Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Find in library • DRM-free audiobook • BARD

As I hoped back in December, last month I found enough brain to tackle An Immense World by Ed Yong. I was convinced by pauraque’s extensive summary and review, and the 24 days I spent reading were a pure delight. Ed Yong is a great narrator: he fluently pronounces the Neo-Latinate species names as well as the international assortment of human researchers. He somehow manages not to giggle at his own (frequent) jokes.

He wildly succeeds at explaining the distinctive sensory worlds of many of our planet’s inhabitants. Along the way, he explores how scientists design experiments to pin down how, for example, a scallop sees or a leafhopper senses vibrations. He tells the truth that our current understanding is not necessarily the whole answer — that science means change. So much of the current state of the art began as theories mocked by the scientific establishment.

Yong is keenly aware of human as well as animal variety. When addressing the senses, he fluently acknowledges that not humans all have a standard complement—for example, his researchers are described as sighted when that’s relevant. He consciously seeks out women and non-binary researchers, as explained in his 2018 Atlantic article "I Spent Two Years Trying to Fix the Gender Imbalance in My Stories -- Here’s what I’ve learned, and why I did it.".

Most importantly, he’s such a good writer. He clearly loves his subject, and he plays with formal and informal registers. He provides enough detail to enthrall while lightly alternating between technical explanations and emotional delights. He organizes the books by sense, and each one almost stands alone. It helped that I gave myself permission to read for enjoyment, not trying to remember the details because there is no test. I'm looking forward to rereading it.

I do recall some stunning facts:

• Scallops have many eyes — from a dozen to more than 200.
• Owls have asymmetrical ears, enabling them to locate sounds both horizontally and vertically.
• Some creatures use the Earth’s very weak electromagnetic field to navigate—but we don’t know how. The signal is so subtle that it’s not contemporaneous: the whales, birds, and turtles must travel several miles before they can know if they’re headed in the right direction.

He starts with dogs, guaranteeing sympathy from half his readership. (I was charmed by references to his own Corgi pup, Typo.) In this 350-word excerpt, he introduces the canine olfaction expert, Alexandra Horowitz, and her dog Finnegan:

( Read more... )

The warnings were dire, but so far we've only had 4-5 inches on the ground. The snow is very heavy and wet and it's barely freezing. That's good news on the street, where it rapidly melts. It's sad news in the backyard, where thick snow brought down three branches on our oldest pine tree, which blocked the street behind our house. Thank heavens for neighbors with chainsaws.

Earlier in the day, MyGuy and Bella went exploring on the bike path. It's a tunnel of white: snow covers the path itself, all the vegetation on the sides, and weighs down the branches of the trees and bushes. Since our black mutt Bella is certain there's something exciting just ahead, her leash is stretching forward into the future.

( click for pic )

Fifty four pounds of majestic deep brown and black muttlying in a bright spot

( Click for pic )

It's often been said (even by me) that the Corgi phenotype is so strong that when Corgis create mixed breed dogs, they look like "Corgis in costumes."

I'm delighted to report there's a Reddit sub devoted entirely to pictures of these costumed wonders: no matter whether the outgroup dog is a chihuahua or a husky, the dog has a long body, short legs, and a definite attitude.
https://reddit.com/r/incorgnito
No login required to admire

If you saw a cornstarch slurry in science class -- often called "oobleck" -- you've experienced a "non-Newtonian liquid." That's a substance which changes its structure based on pressure. A local industrial pump manufacturer does a lovely job explaining the varieties:
https://blog.craneengineering.net/what-are-newtonian-and-non-newtonian-fluids

I found this after rabbit-holing for a post on gluten-free gravy.
https://gluten-free.dreamwidth.org/55497.html

Nursing Clio continues to deliver accessible historical perspective on the social impacts of medicine, in this case, Black nurses during the US Vietnam war:

[Elizabeth Allen]’s motivation for joining the war effort came from the same deep well of solidarity within the Black community that produced the anti-War activism of Angela Davis and Malcolm X. Allen expanded on her ideological justification for volunteering: “It’s not for me to decide as to the rightness or the wrongness of the war, my decision was what was the best possible care I could give.”

