Friday creatures Twitter dump (2): Confirmation that Nature sucks

More evolved ghastliness news from Steve Stewart-Williams: This unfortunate snail is infested with a parasitic worm, which is mimicking a caterpillar so a bird will eat it. The worm will then reproduce in the bird’s gut, and its eggs will be released in the bird’s feces – which will then be eaten by other snails. … Continue reading Friday creatures Twitter dump (2): Confirmation that Nature sucks

BMNB QotD: Silence

Michael Tracey: I don’t think it’s accurate that “silence” automatically equals “complicity” or “violence.” Sometimes people are “silent” because they have complicated views about a complicated subject, and decline to mindlessly repeat whatever clichés you are trying to force down their throat. Which I only got to read because Steve Stewart-Williams (plus another of my … Continue reading BMNB QotD: Silence

Time-lapse of braces doing their thing

I think Steve Stewart-Williams is now my favourite Twitterer. Never really understood these contrivances until now.

Another perceptual flip to add to the collection – and why I find such things to be interesting

Yes, I do like these optical tricks that computer graphics makes it so easy for computer graphicists to play on the world. Says Steve Stewart-Williams of his latest discovery in this genre: If you cover the bottom of the ring, the top is closest to you; if you cover the top, it flips around. Indeed. … Continue reading Another perceptual flip to add to the collection – and why I find such things to be interesting

Male seahorse delivering babies

Here. Amazing. I never knew this. At all. Far too good to wait until next Friday. (Friday being my usual day for cats and other creatures stuff.) I Twitter-follow Steve Stewart-Williams, and strongly recommend him as a followee. (Provided only that you agree with him (and me) that evolution is real and that doubting it … Continue reading Male seahorse delivering babies

Some geometrical video

With thanks to Patrick Crozier‘s Twitter feed, this, posted by Steve Stewart-Williams. He got it from Denny Borsboom, who says (at his Facebook page), this: Different scientific models can have equivalent observational consequences. In statistics, this is known as statistical equivalence; in the philosophy of science, underdetermination of theory by data. This is often hard … Continue reading Some geometrical video

The beavers of Oxford Street

In 2017, I photoed the shadow of an Oxford Street beaver, and in 2015 (scroll down a bit) I photoed one of the actual beavers, from a great distance. Well, yesterday, I photoed all four actual beavers: I was in Oxford Street, shopping and then taking a walk from Carphone Warehouse Tottenham Court Road to … Continue reading The beavers of Oxford Street

Also from the SS-W TwF

Following on from all these creaturely links, how woodpeckers survive being woodpeckers? Woodpeckers have incredibly long tongues. I did not know this.