Chebucto Regional Softball Club

@futurebird @violetmadderOne of my favorite books is “Seeing Like A State” by James C Scott. It’s about how states try to make the world “legible” by creating simplified understandings of the world, and then actually imposing those understandings on to the world. This often works in the short term, but destroys the contextual knowledge and capacities of the people imposed upon in the long run.This style of polling might better reflect that contextual knowledge

@Doug_Bostrom @futurebird Having read this morning about two miracles attributed to Carlo Acutis, who was canonized by Pope Leo, I think many would consider this momma ant giving birth to a baby ant of a different species to be subjectively more miraculous than Acutis’ dubious feats of healing.

@futurebird My pleasure. Prior to finding your account, I'd never really given ants much thought. But your continual posting about your relentless and unapologetic fascination in the wonder of ants has brought me much joy and opened my eyes somewhat.So ... thanks for that!

When the princesses leave to make their own nests, they mate with both species of male from other colonies. Like their mothers, the new queens clone M. structor while laying M. ibericus eggs the normal way.As the authors of the paper note, this requires a massive rethink of the whole concept of species, because nature cares not what boxes we put things in.I assume @futurebird is aware of all this? ↑3/3#Science #Ant #Ants #Entomology

Probolomyrmex longinodus are a species of ant that nests in snail shells filled with soil. The entire genus is cryptic. Alex Wild has one of the few photos of a living ant:https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Taxonomic-List-of-Ant-Genera/Probolomyrmex/i-LLNndCn/AThey are eyeless, and live in leaf litter, or in the previously mentioned shells.Hard to study, hard to find, tricky to ID when you do find them. Absolute legends. Ants with secrets. #ants #rareAnt

@alexwild Wait no... this has happened TWICE with ants in Spain!Well there are differences, but what is going on over there?

@atsuzaki @david_preston This country is so WEIRD and no one notices it!

@futurebird ... given the current state of the CDC, if there was a highly dangerous (like 1918 dangerous) flu variant spreading, it would probably get many months to spread before we knew. It is not an accident this happens at the same time as the attacks on vaccines.

@futurebird It's even wearing mites over its eyes like jazzy Elton John glasses. Unfortunately the side shot I have is largely out of focus...

@rhempel That was before my time naturally. I've grown up with a deep suspicion of this kind of reporting. But I have read about how that worked to sway the public about that war. This stuff matters.

@FolksVelo @EricLawton I'll tell you a secret... you did!

@micahflee It's really hard to make a useful tool unless you build it with the people who use it and have a feedback loop going to make it do what they need most. This isn't fun work, but for things like this it is god's work.

@SeanPLynch this is my smile