#nature vocab

[thespanishgarden]

Spanish Word Wheel - La Apicultura 🐝

La Apicultura - Beekeeping

• Beekeeping is a rewarding job.

• La apicultura es un trabajo gratificante.

El Apicultor - Beekeeper

La Apicultora - Beekeeper

• The beekeeper loved his job.

• El apicultor amaba su trabajo.

• She wants to be a beekeeper.

• Ella quiere ser apicultora.

[Extra Info] Beekeeper can also be "El Colmenero" and "La Colmenera".

[Gif not mine]

[meddwlyngymraeg]

Mae diferi dwr yn cwympo A gorffwys ar fy trwyn, Galla i flasu ar fy nhafod— Amrywiaeth o fywn mwyn. Sa'i ddim yn gwybod Maen nhw'n tarddu o ble; So rwy'n derbyn Mae hi'n dod o'r sêr.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Umwelt: What Matters Most in the World

(Originally posted at my blog at https://rebeccalexa.com/umwelt-what-matters-most-in-the-world/)

I will be the first to admit that a lot of philosophy tends to bend my brain in ways that I’m really not prepared for. I’m a very earthy creature, and I am more comfortable in physical, solid spaces than in abstract conceptualizations. Even the modalities of psychology I gravitated toward in grad school tended to be based in our interactions with physical nature, and measurable effects thereof. But it was a casual discussion on philosophy with regards to the awareness of animals that introduced me to the concept of umwelt.

Originally coined by biologist Jakob Johann Freiherr von Uexküll, umwelt describes the unique way in which a given animal experiences the world around it. Uexküll looked at how various beings take in information through their senses; the way that a blind, deaf worm engages with their environment through taste and touch is very different from how we with our hearing and color vision connect with our world. Even when I am walking with my dog out in the woods, her interpretation of what’s going on around us is going to be much more heavily influenced by hearing, and especially smell, than my sight-heavy approach. (And when we engage with each other, our respective umwelten create a semiosphere!)

So umwelt is essentially the sum total of all the ways in which an animal takes in that sensory information and attaches meaning to each fragment thereof. It’s how they tell the story of the world around them, and understand their place in it. And they rank the signs according to importance; umwelt is more strongly formed by things that are of particular interest to the animal.

That means that umwelt, rather than being constant throughout life, is always shifting according to new sensory input, or changes in how the senses work; as my dog gets older, her hearing and vision may not be as good as they were, but if her nose stays sharp then smells may become an even more important part of how she navigates her world.

Or look at a Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), which is born as a blind, deaf little hairless being with two front legs that they use to crawl to the mother’s abdominal pouch. At that time their umwelt centers on seeking and retaining the warmth of their mother’s pouch, and the sensation of the constant flow of warm, nourishing milk. After about ten weeks they leave the pouch as a miniature furry little possum and travel on their mother’s back while learning to walk; their umwelt has expanded quite a bit to include the sight and smell of their mother, the visual and scent cues that tell them how close they are to known food sources, and visual, sound, and audio information warning of various dangers. At around five months, the opossum becomes independent, and their mother fades from their umwelt while being replaced by an even larger network of food, danger, and perhaps even potential mates. Over a lifetime, as the opossum’s senses develop (and, with age, decline) and their priorities shift, so does their umwelt evolve with them.

This then led me into a bit of a rabbit hole with biosemiotics. Semiotics is the study of symbols and the communication of meaning, to include communication with the self. Biosemiotics, then, is how non-human beings assign meaning to various things in their lives, and interpret the world they live in. Zoosemiotics specifically refers to the semiotics of animals, like the examples I’ve given so far, while endosemiotics (aka phytosemiotics or vegetative semiotics) is semiotics at a cellular or even molecular level.

One example of endosemiotics can be found in our immune systems. A B lymphocyte can recognize an invader such as a virus or bacteria, and it sends out a signal (an antigen) to T lymphocytes that then attack the invader. The B lymphocyte’s umwelt consists of information received through surface receptors that can detect certain proteins and other molecules, and the response it’s programmed to have as a result of detecting an invader. The T lymphocyte’s umwelt, on the other hand, centers on the B lymphocyte’s antigen signal, as well as the invader itself.

