mud pool fun time

Look at it look at this adorable little guy I adore these little mammal dragons

something about having arrived in technology that can depict anything and using this to wish care for someone's whose own pictures still give care. how is not art in itself, coupled with how it's all done like his paintings, like the version of Van Gogh that matters most is his lifeline, his passion, his colors.

it is august and once again another flood of biology high school and college students are soon about to start school where they will come in first contact with the infamous botany concept of the alternation of generations and once again i am going to push my dream of using local weird little prehistoric fern vittaria appalachiana to teach it. like 90% of biology things (especially animal-related things) i came in contact with in college had a demonstration of what happens when that thing fails, which is really effective in teaching why a certain thing is important, but there was nothing for the alternation of generations even though in my experience its one of the hardest things for people to learn, just because the points of reference you can use teaching animal science do not exist in the same way in plant science. the Dude is perfect for the job please biology TAs consider the opportunities, i want to make a video on it because i have Thoughts but in the meantime im just throwing it out there

things which happen when your sporophyte gets deleted (as we know from vittaria appalachiana):

-no more dispersal. the populations that exist and remnants from the ice age when the plants still had a life phase that could release spores onto the wind. these plants notably do not inhabit suitable human structures like mosses or other ferns do because those structures are literally out of the rainwater splash zone and they have no other way to travel and have been living in the same cave or rocky overhang for 60 million years

-can only live in the same cave or rocky overhang for 60 million years (delicate and sensitive to temperature and moisture changes outside their microhabitat)

-no more sexual reproduction at all and therefore no more sporophytes to help make new spores to make more genetically diverse gametophytes, meaning that all the plants at any given population area are genetically identical. even if they could go outside the rainwater splash zone, they dont have the mutations to let them adapt to new situations and are therefore STILL stuck in the 60 million year old cave or rock formation. personally i can see this happening as a result of all the sporophytes dying out, leaving only the ones with asexual reproduction to survive

-haploid, not diploid, but like...eternally stuck like that. the whole point of having a version of a gene from each parent is so one can cover the other if it's better adapted or something is horribly wrong, but when you only have one copy of your genome you HAVE to express it even if something horrible has happened, which is terrible for like...long-term survival, unless you live in a cave and just make exact copies of yourself (conserving all the genes that work forever) and you've been living like that for 60 million years (NOTE: i still cannot figure out if this plant is actually diploid or not, but from what i can tell from reading about it, it's haploid like any other fern gametophyte, and it wouldnt make sense if it was diploid)

these are my huge brained points that sound really complicated but imagine it as a little splash while talking about alternation of generations at large, so people have some context and then learn what happens when it doesn't exist anymore. biology departments hire me

[ID: A digital drawing of a little market stand with the sign "Emotional Support Werewolf" with a heart either side of the word werewolf. Two signs on the stand read "she/they" and "BuffWuff", and the body of the stand says "The werewolf is: IN". Behind the stall sits a very large black wolf with grey fur accents. She is twice as tall as the market stall, her paws crossed on the desk, and her fur is drawn to look very soft /End ID]

Reblog if you’re 30 or older

This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!

Join us; we have snacks!

Over 30, yeah. :)

Tatiana Maslany wearing a shirt that says ‘SUPPORT TRANS FUTURES’ on it to promote She-Hulk for Marvel Studios and Disney, and therefore forcing them to have that on their social medias for the world to see, including who knows how many queer kids and their guardians, is fucking awesome and I thank her for that.

walking through the house at 3am with a blanket wrapped around me and immediately forgetting what the fuck i came down to the kitchen for

like people are just going to keep saying "theyre only queer because they want to be/because it gets them off/because they think it's fun/because they saw a queer person and thought it sounded like a good idea/etc". theyre gonna keep saying it.

and we are going to have to stop desperately scrambling to say noooo, they have to be like that, they have no choice, they wouldn't be like this if they didnt have to. we HAVE to stop falling all over ourselves assuring straight people and transphobes that we hate being us as much as they hate us being us, that we are suffering and that's why we deserve this decadence and deviancy. we HAVE to start saying "yeah ok and?"

being queer is a delight. deviant sex makes people really happy. being genderfucky is joyful. queerness CAN actually be an option you can choose, and that doesn't make it worth less than if you only picked it with a gun to your head, because it is a good option and there are good reasons to pick it.

we have to stop shifting the goalpost to "we can't help being like this". the point is that being like this is good. being queer is good, whether you chose it on purpose or whether you only moonlight or whether you do it because it gets you off or because it's fun and freeing or because you have been this way since you were born. queerness does not need to be earned or justified by an inability to be """normal""". if you are being queer that is good because being queer is good.

From different breeds of chickens, the natural colors of egg shells, so lovely! <3

Do love the colors of the eggs?

saw this in my periphery and thought it was the lesbian flag

reblog for lesbian chickens

Anti-revenge narrative this, anti-revenge narrative that, I personally think that Inigo Montoya had the right idea when he stabbed Count Rugen in the gut and said "I want my father back, you son of a bitch"

A lot of revenge arcs end with the hero saying "there's nothing you can do to bring my loved one back, so me seeking revenge is pointless." The Princess Bride's revenge arc ends with Inigo Montoya saying "there's nothing you can do to bring my loved one back, so there's nothing that can save you."

Ohara Koson (1877-1945)

How to Ride a Werewolf

Now remember, a lady rides sidesaddle, NOT astride. Your mother would be in hysterics at the very idea that a daughter of hers would ride a werewolf astride! Why, next you’ll be showing ankle…

That’s not how you ride a werewolf ill show you how to ride a werewolf !!

Jellyfish larvae (baby jellyfish)

Imagine if snowflakes were alive and moving