A team of researchers from Jilin University, NYU Abu Dhabi’s Smart Materials Lab, and the Center for Smart Engineering Materials, led by Professor of Chemistry Pance Naumov, has developed a new crystalline material that can harvest water from fog without any energy input.
The design of the novel type of smart crystals, which the researchers named Janus crystals, is inspired by desert plants and animals, which can survive in arid conditions. Desert beetles and lizards, for example, have evolved to develop surface structures that have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic areas and effectively capture moisture from the air. Water is attracted to the hydrophilic areas and droplets are accumulated and transported through the hydrophobic areas.
Grave of Antoine Michel Wemaer (Belgian, 1763-1837, b. Vlaanderen, Belgium) who was a wine and textile merchant. The burial site in Brugge General Cemetery
aka Cemetery of the Skull also contains the remains of his wife, Marie-Alide Heene as well as two of their children whose deaths preceded his own in 1837. The moss covered gravestone is adorned with the figure of a skull and cross bones on a tasseled pillow. Photos: Babblefu and Theli.
“People are so fucking dumb. Nobody reads anymore, nobody goes out and looks and explores the society and culture that they were brought up in. People have attention spans of 5 seconds and as much depth as a glass of water.”
This week’s Wet Beast Wednesday is going to be stellar, as we’re reaching for the stars and talking about starfish. Also known as sea stars and asteroids, these echinoderms are a classic in tidepools and touch tanks, so much so that many people don’t think much about them. If that’s you, you’re missing a lot, since there’s plenty of interesting things to learn about our radially symmetrical brethren.
(Image: a common starfish (
Asterias rubens) resting on sand, seen from above. It is a star-shaped animal with five distinct rays connecting at the base. Its body is orangeish, with small white slumps all over its surface. End ID)
Starfish are echinoderms of the class Asteroidea and when I called them our brethren, I wasn’t entirely kidding. Echinoderms are duterostomes, the clade of bilaterally symmetrical animals whose anus forms before the mouth while in embryo. Chordates, which include humans, are also duterostomes. This means you are more closely related to starfish than you are to arthropods, molluscs, or various worms. As with the other echinoderms, starfish are radially symmetrical as adults, but bilaterally symmetrical as larvae, indicating that they evolved from bilaterally symmetrical ancestors. Starfish should not be confused with brittle stars and basket stars (which you can read about here), though they do have the same common ancestor.
I know what you’re thinking and shame on you. (Image: the granulated starfish (
Choriaster granulatus). It has short rays with rounded heads that have vertical slits on the tips. Its body is a reddish-orange with hard markings, but the tips of the rays are a more pale color. End ID)
Starfish consist of a central disc with appendages called arms or rays extending from it. The term ray is often preferred because they are not actually limbs. They are flexible, though, and are used in locomotion and object manipulation. Most species have five rays, but some can have more. The number of rays is usually a multiple of five (and can reach up to 50 in
Labidiaster annulatus), but species with other numbers of rays do exist. The underside of the rays are lined with rows of tube feet. These hollow tubes can be filled with water to extend out of the body and are maneuvered with a complex system of muscles. Each tube foot can be individually controlled and a starfish can have hundreds of them. Tube feet are used for locomotion and object manipulation. While the ends are often suction-cup shaped, they attach to objects using chemical adhesives rather than suction. Tube feet are used to drag the starfish forward and they typically will have one ray that points in the direction they are moving, possibly a remnant of their bilaterally symmetrical ancestors having a front end. Starfish typically move fairly slowly, with about 15 cm (6 in) a minute being a typical top speed. There are exceptions, though, with
Luidia foliolata being able to reach almost 3 m (9 ft) per minute. Tube feet are also filled with sensory cells to help the starfish examine its environment. The flexible arms also help starfish flip themselves over if they end up upside down.
(Image: a starfish of the order Brisingida. It is orange and has numerous very long and flexible arms that are held up in the water column. The arms are covered with elongated spiny protrusions used to filter feed. End ID)
The central disc contains the mouth at the center that is opened and closed with a sphincter. The moth leads into a short esophagus which leads to a stomach divided into two segments: the larger cardiac stomach and smaller pyloric stomach. In primitive starfish, food is swallowed hole and passed to the cardiac stomach, where digestion begins, then passed to the pyloric stomach where digestion finishes. In most species, however, the cardiac stomach has been adapted to be ejected out through the mouth to engulf prey and begin digesting it outside of the body, passing broken-down food into the internal pyloric stomach. This allows starfish to consume prey considerably larger than they are. Starfish famously can consume bivalves by using their arms and tube feet to pry the shellfish open and eject their stomachs into the shell. Not all starfish are carnivores. Many will feed partially or totally on algae and detritus and some have adapted to be filter feeders that use their rays to catch plankton and carry it to their mouths. Some species use modified pedicellariae to capture small fish and crustaceans. Pedicellariae are pincer-like structures found on the skin of some species of starfish that have a number of uses, including aiding in feeding and removing objects and small animals from the starfish.
