If giraffes were predators they would look both hilarious and terrifying while sneaking up on their prey
I’m afraid you’ve missed the predatory giraffes by about 66 million years mate.
These guys are Azhdarchid pterosaurs, and they were some of the strangest reptiles to ever exist. They were perfectly capable of flight, but their physiology suggests that they may have spent a significant portion of their lives hunting on the ground.
The largest of them could reach over 5 metres tall while standing, and had a 10-metre wingspan. They varied greatly in body type, from the tall, spindly forms of Quetzalcoatlus and Arambourgiania (images 4 and 1-2 respectively) to the heavy brute strength of Hatzegopteryz, a species that may have used its head to bludgeon its prey (images 2 and 3).
There has never been another flying animal before or since to have reached such incredible sizes, nor any predator so intimidatingly tall. Well, not any that we know of yet.
All of these illustrations are by Mark Witton, a palaeontologist and artist who specialises in pterosaurs. This is his blog about palaeontology and the science of reconstructing extinct species. You can find out more about each of these images here, here and here.
(Oh, and by the way … these are NOT dinosaurs)
What the hell these are so intimidating, why aren’t these in any dinosaur movies
Just imagine it …
The protagonists and a few disposable minor characters are walking carefully through a forest at night, covered by a thick fog. They know there are dinosaurs everywhere, but they can’t see more than three metres in front of their own faces.
Eventually they stop near a small cluster of trees to rest. As they sit there, exhausted, one of the trees begins to move. Everyone freezes, terrified. They have no idea what this thing is.
Then a massive beak slams down, longer than a person is tall, and plucks one of the minor characters off his feet and into the air.
The small group erupts into movement, frantically running away from whatever those things are. There’s two of them now, and as the fog begins to clear the group are able to make out more of their shape. They are huge, with long, spindly necks topped with a massive, daggerlike head. The long legs that they once mistook for trees have an almost mechanical movement as the giant creatures stalk towards them. And then comes the next terrible surprise.
the reason why snakes don’t have arms or legs is bc they lost their sonic the hedgehog gene
this sounds like an awful shitpost but its really not the sonic the hedgehog gene is an actual gene and snakes lost this gene hundreds of millions of years ago as they evolved
As an Arctic researcher, I’m used to gaps in data. Just over 1% of US Arctic waters have been surveyed to modern standards. In truth, some of the maps we use today haven’t been updated since the second world war. Navigating uncharted waters can prove difficult, but it comes with the territory of working in such a remote part of the world.
Over the past two months though, I’ve been navigating a different type of uncharted territory: the deleting of what little data we have by the Trump administration.
At first, the distress flare of lost data came as a surge of defunct links on 21 January. The US National Strategy for the Arctic, the Implementation Plan for the Strategy, and the report on our progress all gone within a matter of minutes. As I watched more and more links turned red, I frantically combed the internet for archived versions of our country’s most important polar policies.
I had no idea then that this disappearing act had just begun.
Since January, the surge has transformed into a slow, incessant march of deleting datasets, webpages and policies about the Arctic. I now come to expect a weekly email request to replace invalid citations, hoping that someone had the foresight to download statistics about Arctic permafrost thaw or renewable energy in advance of the purge.
You know how people always lament the burning of the library of Alexandria? All that lost knowledge? How much greater civilization could’ve been if such knowledge hadn’t been destroyed?
The Stanford prison experiment tapes were so stupid when I watched them in AP psych and so stupid when I watch this film about them. Literally they could’ve all sat and played cards and got $15 a day to tell ghost stories all day and be best friends. But masculinity and whiteness and power created this violent irrationality that positioned young ass men to be met with brutality and trauma and disrespect even when it was obviously taken too far. and it makes no sense. If someone put me in a room with Black girls and said I would get paid $90 a day (that’s the equivalent apparently) to be a prison guard, do you know how fast I’d be sitting with them and learning about them and exchanging Instagrams and like.. sleeping.. like what the fuck was the point of any of that…
My psych teacher introduced us to this study and literally before she showed us was like “don’t ever confuse a study based on one type of person (white men/boys) to be an example of an Everyman situation. There is strong evidence that if this was recreated with diversity, or even just with girls, that the results would have been drastically different. This is an example of bias and sexism in the medical research community.”
