Dive Deep into Creativity: Your Ultimate Tumblr Experience Awaits
Ecology - Blog Posts
This is basically some of the stuff I learnt to get my qualifications in ecology!
I...tried to make a meme and got carried away and made A Thing that is like partially unfinished because i spent like 3 hours on it and then got tired.
I think this is mostly scientifically accurate but truth be told, there seems to be relatively little research on succession in regards to lawns specifically (as opposed to like, pastures). I am not exaggerating how bad they are for biodiversity though—recent research has referred to them as "ecological deserts."
Feel free to repost, no need for credit
Your body is an ancestor. Your body is an altar to your ancestors. Every one of your cells holds an ancient and anarchic love story. Around 2.7 billion years ago free-living prokaryotes melted into one another to form the mitochondria and organelles of the cells that build our bodies today. All you need to do to honor your ancestors is to roll up like a pill bug, into the innate shape of safety: the fetal position. The curl of your body, then, is an altar not just to the womb that grew you, but to the retroviruses that, 200 million years ago taught mammals how to develop the protein syncytin that creates the synctrophoblast layer of the placenta. Breathe in, slowly, knowing that your breath loops you into the biome of your ecosystem. Every seven to ten years your cells will have turned over, rearticulated by your inhales and exhales, your appetites and proclivity for certain flavors. If you live in a valley, chances are the ancient glacial moraine, the fossils crushed underfoot, the spores from grandmotherly honey fungi, have all entered into and rebuilt the very molecular make up of your bones, your lungs, and even your eyes. Even your lungfuls of exhaust churn you into an ancestor altar for Mesozoic ferns pressurized into the fossil fuels. You are threaded through with fossils. Your microbiome is an ode to bacterial legacies you would not be able to trace with birth certificates and blood lineages. You are the ongoing-ness of the dead. The alembic where they are given breath again. Every decision, every idea, every poem you breathe and live is a resurrection of elements that date back to the birth of this universe itself. Today I realize that due to the miracle of metabolic recycling, it is even possible that my body, somehow, holds the cells of my great-great grandmother. Or your great-great grandmother. Or that I am built from carbon that once intimately orchestrated the flight of a hummingbird or a pterodactyl. Your body is an ecosystem of ancestors. An outcome born not of a single human thread, but a web of relations that ripples outwards into the intimate ocean of deep time.
Your Body is an Ancestor, Sophie Strand
“I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. And the two plants so often intermingle rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. I thought that surely in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. And I was told that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school. Which was really demoralizing as a freshman, but I came to understand that question wasn’t going to be answered by science, that science, as a way of knowing, explicitly sets aside our emotions, our aesthetic reactions to things. We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. And, yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complimentary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid, they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. And that’s a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And I just think that “Why is the world so beautiful?” is a question that we all ought to be embracing.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence of Plants”, from the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett
Hey y’all here’s something I drew for my queer studies class last semester 🏳️⚧️
I wasn’t able to put too much time into it but I’m pretty proud of how it turned out, especially the mycelium rib cage 🩻🍄🟫
Happy pride! 💚
It's amazing how much of our knowledge of "animal behaviour" is based on very old studies that just went "we half-starved these animals and put them in a tiny box together and just assumed that whatever they did reflects their natural behaviours and social structures"
I...tried to make a meme and got carried away and made A Thing that is like partially unfinished because i spent like 3 hours on it and then got tired.
I think this is mostly scientifically accurate but truth be told, there seems to be relatively little research on succession in regards to lawns specifically (as opposed to like, pastures). I am not exaggerating how bad they are for biodiversity though—recent research has referred to them as "ecological deserts."
Feel free to repost, no need for credit
INKTOBER
Day 21: Rhinoceros. Nova Kachovka.
Day 22: Camp.
The solovki special camp was the largest soviet concentration camp. Nowadays, russians have created a lot of concentration camps, where they send Ukrainian POWs and civilians to torture or kill them.
russia commits ecocide in Ukraine
I would like to propose an experiment.
Now forgive me if such a thing already exists or is ongoing but I am typing this while at work and don't have time to research.
So take a big patch of land and put a tree farm on it. Mostly fill it up with a fast growing tree species (perhaps a fast growing species of pine) but also evenly space a second species of much larger but slower growing tree. Then periodically harvest and replant the faster trees while leaving the slower trees alone.
