Bio-Art: Georgia O' Keeffe.

Every artist, scientific or not, has his or her individual style.  It's when certain elements of one's style start forming a pattern that makes

Many of you have probably heard of Georgia O'Keeffe. She was an American artist born on November 15th, 1887; she died in the March of 1986. During her extremely long life, she produced a number of interesting paintings. Yes, she also did a few things that merit looking at on this column.

"Flower of Life II." Remember that title.

Georgia O' Keeffe was not a scientist. She did, however, do a number of works, most notably flowers. Hyper-detailed, fully-colored macro shots of flowers. She also did a lot of images of New Mexico, but the flowers are more common in art museums. Gee, I wonder why?

In stark contrast to the innocence of flowers, O'Keeffe also painted a lot of skulls. She has images of stag, ram, and bull skulls floating over New Mexico, a setting that she was obsessed with. Sometimes, as if to hint at a certain something, she even did skulls alongside flowers. Eros and Thanatos were at home in one piece...but what if there was a deeper connection?

The creepy thing is why she did bull skulls alongside flowers. The answer, it turns out, is purely scientific:

Flowers and skulls are both....feminine. A flower looks like a vulva; an ungulate skull, the inner workings of the feminine reproductive system. Given that skulls are outstanding in O'Keeffe's work, she must have known about that relationship. It's creepy, but at the same time amazing.If this were not a clearly intentional relationship, I would not be pointing it out here.

The strange thing is how I came about this revelation. There was once a book called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, which equated alphabets with masculinity and left-brain thinking. Much of the book is a pile of bullplop as far as learning about writing systems is concerned, but how it was written shows that the book was written by a surgeon. He found the relationship between Cretan bull worship and the feminine reproductive tract easily. That one little grain was the best part of the entire book; now you don't have to buy it, and you got to enjoy some trippy art for the new year. :) 

But enough morbidity. On with Freak Week 4!

Creature Feature: Monito del Monte.

In the rudimentary biology classes that most American schools offer, we are taught very few things about marsupials. They basically cover kangaroos, koalas, and maybe wombats. Marsupials give birth to babies that develop in pouches. All of them are native to Australia. That is the extent of our weird mammal knowledge.

Well, the weird can always get weirder, right?

Sourcing is cool.

This is a monito del monte (Dromiciops gliroides). It is a mouse-sized mammal native to South America, but is not a "little mountain monkey" as the name would suggest. Specifically, it is only native to the Andes Mountains of Chile and Argentina, which are not usually talked about when it comes to unique species. Its diet consists of insects and fruit- more on the fruit later. It has nothing to do with the brand of canned fruit on American grocery shelves.

So, why am I mentioning a South American mammal after that shtick about our limited knowledge about marsupials? Monito del monte is a marsupial. A South American marsupial. Consider your mind blown if you thought all marsupials were only in Australia's immediate vicinity. The opossum is commonly taught as an exception to the rule; monito del monte is not.

But it should be!

How did this happen? Long story short, Australia and the southwestern edge of South America were once very close together on a supercontinent called Gondwanaland.  For a long time, biogeologists were expecting to find ancestral marsupials in South America. They found the bones of a small marsupial, dubbed Djarthia,  in Queensland, but never found a living specimen until they found the monito del monte. Genetic evidence proved that the 11 million-year-old bones and the monito were almost the same organism. Fascinating, no?

The unique features of the monito del monte keep piling on. It is the only mammal that stores fat in its prehensile tail. It hibernates in little nests of waterproof leaves and moss when the weather gets too nippy in the mountains.  This is sounding more and more like a gecko; remember how cresties were once thought extinct? Are we sure the Geico gecko isn't wearing a fursuit? (Actually, finding a gecko in that area would be even more surprising!) Talk about weird, primitive animals!

This little fuzzball is also important for a plant called Tristerix corymbosus, a type of mistletoe native to the same area. The monito del monte eats the fruit of the plant. When the fruit is digested, out comes a seed of that particular mistletoe. The monito del monte is the only thing that disperses the seeds of this plant; it would likely go extinct along with the marsupial. Although the monito del monte is not in critical danger, it is near-threatened...but look at that face. Someone has to be captive breeding these...right? Right?

(P.S. - Apologies - these last few days have been spent with relatives in Minnesota.)

Newsflash: Dragonflies Capable of Primate-Level Cognition.

"Insect" and "complex" rarely appear in the same sentence.  Generally, we think of them as simple, primitive animals that largely exist to be eaten by other animals or squished by primate boots. No matter how often we call ants "eusocial," we can't help but get a little bothered when they come to share our picnic. 

