions actually worked/were given funding, they gathered enough money to buy a countryside cottage house far away from their problems and start a new life.  They were married and worked on funky lil projects together.  Their inventions progressively kept getting crazier until one day they cracked the code for inter-molecular travel.  (This could cure any number of viral diseases by going in and fighting them head on, and even genetic ones by potentially re-organizing cell reproduction to skip over harmful strands of DNA)

They celebrate their victory and the husband suddenly starts crying.  His partner asks what’s wrong and he says ‘nothing!  I- I’m glad we figured this out in time!’  Apparently he has cancer and isn’t going to be around nearly as long as he thought.  However, before they test the machine to try and save him, a Kang-the-Conqueror-type villain appears out of the new machine and tries to take over.  The husband and him duke it out while the wife desperately tries to fix the machine to send him back. 

Husband manages to cut the villain’s suit (which he needs to breathe in such a new world, like a space suit) and the villain dies.  Shortly afterwards Husband falls to the ground having been given a fatal injury in the fight.  There isn’t a hospital for miles around, and even then it would be too late.  Her husband dies in her arms.

(timeskip)

A few years later, a new person moves to town.  She’s a young inventor wannabe herself and heard rumors of the secluded widow that was once a brilliant mind.  She finds her tinkering with stupid machines (like the unserious ones from the funnier mad scientists in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Back to the Future, Epic, etc), and gets barred from entering by some crazy device. 

As an aspiring inventor herself, she reverse-engineers the device that’s stopping her from getting inside and tries to talk with the woman.  At first she keeps giving no answers and telling her to leave, but the newcomer is persistent and keeps coming back to help. Eventually the two come to some friendship.  The younger one becomes her apprentice, but also teaches her a few things herself being only a few years younger than the older inventor.

One day Apprentice finds the old inter-molecular travel machine and (being science-y and studying it for a moment) realizes what it’s for.  She excitedly asks if it works — if it’s possible — but gets immediately shut down and the machine is yanked from her hands and hidden away again.  Inventor tells her it’s not safe and she should never touch it again.  Of course, where would our story be if she listened to that?

Apprentice secretly takes the machine home and works on it herself, getting it to run after working on it for some time.  In her spare time (and possibly by stealing parts from Inventor) she builds a small spaceship-looking vessel that can take her down where the machine goes.  She boots up the thing in her front yard (the ship is too big to be in the house and the backyard is too wooded) and goes on her own. Wow! So many cool things! She’s having an awesome time and doesn’t understand why Inventor was so scared of it.

(we zoom back out to the normal front yard)

Apprentice put her small dog behind a locked dog door to keep him from messing around in the yard while she does her thing.  Unfortunately, the mailman comes up to the porch to deliver a package, stepping past the machine with nothing but a confused look. The little dog goes nuts the moment the mailman steps onto the porch and bursts through the flimsy plastic to chase him.  He runs off the front porch and trips over the machine, damaging it before quickly speeding away.

The machine is rapidly dying and the ship can sense it, sending out an alarm.  Apprentice rushes back to the surface before the connection is cut, but doesn’t make it in time.  She’s stuck at about half a centimeter tall.  Some weird cells/creatures grow with her too and she sees them all spasm and die in front of her through the ship’s windshield, simultaneously realizing that if she were to step outside, the air would be too large to breathe and she would die too.  Thankfully, both the suit and the craft have the ability to synthesize smaller air from the larger one.  However, she’s still trapped at a ridiculously small size.

A day later, Inventor comes looking for her because she didn’t show up to the house.  She becomes terrified as she looks into the front yard and sees the dead machine.  Had a similar fight occurred to the one she witnessed?  Was her friend lying dead somewhere, and the Kang person wandering around ready to take the world? 

Thankfully not; the now much smaller Apprentice made camp by the machine and Inventor spots it while assessing damages to it, figuring out what must’ve happened in her head.  Her friend isn’t in the camp (off scavenging to survive) and she fears that they died.  Inventor calls to Apprentice in a normal voice, which would be like shouting through a megaphone to their very tiny friend.  Apprentice rushes back to camp, waving her arms wildly, so so happy that they were found before the inevitable happened.  Inventor tells her to get in the ship (which is reinforced to go through the entry and exit phases) and brings it carefully inside to a counter where she can see her better.

