Fascinating Creatures

These are my favorite creatures and why I find them so fascinating.

1. Jellyfish 

I've always found these creatures so fascinating because of what they look like, obviously. They are gorgeous and weird and alien to me. They float hither thither, gelatinous umbrellas with long electric kite strings instead of handles. Wikipedia tells me they are the "oldest multi-organ animal" having been around for "possibly 700 million years or more," which is just a little creepy and awesome.

There is an UberFacts going around on Twitter stating they are biologically immortal...which is only slightly misleading because it's one specific type of Jelly under laboratory conditions. It is still super cool to think about.

2. Hummingbirds

This is a beautiful bird that I've always admired for it's fragility. They drink nectar because they love sugar for energy, but also eat insects for nutrients. Most interesting to me is the way they fly, their figure 8 pattern. This is an egocentric fascination because 8 is a recurring and defining number in my life. They are also the only bird that can "hover" and fly backwards.

3. Octopuses

Equally cool and terrifying to me. They have 3 hearts, 8 arms, and are fairly smart for an invertebrate. Other neat attributes of the octopus include the ink sack, which can be used as a decoy or as a sensory inhibitor, and their camouflaging color/texture changing abilities. They can also employ arm autonomy as a distraction. Should an octopus ever get it's tentacles on you, it would also taste you via it's suction cups' chemoreceptors. What a perv.

Anyway, I'm afraid of the ocean, and the octopus is a big part of that. Or maybe it's just Disney's fault for basically making Ursula one.

Fucking Disney.

4. Cats

Revered in Egypt long ago, not much has really changed with their status. No matter how many people claim to hate them, the internet still clearly worships at their furry altar.

I don't really need to tell you about them, everyone knows the pros and cons of cats. I will say I am a cat devotee, ever more so than to dogs in my adoration. Though they have been "domestic" creatures for about 10,000 years, they still manage to be less irritatingly needy than their canine adversary. This is what mostly endears me, their stand-offish "fuck you" attitude, which may actually say a lot more about my own nature than theirs. Because when a cat does confer it's attention to you, you feel important and special.

Cats are why I like assholes. Sorry "nice guys."

Too bad I am allergic to cats. It is the greatest of my #firstworldproblems.

5. Bees

The majority of my childhood summers were spent in fear of these incredible creatures. Mostly due to being traumatized by the movie My Girl.

I have still not experienced a bee sting, and I still dread the possibility of it happening. However, I am also more respectful of the occurrence. The bee's social structure is perhaps the most notable thing about their behavior and it has always interested me. Also, the honey factor. Then, of course, there is the school-born love derived from a music class where we rocked out to "The Flight of the Bumblebee" on a variety of instruments. Welcome to my nerdy childhood.

The declining number of Bumblebees is of great mystery and concern to our generation. It is most likely due to humans being dicks, like most other ecological concerns. As the Einstein quote (that may or may not have been from Einstein) implies, the loss of these fabulous little insects would be devastating. I love honey, is what I'm trying to say here.

#Monkeysphere Moments (sorry this is a long one)

While reading This Book Is Full of Spiders today, I ran into a passage that turned out to actually be true, despite the horrifying implications. A character (Dr. Marconi) was talking about Dunbar's Number, a study on the neocortex of primates that

 "suggests that there is a species-specific index of the social group size, computable from the species' mean neocortical volume." -Wikipedia

-which really just means that the larger the neocortex, the larger the amount of people you can reliably care about and remember. The average amount for humans is around 150 people. Anything larger than this and our brains start to hurt. "That is our maximum capacity for sympathy...Those who lie outside the circle are not human." This is what makes us heartbroken when our pets die, but give very little of a shit when 1,833 people die in a hurricane. I mean, we say we do, we buy the damn bracelets to show our support. But admit it, you still care way more about your dead dog.

David Wong actually explains all of this much much better and funnier than I could ever hope to in his article What Is The Monkeysphere. Read it. Go ahead, I'll wait. You didn't read it, did you? Fucker.

Anyway, all of that was to explain how reading about Dunbar's Number reminded me of this conversation I had at work. This lady, every week brings in a copy of The Watchtower, a Jehovah's Witness tract/magazine thing. As far as I can tell, it's about how we're all living in the "end times" or some bullshit (how long do these end times last? It was first published in 1879!). I mostly just throw them in the trash when I find them laying about, but this was the first time I had actually encountered the lady.

So she hands me the thing with a smile and I have an "Aha! This is the person who plagues my counter with worthless bullshit" moment. I give her a smile that may or may not have looked sincere and said "Okay". She then proceeded to tell me that this month's issue was about the eradication of sin. To which I probably replied, "Oh." Cue a totally insincere smile and eyebrow raise. She somehow translated my expression to mean "Please tell me more of your insanity!" because she continued with something about how God will soon once again rid our planet of the wicked and the unworthy.

 "He's already begun" she expanded, "the increase of cataclysmic events like the hurricanes and earthquakes are just a part of his cleansing power. He's done it before, in the Bible, and he's doing it again now." (I am making up some of this b/c I don't remember the word-for-word, but trust me, she did say "cleansing" which just still makes me want to vomit.) At this point I stop smiling, and I stop nodding, and I'm pretty sure the look on my face was quickly becoming a mixture of disbelief, anger and disgust. "Okay," I say, hostility possibly seeping through my pores "so, like the Flood? Jericho? Every man, woman, and child must go?"  "Well, maybe not exactly, but essentially, yes. When there is nothing good left in the place, the wickedness will be eradicated and the world made new for the faithful. Like when God smote Sodom and Gomorrah because there were not even 10 righteous men left." "And this place had no children? No babies that maybe could have been spared the holy sulfur smiting?" "Um..." "...So, essentially, you are okay with mass murder? Because God approves of it. FTW I'm on a boat, muthafucka!" I did not say, because at this point I just wanted her out of the store. So I totally sidestepped everything and said something like, "Didn't Lot get drugged and raped by his daughters or something?" "...Uh, maybe..." "Oh, hahahaha. That was a pretty disturbing end to the story, huh? Kinda ruined the holy genocide for me." She starts backing away, and is luckily saved from my crazy eyes by another customer entering the store.

crazy eyes

So, ya know, maybe I don't care as much about Darfur as I should. Because my brain literally won't allow me to. But at least I'm not a crazy ass bitch rooting for 90% of the earth's population to be "righteously" smote(smitten? smited?). Although I'm probably giving into my neocortex right now just by calling her a crazy ass bitch. Whatever.

Keep Calm and Carry On

I'm sure you and everyone you know is aware of the "Keep Calm &" shirts and etc...that have been popping up everywhere for any situation the past couple years. Do you know where this saying originated? I did not. I assumed it had something to do with England because of the crown thing, but I was curious today, so I looked it up. I also found this:

It's actually quite interesting. Also, may I just say that I would freaking LOVE to work at that bookshop? Anyway, I'm really glad they found that poster, because I love the random things people come up with associated to this saying. Here are a few of my favorites:

Doctor Who for the WIN!