But are they really that much lower than us? The ant has long been hailed for its mechanical work ethic. Despite how much some of us loathe fleas and roaches, they are among the world's finest survivors. The very progression and reproduction rate of humanity has been compared to that of rodents, viruses, and insects. It should be no surprise that we use them so much as examples, especially since some insects have brains on par with primates. Yes, the Insect Apocalypse is nigh.

At the very least, it has been found that dragonflies are capable of something called "selective attention." Basically, a dragonfly can hone in on one thing while there are a million things going on around it. Every other insect has ADD by comparison. Full article below:

"By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 12/27/2012 07:03 PM EST on LiveScience

Dragonflies lack humans' big brains, but they still get the job done, according to new research that suggests that these insects have brain cells capable of feats previously seen only in primates.

Specifically, the dragonflies can screen out useless visual information to focus on a target, a process called selective attention. The new study, published Dec. 20 in the journal Current Biology, is the first to find brain cells devoted to selective attention in an invertebrate animal.
Selective attention is crucial for responding to one stimulus among the dozens of distractions that clamor for notice at any given time, said Steven Wiederman of the University of Adelaide in Australia.

"Imagine a tennis player having to pick out a small ball from the crowd when it's traveling at almost 200 kilometers an hour," Wiederman said in a statement. "You need selective attention in order to hit that ball back into play."

But little is known about how the brain locks onto its targets and ignores all else. To find out, Wiederman, who is from the university's Center for Neuroscience Research, and his colleague David O'Carroll turned to an unlikely animal. The researchers have long studied insect vision, and the dragonfly turns out to be quite adept in that arena. [Photos: Dew-Covered Dragonflies & Other Sparkling Insects]
 
"The dragonfly hunts for other insects, and these might be part of a swarm — they're all tiny moving objects," Wiederman said. "Once the dragonfly has selected a target, its neuron activity filters out all other potential prey. The dragonfly then swoops in on its prey — they get it right 97 percent of the time."

Using a glass probe with a tip 1,500 times smaller than a human hair, the researchers measured the neuronal activity that enables such amazing aerial hunting. A similar process is at work in the primate brain, O'Carroll said in a statement, but researchers weren't expecting to see the same thing in an insect that evolved 325 million years ago.

"We believe our work will appeal to neuroscientists and engineers alike," O'Carroll said. "For example, it could be used as a model system for robotic vision. Because the insect brain is simple and accessible, future work may allow us to fully understand the underlying network of neurons and copy it into intelligent robots."" - Full article here.

Bogleech has been going on and on about the eventual total domination of the human race by insects. I'm starting to think he was onto something.

Creature Feature: Dugong.

Ever wonder how stories of mermaids got started? Like, who decided to put a hot lady on a fish's body? It was obviously someone very drunk and/or creative. It's not like a normal person could look at any sea mammal and go, "hey, that looks like a woman with a tail! I should say hi."

Source.

Oh, hell. With a tail like that and a little bit of liquor, that could totally pass for a mermaid.

That, by the way, is a dugong (Dugong dugon). No, not Dewgong- the animal came first. Dugongs are sirenids, making them related to manatees and, more loosely, elephants, tenrecs, and hyraxes. They live in most of the warmer waters around the world, including those around Africa, Australia, China, and the islands around those areas. They are mostly herbivorous, but some populations are omnivores, munching on invertebrates when grass is not available.

For those of you curious about the nomenclature, the odd name comes from the Malayan word for "mermaid." The idea seems pretty universal, with people all the way in Kenya considering dugongs feminine. Indonesians even consider them reincarnations of women. If any sea mammal can be considered a basis or mermaids, this is the one. Instant mermaid: just add rum.

(c) Mandy Episton.

 

That said, outside of being mermaids, dugongs are fascinating creatures. The tail is fluked like that of a whale or dolphin; this allows it to 'stand' in shallower waters and keep its head above the sea in order to take a breath. Speaking of, dugong lungs are very long, extending all the way down to their kidneys. This arrangement helps balance out the dugong's buoyant blubber.

The dugong is always culturally-significant in the areas in which it is found. Catching a dugong can be seen as either good or bad luck, depending on where you go. In Thailand, the tears are an aphrodisiac; the Indians are more rational and use its meat for sexual potency. The list of things dugong can be used for goes on, possibly into the Bible.

Under the sea, under the sea~

Alas, the dugong is nearing endangered status, and it's entirely our fault. Its meat, oil, skin, and bones are all valuable. They are big, docile, and slow-moving, making them easy targets.  Let's not even get into how humans are polluting the ocean and cutting up sea cows with boats. Once you learn that everybody eats dugong meat, all other reasons seem miniscule by comparison. Luckily, most areas with dugongs have some regulations on hunting them. Good luck enforcing that.

