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themarginalian.org
How Evolution Invented Faith: The Patience of the Penguin and the Art of Withstanding Abandonment

The male's stoic, heroic devotion to his duty as incubator and nurse must be unique in nature, involving that almost incredibly long fast under conditions of exposure to intense frost that would kill most other living creatures. It is at last rewarded, while the rookery is still sunless in July, by the return of his mate, fat and full-bellied from her long sojourn amid the krill and small fishes.

— Richard Adams
1w ago

The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would have remained unchanged since the earliest days; no evolution, no mankind, nothing.

2w ago
3quarksdaily.com
How Grains and Grasses Fed (and Still Feed) Humankind

Their leaves send about two thirds of all the food they make to the underworld. There, roots tunnel many meters down. As they grow, they break up clay and rock, exude sugars and other molecules, and interweave their cells with fungi. When the roots die, they add spongy organic matter to the soil.

1mo ago

The eye, like all the other organs, was perfected by natural selection, for good seeing being disadvantageous to every animal, the standard of perfection for this organ is indeterminate.

1mo ago
themarginalian.org
How Flamingos Got Their Pink

It is not simply that flamingos metabolize archaea, digesting them to turn their pigments into plumage coloration — modern molecular analysis reveals that archaea still live intact in the feathers of flamingos, perhaps the way our own past moves through us, lives in us, colors our present with the hue of something deeper than memory, something shimmering with the mystery of what makes life alive.

2mo ago

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