Also cut the farm in half. On one half do a seasonal burn of the lower brush and on the other half don't.
The goal of this experiment would be to see how the size of the larger trees impacts the growth of the smaller trees and other biotic and abiotic factors.
Will they help them grow faster?
Will they make them grow more slowly?
How will the bigger trees impact the soil?
How will the smaller trees impact the soil?
What kinds of fauna will this benefit?
What kinds of fauna will this harm?
Will this help or harm the ecosystem in and around the tree farm?
How does the fire impact the soil?
How does the fire impact the trees?
How does the fire impact the fauna?
How does the fire affect the nutrient cycle?
How do the big trees impact the nutrient cycle?
How do the small trees impact the nutrient cycle?
Ask someone who studied fungi to tell you what the hell they are doing.
Will this encourage or discourage biodiversity?
"Do you ever dream of land?" The whale asks the tuna.
"No." Says the tuna, "Do you?"
"I have never seen it." Says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it."
"Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it."
"There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." Says the whale.
"They will disappear." Says the tuna, "one day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."
"Maybe I don't want to forget," Says the whale, "The forests were once my home."
"I have seen the forests." Whispers the salmon, almost to itself.
"Tell me what you have seen," says the whale.
"The forests spawned me." Says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."
"Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" Asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own."
"You forget," says the salmon, "That the oceans were once their home."
Science Coming Soon to a Space Station Near You
Dozens of science experiments will soon make their red carpet debuts on the International Space Station. They will arrive courtesy of a Dragon cargo spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The starring players include investigations into 3D printing organ tissue, breaking up rocks and building bones.
Meet some of the experiments blasting off that could lead to the development of new technologies as well as improve life on Earth.
Grab yourself an (organ) tissue
Scientists and medical professionals have long dreamed of the day 3D printers can be used to create useable human organs. But pesky gravity seems to always get in the way.
Enter microgravity. The new BioFabrication Facility (BFF) will provide a platform to attempt the creation of this organ tissue on the space station, a potential first step towards creating entire human organs in space.
Put down your pickaxe and pick up some microbes
Extracting minerals from rocks doesn’t always require brute force. Microbes can be deployed for the same purpose in a process called bio-mining. While common on Earth, the method still needs to be explored in space to see if it can eventually help explorers on the Moon and Mars. The BioRock investigation will examine the interactions between microbes and rocks and see if microgravity could limit the use of bio-mining by restricting bacterial growth.
Keep rolling along
Goodyear Tire will investigate if microgravity can help improve the silica design process, silica rubber formation and tire manufacturing. This investigation could lead to improvements like better tire performance and increased fuel efficiency, putting a bit of cash back in your pocket.
When space gets on our nerves
Meet microglia: a type of immune defense cell found in the central nervous system. Better understanding nerve cells and their behavior in microgravity is crucial to protecting astronaut health.
The Space Tango-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells experiment will convert induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patients with Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis into different types of brain cells. Researchers will examine two things:
How microglial cells grow and move
Changes in gene expression in microgravity
Studying this process in microgravity could reveal mechanisms not previously understood and could lead to improved prevention and treatments for the diseases.
Space moss!
Moss, the tiny plants you see covering rocks and trees in the woods, change how they behave once the gravity in their environment changes. Space Moss compares the mosses grown aboard the space station with your typical run-of-the-mill Earth-bound moss.
This investigation will let researchers see how moss behavior in space could allow it to serve as a source of food and oxygen on future Moon or Mars bases.
A smooth connection
Docking with the space station requires physical points for connections, and International Docking Adapters (IDAs) are providing a more sophisticated way of doing so.
IDA 3 will be attached to the Harmony mode, home to two existing IDAs. This adapter can accommodate commercial crew vehicle dockings, such as the first spacecraft to launch from U.S. soil since the space shuttle.
Building a better bone
The Cell Science-02 investigation will improve our understanding of tissue regeneration and allow us to develop better countermeasures to fight loss of bone density by astronauts.
By examining the effects of microgravity on healing agents, this investigation may be able to assist people on Earth being treated for serious wounds or osteoporosis.
Want to learn about more investigations heading to the space station (or even ones currently under way)? Make sure to follow @ISS_Research on Twitter and Space Station Research and Technology News on Facebook.
