Tessera

One of my favorite things about science is how we will never run out of mysteries and puzzles, and the latest is the "sea of polygons" captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover at Valle Grande on Mars. It could be an interesting clue to how these rocks formed, signs of life or past surface water...

$A close-up of the polygon fractures discovered by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover highlights their honeycomb-like textures NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS$

Janet Hill@saskajanet.bsky.social · 2d ago

The Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) is also known as the 'butcher-bird'. This floof is a tiny predator with weak talons, but strong neck muscles, so she snaps necks with a hooked beak & impales her prey. Next post contains a *slightly* gory GIF, so I've marked it "graphic media".

Seeing this little fluff-nugget today inspired a thread about the Loggerhead Shrike #birds 🌿

Floofy grey bird with black eye mask is sitting quietly on a horizontal branch with a background of meadow and yellow flowers.

Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 2d ago

I know they’re puffing up to be intimidating but also they just look like they’re spectacular and they know it

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance @sandiegozoo.bsky.social · 2d ago

Feathered phenom 🐦 Kagus suddenly splay their head crests and wings to make themselves look larger, scaring away predators and defending their territory. Known as the "Ghost of the Forest" for their pale plumage and eerie calls, these flightless birds are actually quite gentle and docile.

Maybe you've had a cat that liked to nibble on fruit, or enjoy a sweet treat, but I am sorry to say that the research on this is pretty clear: cats can't taste sweet. As with *everything* in science, this is subject to revision with new data. Let's review the existing evidence!

Cute Cat Enjoys Ice Cream Cone

Alt: Cute Cat Enjoys Ice Cream Cone. One of those viral types of gifs in the library. Black and white cat licks a vanilla ice cream cone held by a human hand.

static.klipy.com

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 3d ago

Global production of watermelon is between 100-200 million tons/year. This red sweet treat has very deep roots, but it's unclear when it was domesticated to the form we know. A new clue comes from an unlikely place: a 3500 year old Egyptian mummy, combined with some very lucky DNA sequencing.🍉🧪

Cute Cat Eating Watermelon

Alt: Cute Cat Eating Watermelon. It's a viral meme, so I don't know the attribution, but a grey tabby cat with a nice round face take big chomps out of a red watermelon held in a human hand. Cats can't sense the sugar, but may enjoy the water and texture, but should get only a tiny amount to avoid stomach upset.

static.klipy.com

Russian Wikipedia: "Initially, the sound detectors were crewed by ordinary soldiers, which led to predictable results." The military began to employ blind soldiers in this role in 1942. These "Listeners" could detect the direction, distance, altitude, and even type of approaching German planes.

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 3d ago

Because radar was a little slow to deploy outside of the US/UK, the Soviets were relying on this device (the ZT-4) well after 1942. You can see more amazing and astoundingly weird images here: www.thevintagenews.com/2016/04/25/v...

Soviet soldiers are listening to the sky with their ZT-4 locator, 1942

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 3y ago

The prime number few. Fat people eat accumulates. The florist sent the flowers was pleased. The horse raced past the barn fell. Missing woman remains found. 😕😵‍💫

A garden path sentence is one that, while grammatically correct, is almost always read with the wrong interpretation. The classic: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." requires you to re-parse the meaning of each word carefully to identify the correct meaning.

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The Voyageurs Wolf Project of Northern Minnesota tags & documents grey wolf ecology & behavior: www.voyageurswolfproject.org The video you see here is confirmatory proof: Wolves. Love. Blueberries. As much as 83% of a wolf's calories in summer months comes from eating berries.

Let's explore a specific moment in time: BEFORE radar was invented (~1939) but AFTER airplanes entered warfare (1911). The best way to detect an airplane sneaking up on your border or coastline is with one of these absolutely ridiculous-looking devices. This is a "two horn acoustic locator", 1921.

A two-horn listening device in use at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., in 1921, used to detect distant aircraft before the advent of radar.

Apollo 14 launched on Jan 31st, 1971 containing about 500 tree seeds (and also 3 human astronauts, for ballast, one presumes). These tree seeds were bold pioneers: Earthling visitors to our nearest neighbor in space. They returned to Earth & were planted across the country. MOON TREES!

What in the World Are Moon Trees? - NASA Science

Fifty years ago, the Apollo astronauts carried some souvenirs from Earth to the Moon, and then brought them back.

science.nasa.gov

Ben Taylor@vox-dei.bsky.social · 3d ago

Around 1860, infant mortality in southern states of what is now Germany (German unification was in 1871) was 20-30%. 200-300 deaths for every 1000 infants born. At the same time in England, the rate was "only" 10-15%. There are a few reasons for this, but a fundamental one was SUGAR TITS. 😬

That's quite a drop, but why was the German rate so much worse than, say, England and Wales in the first place?

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · last yr.

Magical video by Mike Nulty (@nuttynulty on IG) of a whale shark (Rhincodon typus) off the coast of Baja, swimming through reflective plankton or debris that look like stars. Space whale-shark! 🦈✨ Let's talk about /actual/ glowing sharks, the lantern sharks of family Etmopteridae. (📷: Mike Nulty)

This may look like a FOX FAIL, but it's actually what these animals were finely tuned by evolution to do. You're looking at a master of "mousing". The fox cocks its head, pinpointing the telltale rustle under the snow of a rodent burrowing. But it doesn't waste time digging. It goes head-first.

a fox standing in a snowy field with a blue sky in the background

Alt: A red/orange fox with white tipped tail standing in a snowy field with a blue sky in the background. It cocks its head, then suddenly leaps face-first into the snow, tail comically left in the air.

media.tenor.com

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 7mo ago

ALMOST EVERYTHING about penguins is cute. There is *one exception*: they are champion poop producers. Specifically, they would win the long-distance contest. Humboldt penguins can propel poop well over twice their own height (picture is unrelated). Warning: thread contains penguin defecation.

a group of penguins standing on top of a pile of ice .

Alt: a group of penguins standing on top of a pile of ice . One suddenly steps on thin ice and faceplants into soft spot, disappearing beneath the water.

media.tenor.com

Dave Palmer @davepalmerusask.bsky.social · 4d ago

Good cop and bad cop are here to discuss the subject of treats #Caturday

Two silky grey cats sitting side by side in a doorway. One looks wide-eyed, while the other gives a hard stare.

ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 4d ago

in case you’re in the market:

made to order baked bean lava lamps
$69

lava lamp full of baked beans

Thousands of ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) once roamed Texas, but urban sprawl, the rise of ranching & the clearing of thornscrub forest biomes for cattle have depleted their numbers to ~100-150 left. This Texas research institute aims to change that, if Elon Musk doesn't stop them.

Baby Ocelot Yawns and Meows

Alt: Baby Ocelot Yawns and Meows. A pair of gloved hands holds an ocelot, a sort of kitten-sized cat with yellow and white fur with black stripes. It is ridiculously cute and I want to hug it so much it hurts.

static.klipy.com

The headlines are still covering the cyclosporiasis outbreak from lettuce, but let's talk about a different summer, long ago. The headlines in Bavaria would have called it "summer diarrhea" & it was killing babies. Enter our hero, Professor Theodor Escherich of the Julius Hospital, Würzburg.

Signed portrait of Theodor Escherich, MD (1857-1911). Dr. Escherich was a German-Austrian pediatrician, best known for his discovery of the Escherichia coli bacterium