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Rae Klein (American, 1995) - Sondra IX (2026)

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Scientists have developed a breakthrough “superfood” for honeybees by engineering yeast to produce the essential nutrients normally found in

TLDR- Modern agriculture pollen is low in nutrients, and there aren’t enough wildflowers. Science has to develop vitamins to supplement the diets of agricultural bees. So plant some wildflowers for the wild bees near you.

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you’ve heard of vitamin B, now get ready for bee vitamins

gatheringbones

“In the 1970s, scientists realized that humpback whales sing structured songs. Strangely, even if they’re coming from thousands of miles apart, males converging on mating grounds all sing the same song. Humpback song is composed of about ten different consecutive themes, each made of repeated phrases of about ten different notes requiring about fifteen seconds to sing. The song lasts about ten minutes. Then the whale repeats it. For hours in the ocean, in their season of courtship, the whales sing. Each ocean’s song is different, and over months and years it changes in the same way for the thousands of whales in each ocean, the song somehow a continual work in progress, fully shared. Sometimes the change is sudden and radical. In the year 2000, researchers announced that humpbacks’ song off Australia’s east coast was “replaced rapidly and completely” by the song Indian Ocean humpbacks off Australia’s west coast had been singing. It seems that a few “foreigners” made the trek west to east, and their song became such an instant hit with the easterners that everybody had to sing it. The researchers wrote, “Such a revolutionary change is unprecedented in animal cultural vocal traditions.” And once a phrase in the song disappears, it has never again been heard, despite over twenty years of eavesdropping. What do the songs mean? Researcher Peter Tyack says, “We may have to thank the evolving aesthetic sensibilities of generations of female humpbacks for the musical features of the males’ songs.” Songs of humpback whales, by the way, have sold millions of recordings. We share that aesthetic. That might be both the biggest mystery and the best evidence of like-mindedness.”

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Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

Carl Safina

gatheringbones

“During superpod aggregations, “the real old and real young ones like hanging out with each other,” Ken narrates. “Females who haven’t seen each other for months just stay together for days on end, and chat around as if wanting to talk about what they did all winter. The young like rolling and tumbling and chasing.” During their parties, play and love flow freely. They’re light on parental guidance, and as in many other dolphins, much killer whale play is a bit X-rated. Young male killer whales start sex play in early childhood. “Even with the little one-year-olds,” says Ken, “soon after they stop nursing, there’s a lot of rolling around with their little snakes out.” Older males aren’t exactly inhibited with each other, either. “We see groups of guy whales with their three-foot wangers draped over each other—pink floyd, we call it.” Like other dolphins, they frequently indulge in same-sex enjoyment, getting help from a friend’s flipper or snout. Many free-living dolphins routinely masturbate against objects, and Ken has even had aroused whales rub against his boat. It’s vigorous but not aggressive. When Diana Reiss put a large mirror in their pool, the seven-year-old juvenile male bottlenose dolphins Pan and Delphi positioned their bodies in front of it—and watched themselves imitate the sex act with each other. (Bottlenose dolphins engage in more same-sexual behavior than any other known creature.) As Denise Herzing concluded, “Dolphins love to have sex and they have sex a lot.” Killer whale females start acting sexual in their teens—and never stop. “It’s pretty interesting when postreproductive grandmas start rubbing against males, sliding along them,” Ken tells me. In a killer whale version of “cougars,” older, menopausal female killer whales seem to entice younger males into sex play. “Any randy young guy,” Ken says. “Sometimes, even young males five or six years old. They’ll get the males all excited. We haven’t seen actual mating, but we’ve seen a lot of penises draped over whales that are upside down and downside up and sideways. They’ll roll over and you can see that their vaginal area is swollen. There’s a heck of a lot more sex than there is reproduction. They’re just very sexual.””

— Carl Safina, Beyond Words