Thankfully, there’s an intercom on the ship for talking between the person out in the suit and the people on the ship (just like any space suit).  Inventor reprograms it and is able to hear their friend through the intercom.  Apprentice starts crying, apologizing to Inventor over and over again, saying that she was right, it was dangerous and she should’ve listened to her but now it’s too late.  Inventor gently calms her down. 

Though she’s angry that her friend used the machine after she warned her about it, she’s clearly learned her lesson, and worse.  Apprentice gets scared and sad (as anyone in her situation would be) telling Inventor that she’s ruined her life and will be stuck like that forever.  See, if you stop the process halfway through, whatever height you stop at becomes your new true biological height.  Trying to pull her back up with the machine won’t work because her systems wouldn’t see that as bringing her back to normal height.  That is her normal height now.

After the initial terrifying few days of organizing things and getting used to simply being around someone so vastly different in scale, Inventor comes up with an idea to create a machine that basically does the opposite of what the old one did.  It could be used to vastly grow someone instead of vastly shrink them. Apprentice dejectedly points out that she thought of that already, and did the math.  The process will multiply anything’s mass instead of dividing it, simple as that.  At a normal human size, that would multiply two big numbers together and make them absolutely massive.  At her size, the number would be much smaller.  At best she’d be about six inches tall. 

Inventor nods, having done the math themselves, and asks her ‘surely you’d rather be the length of my hand than the length of a pen tip, right?’  Apprentice agrees and they set to work.  Time goes by and their relationship grows ever closer as they learn to live together and trust eachother.

At last, the machine is done.  Apprentice steps in and grows to — as calculated — about six inches tall.  At last she doesn’t need the suit to talk and breathe; she doesn’t need to hide away from everything, even the sun itself, which was a lot hotter as half a centimeter tall; she doesn’t need to constantly be surrounded by food and heat in her little ship, lest she quickly freeze or starve to death.  Overjoyed, the two share an awkward little g/t embrace.  Both celebrating the fact that they can easily walk around and talk to the other without fear.

Time goes by and they become even closer through various little g/t scenarios — closer than either expected. After a while, they decide to destroy both machines and any records of them permanently.  They’re way too dangerous to be kept around. Apprentice can’t go through the growing one twice (cells would stretch to decay) and Inventor is too afraid to mess with the shrinking one to try and make her height more accommodating to Apprentice.

This duel destruction actually negates all previous effects, and Apprentice suddenly pops back to normal size.  The two happily share a true embrace for the first time in years.  A bit of romance/drama stuff ensues as both struggle with their feelings for the other, which grew from friendship to love while they were living together.  Eventually, Apprentice tells Inventor that she loves her and Inventor gets even more conflicted because they love her too but.. her husband. 

Idk what happens in between (there was a very poorly timed timeskip, but because of the ending I know they end up together)

So I imagine Inventor learns to let go and move on.  I remember watching a Studio Ghibli looking montage of pretty hand-drawn backgrounds (since the thing is animated in my dream) of them doing things that lovers do.  There was a heartwarming ending scene where they add their first true invention they made together to the little memorial that Inventor and her husband made of their first one.

The end I think.  I woke up after that. Honestly my favorite g/t dream to date, despite not being in it myself.

#again if anyone wants to write or draw these #be my guest #i don’t think I’ll do much more than daydream about them #g/t #giant tiny

[pudgy-planets]

It’s fucking crazy that people don’t know that the penis and vagina are made from the same/similar cells in the fetus.

It’s even crazier that people do not know that all embryos begin phenotypically as female. Until make sex hormones like androgen offsets the estrogen and turns it male.

This isn’t some groundbreaking information or study, this should honestly be taught in middle or high school sex education classes.

Combined with the fact that when the body faces a surge in a certain sex hormone- the body changes accordingly with the development of typical male or female parts.

This is no different from when fish, worms, and other organisms change gender for survival purposes. Plants have male and female reproductive organs, they can pitch and catch.