Biosemiotics is important because it moves meaning-making beyond humans, demonstrating that we are not the only beings who assign more importance to one part of our world than another. It promotes the idea that human language is not necessary for an organism to be able to find meaning in their environment. I’m cautious about anthropomorphization–assigning human traits to non-human beings–but biosemiotics allows each being to be its own unique self, rather than being gauged by human standards.

It’s all too easy for me to get overwhelmed by just how technical some of the discussion over biosemiotics can get (especially when delving into the “semotics” part of it!) But my takeaway is that it’s nice to have a term–umwelt–that encapsulates the unique experience that every animal, plant, fungus, slime mold, and other being has, no matter how large or small its world may be.

I can envision millions upon millions of overlapping umwelten in every ecosystem, becoming semiospheres whenever two or more of those umwelten nudge, slide, or crash into each other. I’m already delighted by knowing that I myself contain several ecosystems, with microbiomes in my organs and on my skin and more. But I can now also consider the umwelten and semiospheres of the lymphocytes in my immune system, along with all the other cells that are carrying on their existences within my various tissues, fluids, and so forth.

Of course, this gets into discussions of whether umwelt requires some level of consciousness, the nature of consciousness, sentience vs. sapience, etc., etc., all of which are the sort of headache-inducing philosophical discussions that I try to avoid at this stage of my life. So I can understand that this whole umwelt-biosemiotics thing is still being hammered out and explored and critiqued, but also use it to augment my own personal model of my world, internal and external (my innenwelt!) And for now, umwelt is a perfectly good shorthand for “the unique way in which an organism experiences its environment.”

Did you enjoy this post? Consider taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes, checking out my other articles, or picking up a paperback or ebook I’ve written! You can even buy me a coffee here!

[schizowitchic]

also like i partially found out i might be intersex because i was looking at trans stuff and there was like "(however many) months on t and finally seeing some bottom growth" and like pictures of t-dicks and i was like.... um.... that's kind of just what my clit looks like anyways. so i was like "hey google give me a quick rundown on this" and learned what clitoromegaly was and then i was like. hm. intersex resources. and it's like a sign? symptom? side-effect? of certain intersex conditions

[koreanstudyjunkie]

Nature Vocab in Korean

안녕하세요 KoreanStudyJunkie입니다! 오늘은 자연에 대한 단어를 소개하도록 하겠습니다~ Hello, Today I'll be introducing to you some vocabulary words about Nature.

날씨 = Weather

구름 - Clouds

비 - Rain

천둥 - Thunder

번개 - Lightning

공기 - Air

하늘 - Sky

해/태양 - Sun

별 - Stars

눈 - Snow

눈송이 - Snowflake

햇빛 - Sunshine

바람 - Wind

안개 - Fog, Mist

무지개 - Rainbow

동물 = Animal

야생 동물 - Wildlife

동물 - Animal

물고기 - Fish

곤충 - Insects

환경 = Environment

숲 - Forest

우림 - Rainforest

사막 - Desert

산 - Mountain

해변 - Beach

동글 - Cave

해안 - Coast

절벽 - Cliff

언덕 - Hill

섬 - Island

자연 = Nature

꽃 - Flower

풀 - Grass

나무 - Tree

나뭇가지 - Branch

나뭇잎 - Leaf

관목 - Bush, shrubs

목초지 - Meadow

들판 - Field

흙 - Soil

진흙 - Mud

바위 - Rock

식물 - Plants

강 - River

호수 - Lake

바다 - Ocean

파도 - Wave

화산 - Volcano

용암 - Lava

연기 - Smoke

폭포 - Waterfall

연못 - Pond

모래 - Sand

불 - Fire

물 - Water

자연재해 - Natural Disaster

지진 - Earthquake

홍수 - Flood

태풍 - Typhoon

가몸 - Drought

무작위 = Random

지구 - Earth

달 - Moon

보름달 - Full Moon

행성 - Planet

[iftitah]

<3

[withinthebrain]

The Last Grain

In the dimness of the room, candles flicker, leaving an inept ballet of shadows leaping across the walls. Mingled scents of wax and cloudiness linger in the shadows like an elusive embrace.

Mechanically, the night unfolds into a rhythmic rendezvous. An assassin of silence, my booming heart, echoes within the cell of my chest, shaking the bars of my ribcage, seeking an escape.

