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David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity

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“Octopus Mother”

by Kat Zhou

Ocean Art Photography Contest

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Torso of a fertility goddess (yakshi) From the Great Stupa at Sanchi. Indian, Sunga period 25 B.C.–A.D. 25

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WOLVES AND RAVENS

Ravens and wolves form social attachments with each other and take huge advantage of each other.

Both animals eat meat. When wolves killed a prey, ravens eat from the left over cadaver and scavenge it. Also, ravens lead wolves to preys or cadavers. The ravens fly and the wolves follow. Ravens also alert wolves to dangers.

They also play with each other. For example the ravens dive at the wolves and then speed away or peck their tails to try to get the wolves to chase them, or wolf cubs chasing after teasing ravens.

Dr. L. David Mech wrote in ‘The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species’: “It appears that the wolf and the raven have reached an adjustment in their relationships such that each creature is rewarded in some way by the presence of the other and that each is fully aware of the other’s capabilities.”

Also very interesting: Bernd Heinrich wrote in ‘Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds’: “Ravens can be attracted to wolf howls. The wolves’ howls before they go on a hunt, and it is a signal that the birds learn to heed. Conversely, wolves may respond to certain raven vocalizations or behavior that indicate prey. The raven-wolf association may be close to a symbiosis that benefits the wolves and ravens alike. At a kill site, the birds are more suspicious and alert than wolves. The birds serve the wolves as extra eyes and ears.”

Some videos:  - Raven Dances with Wolf Pup - Ravens taking a bath in the snow after stealing food from wolves - Crow teasing a wolf

(Picture by Michael S. Nolan)

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I (masculine) am parched with thirst and am dying; but grant me to drink from the ever-flowing spring. On the right is a white cypress. ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’ I am a son of Earth and starry sky. But my race is heavenly.

Translation of a Greek inscription from the second half of the 4th century B.C.

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Tan Mu — Synapse (oil on linen, 2023)

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The whole "the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" bit is actually a fairly impressive bit of psuedoscience for how incredibly stupid the way it misinterprets the data it's based on is.

Okay, so: there's a part of the human brain called the "prefrontal cortex" which is, among other things, responsible for executive function and impulse control. Like most parts of the brain, it undergoes active "rewiring" over time (i.e., pruning unused neural connections and establishing new ones), and in the case of the prefrontal cortex in particular, this rewiring sharply accelerates during puberty.

Because the pace of rewiring in the prefrontal cortex is linked to specific developmental milestones, it was hypothesised that it would slow down and eventually stop in adulthood. However, the process can't directly be observed; the only way to tell how much neural rewiring is taking place in a particular part of the brain is to compare multiple brain scans of the same individual performed over a period of time.

Thus, something called a "longitudinal study" was commissioned: the same individuals would undergo regular brain scans over a period of mayn years, beginning in early childhood, so that their prefrontal development could accurately be tracked.

The longitudinal study was originally planned to follow its subjects up to age 21. However, when the predicted cessation of prefrontal rewiring was not observed by age 21, additional funding was obtained, and the study period was extended to age 25. The predicted cessation of prefrontal development wasn't observed by age 25, either, at which point the study was terminated.

When the mainstream press got hold of these results, the conclusion that prefrontal rewiring continues at least until age 25 was reported as prefrontal development finishing at age 25. Critically, this is the exact opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study was unable to identify a stopping point for prefrontal development because no such stopping point was observed for any subject during the study period. The only significance of the age 25 is that no subjects were tracked beyond this age because the study ran out of funding!

It gets me when people try to argue against the neuroscience-proves-everybody-under-25-is-a-child talking point by claiming that it's merely an average, or that prefrontal development doesn't tell the whole story. Like, no, it's not an average – it's just bullshit. There's no evidence that the cited phenomenon exists at all. If there is an age where prefrontal rewiring levels off and stops (and it's not clear that there is), we don't know what age that is; we merely know that it must be older than 25.

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Sagittal section of mouse cerebellum

By Dr. Aikaterini Segklia (Hellenic Pasteur Institute, Department of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology)

Technique, Confocal. Magnification 40x. 

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What Cataract Looks Like

Source: oftalmopo @grepmeded 

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Dye-injected Purkinje cells in mouse cerebellum

By Benjamin Barti (Hungarian Academy of Sciences - Institute of Experimental Medicine)

Technique: Confocal. Magnification 20x (objective lens magnification).

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Brain MRI after half of it was removed from a 3-year old boy

“The brain is remarkably plastic,” said Dorit Kliemann, a cognitive neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, and the first author of the study. “It can compensate for dramatic loss of brain structure, and in some cases the remaining networks can support almost typical cognition.”

Video by Caltech Brain Imaging Center. Read the article “How the Brain Can Rewire Itself After Half of It Is Removed” from the New York Times. 

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Memento Mori: Remember to Die, 1640.

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cadaver tomb showing a body in a state of decomposition, St. Dyfrig Chapel

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Wavellite, La Floquerie quarry, France photo by Serge Lavarde

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Millipede under UV light. Many species of arthropods fluoresce, or glow, under ultraviolet light due to due to fluorescent compounds in their exoskeletons. At least one millipede genus, motyxia, is actually bioluminescent, meaning it can produce light on its own.

🐛 b.seahphotography on IG

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the smile stealers: the fine + foul art of dentistry - richard barnett (2017)

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The Goddess Ma'at hovers over the entrance of the burial chamber of Nefertari.

Tomb of Nefertari (QV66), Valley of the Queens, Thebes.