Bear Witness to the Virtual Round Dance

Here are the location and content notes for "An Inkling of Things to Come."

( Read more... )

Copied from LiveJournal.

This poem is spillover from the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from fuzzyred. It also fills the "someone from the past" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics fest.  This poem belongs to the College Arc of the Shiv thread in the Polychrome Heroics series.

This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $0.50/line, so $5 will reveal 10 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses.
So far sponsors include: fuzzyred, janetmiles.

FULLY FUNDED
628 lines, Buy It Now = $314
Amount donated = $263
Verses posted = 155 of 187 
Amount remaining to fund fully = $52
Amount needed to fund next verse = $0.50
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $3

( Read more... )

Today is partly sunny and chilly.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/13/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I refilled the hopper feeder.

EDIT 2/13/26 -- I spread a bucket of mulch where the contorta willow tree used to grow.

EDIT 2/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a flock of sparrows, a mourning dove, and a male cardinal.

I am done for the night.

Thanks to the website work of nsfwords, you can now read "Forelsket."   

Plant extinction risk rises as garden databases remain divided

Botanic gardens have amassed one of the world’s largest living reserves of plant diversity.

A new study demonstrates that fragmented data systems have kept that global collection from functioning as a single, coordinated safeguard against extinction.

At a moment when plant loss is accelerating, the information needed to act often remains locked inside incompatible databases, limiting the very safety net designed to prevent disappearance.


I have mixed feelings about this. A unified body of knowledge is certainly easier to use -- but it's also easier to damage or destroy. Right now, the government is a major threat to information that it dislikes. So having that information scattered around in places that aren't easy to reach all at once can offer a kind of protection.

This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...


* Commented in common_nature.

* Posted "National Craft Month Bingo Fest" in crafty.

* Posted "Homes for Birds Week" on datahoarders.

These are the notes for "The Tranquility and Beauty of the Winter Landscape."

( Read more... )

Today is partly sunny and chilly.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/11/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I refilled the hopper feeder.

EDIT 2/11/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I saw several starlings foraging in the grass.

I am done for the night.

This poem is spillover from the February 3, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a post from elinox. It also fills the "Validate Yourself" square in my 2-1-26 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem is the second freebie courtesy of new prompters gs_silva, ionelv, and Laura G.

( Read more... )

Scientists find genes that existed before all life on Earth

Life’s story may stretch further back than scientists once thought. Some genes found in nearly every organism today were already duplicated before all life shared a common ancestor. By tracking these rare genes, researchers can investigate how early cells worked and what features of life emerged first. New computational tools are now helping scientists unlock this hidden chapter of evolution.


This is a much more useful look at "earliest life" than a lot of what I've seen with people fumbling around the Ediacaran acting like that's early, simple life. Here we are talking about genes that help define was the earliest life was like -- it had a membrane to distinguish itself from its environment, proteins to perform functions, and DNA to encode information. That is very, very close to the beginning. Much farther back and you get into, hmm, parabiology where things sort of behave like life, but also sort of not because they're missing key pieces. So for instance viruses, which are alive because they can be killed, but they can only reproduce by hijacking another cell's reproductive equipment.  This far back is very interesting to explore, especially if you're also into things like worldbuilding or speculative evolution.