Stained Muscle Tissue Captured At 200x Under The ZEISS Axioscope 5 Microscope.

Stained muscle tissue captured at 200x under the ZEISS Axioscope 5 microscope.

basa please antthing about them i love them

Okay!

Daily fish fact #618

Basa catfish!

It makes its homes in the rapids and flooded plains and forests of Mekong River and Chao Praya River basins in Asia. They can grow quite big, reaching 120 cm (~4 feet).

It’s been a couple years since I made an IMPORTANT PSA about this but this is a follicle mite, or demodex, which has basically no face, just a little mouth underneath:

The following is a closeup of a baby silkworm that falsely went viral years ago as a photo of demodex:

And this is commonly used CG stock art by someone who unfortunately referenced both:

Demodex don’t have claws or fangs or eyes! They are just smooth sausage beasts. We also don’t actually know what they eat, but it’s possible that they eat harmless amounts of our skin cells, which we constantly shed by the millions anyway, by melting them down with enzymes. Also, contrary to some older claims that they’re found in something like ¼ to 1/3 of the human population, more recent studies couldn’t find any adults over 19 without them, so if you’re a grown up, you have little hot dog skin friends always.

motivating myself to write my paper about fungi by talking about fungi:

in Tokyo in 2010, scientists wanted to test the limits of 'brainless' organisms, especially their decision making skills, so they made a little obstacle course in a Petri dish and sent a slime mold to navigate it. they set it up with light and oats, the oats acting as goals and the lights acting as deterrents. the oats were placed in such a way that represented the major train stations in Tokyo. in LESS THAN TWO DAYS, the slime mold had perfectly navigated the obstacle course and hit all the oat stations. when the scientists compared the Petri dish patterns to the city, they noticed that the slime mold had perfectly replicated the train lines of Tokyo. in the most efficient way possible. a task which took humans FIVE YEARS to plan, design and build. slime molds do not have nervous systems, brains, or (as it was previously believed) the ability to form complex thoughts. however, these molds were able to design this system quicker and more efficiently than humans ver have. they were even able to create a path for the shortest route through an IKEA.

the whole concept that organisms other than humans are unable to make decisions or solve complex problems is incredibly outdated and should have been disproven years ago when the Great Chain of Being was first challenged, but these ideas have stuck around for hundreds of years and are only now beginning to be opposed. for years, people thought that organisms like octopi could be tested on in labs because they were unable to feel pain or form thoughts, but only now is it being discovered that octopi have huge brains and are capable of numerous skills, they can recognize people and miss them, and they have the same or even better understanding of the world around them than humans. every other organisms' intelligence has been measured against humans for so long, that the idea that other creatures may have a different way of processing information is something completely unheard of.

in conclusion: brainless fungi and molds are redefining what humans believe to be 'intelligence' by exhibiting amazing navigation of obstacle courses, problem-solving and decision-making skills.

‼️SHARKS‼️

Daily fish fact #517

Tiger shark!

Tiger shark teeth have a recognisable sideways-facing tip and serrated edges, which gives them an improved ability to slice through meat and tough material like bone or sea turtle shells!