I always thought that the song “The Red Red Robin Goes Bob-Bobbin’ Along” referred to the European/British Robin rather than the American Robin. But I discover it is not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Red%2C_Red_Robin_%28Comes_Bob%2C_Bob%2C_Bobbin%27_Along%29
Which prompts me to ask: US Robins really do look kind of dorky with their bob-bob-bob little jumps and, especially, their sort-of clueless pauses in between.
Do EU+British Robins bob? Are they dorky?
…
We observed tonight that the Northern Cardinal¹, unlike the Robin, does not stroll across a flat surface. It bopped the same way on our driveway as it does on the short-cut grass in our lawn.
More research is needed.
Meanwhile, my son informs me that “The polychaete worm Leocratides kimuraorum is the loudest worm in the world and can make a clicking noise at up to 157 decibels.”
Something to aspire to.
Ernest Rutherford (allegedly¹) said that “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
So much the worse for physics. Collecting mere facts without caring if they roll up into capital-L Laws is fine. Isolated facts make our lives a bit more enjoyable, and that’s fine.
@marick I love that biology happily runs roughshod over our puny attempts to regularize it with “laws”.
I mean, there’s a species of ant that produces eggs of a DIFFERENT SPECIES! Biology doesn’t care about your pristine Platonic ideals of categories and laws — it does whatever it can with whatever it can. We can barely keep up…
@michaelgemar @marick > there’s a species of ant that produces eggs of a DIFFERENT SPECIES!
Wut?
@discobeez @marick I KNOW, RIGHT?!!
@michaelgemar @marick common sense: "a life form should only produce other life forms of its own species"
The first mitochondria: "this is erasure!"
@marick growing up in Indiana, our elementary class petitioned to declare the Crinoid as Indiana’s state fossil
makes me wonder how many “state ____” designations are based on primary school civics education 😆
Brian Marick
Michael Gemar
Einar W. Høst
discobeez
Greg Bell
Bradley Schaefer
Ron Jeffries