In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll noted that every animal exists in its own unique perceptual world — a smorgasbord of sights, smells, sounds and textures that it can sense but that other species might not. These stimuli defined what von Uexküll called the Umwelt — an animal’s bespoke sliver of reality. A tick’s Umwelt is limited to the touch of hair, the odor that emanates from skin and the heat of warm blood. A human’s Umwelt is far wider but doesn’t include the electric fields that sharks and platypuses are privy to, the infrared radiation that rattlesnakes and vampire bats track or the ultraviolet light that most sighted animals can see.
The Umwelt concept is one of the most profound and beautiful in biology. It tells us that the all-encompassing nature of our subjective experience is an illusion, and that we sense just a small fraction of what there is to sense. It hints at flickers of the magnificent in the mundane, and the extraordinary in the ordinary. And it is almost antidramatic: It reveals that frogs, snakes, ticks and other animals can be doing extraordinary things even when they seem to be doing nothing at all.
~ Ed Yong, NY Times Opinion, 6-21-22
I fucking love thinking about Umwelten. Love thinking about how the world is bigger than my perception of it. Anyway read An Immense World by Ed Yong; it’s a whole book about this topic.
Hey wow so you know how Sokka loses all his weapons over the course of the series (not just his boomerang and space sword in the final episode, but also his spear, machete, club…) and how he slowly leans into working as the group’s planner? You ever think about how he physically and literally loses the ideals that were keeping him tied to seeing his worth in the war, and began to see himself as his own person who could survive this war & live in a better world? How he let go of his toxic masculinity and started to embrace himself as he was, but he had to use those weapons in his own creative, non-destructive way, and eventually he lost them entirely? How he helped the war effort through creation, by making plans & traps & inventions & armor, not by destroying things? You ever think about how he replaced his sword with a paintbrush in the final scene? You ever… you ever…
The reason it’s called French Toast is absolutely ridiculous and I’m so mad rn about the story
Okay so, Basically the story is that French toast was coined in 1724, by an illiterate innkeeper in Albany New York, Who was named Joseph French
IT’S named French Toast because when Joseph FRENCH STARTED SELLING IT the sign instead of saying French’s Toast- because he was illiterate- said French Toast.
And THAT IS WHY IT’S CALLED FRENCH TOAST AND NOT SOMETHING ELSE
what a beautiful thing, to be queer. how lovely it is to be strange, to have edges that spill out over the lines, to be undefinable. the oddity of our hearts is something to be treasured. never change for anyone.
that reminds me of a couple years ago when my dumbass stupid bee post was going around and someone was trying to argue w me abt how unethical beekeeping for honey was so i was like “ahaha what? i don’t beekeep for the honey i throw that nasty goop out! i eat the bees. crunchy” and i thought they were going to try and kill me in real life