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lizardlicks:

curlicuecal:

thesquirrelisonfire:

the-unreadable-book:

whimsicalspecks:

orzhov-fun-police:

autisticnarset:

tumorhead:

vaigh:

tony-the-intelligent-goon:

I can’t tell what my favorite part is, but it’s either

• scientists wasting budget and time to see if ants count their steps
• the idea to put ants on stilts
• there had to be a guy who made ant stilts and put them on the ants
• confused ants

OR  E. All of the above.

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!

Can mantids wear and see in 3D glasses? YES

THEY PUT LITTLE GLASSES ON MANTIDS

Do honey bees suffer from sleep deprivation? YES

Here is the BEE INSOMNIATOR.

They put MAGNETS ON BEES  and WIGGLED THEM TO KEEP THEM AWAKE

How do scales help snakes move?

Well they put SNAKES IN LITTLE SHIRTS to find out!

SHRIMPS ON A TREADMILL

biology is the greatest

bad and naughty children get put into the bee wiggler to atone for their sins

The best thing about the ant one is that somebody clearly was like “Oh well ants probably count their steps” and that was just like… a thought that came into their head.

THE BEE WIGGLER

This demonstrates that discovery requires madness.

gravity was discovered because Newton just so happened to have an apple fall on his napping ass what do you think science is

This is a cool post but AAAH I need to talk about the ants.

>somebody clearly was like “Oh well ants probably count their steps” and that was just like… a thought that came into their head.

Not just any ants–desert ants!  See, most ants lay down scent trails to find their way around.  But in the desert the damn ground blows away constantly.  So how do desert ants find their way around?  Maybe they count.

>scientists wasting budget and time to see if ants count their steps

Okay but like.  Ants can count.  Ants have teeny teeny tiny brains and they can count.  Do you know how teeny an ant brain is?  Because I have spent time dissecting them out and let me tell you it is one of the most ridiculous occupations I have ever engaged in.  They are like period sized.  <–these things here at either end–>. 

And the really cool thing about finding out that a teeny tiny brain can do a thing, is that the brains are simple enough that we actually might have a shot at figuring out precisely how they efficiently encode the ability to count.  And then we can apply that to things like math and computers and living human brains, which we aren’t allowed to dissect very much because reasons.

Also, this was an awesomely clever experiment because do you want to know the budget for gluing stilts on ants to see what happens?  Really small.  Like ant brains.

>there had to be a guy who made ant stilts and put them on the ants

Their names were Matthias Wittlinger, Rudiger Wehner, and Harald Wolf, and the stilts were boar hairs!  Also there was a second part of the experiment where they trimmed the ant legs to make them take shorter steps, but no one ever talks about that part because it’s less cute and more morbid. :O  (It’s… slightly less morbid when you know this kind of thing happens naturally to ants with age and high temperatures.  Life is hard for ants.  But they are excellent at counting.)

>Science.

I know right?

Okay now I want you to talk about the mantis glasses and the bee wiggler.

Despite the grey day, we took a slightly indirect route home… Make the journey part of the trip… on Flickr.

Despite the grey day, we took a slightly indirect route home… Make the journey part of the trip…

But where are the piles of empty boxes? on Flickr.

But where are the piles of empty boxes?

regalasfuck:

Margaret i dnt think they’re open on sundays

ischemgeek:

fuckyeah-nerdery:

pyronoid-d:

escapedosmil:

nizzlekicks:

When you broke but you woke

Wait… Guys what?

Is this what you guys think it means when GMO comes up in conversation?

Do you know what else is a GMO?

Dogs. Literally ALL dogs have had their genetics modified to make them more docile, loyal, trusting, energetic, obedient ect.

Ears of corn used to be the size of your thumb. Through selective ‘breeding’ we chose the strains of corn that were the biggest, fastest growing, most resilient ect. Ect.

THAT is a GMO. I don’t know where the idea that genetic modification meant they’re injecting your food stuffs with chemicals to change its DNA. That’s not how it works.

However, they ARE spraying your veggies with pesticides and that is something you should be worried about.

Companies like Monsanto are evil. But not because they are breeding crops to feed more people. But because they’re monopolizing the farming market, sueing farmers who share a geographic area and have some of the same strains of crops in their fields because of unavoidable cross pollination and lying about their business practices.

This is Normal Borlaug. In 1942 he received his Ph. D in plant pathology and genetics. In Mexico, he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease resistant varieties of wheat. A genetically modified food. He introduced these to Mexico, Pakistan and India, resulting in double the wheat yields in a 5 year span. In 1970, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for saving one billion lives from starvation, and contributing to world peace through increasing the world food supply.

Genetically modified food is great.

This, a thousand fucking times this. Privilege is spouting and spreading pseudo-science bullshit you saw on your Facebook feed or on Twitter because unlike people in drought and famine prone areas of the world, you have the option to do just that. Those other parts of the world that don’t have the benefit of a food surplus and can’t pick and choose what they eat depend on GMOs to not die of starvation or watch their children waste away.

I despise Monsanto as much as the next person and if they ever go out of business, I’ll be the first to dance a jig, but condemning GMOs just because one megacorp is a pile of shitbags is beyond idiotic. If scientists can create new strains of seeds that can withstand disease, pests, all while yielding more foodstuff, then we should be throwing our support behind them.

Also, “They are feeding us chemicals!” is a fundamentally ridiculous statement. 

Why? 

As a chemist, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: 

Everything is chemicals.