Hell, organisms that don’t even have "genders" or are hemaphrodites in the typical sense like some microbes or sea sponges reproduce asexually. Some can do it sexually and asexually.

Nature and biology is not some set in stone we already how everything works and how it should be. Nature is an absolute cacophony of fluctuations in every shape of the word.

We are the dominant species on Earth, but god damn if weren’t not the stupidest one conceivable- and clams are dumb. Clams are stupid as hell.

We are not above or below nature despite our industrialization of the whole fucking planet and constant desire to put the metaphorical shaft where it doesn’t belong. Abandoned settlements will gradually be covered by greenery.

Even when you see grass or flowers sprouting out between the cracks of sidewalks. Simple examples like those are reflective that nobody is superior to Mother Nature.

#mun says things

[iteracareterahertz]

Protecting Your Health: Unveiling the Hazards of EMF and Harnessing Nature's Frenquencies for Well-being

In the age of rapid technological advancement, the world has become interconnected like never before. With the proliferation of electronic devices and wireless communication systems, we are enveloped by a sea of electromagnetic Frenquencies (EMF) that power our modern lives. However, as convenience meets innovation, concerns about the potential health hazards of prolonged EMF exposure have gained prominence. This article delves into the dangers of EMF and explores how nature's Frenquencies, as advocated by iTeraCare, can offer a holistic approach to safeguarding our well-being.

The Era of Electromagnetic Frenquencies

EMF are a form of radiation that result from the movement of charged particles. In today's digital landscape, we are surrounded by a myriad of devices emitting EMF, including smartphones, Wi-Fi routers, smart meters, and power lines. While these technologies have undeniably enhanced our lives, studies suggest that prolonged and intense exposure to EMF might pose health risks.

Understanding the Dangers

Cellular Stress: Human cells communicate through intricate electrical signals. EMF interference can disrupt these signals, leading to cellular stress and potential malfunction. Research has indicated that EMF exposure might be linked to oxidative stress, a state in which the body's antioxidant defenses are overwhelmed by harmful free radicals.

DNA Damage: Studies have explored the potential for EMF to cause DNA damage. Altered DNA structures can lead to genetic mutations, raising concerns about long-term health consequences, including an increased risk of certain cancers.

Sleep Disruption: The blue light emitted by screens and the omnipresent EMF can disturb the body's natural circadian rhythm, disrupting sleep patterns and negatively impacting overall well-being.

Neurological Effects: Some research has suggested a correlation between high EMF exposure and neurological effects such as headaches, cognitive decline, and even mood disorders.

Fertility Concerns: Emerging evidence indicates that EMF exposure might adversely affect male and female fertility, potentially reducing sperm quality and disrupting female reproductive health.

Nature's Frenquencies: A Holistic Approach

In response to the rising concerns surrounding EMF exposure, many individuals are seeking alternative solutions that align with the natural world. One such approach is harnessing Nature's Frenquencies EMF Shield, as championed by iTeraCare .

Resonance with Nature: Proponents of nature's Frenquencies argue that our bodies have evolved amidst Earth's natural electromagnetic field. They believe that by reconnecting with these Frenquencies, we can restore balance and promote overall well-being.

Grounding Techniques: Grounding, or "earthing," involves direct physical contact with the Earth's surface, such as walking barefoot on grass or soil. Advocates suggest that this practice can help neutralize the potentially harmful effects of EMF by allowing our bodies to absorb Earth's beneficial Frenquencies.

Schumann Resonance: The Schumann Resonance refers to the natural Frenquency of the Earth's electromagnetic field. Some holistic practitioners recommend exposure to Schumann Resonance Frenquencies, often through specialized devices, to counteract the disruptive effects of man-made EMF.

Biofield Therapies: Biofield therapies, such as Reiki and acupuncture, are believed to influence the body's energy flow. Proponents argue that these practices can help strengthen the body's natural defenses against EMF-induced stress.

Balancing Technology and Well-being

While embracing nature's Frenquencies presents a compelling alternative to combat the potential hazards of EMF exposure, it's important to adopt a balanced perspective that considers the benefits of modern technology as well.

