herp spotted!
this little rascal is a juvenile Knight Anole, Anolis equestris
The thing about Christianity is the central myth doesn’t make any sense? I’m going to die, so someone who loves me sacrifices himself to save me. That tracks. But then they try to universalize it.
I’m going to die because of sin. Sin is disobedience to God. But God wants to forgive me, so he has to sacrifice his son. Why? He’s the aggrieved party. If he wanted to forgive me without a sacrifice, he could! It reads like the authors wanted to create a sense of obligation and didn’t think about the lore implications.
chaotic bug sketches in MS Paint ≡[。。]≡
Above: two different species of fairy bee
Bees of the genus Perdita, also known as fairy bees, are some of the smallest bees in the world. Their tiny bodies can measure as little as 1.6mm long, which is smaller than the eyes of many bumblebees and carpenter bees.
Above: a fairy bee depicted next to a carpenter bee (genus Xylocopa)
The smallest species in this genus is the mini fairy bee, Perdita minima, which is so small that it's often mistaken for an ant.
Above: Perdita minima standing next to a quarter
As this book explains:
With almost 640 species, most restricted to the southwestern USA and adjacent parts of Mexico, this genus forms a species swarm of mostly very small ground-nesting bees. One of its species, the aptly named Perdita minima, shares the record for being the smallest bee in the world at just 1/16th of an inch (1.6 millimeters) in length. Unsurprisingly, it favors similarly tiny flowers, such as those of the whitemargin sandmat (Chamaesyce albomarginata).
Above: close-ups of Perdita perpallida and Perdita heliotropii
Fairy bees are solitary, meaning that they don't form colonies or live together in hives. Each female builds her own nest by creating a small tunnel in the ground and then stocking it with pollen.
Above: a fairy bee standing on a dime and another one standing on a quarter
This article describes the nesting process in greater detail:
Fairy Bees are “mining” bees, referring to the fact that they are ground nesting bees. The females excavate tunnels in the ground somewhere within a short distance of a food source. They then visit flowers, feeding on nectar and collecting pollen on specialized hairs on their legs known as “scopae.”
The females then deliver these pollen bundles to their subterranean nests as a food source for their larva. The larva hatch, consume the pollen bundle, develop through metamorphosis into adult bees and the cycle continues.
Above: Perdita minima crawling on the antenna of a carpenter bee
Most fairy bees are specialist foragers with very short tongues, so they prefer shallow flowers. They typically fly during the summer and autumn, timing their emergence to coincide with their favorite host plant.
Above: Perdita leotola
Sources & More Info:
- Minnesota Native Bees: Fairy Bees
- Bees of the World: Genus Perdita
- Honey Bee Suite: Perdita minima, the Smallest of the Small (PDF)
- Field Guide to the Common Bees of California: Genus Perdita
- Local News Pasadena: Photographing a Nearly Microscopic Bee You've Probably Never Noticed
- iNaturalist: Fairy Bees
- Facebook: The Bees in Your Backyard
SANDMATS MENTIONED!!! WHOOOOOOOOOO!
AND it can stop on a dime! I can get you a great price on last year's model.
I hate that ‘bad dream’ just means ‘nightmare’ instead of ‘shitty quality dream.’ I had a bad dream last night. It wasn’t scary it just didn’t make a lot of narrative sense
my body is a machine that converts concerta and chinese food into my thesis
My friend gave me some concerta once. By 3 am I still wasn’t asleep so I took some benadryl and smoked a bowl, kicking off one of the weirdest trips of my life. I gained the ability to visualize microscopically tiny things and met a goblin who steals memories. Great drug.
So, Lorentz contraction. Objects moving at close to the speed of light get shorter in the direction of motion.
I did some math. At the equator, Earth’s surface is rotating at .0015c. With a circumference of 24901 mi, the equator should experience a Lorentz contraction of about 160 feet. What consequences does that have for Earth’s geometry and structure? What about objects spinning much more rapidly, such as pulsars?
I don't think it really mafuck you mean 0.15% the speed of light
HI WHAT THE FUCK
oh fuck me, it’s 300 000 km/s, not m/s
I think one of the best things I learned from my last therapist was the idea that when there's a box in your mind you need to open, you don't have to open it all the way on the first try.
what I mean is that she said "you didn't deserve <bad thing that happened to you>" and I said, "I feel like I know that intellectually, but I don't really believe it deep down". and she said, "do you think you can try to believe it just a little bit, as an experiment?" and I started crying lmao
trying to change a core belief entirely all at once is scary, especially when it exists as a protective measure. try giving yourself a cheeky bit of plausible deniability! you're just dipping your toes in the water of self-esteem, you're just having a little wade! you don't have to go swimming right away, and you can always step out if you want. (but the longer you spend in the water, the more you start to understand you're actually safe there...hm, who could have predicted this...)
so that's my advice: if there's something real and true you can't seem to believe, take some time to try and really believe it just a little bit, even if you're only pretending at first. climb the staircase one step at a time instead of trying to put one foot all the way at the top!
