I know what you’re thinking — with a title like that, this post HAS to be about politics. Well, wrong-o, Mary Lou. It’s about real, honest slime…and everyone knows there’s no such thing as a real, honest politician.
This science blog has collected a whole bunch of incredible macro closeup shots of slime molds. Most of the structures of these molds are too small for us to see without magnification, and I don’t suppose any of us are too quick to go grab the microscope when we encounter gooey red or black sludge growing somewhere in our kitchen or bathroom.
What you see pictured above is known as “wasp nest” slime mold, or Metatrichia vesparium, which is often found growing on decaying leaves and rotten wood. Up close they sort of look like weirs blackberries, but I’m sure you wouldn’t mistake these for blackberries at their normal magnification (at least, I hope not).
The linked website actually found a lot of the pictures on Flickr, and it turns out that there are lots and lots of amazing photographs of slime molds and other fungi to be enjoyed there, too.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
Those are so cool! I love macro shots like that. It’s as if an entire universe exists within ours.