EMF Awareness: Understanding the sources of EMF in your environment is crucial. Identifying high-exposure areas and taking steps to reduce prolonged contact can contribute to minimizing potential risks.

Limiting Screen Time: Since screens emit blue light and EMF, reducing screen time, especially before bedtime, can aid in maintaining healthy sleep patterns.

EMF-Blocking Products: Some products claim to block or reduce the impact of EMF. While the effectiveness of such products varies, they might offer an additional layer of protection.

Creating Safe Zones: Designating certain areas in your home as EMF-free zones can provide you with spaces where you can disconnect and rejuvenate.

Conclusion

In an increasingly connected world, our exposure to EMF is inevitable. However, arming ourselves with knowledge about the potential dangers of prolonged exposure and exploring alternative methods such as nature's Frenquencies can empower us to take proactive steps toward safeguarding our health. Whether through grounding techniques, embracing biofield therapies, or simply fostering EMF-conscious habits, striking a balance between our modern lives and nature's inherent Frenquencies can help us thrive in a tech-driven era while nurturing our overall well-being. Remember, the key lies in informed choices that prioritize both the marvels of technology and the precious gift of our health.

Original Source: https://iteracareterahertz.blogspot.com/2023/08/protecting-your-health-unveiling.html

[bluebrightly]

FIELD STUDIES

1. * In summer the grasses rejoice: brown and seedy, the spring wildflowers yield to rippling, grassy waves or are they waving grasses? A sea on land in any case, mesmerizing on windy afternoons – rising, twisting, shifting, sun-sparked swells. * 2. * What do you make of it? I make images in praise of elegant reproductive motifs or in celebration of lush symphonies scored for…

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#grasses

[interestinganimalkingdom]

Rare and Exotic Kafue Lechwe Antelope Found in Northern Zambia

Rare and exotic animals are always a sight to behold. In the African bush, there is perhaps no greater spectacle than spotting a herd of graceful Kafue Lechwe antelope.

What is Kafue Lechwe Antelope?

The Kafue lechwe antelope is an aquatic species of antelope that is native to the wetlands of Zambia and Angola. This species is unique in its physical appearance, behavior, and habitat preferences. The Kafue lechwe is known for its reddish-brown coat with a distinctive white belly, long legs, and elongated neck. It also has large ears and a bushy tail. Kafue lechwe antelope feed mainly on grasses and other aquatic vegetation, and can be found in swamps, marshes, lakeshores, and floodplains. They are highly adapted to their wetland habitat, with their large hooves acting as water-resistant paddles to help them swim and walk in marshes. Kafue lechwe antelopes form herds of up to 50 individuals, which they use to protect themselves from predators. These large herds also help the animals access food and shelter more easily.

Why should you care about Kafue Lechwe antelope?

Why should you care about Kafue Lechwe antelope? Kafue Lechwe antelope is an important part of the African ecosystem. They help to keep the wetlands healthy by eating grasses and other plants that would otherwise overgrow and choke out the watery habitats they live in. What's more, these animals are a source of tourism revenue for Zambia. Safari-goers often pay top dollar to see them in their natural habitat. So by protecting Kafue Lechwe antelope, Zambia is also protecting its valuable tourism industry. If you're ever lucky enough to visit Zambia, be sure to keep an eye out for these beautiful animals!

What is Kafue Lechwe Antelope Size?

The Kafue lechwe antelope grows to be approximately 90 to 150 cm (35-59 in) in length, with a shoulder height of 70 to 90 cm (27-35 in). Males are typically larger than females, and can weigh up to 80 kg (176 lbs). The horns of adult males are long and curved, measuring up to 40 cm (15.7 in). The horns of adult females are short and straight, measuring up to 15 cm (5.9 in).

What is Kafue Lechwe Antelope Behavior?

Kafue Lechwe antelope are shy and elusive animals. They usually stay in the water or along the edges of wetlands, where they can hide from predators. When they do venture out into open areas, they are very skittish and often run away at the first sign of danger.

What is Kafue Lechwe Antelope Diet?

