Examples of Awesome, Unexpected Beauty in Nature

[joigus]

6 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Yes, aren't they beautiful? 

As always, we should ask the beholder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat

I think they are. But I'm no expert on beauty.

Let's ask @MigL.

[dimreepr]

4 minutes ago, joigus said:

Let's ask @MigL.

Na, he'll just blame it on the fog of war... 🙂

[joigus]

23 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Na, he'll just blame it on the fog of war... 🙂

He's the only one who's objected to the beauty standards of this thread. But he didn't mention any wars...

[dimreepr]

4 minutes ago, joigus said:

He's the only one who's objected to the beauty standards of this thread. But he didn't mention any wars...

I hesitate to object, since this is in the lounge, but isn't a fog a way to obscure what we see?

[joigus]

23 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I hesitate to object, since this is in the lounge, but isn't a fog a way to obscure what we see?

I hesitate to hesitate.  

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, joigus said:

I hesitate to hesitate.  

me too... I just wonder...

[MigL]

3 hours ago, joigus said:

As always, we should ask the beholder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat

I think they are. But I'm no expert on beauty.

Let's ask @MigL.

I have no problem with rats, snakes, snails, croccodiles, etc.
It is only photographs of creepy-crawlies of the insect variety, that leave me feeling as if  they are crawling all over me ...

And yes, it is especially bad in fog, when you can't see the little bast*rds.

[Phi for All]

24 minutes ago, MigL said:

I have no problem with rats, snakes, snails, croccodiles, etc.
It is only photographs of creepy-crawlies of the insect variety, that leave me feeling as if  they are crawling all over me ...

And yes, it is especially bad in fog, when you can't see the little bast*rds.

Try not to think about a fog that swirls around you quickly before vanishing, leaving you unexpectedly covered in bugs! STOP!

[joigus]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

I have no problem with rats, snakes, snails, croccodiles, etc.

Naked mole rats are not really rats, and they're not just any mammals:

Quote

Resistance to cancer

Naked mole-rats have a high resistance to tumours, although it is likely that they are not entirely immune to related disorders.^[22] A potential mechanism that averts cancer is an "over-crowding" gene, p16, which prevents cell division once individual cells come into contact (known as "contact inhibition"). The cells of most mammals, including naked mole-rats, undergo contact inhibition via the gene p27 which prevents cellular reproduction at a much higher cell density than p16 does. The combination of p16 and p27 in naked mole-rat cells is a double barrier to uncontrolled cell proliferation, one of the hallmarks of cancer.^[23]

In 2013, scientists reported that the reason naked mole-rats do not get cancer can be attributed to an "extremely high-molecular-mass hyaluronan" (HMW-HA) (a natural sugary substance), which is over "five times larger" than that in cancer-prone humans and cancer-susceptible laboratory animals.^[24][25][26] The scientific report was published a month later as the cover story of the journal Nature.^[27] A few months later, the same University of Rochester research team announced that naked mole-rats have ribosomes that produce extremely error-free proteins.^[28] Because of both of these discoveries, the journal Science named the naked mole-rat "Vertebrate of the Year" for 2013.^[29]

In 2016, a report was published that recorded the first ever discovered malignancies in two naked mole-rats, in two individuals.^[22][30][31] However, both naked mole-rats were captive-born at zoos, and hence lived in an environment with 21% atmospheric oxygen compared to their natural 2–9%, which may have promoted tumorigenesis.^[32]

The Golan Heights blind mole-rat (Spalax golani) and the Judean Mountains blind mole-rat (Spalax judaei) are also resistant to cancer, but by a different mechanism.^[33]

(Wikipedia)

Sharks are also very resistant to tumours. I don't know what this has to do with beauty, but it does have a lot to do with the unexpected. Nature is truly amazing.

[beecee]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

I have no problem with rats, snakes, snails, croccodiles, etc.
It is only photographs of creepy-crawlies of the insect variety, that leave me feeling as if  they are crawling all over me ...

And yes, it is especially bad in fog, when you can't see the little bast*rds.

Like this?