(Image: a close-up of the underside of a starfish. On the bottom of each ray is a channel filled with tube feet, which appear as small, reddish tubes with sucker-shaped endings. The channels meet in the middle where the mouth is visible as a small hole. End ID)
Internally, the starfish is supported by an endoskeleton made of honeycomb-like calcite structures called ossicles. Most ossicles fit together to form a protective yet flexible shell on the top of the starfish. Ossicles are often the only parts of a starfish that fossilize, leaving starfish with a sparse fossil record. Beneath the ossicles are the digestive system (which extends into the arms) as well as the nervous system and water vascular system. The nervous system consists of a nerve ring that surrounds the mouth and branches off into radial nerves that run down the rays. A par of nerve nets run under the skin and in the water vascular system. Starfish are known to sense by touch, smell, and chemoreception, and though they do not have eyes, they do have light-sensitive eyespots at the tips of the rays. The water vascular system is used both for circulation and movement. Water is drawn into the body through a modified ossicle called the madreporite and into a series of canals that run through the body. Muscular action can open or close valves leading to the tube arms. This causes the tube arms to either fill with water and extend, or lose water and contract. The water vascular system is also used to dispose of some waste and to circulate oxygen through the body. The circulatory system (consisting of a heart and 3 ring canals) does not circulate oxygen, only nutrients. Starfish hearts beat at an average of 6 times per minute.
(Image: a sunflower star (
Pycnopodia helianthoides) on the seafloor. It is a large, reddish-orange starfish with a large central disc and 20 long, slender arms. End ID)
The majority of starfish are dioecious, meaning they have separate males and females, but some species are hermaphroditic, either simultaneous (both male and female gonads at the same time) or sequential (will transition from one sex to another). Paired gonads are located at the base of each arm and release gametes through gonopores on the discs. Some species will engage in behavior where a male will climb on top of the female and overlap her arms, then they will release gametes together to maximize the chance of fertilization. Most fertilized eggs are released into the water, but some will be placed under rocks and some species will brood the eggs using species structures. Brooding species have larger eggs with lots of yolk that skip the larval stage and hatch as small adults. Most species hatch into a planktonic larval stage called the scaphularia, which is equivalent to the blastula stage of vertebrate embryo development. The scaphularia then develops into a bipinnaria, which has bands of cillia on its body used for movement and feeding, as well as stubby rays. The next larval stage is the brachiolaria, which has more developed rays and attaches itself to the substrate through a stalk. Up until now, the larva has been bilaterally symmetrical, but this is where that changes via a radical metamorphosis. The body rearranges itself so that the left side of the brachiolara becomes the bottom of the starfish and the right side becomes the top. The body cavities are rearranged into the circulatory and water vascular system while the gut, mouth, and anus rearrange themselves. The starfish is now a tiny (usually 1 millimeter) radially symmetrical adult that drops off of the stalk.
(Image: a starfish’s larval development from an egg through an amorphous, tentacled brachiolara larva, and to a half- developed juvenile starfish that has not yet formed distinct rays. End ID)
Starfish are famous for their regenerative ability. A starfish that loses rays to predators can grow them back in a process that can take over a year. In many species, a starfish split in half can regenerate into two complete starfish. There are different types of regeneration and different species are capable of different types. The most common is unidirectional regeneration, where a starfish needs the majority of its disc to regenerate. If it is cut in half, only the the piece with over half of the disc will regenerate. Rarer is disc-dependent bidirectional regeneration. This allows a severed ray with at least part of the disc attached to regenerate into a full starfish. Part of the central disc is needed to provide access to the digestive system and mouth. The rarest and most extensive form is disc-independent bidirectional regeneration. This allows a severed ray with none of the original disc to regenerate a full starfish. The severed arm must rely on stored nutrients until the digestive tract regenerates, so only very healthy limbs will last long enough to do so.