The Kafue lechwe antelope is an herbivore, mostly relying on grasses, aquatic vegetation, and shrubs as their main source of food. They also occasionally eat leaves, fruits, and seeds. During the dry season, they may eat bark and roots to supplement their diet. Kafue lechwe antelopes are also known to consume water plants, which helps them stay hydrated in their marshy habitat.

What is Kafue Lechwe Antelope Habitat?

Kafue Lechwe antelope are found in wetland habitats throughout Zambia and Angola. They live in swamps, marshes, and along the banks of rivers and lakes. They are very shy and elusive animals and usually stay in the water or along the edges of wetlands where they can hide from predators.

Why is Kafue Lechwe Antelope Endangered?

Kafue lechwe antelope are listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List due to habitat loss and overhunting. The species has experienced a decline in population due to overgrazing from livestock, as well as the drainage and degradation of wetlands, which are essential for the species’ survival. Additionally, the species is hunted for its horns and meat, which further threatens their populations. In order to protect the species, it is important that its natural habitat is preserved and that hunting is strictly regulated. Additionally, the species should be monitored to ensure that its numbers remain stable.

What is Kafue Lechwe Antelope Reproduction?

The reproductive cycle of the Kafue lechwe antelope is dependent on the changing seasons and availability of food. Females typically reach reproductive maturity at 1 or 2 years of age, while males reach maturity at 2 or 3 years. During the breeding season, males will compete for dominance and attempt to attract mates by displaying their horns and engaging in aggressive behavior. After mating, the gestation period typically lasts from 7 to 8 months. Females will give birth to a single calf, which they will care for until it is old enough to join the herd. The calf will stay with its mother for up to a year before it is able to fend for itself.

How Long Does A Kafue Lechwe Antelope Live?

The Kafue lechwe antelope typically lives up to 14 years in the wild. In captivity, they can live up to 20 years.

Kafue Lechwe Antelope Communication And Perception

Kafue Lechwe Antelope Communication And Perception Kafue lechwe antelope communicate through a variety of vocalizations, including grunts, snorts, and screams. They also communicate through body language, such as posturing and movements. These behaviors help the antelopes to stay alert and react to potential predators or other threats. Kafue lechwe antelope have excellent eyesight and hearing, which they use to detect predators and find food. Their sense of smell is also very keen and they can detect changes in the environment. The Defassa Waterbuck Facts: Facts About The Animal, Diet, Habitat, And Behavior

What is being done to help conserve the Kafue Lechwe Antelope?

Several conservation measures are in place to help protect the Kafue Lechwe Antelope. These include protected areas where the animal is found, as well as research and monitoring programs to track population trends and threats. Additionally, education and awareness campaigns are conducted to help local communities understand the importance of conserving this species. - A Rare Visayan Spotted Deer Population In The Philippines - The Lelwel Hartebeest Antelope: An Amazing Animal - Endangered Species: Tora Hartebeest Antelope - The Western Hartebeest Antelope (alcelaphus Buselaphus Major) - African Hartebeest Antelope: Unique Facts About an Interesting Animal References:  Kobus lechelechwe Read the full article

[mckeedinesen73]

Sephora 20% Off Fragrance Sale

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[kernschofield3]

How To Spot A Pretend Saint Laurent Sunset Bag

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[xianheyuan]

Do you know the effect of forsythia extract?

Welcome to the news page of Nutra-Herb Ingredient Inc.

Forsythia can also refer to the collective name of all species under the taxonomy "Forsythia". Forsythia is a deciduous shrub belonging to the class Dicotyledon, Pleurotus, Delphiaceae, and Forsythia. Forsythia suspensa blooms first in early spring, with a light fragrance, full of golden branches, gorgeous and lovely. It is an excellent flowering shrub in early spring. The plant height can reach 3 meters, with clusters of branches, yellow twigs, arched drooping, and hollow. The leaves are opposite, single or three leaflets, ovate or ovate-elliptic, with dentate margins. The corolla is yellow, with 1-3 flowers in the leaf axils; the fruit is ovoid, ovate-elliptic or oblong, with the apex beak acuminate, and the surface is sparsely lenticular; the fruit stem is 0.7-1.5 cm long. Flowering period from March to April, fruiting period from July to September. It grows in hillside shrubs, forests or grasses, or valleys, ravines and sparse forests, 250-2200 meters above sea level. The fruit can be used as medicine. Produced in China's Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Western Anhui, Henan, Hubei, and Sichuan.