Oh, and yes, dugong has a Poke-sona in Dewgong, the evolution of Seel. Real dugongs, however, cannot handle icy water period, let alone swim through it at high speeds. Sorry, but this Water-Type will not be learning Ice Beam aaaany time soon. Still, save the mermaids!

They Actually Eat That: Herring in Sour Cream.

We do not have many traditional foods at Christmas in my household. This is largely due to my own dislike of Polish (we can't get czarnina) and Nordic foods (that aren't awesome cookies). This time, there was a little bit of a lapse, and something odd made its way to the table for a bit of nostalgia on my mom's part: pickled herrings in sour cream.

Anybody with an appetite can probably tell why this thing wound up on "They Actually Eat That" from the name alone. Herring and dill might not sound too bad together, but throwing it in sour cream and stuffing it in the fridge has a certain degree of chilling nastiness lurking beneath it. So, why do people eat it aside from it being a clearly acquired taste? Let's find out!

Pickled herring is fairly common throughout Europe. In Nordic countries, however, they go insane with preserving things. Pickled herring in sour cream is just one of the ways they go a little overboard with preserved fish. It is frequently eaten around Christmastime. Dear gods, this is already sounding on par with lutefisk.

Having not tried this thing, I cannot give an accurate description of how it tastes or its texture. The general descriptions are disgusting enough to deter me.  I can imagine it tasting like fish, cream, and dill pickles, but most written descriptions sound way worse. The texture of it is something like meat, but not, cold, springy, and generally unpleasant. If you must eat herring, try it another way.

And no, I did not actually eat that. This was one I passed on simply because of a first impression. Even after that, my dad said it was strange. One critic called it "the most fucking disgusting shit I have ever eaten." I am willing to take her word for it. Go cut down a tree with the herrings instead of doing this with them.

Christmas Special: Amanita Mushrooms.

Have you ever realized how many things about Christmas just don't add up? Who would really put presents under an evergreen tree? Who gave a fat old man the right to enter houses in the presence of kids, anyways?Why do we have Christmas trees?

Well, there's a perfectly logical explanation for all of this:

Source.

Yep: Stoner mushrooms. In this case, the specific mushroom in question is Amanita muscaria. They are native to most places in the northen hemisphere, particularly in areas with pine trees. A fair amount of X-mas loops back to these mushrooms. Jesus was never involved in Christmas; the makers of the calendar just decided to celebrate it around the day the pagans were celebrating solstice. It was a marketing move to sync Jesus with 'shrooms, in other words.

Amanita muscaria is also called "fly agaric." The reasons for this are rather strange, but the most common is that one could sprinkle some of the mushroom in milk to ward off flies.We can't tell exactly where this practice originated (possibly Germany or Sweden), but it's strange. Flies can actually get high just by landing on the caps of Amanita muscaria.  Just another reason to pick up mushrooms.

Its most notorious use, however, is as a potent hallucinogen. The culprit is muscimol, with ibotenic acid helping it along. The effects are so varied that it would be madness to say that there are any standards beyond "tripping the eff out." Symptoms usually wear off after 24 hours. Severe poisoning only occurs after 15 caps or so; nobody has gone on record dying from these. When other types of hallucinogenic mushrooms get banned, Amanita suddenly becomes popular. Get on your cloaks and start flipping tree skirts!



So, how does this tie in with Christmas? Amanita muscaria mushrooms are commonly found beneath fir and evergreen trees. Replace "mushrooms" with "gifts." Link it with the solstice for good measure. Boom, Christmas.

 Oh, and guess what else likes Amanita mushrooms? Reindeer. Yes, they also get high off of the 'shrooms, causing them to leap about like giddy idiots - that's the origin of flying reindeer. Other possible origins include the flying sensation and hallucinations (sometimes of winged reindeer) brought about by the mushroom.  People can also get high off of the remaining active toxins in reindeer (or human) urine, which is actually safer than taking the mushrooms straight. Yes, I just said that drinking reindeer piss is safer than eating a mushroom off of the ground. (That said, A. muscaria are edible with proper cooking.)



After this, things start to get a little hazy.  We aren't sure whether Santa has any real shamanic basis or not. It is, however, awfully suspicious that St. Nicholas is usually pictured with A. muscaria colors, that he laughs oddly, and that his Coca-Cola-designed image is almost too flushed to be sober. A fluffy coat like that also seems like a good idea when mushroom-hunting in the winter, although whether it's really red and white could be debated. Use a critical eye when browsing these theories.

