#1 Haumea Appreciator @potted-orchard - Tumblr Blog

‘While bats can only sense the outer shapes and textures of their targets, dolphins can peer inside theirs. If a dolphin echolocates on you, it will perceive your lungs and your skeleton. It can likely sense shrapnel in war veterans and fetuses in pregnant women. It can pick out the air-filled swim bladders that allow fish, their main prey, to control their buoyancy.

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

-Ed Yong, An Immense World

namu-the-orca

Cetacean echolocation is one of those things that boggles your mind once you really start to think about the implications. They can see each others' hearts beating fast with fear or excitement. They can see if another dolphin is healthy, or pregnant; how the fetus is doing; if they have ingested debris. Their echolocation is also incredibly precise: a bottlenose dolphin could discriminate between cilinders differing in wall thickness by just 0.23 mm (0.009 inch) from 8 meters away!! And they certainly notice when something is off.

I'm not sure if I ever shared this story before here, but in Curacao, when I was allowed to assist in a guest interaction programme, there was suddenly consternation in the pool behind us. A guest had entered the water and the dolphins were going crazy, paying no heed to the trainers anymore. The lead trainer that was with me gave the dolphins to me to watch over while she went to help. When she came back she told me what had happened. The guest that had caused so much uproar had left the water again and was asked if he had done anything to upset the dolphins. He hadn't, and he couldn't imagine what was wrong... until he mentioned he had a pacemaker. The younger dolphins in the pool had never seen someone with a pacemaker before and apparently it rocked their world.

It was such a wild experience, and offered such a cool insight into how dolphins experience their world. I'll never forget it.

rhiotta

You have learned the secret of turn order mechanics. You are filled with the power of UNO.

Those things aren't gonna live more than a day, let them play.

Good humor is when you overthink your punchline and write an entire 2nd half explaining that your joke doesn't make sense. Oh, hey look! It's Gerson!

sztupy

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previou

ayeforscotland

Let’s fucking go

made-in-manetheren

This is HUGE.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

TL;DR Google reeeeeally stepped in it this time.

alianoralacanta

5. If the words are Google's, this solidifies the position of universities who demand that all answers from AI are fully cited. If all the in-line citations now have to be (Google, 2026), that's going to make it obvious when someone's trying to use Google as a source. There's still the difficulty with people who are academically dishonest by trying to pass off the AI writing as their own. 6. 91% accuracy is officially too low to use as a source of references, which means the AI can't be used as a source of references either. This makes it less legitimate for such purposes than Wikipedia of all places (Wikipedia might need date/time proof of when it was accessed for the reference to be valid, but at least it is possible to prove the link existed at a particular date and time). 7. This will help encourage the rollout of courses on how to avoid AI search for students who need academic accuracy, because it's statistically not good enough to use. 8. This strengthens the case intellectual property authors have against Google in the EU, as this is proof that an intellectual property transfer took place.

rebar2042

You work with Markiplier and he is a great motivator

mebis-silksong-corner

Unlike Ghost, who retreats to the void in ball form, The Hollow Knight's shade seemingly gets obliterated by the burst of light emited by the Radiance upon receiving the final hit

(Ghost is a descending ball in the last two images)

(Notice also how THK alone is blurry)

The Hollow Knight not being on Sister of the Void can easily be explained away by "camera angle" and "TC wanted it vague"

But honestly? I think THK's shade doesn't even survive Dream No More in the first place

This aligns with the regular endings having it explode entirely, leaving no shade or even shell behind

#:0

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

more characters with superpowers who look into the whole superhero thing and decide "hm no i do not want to participate in this actually"

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

to be clear i'm not saying they turn to supervillainy. they just look at their superpower-based career options and decide to go in an unrelated direction. dental hygienist. supply chain management. HVAC technician in surprisingly high demand

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

some of them do superpower hobbies on the weekend, but a good portion of them are just "eh. my body could technically do it but this is not fun for me?" like it's literally just excercise. why spend your free time training for a marathon when you could be crafting

a lucky few have highly marketable powers which make for extremely well-paid gig work (standard teleporter hourly pay is insane), but it's not exactly a passion driven career. yeah speedsters can make bank working production lines but that gets repetitive real fast. also that shit is tiring. yeah the agricultural industry is paying you big bucks to control the weather during harvest season but you're going to have back spasms for months after.

whotooklortan

One time at my manufacturing job I got asked about what superpowers I would want and I concluded that the most passion driven power/job I could imagine was just knowing the precise location of all sharks. I would be unable to control them or communicate with them. But I am invaluable to conservation work, ocean photography, zoology, lifeguards, etc. I have no idea if I could or would want to profit from this, I would probably still have a 9-5, but I like to think of spending my spare time just answering texts about Greenland sharks and doing horrifying guest appearances on weather broadcasts.

frontmansdefender

RIP to the legend

silvermoon424

This goose fucking rocks and had a crazy life!

I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:

He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.

Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.

Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.

When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.

Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.

Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.

As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.

His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."

Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.

Before and after his death, Thomas has been celebrated as an icon of the LGBTQ+ community for obvious reasons.

halosnothere

well that can't be good

atomikats

my personal take on the matter

doomsday-dj

There was recently a copyright infringement case in YA and I need everyone to know that the following sentence was in the legal decision:

“Hot, sexy, dangerous boys, central to virtually all young adult romance novels, cannot be copyrighted.”

kuttithevangu

“Regarding setting, the court held that both works taking place in Alaska high schools was not protectable because Alaska is a public place and setting a teen novel in a high school is a common genre convention.”

Freeman v. Deebs-Elkenaney | Loeb & Loeb LLP

kogiopsis

I've read the entire decision (skimming over the purely legal precedent/definitions bit) and here are some of my favorite bits:

ymutate

Filippo Palizzi (Italian painter 1818–1899)

Excavations in Pompeii, 1870

Oil on Canvas

119.5 × 86 cm.

Private Collection

rabid-transcendentalist

@anthropologist-on-the-loose get peer-reviewed because your shared experience with the subject of the painting really heightened the emotional impact of this artwork for me ( An impact which was already high tbh. The idea that Pompeii was built by generations, buried by generations, uncovered by generations. What if I just started screaming and never stopped. )

anthropologist-on-the-loose

"Built by generations, buried by generations, uncovered by generations" is ruining me, thanks

anthropologist-on-the-loose

But it was buried by generations! Yes, it was buried in a volcanic eruption, but it was also figuratively buried. Over the centuries the location of Pompeii was lost, and it was found again by accident during construction projects. The ruins were not conclusively identified as the city of Pompeii until the 18th century (more than a millennia and a half after the eruption!) and it has been excavated ever since. People have been digging there since before the formation of the United States.

It's truly an incredible, one-of-a-kind site.