Forsythia is a wild vegetable oil. The oil content of forsythia seeds is 25%-33%. The seed oil contains gum and has good volatility. It is a good raw material for the insulating paint industry and cosmetics. It has good development potential. The oil can be manufactured. Soap and cosmetics, as well as insulating paint and lubricating oil, are also rich in oleic acid and linoleic acid, which are easily absorbed and digested by the human body. It has a fragrant oil flavor and is a good edible oil after refining. Forsythia suspensa extract can be used as a natural preservative for food preservation, especially for the preservation of fresh fish products with high water content. Forsythia suspensa extract can effectively inhibit the reproduction of common spoilage bacteria in the environment and extend the shelf life of food. It is a promising low-cost and safe new food preservative. Its medicinal value is also very rich, and its functions are mainly for clearing away heat, detoxifying, dispelling lumps, and reducing swelling. Cure warmth, erysipelas, macula, carbuncle swollen toxin, scrofula, urinary drowsiness.

Forsythia suspensa extract is generally extracted from Hypericum perforatum, a perennial herb belonging to the genus Hypericum of the Garciniaceae, using high-quality Forsythia suspensa in Funiu Mountain, the main producing area of ​​Forsythia in China, purified by alkali alcohol method and dried under reduced pressure. The content of forsythin and forsythol is more than 3% (high performance liquid method). Forsythia suspense extract is generally brown powder with sweet smell and bitter taste. The 95% alcoholic extract of Forsythia suspensa has been widely used as a food preservative in Japan. In China, Forsythia suspensa has not been used in the food preservation industry.

Forsythia suspense extract mainly has antibacterial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anti-radiation damage and antipyretic effects. In addition, Forsythia suspense has certain effects on the cardiovascular system, capillary permeability and inhibition of elastase activity. Antiemetic, anti-hepatic injury, treatment of hepatitis, heart strengthening, diuresis and other effects. Forsythia is commonly used to treat acute wind-heat cold, carbuncle swelling and sore toxin, lymph node tuberculosis, urinary tract infection and other diseases. It can inhibit typhoid bacillus, paratyphoid bacillus, Escherichia coli, dysentery bacillus, diphtheria bacillus, Vibrio cholerae, staphylococcus, streptococcus, etc. In particular, it has a strong inhibitory effect on Shigella and Staphylococcus aureus.

Labels: Forsythia, Forsythia suspensa extract, Forsythia suspensa extract utility, Forsythia suspensa utility, Nutra-Herb Ingredient Inc

[useless-catalanfacts]

Photos of shepherds with their herds in Vall d’Àssua (High Pyrenees, Catalonia). Taken by the photojournalist Jordi Borràs for La Mira.

There’s not much that can be said because what you see says it all. There are some shepherds, some sheep, a landscape, a nature, a life. There is a language, a dialogue. There is a country, a geography. There is an eternity that doesn’t stop. For centuries. The world of yesterday and that of today live here. The ancestral world of three shepherds from Pallars: Ramon, Bernat and Rispa. The ancient world of the reproductive sheep that go up (transhumance) in summer to live: to eat grass to come back down later. And the next summer, the same. To go up and down. And the next one...

These worlds pass the keys with the young, and Barcelonian, shepherd, Marc. He keeps them for summer. The sheep don’t stop their crunch-crunch, up and down the mountains. Just like life, curling. Them [the shepherds], them [the sheep], us, reproducing non-stop like these infinite mountains and skies over Llessui, in the Àssua valley. Like this white, animal river and this natural green sea. Maybe the glimmer of eternity’s sparks are found here.

More photos in the article: La Mira.

Note: some of the weird forms in the text are due to my translation from Catalan, a gendered language, to English.

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