“Other, more subtle factors also shaped the experiment. It’s often said that the study participants were ordinary guys—and they were, indeed, determined to be “normal” and healthy by a battery of tests. But they were also a self-selected group who responded to a newspaper advertisement seeking volunteers for “a psychological study of prison life.” In a 2007 study, the psychologists Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland asked whether that wording itself may have stacked the odds. They recreated the original ad, and then ran a separate ad omitting the phrase “prison life.” They found that the people who responded to the two ads scored differently on a set of psychological tests. Those who thought that they would be participating in a prison study had significantly higher levels of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance, and they scored lower on measures of empathy and altruism.”
The thing about this study is that whether or not it’s generalizable to the public is debatable at best.
But it’s certainly generalizable to the population of people who tend to be drawn to prison system and law enforcement jobs because that’s exactly the demographics that tend to show up in those positions.
“But it’s certainly generalizable to the population of people who tend to be drawn to prison system and law enforcement jobs because that’s exactly the demographics that tend to show up in those positions.”
“It asked ‘Do you really know yourself’ and asked for men to take part in a social science experiment to be shown on TV. It warned that the research would be a challenge and involve ‘hardship, hunger, solitude, anger’.
In the case of the BBC Prison Experiment, the mock prison did not devolve into the torturous, abusive hellishness of the Stanford Prison Experiment–even though the experimenters very deliberately attempted to create conditions that would destroy cohesion among the prisoners and encourage authoritarian behavior from the guards. Prisoners were told that they might be able to be promoted to guardhood in an effort to keep them divided, shaved upon entry to the prison, and the guards were encouraged to create the rules of the prison and enforce them in any way they saw fit.
Because food–both quantity and quality–were very salient and powerful status treatment differences in the prison, there was almost immediately a showdown over food. (Prisoners were fed much, much smaller and worse-tasting food than the guards, and indeed prisoners were made to serve the guards their meals and watch them eat in part so everyone would be aware of these status issues.)
The guards almost immediately felt guilty and attempted to share their sausages with the prisoners by giving them the guards’ leftovers… and the prisoners immediately go “not until we consult with the other prisoners,” and then collectively decide to refuse absolutely to take small rewards from guards in lieu of the right to good food.
Guards tried repeatedly throughout the study to get prisoners to see them as basically equal, bar the circumstances of their current positions; prisoners instead repeatedly pointed out the actual circumstances of their current situation placed them at very different power levels indeed and insisted that guards actually change the system in order to make the conditions fair and equal. In general, prisoners quickly and collectively exploited the guards’ shame at the unequal conditions in order to receive fair treatment.
At this point, out of curiosity, the experimenters introduced a new prisoner into the system, one who had been trained as a trades unionist…
….and this unionist prisoner quickly chose to approach a disaffected guard, empathize with his unhappiness, and turn the blame for the situation at the unequal and unfair conditions set in the prison. Those conditions, of course, were set not by the guards–they were set by the experimenters. The very first thing, then, that this unionist does is build bridges to unify all the people in the prison.
Prisoners steal the guards’ keys; guards choose instead of “cracking down” or punishing the prisoners to ask politely for the prisoners to help them find the keys, and cheerfully accept them when provided. This gives prisoners leverage for a negotiation, which is then deftly picked up by the experienced negotiator (although not without some pushback from another charismatic and decisive prisoner).
Here’s what the negotiator had to say:
Negotiations begin. pDM outlines the forum proposal. One of the Guards points out that the Prisoners are asking to be rewarded for stealing the keys. pDM responds by outlining a stark choice. Certainly the Guards can refuse to accept his plan, but the alternative is a return to conflict: “It’ll not be the keys tomorrow, it’ll be something else. It’s a game. All I’m saying is that there is a way to resolve that game”.
pDM is confident. He knows he speaks for the Prisoners. The Guards, even in their own mess, are despondent. They know that they can’t handle the Prisoners. And so they accept the new order. Even if they have given up much of their power, at least this system might work and offer them some respite:
gTM: I’m in high spirits after that. gBG: It actually went alright. This geezer is alright. We can all deal with him.
At this point, experimenters withdrew the negotiator to see what would happen to the egalitarian vision he set out. As it turned out, the prisoners peacefully overthrew the rule of guards (by, effectively, mounting a sitdown protest in the guard’s sanctuary) and decided instead to organize an egalitarian commune for the remainder of the experiment.
so OP’s really not that far off the mark!
So literally the only thing the Stanford experiment proved is “all cops are bastards,” and the followup demonstrated that, in the absence of bastards, socialism works?