(Image: a red starfish regenerating. It has three large, normal rays ans three very small rays branching off of the disc. End ID)
Regeneration occurs in three stages. The first is the repair stage, where the initial wound is healed and the body prepares to the generation of new tissues. This stage is where the starfish is at its most vulnerable to infection or succumbing to the injury. Next is the early regenerative phase, where undifferentiated cells and body structures move toward the regenerating surface. Finally is the advanced regenerative phase, where massive cell replication and differentiation occurs. During this phase, the new ray will grow as a miniature version of the originals and will gradually enlarge until reaching the adult size. This is a vastly oversimplified explanation of regeneration because most of it is cell biology that goes way over my head. Severed rays regrowing a body are sometimes called comets due to having one ray significantly larger than the others. Some species of starfish will deliberately drop a ray if threatened by a predator. This is called autotomy and relies on the predator favoring the easy meal of the dropped body part over continuing to attack the main body.
(image: a comet starfish attached to a glass tank wall, seen from below. It looks like a normal starfish, but with one disproportionately large ray. End ID
Starfish can use their regenerative powers for asexual reproduction. Certain species will engage in fission, splitting themselves apart so both parts will regrow into a full starfish. Some will split off a large section of disc while others can drop a single ray to regenerate. Fission seems to have evolved independently in multiple lineages and presents differently in different species. Some species will only do it as young, while others will do it their entire life. Some species will rarely do it, while others will drop limbs throughout their lives. In at least once species, only males will split themselves. Females of the species
Nepanthia belcheri can split into two males. Asexual reproduction usually occurs in adults, but some species can reproduce as larvae in good conditions, either through fission or budding off clones.
(Image: a chocolate chip starfish (
Protoreaster nodosus) on sand. It is a five-rayed, white starfish with multiple prominent black spines surrounded by red skin on its top end. End ID)
Starfish are found in every ocean and from the intertidal zone to the abyssal depths. Because they do not have the ability to regulate their internal salt content, starfish are not found in fresh water and only relatively few of their nearly 2000 species live in brackish water. Being relatively large generalist predators or omnivores generally occupying the middle of the food chain, starfish are often keystone species for their environments. Fun fact: the term keystone species was originally used to describe a starfish. Starfish play a large role in regulating benthic micro- and macro-organism densities while also being a food source for larger animals. Places where starfish have been removed have seen population explosions of bivalves and other prey species that lead to an overall decrease of biodiversity. On the other hand, the crown-of-thorns starfish (
Acanthaster planci) has seen multiple population explosions due to loss of their predators and are posing a major threat to coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific due to their diet of coral. There are also a few invasive species of starfish.
Asterias amurensis is on the list of the world’s 100 most invasive species. Echinoderms are sensitive to pollution and some species of starfish are used as a bioindicators of the health of their ecosystems. Starfish are threatened by pollution and habitat loss, but appear to be more resistant to ocean acidification than other species with calcareous skeletons.
(Image: a crown-of-thorns starfish on bleached coral. It is a large, purple starfish with 15 rays covered with spines all over. End ID)
The Horse image was created in association with Huawei, in a project that also includes agrivoltaics (growing crops between and underneath solar panels):
In the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia, the State Power Investment Corporation used Huawei’s smart PV solution to build a 300 MW solar power station. The power station located in Dalad Banner, an administrative region in Inner Mongolia, boasts 196,000 solar panels that were installed in the pattern of a galloping horse. By the end of 2022, the power station had produced 2.566 billion kWh of green electricity, equivalent to saving 1.027 million tons of coal equivalent and reducing CO2 by 2.56 million tons. The project has also fixed more than 1,000 hectares of sand.
The solar panels do far more than just generate electricity. Local residents have been able to plant herbs and shrubs under the panels and cash crops like desert false indigo and Mongolian milk vetch between the arrays. This prevents further erosion of the land between the panel arrays and contributes to wind and sand fixation and ecosystem restoration. This power station serves as a perfect example of how PV can support desertification control, and plans to replicate this success are being made in other desert lands of western China.
Alxa Right Banner, in Mongolia, the location of the Camel design, is a thriving camel business region. Hotan, in Xinjiang, China, is likewise a prominent pomegranate cultivation area.
“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”
A case study on technologies for behavioral monitoring and profiling using motion sensors and wireless networking infrastructure inside offices and other facilities"
Wolfie Christl, Cracked Labs, November 2024
This case study is part of the ongoing project “Surveillance and Digital Control at Work” (2023-2024) led by Cracked Labs, which aims to explore how companies use personal data on workers in Europe, together with AlgorithmWatch, Jeremias Prassl (Oxford), UNI Europa and GPA, funded by the Austrian Arbeiterkammer.
