ideal existence

Well my week has been exciting so far.

I had some other work to do this morning (Figuring out some algae stuff involving 1000 L mesocosm up a mountain) so mystery species has been sitting alone in the lab all morning…..

Made it up to the lab today to find this. It’s probably from the fridge defrosting and not the creepy “algae”.

June 13th Update.

According to a few colleagues it’s either a plant, an algae, or a fungi. So that’s been helpful.

After a day with some sunlight I think I might be seeing some chloroplasts.

It seems to like the nutrient solution I added yesterday though!

I for one welcome our new plant, algae, or fungi overlords.

I was about to say “in a sensible lab people wouldn’t waste time with this, they’d autoclave the bottles and move on” but on reflection I can’t think of a single bio lab I’ve been in that wouldn’t immediately go “ooh, mystery algae, that sounds like a fun challenge; let’s devote multiple hours to identifying it for no reason”.

Have you done 18S sequencing on it? It would be really cool to see where it fits into a phylogenetic tree?

It’s not a real diversion until your colleagues mention it to someone in another lab, and they don’t work on algae per se but they do work on an organism that accumulates algae in their tank so maybe they know something, and now you’ve got a half dozen people waiting in line for the scope and two more behind you looking at some obscure algae index the PI had laying around.

All of this leads to very little progress but for the next week people will ask you how the algae is doing.

Sperm whale mimics a spinning diver.

Humans: *encounters Earth’s Largest Carnivore, who would could swallow them whole, probably*

Human: … Spin?

Earth’s largest carnivore, with a brain that weighs almost as much as this naked beach ape*: SPIN!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SPERM WHALES ARE CARNIVORES

I THOUGHT THEY ATE KRILL AND STUFF LIKE OTHER WHALES

Nope! Sperm whales eat extremely large deep-sea squids, like the Giant and Colossal Squids. They have also been known to opportunistically eat dead whales, sharks, and seals, but not actively hunt them. They got real big teeth for it too:

However, they only have teeth on thier bottom jaw!  they have corresponding holes in their top jaw for the teeth to lock into, which makes hanging onto a slippery, boneless squid:

It should be noted that the human here isn’t in particular danger of being eaten on purpose, but an accidental swing of it’s multi-ton head, a clip from the teeth, or being directly in the line of it’s sonar could seriously injure or kill them- Divers that have been in the direct line of echolocation for a sperm whale calf have described being hit with the soundwave like “being kicked by a horse” and some have suffered internal organ damage.  Sperm whales, like other large whales, aren’t particularly aggressive towards humans, but they are still very large wild animals who behave in unpredictable ways.

I know that in US waters, it’s illegal to intentionally come within 300 yards of any whale or dolphin, and if one appears closer you should turn off your engine or stop paddling to avoid accidental injury to you or it.  This human is doing something dangerous and ill-advised, but it’s still hopeful that we can love something like a 130,000 lb deep-diving, squid-eating Oceanic former ungulate.

self care is eating mangos

I hate mangoes

oh die then

i’m so glad the universe let me meet you

hot bitches still use their hands to determine right from left

acting like ‘everytime we touch’ is the only cascada song that bangs is ‘evacuate the dancefloor’ erasure

cascada walked so carly rae jepson could run

romeo and juliet didn’t drink poison they drank flat tummy tea and died

Jameela Jamil ghostwrote this post

i was the most

beautiful poem

but you were jared,

master has passed dobby the blunt

I can’t say the word croissant, ive never pronounced it correctly in my entire life. my worst nightmare is bein on a first date w/ someone and having to say the word croissant for some reason. Id just go home

Oh my fucking god god god god god i just found the funniest picture while deep into google images

I gotta ask, what were you searching for that you dug up such a gem?

It was honestly something like “fucking Bingo boy when the binga bonga bling” i can tell you exactly when i get home

when someone thinks you’re cool

pebble: finally… after 6 million long years I have finally washed up on shore. no longer am I a slave to the tides, no long-

me [picking up pebble and chucking it into the ocean]: haha sploosh

What in God’s name is business casual

Thanks I got the job!