Of course, A. muscaria's fame extends well beyond Christmas. All of the mushrooms in Mario-land look like Amanita. Pokemon also makes some use of them, with "Amanita" being the name of the storage system manager in B/W and the two new mushroom Pokemon slightly resembling red Amanita. There was also a dancing mushroom sequence in Fantasia, which speaks for itself.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a stoned night! It's traditional! (Actually, I DID get a mushroom garden for Christmas...)

Bio-Art: The Flesh Machine.

Raise your hand now if you asked for something with a computer chip in it for Christmas.  Yes? Almost everyone? Well, I hate to be a bummer, but you have just fed the Flesh Machine.

The Flesh Machine is a free book by the Critical Arts Entourage. It introduces a critique upon what it calls the "flesh machine" - basically, transgenics, eugenics, and anything else that pushes the natural-artificial boundary. The book is available for free download here. (Warning: 5 may be hard to read.)

The premise of the book is that society is run by machines. There are three machines total: The War Machine, the Sight Machine, and the Flesh Machine. The War Machine is exactly what it sounds like: Perfecting the art of destruction. It seems like we're always making stronger weapons - or at least trying to. This machine is likely almost done. Almost.

The second machine is the Sight Machine. The idea of the Sight Machine is to be able to see every square inch of the Earth at all times. Even sea trenches and space must be mapped. Every house must have a camera. Every move must be mapped.  See also: Skype, Google Earth.

These first two machines work hand-in-hand with each other. The idea is, "If I can see it, it's dead." Once everything is in the Sight Machine, the powers that be can theoretically destroy anything in the world. Anything that doesn't further the agenda of the powers that be must be eliminated.

The Flesh Machine is a whole different can of worms compared to the above two machines. There are many reasons why, say, catgirls are not yet a reality.  It's not because flesh is so terribly hard to manipulate - for example, it is quite easy to change sex simply by manipulating a few hormones. It is something of a miracle that cross-species genetics hasn't advanced that far. Why not?

The answer is simple: The Flesh Machine demands that we become cyborgs. Not robots - cyborgs. We still need a degree of emotion to feed the machines, and enough social sense to want to go along with what is normal. Indeed, "normal" is a standard made by the spectacle - a not-machine that is designed to both mask the intent of the machines and make them appealing.

Thus why catgirls have not been made real yet: Animals are nowhere near as predictable as robots, and thus hybrids remain a thing of fantasy. The Flesh Machine is not interested in allowing us to choose our physical bodies. They basically want us to spawn desirable drones for an insane system. Catgirls aren't desirable for office labor, unless they could be used for keeping morale up. Otherwise, they just plain aren't cyborg-y enough to fit.

That said, it is easy to sell things like cybernetic enhancements to soldiers (part of the War Machine). It is more difficult to convince civilians to accept cybernetic implantations and more implicit alterations, such as drugs that induce "normalcy." Normal = cyborg.

This does not mean that we are not slowly moving towards being full-fledged cyborgs. Watch any cell phone commercial.  The ones that first come to mind for me are anything for Droid phones; the words "entertainment machine" got my attention at first, but the latest Droid promises to "change your DNA." Alluring as that may sound to some people, anyone with an iota of rationality knows that the only way a cell phone can change DNA is by subtle radiation poisoning, and even that's a stretch.  You can take a cell phone with you, any time, anywhere - perfect for becoming a part of the Machine at every waking moment. The only issue is that we're not born with such devices. Until we are born with iPhones, the Flesh Machine will not be complete.

The issue then comes with producing these cyborgs. All three machines need human bodies to work for them, which means people need to reproduce. Thus the nuclear family: mom, dad, and one or two "normal" kids. Society today favors a child that will fit the system. Things like designer babies and the nuclear family encourage the breeding of such automata.

This, in turn, leads to eugenics. The population is conditioned into desiring "fit' offspring - in other words, "normal," "fit" people with a high productivity rate in the workplace. Children will eventually be engineered to fit the system. It'll be like GATTACA, only real.

This trinity of War, Flesh, and Sight Machines is self-destructive. If it continues, humanity will blow itself up, probably literally. Worst case scenario is a slow death due to a horrible species bottleneck. 
If you must be a cyborg, be a smart cyborg; most of your devices are little pieces of silicon made to keep tabs on you and keep you working at all times - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Ditch 'em as much as possible. This machine's gonna run out of fuel eventually.

Merry Christmas! Now go play with your i-whatevers.