Subscribe to nursingclio_feed

china_shop, who I met oh so long ago in due South fandom before Dreamwidth, came up with a rousing fannish pub-quiz style game — you can play on your next Zoom call!

https://fictional-fans.dreamwidth.org/72400.html

skygiants muses about the fanfic trope "forced to work together" and the optimistic hope that humans can love each other just for that.

https://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/602008.html

fail_fandomanon is an anon community where hundreds of posts and comments appear daily. I visit the 6-year-old Dreamwidth edition maybe yearly. Its purpose and culture is mysterious to me. Here's a Fanlore attempt to describe it https://fanlore.org/wiki/Failfandom_anon

Enter erinptah, who must read closely to gather these non-wanky, in fact, intriguing discussions under the fail-fandomanon tag: https://erinptah.dreamwidth.org/tag/fail-fandomanon

One hundred seventy-seven days ago, Bella was in the vet ER suffering through a ton of tests. She was eventually diagnosed with primary immune mediated hemolytic anemia. She's taken several paper bags worth of meds, including cortisone and cyclosporine. We hit on hotdogs as the premier treat to get her to swallow her meds, after trying almond butter, peanut butter, and canned chicken. We tapered off the cortisone last month and today we learned her latest blood work is so good we can halve her cyclosporine.

So much good news!

• The hair is starting to grow back on her belly. That belly is big again since she's up to 51 pounds (only four more to go).
• She has energy and enthusiasm and she's ready for spring.
• Almost all the warts have gone, with some dried up holdouts generating copious dandruff (of course it's also blowing-her-coat season).
• She continues to be an excellent role model for me by conserving energy when she needs to. Now she's feeling up to visiting with dog park users (both canine and human).
• She's digging toys out of her basket and squeaking.
• She's doing zoomies around the living room.

ForeverStamp.com
is "a little web site designed to make your life simpler by tracking the price of a stamp by Christopher Maxwell."

Since 2007, the United States Postal Service had been selling a non-denominated stamp for first class postage. It’s labelled the forever stamp, and it insulates casual mailers from thinking about the cost to send a letter.

While the stamp doesn’t list its value, you can still use it, at its current price, to mail other items. Finding anything is challenging at the official USPS official home—this site provides a convenient alternative, as well as the stamp’s history and answers to questions you didn’t know you had.

tl;dr (Don’t stockpile more than a year’s worth.)

I just learned about USPS Dogs, a Facebook group where critter-loving postal carriers show pictures of friends (canine, feline, equine, etc) they meet on the job.

In the cut: a pair of human hands holds a small gray and white dog above a patch of snow. The dog has stubby legs, random black speckles, white-blue irises, a longer-than typical bulldog-like nose, and huge erect ears (larger than their head). I suspect it’s the result of a lively encounter between an Australian Cattle Dog and an English Bulldog.

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If you need a snort-giggle, thefourthvine's hilarious "I Need A Sweet Potato" essay

https://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html backup

has been podficced by a conspiracy of EuroPodders

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21562057

I really loved Have Dog, Will Travel—Stephen Kuusisto ( 5 of 5 )

( excerpts )

45-minute audio of author interview with Charity Nebbe, Talk of Iowa public radio

Scores of guide-dog related posts from Kuusisto’s blog include early drafts of the book

Everyone who loves a dog wants the animal, whether pet or work companion, to enjoy as many years as possible. Learning the whys behind the length and strength of dogs’ lifespans has become the impetus for the largest research data-gathering program of its kind, the Dog Aging Project.

The initiative is jointly operated by the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. It will create a national community of dogs, owners, veterinarians, researchers, and volunteers, all working together to advance knowledge about how genes, habits, and the environment influence dog aging.

Although the project has been in its preliminary stages for a while, its full-throttle launch will be announced Nov. 14 at the annual Gerontological Society of America meeting in Austin, Texas. After that date, owners can nominate their canine as a candidate on the Dog Aging Project website.

https://dogagingproject.org/

Thank you so much for your kind thoughts!

Bella’s eating dinner

as well as the eighteen pills daily they sent her home with. Luckily, she loves almond butter and needs to regain weight lost over 7 days not eating. Plop a pill in a gob of almond butter and she simply thwips it down. The immunosuppressive Cyclosporin is sufficiently toxic that we have to don gloves to stuff it down her throat, and the pills themselves are huge. For these we have to pry open her jaws, jam the pill on the very back of her tongue, then stroke her throat until she swallows.

No physical damage from the crash

I was too ashamed to check in with my primary doc after the crash, even though my pain levels have stayed elevated. MyGuy finally convinced me, and I saw my doc today. He confirmed that my pain was consonant with a terrifying incident. We agreed that I got away lucky.

In convo with my therapist, I realized

• while the driver and witnesses did shit to be helpful
• I was capable of taking care of my own needs and therefore
• Prevented further damage
• Reached out for support to helpful people, like you

All good things. The final realization is one I’ve packed away in my lock box for further examination next session: the driver was in many ways acting just like my father.