If you want to see the International Space Station with your own eyes, check out Spot the Station to see it pass over your town.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” - Gary Snyder
A storm came rolling in as I took this photograph 🌿🌬️🌧️⛈️
If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...
Start helping with citizen science projects
What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!
You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases
Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.
Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.
Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.
Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.
Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.
Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.
--
I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.
Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help
Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.
October 31st, 2023
Happy Halloween!
Tongue-eating Louse (Cymothoa exigua)
Distribution: Fairly widespread; found in the eastern Pacific, from the gulf of California down to the gulf of Guayaquil, Ecuador, as well as parts of the Atlantic; inhabits waters from 2 to 60 metres in depth.
Habitat: Inhabits waters from 2 to 60 metres in depth; adults live on or in the bodies of fish; juveniles swim freely in the water column.
Diet: Parasitic; feeds off its host's blood and mucus; hosts include snappers, grunts, drums and grunions.
Description: The tongue-eating louse is an ectoparasitic isopod. A juvenile louse swims in the water column until it encounters a suitable host and attaches itself to its gills—soon after this maturing into a male. As it grows, the male eventually becomes female and migrates through the gills to its host's mouth, where it will use a pair of sharp claws to sever the blood vessels leading to its tongue. Once the tongue falls off due to necrosis, the louse will attach itself to the tongue stub and functionally "become" the fish's tongue. Surprisingly, this actually causes little damage to the fish, though hosts carrying many parasites are often underweight.
Once a host dies, the tongue-eating louse will eventually detach itself from its tongue stub, but will remain clinging to the head or body of its dead host. This species is completely harmless to humans, though can occasionally be found in the mouth of commercial fish.
(Images by Andy Heyward and Elkin Fricke)
French bulldog-
And i saw you,
Panting, struggling to climb even the faintest hill,
Unable to see or even smell the treat I gave you with pity.
And i tried to see the wolf,
If you were still of its kind.
I could only see a tortured beast, dulled and skinned of its past greatness.
It is all I saw behind those glassy eyes.
And i cried,
Oh how i cried.
I howled for the skinned forest,
For the violated land,
For our dull and lazy bodies,
I begged for everything that isnt anymore.
And i screamed at God,
For how could he let his kids destroy everything he created ?
i just learned from animal crossing that pondskaters stay on top of the water by secreting an oil from their feet
that seems kinda obvious in hindsight. i always figured they were just, like, light enough to not break surface tension
Think people have started to get too comfortable blaming corporations for everything. Sometimes, something you do hurts the environment to a significant degree and that is actually your fault, personally. Like by drenching your lawn in pesticides, you stupid selfish fuck
I use paperclip to keep my notes together (because it is to heavy to take every binder with me) and they are really helpful, even if l always loose them in my bag. Hope those pictures can inspire you. So don't throw your empty tea's box. You can always store something in them ;)
“…the logic of knowledge as a network, adaptive and not commodified, is the most important beacon to orient ourselves and make sure the future exists. What can we learn from this knowledge? For me the greatest lesson is that quality is the most important and sustainable ting. A territory’s criterion of quality gathers together the ethics of that territory’s community, its notion of what is life, what is justice, what is abundance, and what is wellbeing” (66).
The Solutions Are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos
Happy spring Happy spring Happy spring Happy spring
To Another Cosmos is a science fiction comic! The first Track is about a human and an alien trekking across the desert together. You can start reading Here
I’ve been chipping away at writing this comic for the last year or two, and I’ve been super excited to share it! Updates are posted to the TAC Tumblr on the last Friday of each month (typically 4-5 pages).
A stream split by a road; the surrounding salt marshes of Bridgeton, NJ.
Taken on New Year’s Eve, 2024
Now, if you cannot prove to me that science solely exists on its own,
please let me believe my God in peace.
For all your knowledge, inventions, discoveries might as well be duplications of what God already created in the beginning.
Tell me something new— something beyond the CHATGPT that thinks like a man, replies like a man, and relies solely on the knowledge of man, a creation of God.
So let me have my God, while you perfect your machines.
A list of (realistic) things you can do to be more environmentally friendly
(from an earth-loving horticulture student.)