Case study “Tracking Indoor Location, Movement and Desk Occupancy in the Workplace” (PDF, 25 pages)
Summary
As offices, buildings and other corporate facilities become networked environments, there is a growing desire among employers to exploit data gathered from their existing digital infrastructure or additional sensors for various purposes. Whether intentionally or as a byproduct, this includes personal data about employees, their movements and behaviors.
Technology vendors are promoting solutions that repurpose an organization’s wireless networking infrastructure as a means to monitor and analyze the indoor movements of employees and others within buildings. While GPS technology is too imprecise to track indoor location, Wi-Fi access points that provide internet connectivity for laptops, smartphones, tables and other networked devices can be used to track the location of these devices. Bluetooth, another wireless technology, can also be used to monitor indoor location. This can involve Wi-Fi access points that track Bluetooth-enabled devices, so-called “beacons” that are installed throughout buildings and Bluetooth-enabled badges carried by employees. In addition, employers can utilize badging systems, security cameras and video conferencing technology installed in meeting rooms for behavioral monitoring, or even environmental sensors that record room temperature, humidity and light intensity. Several technology vendors provide systems that use motion sensors installed under desks or in the ceilings of rooms to track room and desk attendance.
This case study explores software systems and technologies that utilize personal data on employees to monitor room and desk occupancy and track employees’ location and movements inside offices and other corporate facilities. It focuses on the potential implications for employees in Europe. To illustrate wider practices, it investigates systems for occupancy monitoring and indoor location tracking offered by Cisco, Juniper, Spacewell, Locatee and other technology vendors, based on an analysis of technical documentation and other publicly available sources. It briefly addresses how workers resisted the installation of motion sensors by their employers. This summary presents an overview of the findings of this case study….
“The meeting of two tides reveals a fascinating phenomenon of wave interference in the Qiantang River in China, where the forces of the water overlap and create geometric patterns on the surface.
This visual effect is not just a natural curiosity, but a clear demonstration of how geometry is an omnipresent element in the fundamental processes of nature.
Wave interference teaches us about the interaction of forces that shape the universe, showing that harmony and balance are fundamental principles that govern both the micro and macrocosm.”
~
“To know the mechanics of the wave is to know the entire secret of nature.” ~ Walter Russell
The old Wikipedia article on “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” is a good case study in how one biased asshole can perpetuate harm by blocking any attempt at change. One editor had prevented the article from having its name changed to reflect the accepted research terminology, from mentioning any of the history of psychiatrists fraudulently psychologizing the disease, and completely quashed any mention of things like the PACE trial. It took a whole bunch of editors and admins to oust him and he threw a fit when that happened. The lead writer isn’t even a patient, just someone with a science background who realized “yo, this sucks”.
Those “Is a gyro a sandwitch? Well what about a tortellini?” conversations always get annoying because people don’t know how to keep them going. Casual taxonomical pedantry is fun and righteous, but only if people know how to play. “Is an onion a sandwich? What about a glass of water?” Obviously not. Be serious.
Lemme tell you how to upgrade your game:
“What is the least-sandwich sandwich? What defines the outermost realm of sandwitchdom?”
“What analytical razors can we use to separate sandwiches from non-sandwiches?”
“What food is most like a sandwich while not being a sandwich?”
“What is the most sandwitch sandwitch?”
“What was the first sandwich? What does the ur-sandwitch tell us about the nature of sandwitchdom?”
“Can you process a sandwich until it is no longer a sandwich? At what point does it lose its sandwich-ness?”
“When does a non-sandwich become a sandwich? i.e. When do the ingredients become a sandwich?”
“What is the simplest possible sandwich?”
“What is the most complex possible sandwich? Is there an upper limit on sandwich complexity?”
Researchers at New York University have devised a mathematical approach to predict the structures of crystals – a critical step in developing many medicines and electronic devices – in a matter of hours using only a laptop, a process that previously took a supercomputer weeks or months. Their novel framework is published in the journal
Nature Communications.
Organic molecular crystals are an important class of materials in many industries, from pharmaceuticals and agriculture to electronics and explosives. Crystals are the building blocks that make up many over-the-counter and prescription drugs, insecticides to fight mosquitoes, explosives such as TNT, semiconductors, and light-emitting technologies used in television screens and cell phones.
