1) Monarch butterflies - they are passing through Kentucky on their way to warmer climates for the winter, and the flashes of orange floating about like super-thin magic color are a delight ( Read more... )

Yesterday I learned there is a creature called a pangolin. It's an armor-plated mammal. Because the world is strange. It turns out pangolins are kinda cute, as well as being unusual, so I am sharing them with you. Here is a video of a pangolin cavorting in the mud. If you click through to watch the video, that page includes another video with more ( Read more... )

Because everyone wants to know about sea slug sex, here is an article from Scientific American on that very subject:

50 Shades of Sea Slug Sex.

You're welcome.

:p

I am in the mountains. The Eastern Sierras, to be more exact. The view from this cabin is incredible. I spent parts of the day sitting on the deck just staring out across Owens Valley to the mountains beyond. (The White Mountains & the Inyo Mountains.) Or up at the sky & the clouds & the Sierras, which thrust straight up behind from where I am ( Read more... )

You definitely want to avoid an encounter with a banded krait. A single bite from this snake delivers enough venom to spell the end for a dozen people. Working like a chemical brake, the active toxin finds its way to your neurons, and snuffs out the signals that would otherwise animate your muscles. It’s bad stuff ( Read more... )

A small but interesting study by scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital shows that just 8 weeks of meditation is correlated with structural changes in the brain.

It's just another bit of data showing that how we think changes who we are. Or, more succinctly, brains are amazing!

"FACE FORWARD: Divers have discovered an unusual flat-faced fish with forward-looking eyes that may represent an entirely new piscine family. If so, researchers say, it would be one of only a handful of new fish families found in the past 50 years. First photographed in January off Ambon Island, Indonesia, the critter has crooked, leglike pectoral ( Read more... )

Two articles on male hormones:"Rats, moths and butterflies are all known to send chemosignals to secure mates. Similar phenomena have been suggested but not proved in humans." Now a study published in this week's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, does just that. The study was led by Claire Wyart, a postdoctoral neuroscience researcher at the ( Read more... )

Geranium 'Jolly Bee' is proving itself to be a useful plant. It forms slightly rambling mounds with pinkish-purple flowers. The flowers have a white eye and are held up over the foliage, like signs at an exuberant rally. I planted these in April. They've been blooming non-stop since then. Admittedly, I gave them a nice dose of time-release ( Read more... )