— COSMETICS
Use bar soap instead of soap bottles
Use old toothbrushes for cleaning surfaces
Try exploring and researching some homemade face/body/lip products
Use ice sleeves, sunglasses, and caps instead of sunscreen (Edit: I’ve seen people say that it is safer and even necessary to wear sunscreen at all times so try to use eco friendly sunscreen instead! In my country it’s pretty uncommon to wear sunscreen often as we usually wear ice sleeves which is why I did not know this oof)
Use coffee grinds or homemade tumeric masks instead of cosmetic products with exfoliator beads
Invest in a metal ear cleanser instead of cotton buds
Try placing more importance on skincare instead of contributing to exploitative beauty companies by buying makeup
Use cosmetic products that do not contain palm oil
— CLOTHING
Try as much as possible to rewear your outfits at least twice before washing them
Actually WEAR your clothes! I know some of y’all just wear them once for your Instagram post and let it rot in your closet forever. Stop doing that!
Thrift, stitch up holes in your clothes, and use second hand clothing instead of supporting fast fashion companies like SHEIN, H&M, Zara, etc.
Cut up your old clothing into yarn and do macramè with it
Cut patches of old clothing to turn into reusable cotton pads
Learn how to knit, crochet or stitch your clothes!
If you use tampons, try menstrual cups or discs instead. If you use pads, try reusable pads or period underwear. (Trust me, it works). Also, use reusable panty liners instead of disposable ones. They may seem expensive but you will end up saving a lot more in the long run
— GARDENING
Plant seeds/cuttings in your old bottles, jars, and containers
Propagate your plants and exchange cuttings with your friends instead of buying new plants
Make your own soil mixes instead of buying soil mixes
Better yet, don’t use soil for your indoor plants and try getting into hydroponics or semihydroponics instead. This saves so much water and doesn’t contribute to mining of soil
Fertilise plants with fruit peels, coffee grinds, and tea leaves. (DO NOT use chemical fertiliser on soil)
Plant more legume plants in your garden instead of using nitrogen fertilisers. (Look up the nitrogen cycle if you need an explanation on this)
Avoid pesticides unless really needed. Try sprinkling cinnamon powder on soil or spraying neem oil on plants and soil to keep away pests.
If you have a lawn, try looking into rain gardens and consider making one
Let the (non invasive) weeds in your lawn/garden grow! They are there for a reason!
Stop killing earthworms and millipedes in your garden. This also applies to snails native to your region. They are there for a reason.
Water used to wash fruits and rice can be used to water plants
— REDUCE, REUSE
Use the caps of jars as soap holders
Use recycled paper/notebooks
Wash and dry your glass/plastic items before throwing them in the recycling bin
Keep any plastic bags for future use
Use eco friendly or reusable dish sponges
Use reusable straws and cups
Invest in a fabric cup holder
Bring a water bottle with you wherever you go
Drink more water and less sugary drinks
Bring reusable bags for buying groceries instead of using plastic ones
Always keep a folded up tote/shopping bag with you in case you spontaneously decide to buy something
— ELECTRICITY
Set a timer on your air conditioning instead of letting it run throughout the night
Better yet, use a fan instead of an air conditioner
Open your windows! Aerate your home!
Allow natural light to enter your home during the daytime, so as to avoid turning on your lights
Switch to LED lightbulbs instead of regular lightbulbs
Turn off any switches in your house when they are not in use
Collect the water from your air conditioner/dehumidifier condenser and use that to water plants, clean surfaces, steam ironing, and flushing toilets. Do not drink it though!
— INTERNET
Delete your all of your unwanted emails
Delete your inactive social media accounts
Try not to post excessively on social media and stop scrolling excessively too. This not only reduces energy usage but also improves your mental health and productivity
Try to keep to one social media app instead of having so many
Reduce your internet usage
Save your eBooks on a thumbdrive instead of on cloud
Use Ecosia instead of Google
Stop being influenced by social media trends that only just contribute to consumerism
Download music instead of streaming
Reduce online shopping
— FOOD
Reduce intake of processed foods
Reduce intake of fish, beef, and dairy
Try eating vegan or vegetarian foods at least once or twice a week
Cook your own meals instead of eating out
Bring your own food containers when taking away food from stores
Beeswax wrap instead of cling wrap!
Buy loose-leaf tea or plastic free tea bags instead of regular tea bags
Eat more mushrooms, vegetables, and fruits and drink more water
Support local farmers
And finally, educate yourself more about ecology and the environment!