An Otter's "Careless Whisper"

For the love of god UNMUTE THIS pic.twitter.com/MA48mit8MX

— Nerd Girl Says (@Rachael_Conrad) February 23, 2020

(Tip of the cap to Card Colm Mulcahy.)

Amazing Sculptures from Tightly-Rolled Newspapers

These are incredible!

Japanese Artist Tightly Rolls Newspaper To Create Incredibly Realistic Animal Sculptures https://t.co/wgxGL3848A

— Archpng (@archpng) June 8, 2019

Self-Awareness and the Elephant in the Room

So, in other words, they first needed to see the elephant in the room? :)

Elephants failed the mirror test for self-awareness — until researchers made the mirrors big enough for elephants to see themselves alongside other elephants.https://t.co/GnI2Z1hsi7 pic.twitter.com/SA5oRE65NU

— Quanta Magazine (@QuantaMagazine) December 18, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Steve Strogatz.)

Awesome Close-Up Photos of Snails

You can snail, you can snail...

Ukrainian photographer Vyacheslav Mishchenko catches these unbelievably stunning up-close photographs of snails pic.twitter.com/Lhgj2zcx6S

— Life on Earth 🌴 (@planetepics) July 10, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Invisible Scientist.)

Another Living Network

Here is another living network, as one can see especially prominently in the right panel.

Parasitic crustacean, Dendrogaster sp. found on the seastar, Mediaster brachiatus. Collected at depth of 300m, Kumanonada-sea, Japan. pic.twitter.com/uy2J3FD2dk

— M (@manpokenautilus) June 25, 2018

Other examples of living networks are fungal networks.

(Tip of the cap to Jessica Rosenkrantz.)

Excellent Notation for Predator–Prey Dynamics

I approve!

LaTeX is so much better when you have emoji. pic.twitter.com/SYxgUXpWYN

— Mike Bostock (@mbostock) June 2, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Karen Daniels.)

Balloon Skeleton Animals

These are amazing!

Mind-blowing balloon animal skeletons made by Japanese artist Masayoshi Matsumoto https://t.co/K5dvN7WPlt pic.twitter.com/tMXZtHMega

— Scott Kerr (@scott_kerr) April 24, 2018

Jeremy, the Left-Coiled Snail

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this story before, but Jeremy the Left-Coiled Snail (who died in October, at the ripe old age of 2 or so), who was named after Jeremy Corbyn (on account of his being a 'lefty' snail), had a chance to shine in the spotlight earlier this year. And he even had scientists to help him with his sex life, though all of his 56 children ended up being righties.

In the Wikipedia entry, I am amused by the deadpan nature of the information box in the upper-right corner.

(And, in case you're wondering, there are really good reasons to study genetically unusual orientations like this.)

The Bee Nailed It

Bee removes a nail to make a nest in a wall 🐝 pic.twitter.com/CXSjZAkVLA

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) September 12, 2017

(I saw this Tweet because Sabine Hossenfelder liked it.)

A Really Nice Dragonfly

Check out the awesome patterns on this dragonfly!

And now, a lovely dragonfly by Budak https://t.co/nFrMiOn2v6 pic.twitter.com/KwIeODq9GG

— Gwen Pearson🐜 (@bug_gwen) June 25, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Meghan Duffy.)

Fake Gnus

I am spreading fake gnus.

(This had to be done.)

I also created this selection of fake gnus, though of course with images drawn from various sources online.

RIP Maplewood Park

During my entire time (almost 4 years) at Cornell University, I lived in Maplewood Park, which is being demolished this fall.

On any given day, you could walk outside the apartment and see a deer very close by.

Integrating a Jellyfish Using the Midpoint Rule

Yes, really.

A Squirrel with a GoPro Camera

A squirrel with a GoPro camera gives a nice view of the trees —— just like in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

(Tip of the cap to Leslie Sheppard.)

"A Gazelle is Just a Giraffe, Plotted Logarithmically."

Today's SMBC is bloody brilliant!

Headline: "Weasel Apparently Shuts Down World's Most Powerful Particle Collider"

Here's a headline you don't see every day.

Choice quote: "There have been previous incidents, including one in 2009, when a bird is believed to have dropped a baguette onto critical electrical systems."

(Tip of the cap to Graeme Smith.)

Amusing Animal Photos

These animal photos are very amusing.

Birds on a Wire

On the taxi ride to the airport, I saw a set of three power lines that were parallel to each other and arrayed vertically.

The bottom one had 1 bird perched on it, the middle one has 3 perched birds, and the top one had a large number of birds on it (too many for me to count).

Any ideas what the mechanism is for this? Is there a preference for height? Does it have a bit of a DLA-like flavor in that a bird lands on the first available wire from something like a random walk or Levy flight such that it's more likely to "stick" on the top one? Does anybody know if somebody has tried to model this?

Also: Mine.

Man Shoots Armadillo; Bullet Ricochets Back into his Face

This is what we call instant karma.

I first learned about this sort of thing with bullets and armadillo-like creatures by playing Super Mario Brothers.

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

Bring Your Pet to School Day: Caltech Edition

I don't remember ever hearing about the young lioness that got to hear a freshman physics lecture at Caltech, although it's possible that I simply forgot about this story (with picture proof from a very familiar lecture hall). Wow!