At least eight islands in the Pacific have already disappeared because of rising sea levels. Over the next century many communities, including my family, will be displaced and lose their ancestral lands and foundation of their cultural practices. Trump removing the US from the Paris Agreement, taking climate change off the National Security Strategy, and repealing the Clean Power Plan is a slap in the face and to me, intensely personal. PLEASE contact your representatives regarding climate change and taking steps to counteract the potentially irreversible harm Trump is doing to our planet.
I am working on setting up an online store in the next month or so and it will include all of my Disney Resists prints! 10% of everything in my shop will go to the ACLU and other civil rights groups putting in the time this past year 💛
honey is the only food product that never spoils. there are pots of honey that are over five thousand years old and still completely edible
i also want to point out we know it tastes the same even after thousands of years b/c archaeologists who discovered two thousand year old honey tasted it. presumably right after they looked at each other and went “what the hell here goes nothing”
I’m pretty sure they also identify human remains by taste. Archaeologists are straight up freaks.
No, no no… you identify bone from rock or other substances by touching it to your tongue. If it sticks, it’s bone. The taste itself has nothing to do with it. And most archaeologists won’t lick human bones if they know they’re human.
…and I realize that doesn’t actually do much to prove archaeologists aren’t freaks.
mai nam is jane and wen i dig i fynde some roks both smol and big i put my tung upon the stone for science yes i lik the bone
“this baby came out of you but im not 100% sure its yours”
Funny thing – a woman who applied for welfare after her husband left her hadto supply DNA evidence he was actually the father. The results: he was definitely the father, but she wasn’t the mother. Her children were removed from her custody and she was sued for fraud, even though she insisted they were her children.
Turns out, she wasn’t a surrogate or a kidnapper (the two most obvious explanations) – she was a chimera. As an embryo, she fused at a very early stage with her twin, forming one individual. Her ovaries apparently developed from cells that had originally belonged to her vanished twin. Later on more tests showed that while the woman’s skin and hair DNA did not match her childrens, DNA taken from her cervix did.
WHAT THE FUCk
This went from stupid to really interesting in point 5 seconds.
There’s multiple cases of this very thing
Idk weird stuff man
Science doing random shit to fuck with your head
We don’t actually know how many human chimeras there are because most of the time you can’t tell.
However, some cases of intersex and even some trans individuals may be chimeras that result from the fusion of two embryos that have different genetic sex. This may also explain why some female athletes fail a sex test. (Other possibilities include genetic transcription that resulted in the loss of the SRY gene from the Y chromosome. The SRY gene is the actual switch that results in the development of a male phenotype).
Chimerism is also seen in animals.
This is Dunbar’s Gold. As you can see he looks like a brindle dog.
At one point he was bred to a mare called Sharp One, who also had the same brindle pattern, in the hope that they could breed more brindle horses – which are vanishingly rare.
Both horses are Quarter Horses, and the breeder sent in a gene sample from the foal for typing to allow him to be registered.
The test showed that the foal was related to neither his sire nor his dam.
They even did the test twice. Most cases of failed genetic testing are a sample mixup (either the hair or the semen used to produce the foal).
It turned out Dunbar’s Gold had had to be tested three times to get a good sample – and the third time was a blood test not the hair follicle test normally done. On top of that, when they looked at his gene type again they realized something rather important to a stallion was missing – he had no Y chromosome.
It was eventually established that both horses were chimeras and that in Dunbars Gold two different gene types existed in his skin and coat (one male, one female, just to prove that happens). Each gene line had a different set of color genes, but both matched properly to his parents. His foals, of course, all matched to the male gene line.
When they tested Sharp One’s other foal they discovered she was producing eggs from both of her gene lines. (Something which could also happen with a human chimera).
remember being little and thinking dandelions were fun or a pretty color or something and every adult in an 80 mile radius wouldn’t let you say that without screaming ITS A WEED
also like:
dandelions are edible, easy to grow, and are rich in vitamins a, c, k, beta-carotene, calcium, iron, manganese, and potassium
dandelions can be made into wine, tea, soft drinks, and a coffee substitute
they are used in herbal remedies to treat liver and digestive problems and as a diuretic
they’re good for bees!
they make good companion plants for various herbs and tomatoes; their long taproot helps bring up nutrients in the soil and they release ethylene gas which ripens fruit
dandelions secrete latex which means they can be used to make natural rubber
they make great flower crowns
Why ARE they considered a weed? They’re a good flower? Who decided they were bad? =(
You can also make beautiful jelly from the blossoms!
They’re considered weeds because they were a poor person resource and not having them was a status symbol.
Let’s back up.