Cobbold Point is a notable coastal feature in Suffolk, United Kingdom. It consists of conglomerate rocky cliffs, characterized by significant erosion caused by landslides and multi-directional wave-cut platforms. The area offers breathtaking views of the nearby beach and the dramatic skyline of Blackshore in the distance.
At first, the F.B.I. and other investigators believed that China’s hackers used stolen passwords to focus mostly on the system that taps telephone conversations and texts under court orders. It is administered by a number of the nation’s telecommunications firms, including the three largest — Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. But in recent days, investigators have discovered how deeply China’s hackers had moved throughout the country by exploiting aging equipment and seams in the networks connecting disparate systems.
[…]
But the Chinese activity in the past year has taken these intrusions to a new level, Mr. Warner said on Thursday. “This is far and away the most serious telecom hack in our history,” he said. “This makes Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds look like small potatoes.”
He said that only in the past week had it become clear that “every major provider has been broken into.”
The hackers were not able to listen to conversations on encrypted applications, like those carried over WhatsApp or Signal. Nor could they read encrypted messages, such as those sent from one iPhone to another over Apple’s iMessage system. But they could read regular text messages between an iPhone and an Android phone, for example, or listen to phone calls over the ordinary telephone networks, much as the government can if it has a legal order.
The Chinese went after the conversations of national security officials, politicians and some of their staff, investigators have concluded. There may have been several Chinese groups at work, said a senior official involved in the investigation, who noted that one of them might have focused on Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance.
How nice of the US government to provide a convenient method for it to be spied on
To be a botanist today is to choose your words carefully. In her new book, The Light Eaters, Zoe Schlanger details the caution with which botanists ascribe intelligence to plants. Some only dare say plants can “sense”—they are like machines receiving stimuli and outputting an appropriate response. Other botanists take a small risk in the eyes of their peers to ascribe plants with “behavior.” There are fewer still who are bold enough to use the word “intelligence” or, audible gasp, “consciousness” to describe the feats that plants achieve; these words put you in an entirely different camp of dubious respectability in the halls of academia. I can respect the desire for precise language in science, but it makes me wonder, why the trepidation? What would it cost if plants were to be considered intelligent?
Through her many conversations, Schlanger realized it would cost a lot, perhaps an entire worldview: “Over and over, I saw the debate [over plant intelligence] framed as a dispute over syntax. But it looked to me more of a dispute over worldview. Over the nature of reality. Over what plants were, particularly in contrast to ourselves.”
This is perhaps the clearest way of describing what Queer Ecology is: it is the study of living phenomena that would cost us our worldview. And good riddance.
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
The core of the prepper fantasy: “What if the world ended in the
precise way that made
me the most important person?” The ultra-rich fantasize about emerging from luxury bunkers with an army of mercs and thumbdrives full of bitcoin to a world in ruins that they restructure using their “leadership skills.”
The ethnographer Rich Miller spent his career embedding with preppers, eventually writing the canonical book of the fantasies that power their obsessions,
Dancing at Armageddon: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times:
Miller recounts how the disasters that preppers prepare for are the disasters that will call upon their skills, like the water chemist who’s devoted his life to preparing to help his community recover from a terrorist attack on its water supply; and who, when pressed, has no theory as to why any terrorist would stage such an attack:
Prepping is what happens when you are consumed by the fantasy of a terrible omnicrisis that
you can solve, personally. It’s an individualistic fantasy, and that makes it inherently neoliberal. Neoliberalism’s mind-zap is to convince us all that our only role in society is as an individual (“There is no such thing as society” – M. Thatcher). If we have a workplace problem, we must bargain with our bosses, and if we lose, our choices are to quit or eat shit. Under no circumstances should we solve labor disputes through a union, especially not one that wins strong legal protections for workers and then holds the government’s feet to the fire.
Same with bad corporate conduct: getting ripped off? Caveat emptor! Vote with your wallet and take your business elsewhere. Elections are slow and politics are boring. But “vote with your wallet” turns retail therapy into a form of civics.
This individualistic approach to problem solving does useful work for powerful people, because it keeps the rest of us thoroughly power
less. Voting with your wallet is casting a ballot in a rigged election that’s always won by the people with the thickest wallets, and statistically, that’s never you. That’s why the right is so obsessed with removing barriers to election spending: the wealthy can’t win a one-person/one-vote election (to be in the 1% is to be outnumbered 99:1), but unlimited campaign spending lets the wealthy vote in
real elections using their wallets, not just just ballots.
