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This snake morph guide is just meant to explain some basics of morphs. I would caution anyone in buying a pet that takes a high level of care just because it's pretty, and frankly any breeder that continues to breed morphs with physiological and neurological defects should be put out of business. I did my best as I find this interesting and believe there's a lot of misinformation out there due to people trying to literally sell things to their audience.
I included some links if you would like additional reading. They range from a study on captive care management, studies I could find relevant to the severe issue morphs, and some general on snake color and scales.
guys i just found out about this site that does a daily guessing game, it’s phylogenetic wordle- so fun!!!
Something I realized was worth keeping in mind lately: your body doesn’t just keep the score on trauma, you know.
Like we’re starting to give some lipservice to the idea that trauma, that stress and harm and damage, live in our “bodies” even if we don’t consciously/cognitively acknowledge them, but there’s two small problems with this idea.
One is the idea that there is a brain-body split, because there isn’t. Your brain, the place where your cognition occurs, is just another part of your body. Your conscious memory is also part of your body keeping the score. I could go on about this for a while, but I’ll refrain for now.
Because almost more important to this issue is that your body also keeps all the other scores.
The smell that calms you down. The fact that you feel better after a big hug. The way your favourite kind of tea helps ground you. The sudden joy at a particular song.
All of these things also live in your body. Your comfort food being comfort food is a score your body is keeping. How to read. The comfort of a warm bed. All of that knowledge lives in your body, in its memory too.
Hey! I have a plan and a question as growing season gets closer and you're about the only Solarpunk person I feel comfortable asking this to, but for context, there's a park across the street from my apartments and they built a waterpark on part of it, but all the trucks and stuff left this large spot that collects and holds water pretty often I want to plant some semi-wetland wildflowers there, but my main concern is the plants getting mowed down once they start growing. Is there anything you think I could do to stop it?
👀👀 oh shit I’m The Solarpunk Gardener now
I haven’t done a lot of guerrilla gardening so I can’t speak from personal experience but I would think there’s a handful of things you could do to prevent mowing, mostly by making the area look as Intentional and Official as possible. This could likely include things like
- Making a sign. Something to name the garden, something like ‘abcxyz park wildflower garden’ or something to make it seem official or at least notable.
- Surround it with stones, I guess like paver stones or just Large Rocks. Or just in general something to signal ‘don’t mow here’ like wood beams or something. I doubt someone on a riding lawnmower or a push mower would dedicate the time to push/move it all aside (unless directly told to) and would instead just skirt around it. It could help if you added mulch as well maybe? They also sell like little short fences/borders and edging at places like Lowes or Home Depot that could maybe work too
- If you’re feeling funky maybe you could make a walking path through it? Make it look even more Intentional and Official. I think that would make it a Several Night Operation instead of just a one night thing, but it would make it look official and encourage people to enjoy the space. I’m thinking a path made of like. Pebbles or something at this point.
That’s all I can think of at the moment. Maybe if anyone else has ideas, they can chime in?
Best of luck on your project! Rooting for you!
Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.
(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)
Look. There's a creek near where I live that has its own volunteer non-profit organization.
It's just one creek. One trickle of water among millions. But people decided to care about that creek. A bunch of people, volunteers, got together and they cleaned several tons of trash out of the creek.
They got to work removing non-native plants from the creek banks and planting native trees.
They got a nearby water treatment plant to upgrade and stop polluting the creek.
They educate people and tell them about the fish and invertebrates that live in creeks and why they should care.
I think that it matters. I think that making sure your community has clean water matters. I think making sure one specific old lady's house doesn't flood matters. I think one stream where fish can live again matters. I think one patch of green space in a downtown area matters. If nothing else, it makes people's lives less shitty, and that's worthwhile in itself.
Stop asking "how do I save the world?" Start asking "can I get together several people to clean up that creek downtown?"
Daily fish fact #690
Danionella translucida!
One of the smallest fish in the world, this fish is nearly completely transparent save for some melanophores on its body and its organs. This species is so small, in fact, that a part of its skull is open and it has one of the smallest brain of any known adult vertebrate!
Deep-sea mom life
For decades, marine biologists assumed that all squids laid their eggs in clusters on the seafloor, where the eggs developed and hatched without any help from their parents. However, MBARI scientists discovered that some female deep-sea squid, like this Gonatus onyx, brood their eggs by carrying them between their arms until the young hatch and swim away. Gonatus females will have approximately 2,000 to 3,000 eggs in a sheath between their arms for as long as nine months. During this time they are unable to feed and must rely on stored fats from previous meals. This observation of the first known parental care behavior by squid was also an important discovery made possible by the use of MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles.
I see a lot of people assume cockroaches are beetles, but just fyi they're not even close! They don't have hardened wing cases or a larval stage, and in many respects are more comparable to a cricket, but they aren't in that group either. Their only direct relatives are preying mantises! Termites were also once considered close to cockroaches, but then it was proven termites just literally are cockroaches.