[joigus]

11 minutes ago, beecee said:

Like this?

I don't think MigL would have any problem with those. They're not of the insect variety.

 

[beecee]

24 minutes ago, joigus said:

I don't think MigL would have any problem with those. They're not of the insect variety.

I would!!😬

For MigL.............

The Australian region of Gippsland encountered a phenomenon knowns as ballooning, where spiders move to higher ground after heavy rains and flooding.

 

[zapatos]

3 hours ago, beecee said:

Like this?

Oh, you REALLY have a mean streak in you! 😱

[beecee]

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

Oh, you REALLY have a mean streak in you! 😱

Ahh, there only Hunstman and harmless! But yeah would also scare the lving daylights out of me also.

[beecee]

The above is a photo of Ball's Pyramid, a rocky outcrop near Lord Howe Island off the coast of NSW. Lord Howe Island can be seen in the background.

https://gripped.com/profiles/heard-balls-pyramid-pretty-epic/

The seven-million-year-old 562-metre formation is the remnant of a shield volcano and caldera that stands about 20 kilometres southeast of Australia’s Lord Howe Island. It is the tallest volcanic stack in the world.

The Climb

It was first attempted in 1964 by the Australian team, but they ran out of supplies and turned back. On Valentines Day 1965, Bryden Allen, John Davis, Jack Pettigrew and David Witham became the first to stand on top. Then in 1979, Smith climbed it with John Worrall and Hugh Ward and planted a New South Wales flag and declared it Australian territory.

Edited September 18, 2021 by beecee

[beecee]

The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands^[1][2] (HIMI^[3]) is an Australian external territory comprising a volcanic group of mostly barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. The group's overall size is 372 km² (144 sq mi) in area and it has 101.9 km (63 mi) of coastline. Discovered in the mid-19th century, the islands have been an Australian territory since 1947 and contain the country's two active volcanoes. The summit of one, Mawson Peak, is higher than any mountain on the Australian mainland. The islands lie on the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean.

The islands are among the most remote places on Earth: They are located about 4,099 km (2,547 mi) southwest of Perth,^[4] 3,845 km (2,389 mi) southwest of Cape Leeuwin, Australia, 4,200 km (2,600 mi) southeast of South Africa, 3,830 km (2,380 mi) southeast of Madagascar, 1,630 km (1,010 mi) north of Antarctica, and 450 km (280 mi) southeast of the Kerguelen Islands.^[5] The islands are currently uninhabited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island_and_McDonald_Islands

[joigus]

Really, really strange animal. Pink fairy armadillo, culotapado (hidden ass) or pichiciego (which I dare not translate). It has unique features among mammals, can use its tail and legs as a tripod, and its muscles reach the end of its extremities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_fairy_armadillo

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by joigus
correction

[zapatos]

[joigus]

19 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Saw it a couple of days ago. Almost spooky!

[zapatos]

37 minutes ago, joigus said:

Saw it a couple of days ago. Almost spooky!

I can just picture the person who took it, getting all excited thinking 'did I just get that?!?!'

[zapatos]

"No Two Alike," by Nathan Myhrvold Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC

 

[joigus]

9 minutes ago, zapatos said:

"No Two Alike," by Nathan Myhrvold Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC

 

Since very early on I've thought Nature is superior to art (a little Socratic trick, as art is produced by humans, who are produced by Nature).

Hands down it is. After all, she's had billions of years as a head start on whatever part of it we call art.

[StringJunky]

Thinking about the emergence thread running now and this topic:

I wonder if everything we observe is a function of pareolalia, that allows us to turn the scene around us into discrete things that we can give names to and communicate them. I am considering the idea of emergence as an observer-dependent phenomenon, and that's why it's so hard for me to put my finger on. No thing is actually discrete per se, since everything is connected. Discreteness of things is perhaps just a mental construct that's not reflected in reality, like these murmurations.

Edited December 11, 2021 by StringJunky

[iNow]

Well said

[StringJunky]

10 minutes ago, iNow said:

Well said

Thank you. It is a topic that has haunted me for years. To me, it's like trying to grab hold of smoke.