Heart

Boulders-based science writer Jennifer Frazer opens doors to wonder at The Artful Amoeba.

I mentioned Jennifer and her site a week or so ago, but want to do so again because something in me wakes up and reconfigures every time I visit her blog. I so admire her work and the way she makes the glories (and sometimes the absurdities or terrors) of the natural world accessible to us; it seems to me that her care and regard for the earth is an expression of love of the highest order; no surprise then to find the word heart embedded in her blog title?

Jennifer introduces her site thus "... This is a blog about biodiversity and natural history, although I dislike that first term. I think it turns people off to the subject. It's too often used for boring platitudes about species richness that tell you nothing about what's actually out there. I'm here to work on fixing that with a healthy dose of wit, humor, and obscure sci-fi references. Think of this as MST3K version of biodiversity..."

The Artful Amoeba was recently selected as the second-best biodiversity blog by the Pimm Group.

Jennifer's most recent post features Glaucus atlanticus - 'magical bird slugs' - in an article titled A Sea Slug of fractal Beauty (Rebecca L, you will find these creatures astonishing!)...

Glaucus atlanticus - Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic - © Taro Taylor

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It seems to me that, no matter how we look at it, everything in this remarkable life of ours comes down - or rises up - to matters of listening and of the heart. . . It can be no coincidence that the word heart carries within it hear, ear and art?

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May I ask you to please light a candle for my dear Dad who is in London Bridge hospital this week and possibly next; his heart's being monitored/listened to. . . ? Thank you. And one for Mum, always at his side. . . xo

Salt water lions

Until this morning, I'd not heard about Lion's Mane jellyfish.

Have you?

I was visiting Rebecca Loudon's blog where she makes regular and tender mention of jellies. Yesterday she wrote about the little 'hot-cross bun jellies' and Lion's Manes she'd seen down at the docks in Seattle. Being a Leo, my ears immediately pricked and off I went to Google to see what I could find. As I said to Rebecca, I love the idea of there being waterborne lions in addition to those that roam the savannah grasslands. It'd be wise to be a little guarded around them, yes, but there are cats who need to live beside salt water. . .

Anyway, my birds are calling for their breakfast and it's time for me to pull my apron on and get busy in the studio. But first, here are a few of the people and places I visited on the web (the amazing web) this morning...

Arline Fisch, a San Diego-base artist who crocheted these glorious jellies (and makes many other marine forms, besides: how could she not, I wonder, with a name like 'Fisch''?)

If you're curious about the connection between new and novel foods, jelly tofu, collagen, the Yangtze River, phosphorous and over-fished waters, this is the place to go - Nomura and Lion's mane jellyfish.

I hadn't realized that jellyfish have been around for almost 700 million years, making them older than dinosaurs. They are 95% water and possess no bones or cartilage, no blood, heart or brain. And yet, here they are, capable of ballet, food capture, the elegant delivery of a thousand lethal stings...

Did you know that in 1870, off the shores of Massachusetts Bay, a Lion's Mane jelly with a 2.3 meter diameter and tentacles 36.5 metres long washed up onto the beach? That's a jelly larger than a blue whale - with one hell-of-a mane!

Amazing jellyfish pics

I was excited to happen upon The Artful Amoeba - a blog about the weird wonderfulness of life on Earth - eloquently hosted by Boulder-based biologist Jennifer Frazer (and yes, I delighted in the whimsical connection between Boulder, Colorado & the M. boulders I visited recently!). She's written a sobering jelly-related article titled 50 Toddlers + One Dead Lion's Mane Jellyfish = ?

Happy day, all.