In Europe dating back to the 1500’s and even earlier, you could only have immaculate manicured lawns if you had just pots of money and were able to own land. So, rich nobility had swaths of land, and they demonstrated their wealth and power by hiring people to physically cut the grass and keep their gardens and dig weeds out of the turf by hand. It was a demonstration of money and power. It said “I can afford to have eight people employed full time just to dig things that aren’t grass out of my grass. I can afford to have all of this land doing nothing. It’s not producing food. People don’t farm it or live on it. I can afford to just grow grass, and have someone tend to that wholly useless crop.”
Fast forward a few hundred years. Europeans come to America. Many of them are from the poorer classes in Europe. Many have never owned land before, and now all of a sudden they can (because they stole it from the Native Americans but that’s a whole other rant.)
Now, at first you see little cottage gardens like the lower classes in Europe always had around their homes; places where they grew food and herbs and kept chickens or other livestock. Dandelions were welcome here; they were eaten and brewed into wine and used for medicine, just as they’d been for centuries.
But then people start making a little money, and we have the whole phenomenon of people who can demonstrate that they are Moving Up In The World by buying all of their food and medicine, just like the old landed gentry back in the Old Country. So they do. What goes in the place of those cottage gardens? Why, the same thing that went in the place of productive land back in the Earl of Chatsworth’s front lawn; a lawn.
So. Dandelions were a symbol. They were a throwback to the old days. They were a sign that you were somehow less prosperous than your neighbors, or lazier. (A Mortal Sin in America.) But, many Americans work, and can’t afford to hire a gardener just to grub dandelions out of the yard with a trowel all day.
Enter the lawn care industry, which began to market a dizzying array of poisons and fertilizers aimed at making your lawn a sterile moonscape where only grass grew with minimum effort from the homeowner. This continues to this day and is a multibillion dollar industry that has huge negative impacts on the environment and human health, but we can’t seem to shake that old ideal of a manicured lawn.
We pour water on deserts and poison on native wildflowers to attain it. We expose our children to poisons. We poison pollinators and pets. The days where we recognized a well kept lawn as a symbol of aristocratic leisure are gone, but we’ve been successfully fed a lie that some dandelions and chickweed are Bad by the lawn care industry in their ads for decades. They, obviously, want to keep it going because they’re making fat $$$$$$$ off of us.
THAT’S why dandelions are viewed as weeds.
Also yeah dandelions are really good for bees, and beloved by native bees and honeybees alike. So please, leave them blooming!! You can support bees and do your bit to smash capitalistic exploitation of the working class and the environment all in one go!
who was the fool who was tasked with naming the galaxy and the only adjective they could think of was ‘mmmmmmmmmmmmilky…’
scientist: (gazing up at space) scientist: ……….. it sure is a milky boy
NO
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
ASTRONOMERS ARE THE SHITTIEST EVER AT NAMING THINGS I KID YOU NOT.
When it came time to name the two theoretical particle types that might be dark matter THEY INTENTIONALLY CHOSE THE NAMES SO THAT THE ACRONYMS WOULD SPELL “WIMPS” AND “MACHOS” I SHIT YOU NOT
THEY ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT NAMING ANYTHING
I just listened to a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself LAST NIGHT and he went on about this more than once.
“I’m walking down the street and I’m like ‘ooh pretty rock…’ and some Geologist is like ‘actually, that’s anorthosite feldspar’ and I’m like ‘Nevermind, I don’t want it anymore.’ Any biologists in the audience? [some clapping] Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The most important molecule in the human body, what did you name it? It has NINE SYLLABLES and it’s so long that even YOU GUYS abbreviate it as ‘DNA’!
But astrophysicists and astronomers? No, man, we call it like we see it. Star made of neutrons? NEUTRON STAR. Small white star? WHITE DWARF. You know that big red spot on Jupiter? Know what we called it? JUPITER’S RED SPOT.”
okay i’m glad you mentioned the biologist nonsense bc their naming methods are the bane of my existence
I see your astrophysicists-are-shit-at-names and raise you Marine-Biologists-Are-Fucking-Maniacs.
See this beautiful creature?
It’s a carnivorous deep-sea sponge that lives off of Easter Island and never sees the light of day, as it’s about 9000 feet down. Those delicate-looking orbs are covered in millions of tiny hooked spines, which latch onto anything unfortunate enough to bump into it, and hold it in place as it is digested alive by the sponge’s skin. Amazing, beautiful and profoundly creepy. They could have given it so many cool names. Could have drawn on mythology (I think Scylla would have been an appropriate reference), the region it was found in, the textured skin, PHAGOCYTOSIS, anything!
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