Foosballs and Fermions

I am in most senses a geek. My greatest loves are Physics, Mathematics, Molecular Biology, and the structure and functioning of nature in general.

[archatlas]

Nature’s Tiniest Architects Nicky Bay

Nicky Bay is the master of capturing the exceptionally small, photographing insects typically passed over without acknowledgement or recognition. The Singapore-based photographer stays acutely aware of these tiny creatures, using macro photography to highlight each minuscule detail. While taking a closer look at the micro world found deep in the rainforest, Bay began to notice tiny structures built by his favorite subject. The bug buildings appear manmade—tiny log cabins, gates, tents, and fortresses blocking each insect from the world just beyond their carefully placed twigs and segments of silk.

You can see on his macro photography blog or follow his day-to-day macro photography on Facebook.

Images and text via

[gamosepalous-5lobed]

Excellent photos of Orbea conjuncta  (A.C.White & B.Sloane) Bruyns(Orbeanthus conjunctus (A.C.White & B.Sloane) L.C.Leach) Which is one of my all time favorite Southafrican natives!

Photographed by: Pavel Husicka

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Wednesday 21 September 2016

Euphorbia seguieriana (Siberian spurge) is a bushy herbaceous perennial with narrow greyish green leaves that are semi-evergreen (some remain most of the year). In mid to late summer the stems become topped with clusters of sulphur-yellow flowers that are still of value in the autumn. Here the flowers have weighed the thin stems down to form a circle with next year’s foliage is emerging in the centre. This plant needs a free draining soil. Beware of the white sap which may cause skin irritation.

Jill Raggett

[indefenseofplants]

Cycads and Kin Selection

What is not to like about cycads? They are beautiful, they are ancient, and they have a bizarre reproductive biology. Well, we can now add kin recognition to that list. That’s right, cycads can somehow discern when they are growing next to a relative and when they are growing next to an unrelated individual. What’s more, this discovery means that kin selection in plants is not only ancient, it is probably more wide spread than we ever thought. 

Kin selection and cycads starts at the roots. Although it isn’t easy to see, competition for root space is critical for most plant species. Roots are how plants obtain water and nutrients so maximizing root growth is of paramount importance for a plant. This often means taking up space before their neighbors can. That is, unless, that neighbor is your sibling. Researchers set about testing this phenomenon in the lab. By using specialized growth chambers, they were able to compare how plants “behaved” when grown next to their siblings vs. unrelated individuals. What they found was quite astounding. 

Cycads growing next to their half siblings allocated significantly less energy to root growth than when they were growing next to unrelated plants. This had implications for their overall size as well. Plants growing next to siblings were significantly smaller at the end of the experiment. This may seem like a disadvantage until you consider it from the perspective of their genes. Half siblings share 50% of their DNA. Since life is all about getting as many copies of your genes into out into the environment as possible, it stands to reason that competing with copies of yourself is often counter productive. That is not the case when no genes are shared. Plants growing next to unrelated individuals responded with increased root mass and thus increased growth. In other words, they were more competitive. 

Examples of kin selection abound in the animal kingdom. The same is not true for plants (click here for another example). What this research does, however, is show us that we probably haven’t been looking hard enough. Although extant cycad species are not those that once shared the environment with dinosaurs, the lineage to which they belong is nonetheless quite old. If such cases of kin selection occur in cycads, then it stands to reason that this is an ancient phenomenon. 

Further Reading:

http://bit.ly/2cmxp4i

http://bit.ly/2cA8jSL

[orchid-a-day-deactivated2023040]

Dendrobium cuthbertsonii - orange

Syn.: Dendrobium sophronites; Dendrobium  agathodaemonis; and many more

September 12, 2016

[spatheandspadix]

A very large fruiting. Climacodon septentrionale, I think.

[carolxdanvers]

So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!”

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

Give abstract art some respect. It’s more important than you realize.

[abstractrain223]

Lovers of bromeliads! Specifically tillandsias - I think the species of this is Brachycaulos var Abdita but I’m not completely sure… does anyone know for sure? (it seemed that way on Google) Any knowledge of it or confirmation that this is indeed the species would be appreciated!

[kihaku-gato]

Wow that’s a beautiful boldy. @randomc can you make any confirmation on this species?

[designinbiology]

- Jane Richardon’s classification system of β-sheet topology in proteins.

- Comparison of geometric motifs common on greek and american indian weaving and pottery with the backbone folding patterns found for cylindrical β-sheet structures in globular proteins.

“β-sheet topology and the relatedness of proteins.”

[tlatollotl]

Who influenced who?

The answer, there was no influence. Diffusionism is not the end all, be all answer to why people across the globe preserved their dead or built pyramids.

Mummification seems to have begun in areas that are already hot and dry which can naturally mummify any remains left outside. People taking steps toward controlling that process speaks more towards humanity’s love of their friends and family rather than contact between two widely separated regions.

Pyramids and stepped platforms, from an engineering standpoint, are simply the easiest structure to make tall without the use of reinforced materials like our modern rebar set in concrete. If you want to build something that stands out on the landscape, you build a pyramid.

It’s a less exciting answer than people sailing across the Atlantic thousands of years ago, but sometimes life is just boring like that.

[northeastnature]

I thought it might be fun to make a collage of some plants that aren’t green. These spooky species are naturally ghost-white or blood-colored. They lack the green pigments that enable plants to make food from the sun. Instead, they are parasites, snatching food from nearby plants.

Clockwise from top left: Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), summer form pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys), Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana), autumn form pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys),  one-flowered cancer root (Conopholis americana).

[seedkeeping]

Cardoon, beginning to bloom. #cardunculus #cardoon #cynaracardunculus #roughwoodseedcollection

[scienceisbeauty]

Yesterday’s microburst over Phoenix.

Via Quartz (and Twitter)

[flora-file]

my amp goes to eleven (by flora-file​​)

[orquidofilia]

“This is Chiloschista viridiflava, from Thailand. Flowers are lightly scented of chocolate.”

Orchidaceae: Aeridinae.

By Peter T. Lin. [x]

[gamosepalous-5lobed]

Orbea lugardii

Photographed by: Zuhal Ince

[dailyplantfacts]

Oenothera coronopifolia is in the family Onagraceae. Commonly known as cutleaf evening primrose, it is native to the western United States from Idaho to Nebraska. Cutleaf evening primrose is a perennial plant found in dry soils in foothills and montane areas. While the flowers are very similar to other species of Oenothera, the narrow, deeply lobed leaves of this species help to distinguish it from other evening primroses.