You could wake me up at 3 a.m. after two hours of sleep and no memory of where or who I am and I’d still be ready to talk about squids, the possibility of Atlantis, what ancient music sounded like and why a cup of tea feels like home between my hands.
experiment goal: to determine whether smarties are an effective tea sweetener
hypothesis: smarties will sweeten the tea, but also introduce unwelcome flavor profiles due to their flavoring
procedure: procured one cup (≈12 fl oz) of Barry’s Tea Gold Blend black tea, hot. added 2/3 of a single roll of smarties candy (10 candies). wait for candies to dissolve, then stir well. tea will be sampled after stirring concludes.
addendum: control group was used. control sample consisted of one cup of the same type of tea, sweetened with white sugar. results will depend on the relative tastes of the control and smarties tea
results: smarties tea was significantly more bitter and less sweet than sugar tea. additionally, the smarties failed to dissolve in the expected manner, and when stirred, ended up breaking down into particulates that refused to dissolve.
conclusions: because of the chemical/structural makeup of smarties, they do not function well as an ad hoc tea sweetener because of their reluctance to break down. it may be the case that crushed smarties would work better, but this experiment was intended to study how normal, uncrushed smarties would work as a sweetener
the oxygen in the air that you breathe is eating you alive but you’re still here so breathe a bit more of it and exhale and go conquer the world or something just as terribly wonderful that a species dying from its own metabolism can achieve.
their arms are similar to our tongues in that their muscle fibers are oriented in three different directions
octopuses are disconcertingly strong (anecdotal evidence says that a 15 inch wide octopus was as strong as the scientist handling it)
on that note that same scientist said that when her octopuses escaped she would have to run behind them, “like cats” (paraphrased from sy montgomery’s the soul of an octopus)
aquariums have “octopus enriching programs” so they don’t get bored and fuck shit up in their tanks
they are crazy smart like. really. really fucking smart
but we can’t compare their intelligence to ours because our evolution branched from the same common ancestor so long ago we cannot comprehend how they think
it’s believed that their intelligence evolved when they lost their shell, and had to adapt to predict how countless of different prey and predators would act, how to avoid them, distract them, lure them or trick them
they visualize how other creatures are going to act, which means they have have awareness that others are individuals which is a type of consciousness but i can’t remember what it’s called right now
like, they use tools
they have distinct personalities
aquarium octopuses are socialized from a very young age and even though in the wild they are solitary creatures they become extremely friendly with enough human exposure
sometimes they dislike people for no apparent reason and will shoot water at them
they have three hearts
each of their arms has a tiny brain that controls movement and sensory input on its own i shit you not
they are color blind and yet they can camouflage their color and nobody knows how
they can change the color and texture of their skin faster than human eyes can keep up with it
great pacific octopuses are white when they are peaceful, and red when they’re excited
aquarium octopus have escaped their tanks and slithered down pipes into the ocean
escaped their tanks to eat the fish in other tanks
escaped their tanks to go fight other octopuses cuz they were bored
octopus fight club
learned how to take photographs
cost thousands of dollars by flooding new floors
they can feel, taste, and smell with their suckers and all of their skin
they enjoy tasting their food by slowly moving it through their suckers instead of shoving it in their beaks
they can rewrite their rna. no, really
the only reason why they haven’t evolved to take over as the next dominant race is because they’re doing pretty well in the ocean so there’s no need for them to adapt further
there’s a ton more but i’m so overwhelmed by love i can’ think of any at the moment i’m going to cry
read the soul of an octopus by sy mongomery no she didn’t pay me i just love octopuses so much
Also:
learned to shoot out the annoying light over the tank
hid in floor drains when caught out of their tanks by researchers
hid the shells of crabs stolen from a tank under a third, unrelated tank
Sy is a wonderful human and a great researcher. NEAq actually named a GPO after her in honor of all her work on octopuses. (Or octopi, or octopodes – they’re all correct). Definitely read that book.
Hypnotic Ultraviolet Photographs of Lush Flowers by Craig Burrows
Southern California based photographer Craig Burrows’ flower project called “UVIVF” that explores the exquisite beauty of flowers photographed with ultraviolet induced fluorescent images.
If it has been thought, there’s a multiverse for it. If it hasn’t been thought, there’s one anyways.
you want to know my climate. i have none. you demand insight to my core temperature and my core temper. they have no average. “where,” you slam your fist down, “are the records of your tides, who keeps the collection of your common sediments, which museum holds the species of your soul?”
and i say: nowhere, nobody, none.
because i am weather above the ocean and my storms cannot be predicted. you will find me in the lightless depths of waters that gave life millions of years ago, where rules are crushed under tons of air and salt. my tracks lead into the atmosphere where climate is an unknown name and clouds sing another hymn every day.
i won’t be measured in your steady units. my body may be rain-smoothed stone, but you cannot guess the earthquakes of my actions with your questions.
i have and always will be made of seasons and water, of air and soil and if i still – if i rest – it’s only to because my summer has ended to invoke autumn in me.
if you see me smile to myself: go away. it’s not meant for you, i was likely thinking about science. tell your cells to calm their powerhouses.
The universe couldn’t have expanded into a more brilliant world of simple complexity than the one we have, and it’s incredible to just think about it.
Everything we have is so wide that our minds can’t comprehend it.
An ocean is deeper than we can fathom by multiplying our own body length, how many of us to stack until we touch the dark bottom, how many to span endless water from land to land, we can’t imagine. A brain has more connections than we can take breaths, more impulses than notes we sing or words we could ever speak in three lifetimes. And even a murmuration of starlings encompasses the entire sky over our head, horizon to horizon across the field we stand on to let the rustle of millions of feathers drown out our own blood.
All of it is big and seems different, and then we learn it’s not.
We learn that the shift of water molecules is the electric jolt between neurons is the wing beat of a starling, that all roll like a wave of atoms that make us and the universe, that everything is infinitely complex and so simple.
Our world isn’t complex because its parts are. The single molecule of water, the small neuron, the lone starling – they’re simple.
It’s the chaos and the entropy of the tiniest elements, the infinite possibilities of their touches, that turn order into life and brilliance.
Moami 