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[mindlikeaninja]

So I was linked to this post by @lilcooldude04​ and I had to try my hand at it.

(If someone wants to do a better Liara impression, let me know and I’ll edit it in).

[mindlikeaninja]

Too many shows trying to be Game Of Thrones, not enough shows trying to be Galavant.

[mindlikeaninja]

Juniper

[mindlikeaninja]

[mindlikeaninja]

[mindlikeaninja]

How to see whether a Chinese handmade teapot is well done or not - quality of the spout is an important standard. 

cr: 承启 建水紫陶

[mindlikeaninja]

I've seen a lot people shocked about how big moose are. They are not deer sized. A baby moose generally starts as big as a medium pony or a large whitetail deer. A big moose weighs multiple tons, is bigger than all but the largest horses and stands head and shoulders taller than all but the largest trucks, is disturbingly fast, and has the survival strategy of "if it lives, smash it into paste on the off chance it's a threat". They ain't some nice forest spirit. They're what happens when an ungulate decides to have a go at the Hippo's title of worlds most dangerous herbivore. And it's awesome to behold FROM A SAFE DISTANCE

truth! another fun not-deer animal that we have to deal with here are elk, which are about the same size as moose but a LOT pointier.

DO NOT APPROACH THIS ANIMAL. it will gore you so hard your ancestors will be impaled

[mindlikeaninja]

Bunjy,

You are always so nice about answering everyone's questions about biology and giving us wonderful updates on Wexter and I wanted to thank you. However I also have a biology question of sorts. I don't know why, but ever since I learned how big moose are, I've always wanted to punch one. Now obviously I'm likely only going to get one shot at this before being gored to death by the moose. So do you think an upper cut or a right cross would be more likely to knock out the moose in one punch and let me survive?

in all complete honesty?

a moose is massive enough that no human alive can generate enough force to actually hurt them with a punch of any kind. give up.

and this is because, like other large ruminants, their sheer bulk is so overwhelming that the amount of force your puny little human arms can generate just dissipates into their flesh before it can do damage! (unless you get them directly in the eyeball, anyway! DISCLAIMER- DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE BY HOOVES.)

you would have to smack a moose upside the head with a 2x4 or a cinderblock before it deigned to notice your presence, and to actually knock one out would require catastrophic-car-crash-level forces.

[mindlikeaninja]

I noticed you recently mentioned that an octopus may enjoy being handled, and as a marine biologist I think it’s worth mentioning that people should NOT handle an octopus in the wild. All of them have venom. I believe only two species are known to be deadly, but octopus venom is not well studied at all and you never know what kind of reaction you might have. Or the personality of a given octopus. I, knowing the risks, handled two Octopus rubescens individuals in the field. One was very sweet; she crawled into my hands and curled up and didn’t want to leave. The other crawled onto the back of my hand and bit me. I either had a very mild reaction to the venom or the individual spit very little. I had minor pain, minor swelling, and it took an entire month to heal all the way. Other people bitten by the same species have had severe pain and swelling, dizziness, vomiting, and necrosis of the wound. I would not handle one again. Now when I find one in the tidepools, I let it hang out in my net in the water to let anyone around see for educational purposes, and I offer up my hand to allow it to touch me if it wants, but would not let it crawl on me. Lovely, curious creatures, but it’s not worth the risk with the venom. You never know if you could have a severe reaction

Very important info here!

[mindlikeaninja]

[mindlikeaninja]

I love your blog and your space asks but please pray tell what's the moon boom that jumpingjacktrash mentioned?

have you ever looked up into the night sky and wondered, why the moon is?

well, you're not alone! scientists and learnéd scholars across the ages have been baffled by our celestial neighbor.

WHY, is our Moon so proportionally fucking huge? (it's more than a quarter the size of the Earth! that's COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE AND BLOWS EVERY OTHER MOON IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM OUT OF THE METAPHORICAL WATER)

WHY, is the Moon made up of much of the same materials as the Earth?

and WHY, is Earth's magnetic field so massively overpowered that it can shield the surface from interstellar and solar radiation, allowing life to develop and paving the way for you to even ask these questions in the first place? (that one might not sound related, but I promise you it is so just bear with me)

well, it all comes down to the Theia Impact Hypothesis, or, OPERATION MOON BOOM.

in this fair solar system we lay our scene, four and a half billion years ago.

here, we focus on the third planet from the Sun, which is, surprisingly, NOT Earth.

not yet.

no, this unnamed rocky world is slightly smaller than Venus, and is formed of mostly-molten rock that's still settling into itself as our nascent solar system sorts itself out.

ENTER STAGE LEFT, THEIA.

Theia is a rocky planetoid about the size of Mars, on a wild and unstable orbit around the Sun that regularly brings it within spitting distance of our unnamed third rock! and today, it will get A Bit Too Close.

the two planets slam into each other with wild disregard for road safety, disintegrating their outer layers into a massive debris field that will take hundreds of millions of years to settle and fusing their planetary cores together into a single rough oblong of molten iron! BAM! WHAPPO!

but settle the debris does, as gravity takes a gentle but firm hold of this huge mess and gradually reshapes it into two familiar faces...

ENTER STAGE RIGHT: EARTH AND MOON.

that's right, you're standing on top of the alchemically-fused corpses of, not one, but TWO planets right now! our newly-reborn Earth and its singular orbiting satellite are formed from the same debris field and share a lot of similar material. and because the Moon was Made, and not a domesticated planetoid that wandered too close and got trapped in the orbit of a larger body, it's just ludicrously HUGE compared to its partner.

and getting back to that magnetic field thing, the whole reason Earth Can Have Big Field Pls is because Theia dumped so much extra iron into the Core that it generates a MUCH more powerful field than our neighboring planets, even the ones that are just slightly smaller than Earth!

the only reason that life can exist at all is because Theia took one for the team and reshaped the solar system.

so the next time you look up into the celestial dome and spot our closest neighbor, raise a salute to Theia, gone but not forgotten.

[mindlikeaninja]

I love these comics by Nathan W. Pyle.

[mindlikeaninja]

Crocodiles swim way faster than you think.

(Footage taken from Queensland Australia)

[mindlikeaninja]

I can’t stop thinking about crocodiles for some reason so here’s some cool pictures I found of probably the second largest one in captivity, his name is Utan:

isn’t he beautiful

listen to the SOUND when he bites

and that’s not even a real power bite, that’s mostly just heavy bone falling on heavy bone from his jaws and the air rushing out from between them

[mindlikeaninja]