Professor Jason Stanley, who studies fascism, says fascism is a set of tactics for gaining power. Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined fascism as the ownership of government by an individual, a group, or any other controlling private power—which is basically what happens you privatize government to the point where the government is essentially owned by private individuals.
Oligarchy, to define our terms, is when government is in the hands of a few people who own the government.
So oligarchy is a form of government that happens when a few people gain power and solidify their place at the top of the hierarchy and come to essentially own the government.
When fairness presidents go to work, they do things like create healthcare for everyone, expand voting rights, create progressive tax code. Things that help everybody, including people at the bottom.
Fascists and would-be oligarchs can’t do that because if everyone has equal access you don’t have a hierarchy anymore.
So how do they govern?
Russian philosopher Ivan Illyin explains how to do it. Timothy Snyder writes about Illyin in his book the Road to Unfreedom. llyin was a Russian nobleman who went into exile after the communist revolution. He admired Hitler and Mussolini. He admired order. The nation, for Ilyin, was like a body. The citizens are the cells. Each remains in its place. The foot cell doesn’t try to be a brain cell, and the brain cell doesn’t want to be a foot cell and wouldn’t even try.
He believed in a natural order. He also for this reason believed fascism would eventually replace both communism and democracy.
Illyin disliked the middle class, which was always striving for social advancement. He believed that this fractured society and created chaos. He thought the rulers at the top should rule, everyone else should be at the bottom.
He wrote guidelines for Russian leaders who would come to power after the fall of communism so they would know how to be good fascist. Putin followed these guidelines, and people like Trump have imitated Putin.
For Illyin, the task of the oligarch is to preserve the status quo, which means preserving their own wealth and power, and keeping others in their places.
But you can’t tell the people THAT. So you tell them a good story.
You tell them the oligarchs are “redeemers” with a mythic connection to the destiny of the nation, and that they will do battle with the nation’s enemies.
The fascist leader distracts everyone with these battle so they don’t have time to think about why they don’t have health care. They create crises.
Made up enemies are safest. We know that from George Orwell.
Twentieth century fascist really went war, and that was their undoing.
21st century fascists prefer harmless or made up enemies. That way the fascist leader doesn’t have to worry about getting hurt or having his property damaged. Trump preferred harmless enemies—those homeless migrant families at the border.
The followers are so busy cheering on their leader (the strongman) who is doing battle with their enemies that they don’t have time to wonder why they don’t have better healthcare or why they’re getting sick or and don’t have the same quality health care as people at the top, There is something they want more.
They want safety and order restored. They want their enemies vanquished. Now the enemy is Antifa.
No matter how low you are in the hierarchy, there are people lower trying to take what’s yours. The migrants at the border are perfect. They’re very low on the hierarchy trying to come up and take what belongs to “real” Americans.
What Trump did is basically what would-be oligarch do. He gave tax breaks to himself and his pals, and riled up his followers against Black Lives Matters implying that Blacks are trying to upset the natural order take over the top of the hierarchy.
There are so many things wrong with that, but the point is that hierarchy people see a desire for equality as a threat to order.
Crisis and spectacle is how fascists and would-be oligarchs govern.
The main way they gain and solidify power is through lies.
the nacirema people have a well known saying “seil laer, ezilaer, seye laer” whose exact meaning is difficult to translate but can be approximated as “deceptions will always be revealed by those who see”
Orbea variegata is one of the “carrion flowers”, so called because of the stench it emits in order to attract the flies that pollinate it. It is part of a large group known as the stapeliads, long placed in the Asclepiadaceae, or Milkweed Family. Recently, however, all the milkweeds have been re-classified as the subfamily Asclepiadoideae within the Dogbane Family, Apocynaceae. In any case, all the members of this group normally have five-pointed flowers, but the plant pictured is a very rare sport that has put out a 7-pointed bloom. Same foul smell, though! Orbea variegata comes from the southwestern corner of South Africa.
Huernia is one of many genera in the large grouping of succulents known as stapeliads. These plants generally have clusters of cylindrical stems (often knobbly, as seen here) and wonderful starfish-like five-pointed flowers. Lots of them emit unpleasant smells in order to attract flies as pollinators, and this has given them the nickname of ‘carrion flowers’. Huernia thuretii is a small species from South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, and the form pictured has very pale yellow flowers with bands of purple (we also have a different form with no purple markings).
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