Darkness swallows the moon this night, leaving nothing but the gaunt shadowed candlelight. And your pale face, more poignant than ever, withers like petals fallen from flowers once bright.

Stale life clings to my tongue, overtaken by the stench of no return.

The colors have faded, the candle has melted, and the last grain of sand is falling...

[cacaitos]

honest to god the only reason i’ve kept up with 19days throughout the years really is the argentinian translation i found a long time ago.

[the-chattering-tower]

hey i noticed on your post about Gale + friends, you mention Gale is ‘mapping out’ the North-Plague Talonok dialect, and ik it’s just lore and i’m overthinking it but out of curiosity is it like a sociolinguistic discourse analysis or like a etymological analysis or something else? - 🦇

Oh if you could see how I grinned reading this!!

It's etymology, with a notable reliance on comparative linguistics (both with other Talonok dialects, and with various local languages for loan words) bc Talonok in general tend to be nomadic communities and Plague flocks especially so, so they don't have extensive written records and rely heavily on oral tradition

Hence also Gale's passion for the Proto-Talonok project, since it's overall a very related topic that he can contribute to from the Plague side of things!

[thespanishgarden]

Spanish Word Wheel - Los Guijarros

Los Gujiarros - Pebbles

• The girl grabbed a pebble off the ground.

• La niña agarró un guijarro del suelo.

• Justin likes to collect pebbles.

• A Justin le gusta coleccionar guijarros.

Reminder: El Guijarro (Singular) | Los Guijarros (Plural)

Los Guijarrillos - Small Pebbles

• The bag was filled with small pebbles.

• La bolsa estaba llena de guijarrillos.

• There were a lot of small pebbles on the beach.

• Había muchos guijarrillos en la playa.

[Gif not mine]

[frenchlitclub]

bois

/Bwah/

(masc. "le/ un" 🔹 pl. bois)

-> wood/woods

[my-wordbook]

Iteroparous

1. Reproducing more than once in a lifetime

[gettingready2read]

Counting on the Woods by George Ella Lyon, photographs by Ann W. Olson

The poetic phrases in this book provide a great opportunity to expose your child to new vocabulary. Hearing and seeing unique words can help expand your child's understanding of reading.

The photographic artwork provides visuals you can count with your child. Ask your child to use their background knowledge by pointing to any familiar animals and plants; can they identity what is in the pictures?

Expand the Reading- Make a Nature Viewer!

Supplies Needed:

cardboard/cardstock or other heavyweight paper

coloring supplies

scissors

Cut a small hole in your piece of cardboard, and decorate your Nature Viewer. You can draw pictures of plants and animals you expect to find outside.

Once you've finished, take your Nature Viewer outside and look through the hole. What do you see? Talking to your child about the nature right outside their home can help build background knowledge.

Try playing a game by seeing how different types of leaves or bugs you can spot with your Nature Viewer.

Check out Counting on the Woods

[trolledu]

seems like nurture is counter-intuitive in this day and age.

You destroy my habitat and then wonder why I wander into yours?

[jellicle-chants]

melon emo

🍉 Do you prefer to write short fics or long fics? Multichaptered works or single ones? Why?

I definitely prefer writing short, single-chapter fics over ones with an extended plotline (although I’m not totally against the idea). My ideas just tend to come in the form of scenes rather than entire arcs, and I don’t really love writing the filler that comes between all of the important bits. (One-shots are also easier for me to write because I can optimally bang them out in an afternoon if I’m feeling particularly inspired.)

[pythonprogrammingsnippets]

python find related words to a given word using spacy nlp

import spacy import numpy as np # https://pythonprogrammingsnippets.tumblr.com/ # to download some different models to play with: # python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm # python -m spacy download en_core_web_md # python -m spacy download en_core_web_lg nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_lg') def get_related_words(word): ret_words = [] oword = word.strip() if oword == "": return [] if nlp.vocab.strings[word] not in nlp.vocab.vectors: return [] ms = nlp.vocab.vectors.most_similar( np.asarray([nlp.vocab.vectors[nlp.vocab.strings[word]]]), n=10) # Get the text representation of each word words = [nlp.vocab.strings[w].lower() for w in ms[0][0]] return words # print(get_related_words("kitchen"))