Elysia Chlorotica, Also Called The “Eastern Emerald Elysia” Is A Bright Green Sacoglossa Found Along

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

What makes the dark shyshark (Haploblepharus pictus) so shy? When threatened, this critter might curl up into a ring and cover its eyes with its tail. Scientists think this defensive posture makes it harder for predators to gulp the dark shyshark down for an easy meal. Found in parts of the southeast Atlantic Ocean, this shark can grow to about 22 in (55.8 cm) long. Its diet includes crustaceans, mollusks, and fish.

Photo: Raoulco, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

THIS OCTOPUS IS HAVING A NIGHTMARE, SCIENTISTS BELIEVE.

Sleep is a fundamental biological function present in all vertebrates and most invertebrates. Octopuses are really complex animals, displaying active and inactive sleep states similar to those of vertebrates. In particular, octopuses have active sleep states during which they display sequences of camouflage patterns, while remaining relatively quiet and unresponsive to external stimuli. Some scientists have speculated that these states could be analogous to dreaming in mammals.

Now, researchers have recorder what is believing an octopuses having nightmare. During a month, researchers recorded a male Brazilian reef octopus (Octopus insularis), and they detected four brief episodes were identified during which the octopus abruptly emerged from sleep, detached itself from its sleep position, and engaged in antipredator behaviors, despite no predator was present. The longest of these episodes resembled the species-typical response to a predatory attack, suggesting that the animal may have been responding to a negative episodic memory while sleeping.

However, these are just conjectures, as it is hard to be sure, according to scientists, who claim that more studies are needed to ensure that they really are nightmares.

Gif from video: Eric Ramos et al

Reference:  Ramos et al., 2023. Abnormal behavioral episodes associated with sleep and quiescence in Octopus insularis: Possible nightmares in a cephalopod?. bioRxiv.

video can be seen here

Beetles 🪲🐞

Wake up babe new fish dropped

A Chart of Various Cephalopod Orders