earthling

A drone view of an orangutan hanging on a tree inside a High Conservation Value (HCV) concession area of a palm-oil plantation affected by wildfires, before being rescued in Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, September 30. REUTERS/Victor Fidelis Sentosa #photography#AnimalRescue#orangutans#Indonesia

Children on top Castellers de Vilafranca form a human tower called a "castell" in Catalan, during a biannual competition in Tarragona, Spain, October 4, 2026. REUTERS/Albert Gea https://www.reuters.com/pictures/towers-humanity-soaring-pyramids-dramatic-tumbles-spains-castells-competition-2026-10-05/#photography#festivals#Spain#children

Say hello to Barbie Pig, a new type of sea cucumber discovered on the deep-sea floor by a team from the Natural History Museum in London. The frilly-footed fuchsia beauty was filmed by a robot on the Pacific seabed, 5km deep, in an area called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. A documentary opening next month, How Deep Is Your Love, gives a scientist’s-eye view of the astonishingly biodiverse region. #photography#MarineLife

Rescuers take an orangutan out of an area affected by wildfires in Ketapang, Indonesia. The orangutan was found seeking shelter in a tree before being rescued and treated by Yiari Indonesia Photograph: Victor Fidelis Sentosa/Reuters #photography#AnimalRescue#wildfires#Indonesia#orangutans

A robotic arm clamping onto a polymetallic nodule—with a delicate, living coral rooted directly to it—is a photograph of an active extinction event in slow motion. It shows the literal mechanism of destruction in the abyssal plain. Those nodules take millions of years to form, and for deep-sea corals, they are the only hard surface to anchor onto in a world of soft mud. Scraping up the nodules means erasing the habitat forever. #photography#MarineLife#DeepSeaMining#nodules#extinction

Palestinians live in a cave used as a house after Israeli forces demolished their house, in Masafer Yatta near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 18. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma #photography#WestBank#shelter#caves

With their West Bank homes demolished, Palestinians turn to living in caves Their homes demolished by Israeli forces, some Palestinians in the West Bank have turned to carving caves into the hillsides for shelter. https://www.reuters.com/pictures/with-their-west-bank-homes-demolished-palestinians-turn-living-caves-2026-09-24/ #photography#WestBank#shelter#caves

The Renaissance of Astronomy by Noel Swerdlow, 2026 The Renaissance of Astronomy provides a comprehensive, technically grounded account of the works of Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler and Galileo. There is nothing comparable to it in scope and detail. It is the fruit of a lifetime of study devoted to the subject. #books#nonfiction#astronomy#history#Renaissance #Springer

A Palestinian prepares tea in a cave used as a house after Israeli forces demolished his house, in Masafer Yatta near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 18. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma #photography#WestBank#shelter#caves

Bow Lake, Alberta, Canada ‘Reflections of the Canadian Rockies.’ Photograph: Paul Lukes #photography#mountains#Rockies#Canada

Birds in the environment – silver: Majesty by Åsmund Keilen from Norway A majestic golden eagle drifts in dark silhouette across the face of the moon, its outstretched wings cutting a powerful shape through silver light. Photograph: Åsmund Keilen #photography#birds

A Transnational History of the Australian Animal Movement 1970-2015 by Gonzalo Villanueva, 2017 This book offers the first transnational historical study of the creation, contention and consequences of the Australian animal movement. Largely inspired by Peter Singer and his 1975 book Animal Liberation, a new wave of animal activism emerged in Australia and across the world. #books#nonfiction#AnimalMovement#AnimalRights#AnimalEthics#Australia

4/ The Goal of the SMARTEX MissionScientists estimate that more than 90% of the species living in the CCZ are completely unknown to science. The SMARTEX team was tasked with mapping this unknown biodiversity and assessing how mining would impact it before full-scale commercial extraction begins. Using advanced Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs)—like the underwater robot Isis—the team descended 5 kilometers down to conduct surveys: #SMARTEX#CCZ#biodiversity

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3rd ed. by Thomas Kuhn Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index. "A landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field. . . . It is written with a combination of depth and clarity that make it an almost unbroken series of aphorisms. . . . #books#nonfiction#science

Best portrait – gold: Radiant by Thomas Deliberto from the US A male greater sage-grouse during its courtship display in Utah, US. As the sun was rising over the shadowed sagebrush hill behind him, it illuminated the bird’s tail feathers such that they appeared to radiate light. Photograph: Thomas Deliberto #photography#birds

Best portrait – silver: Sunset Puffin by Volker Widmann from Germany Atlantic puffin on Skomer Island, UK. #photography#birds

Birds in the environment – bronze: Back to Fishing by Romain Barats from France Photograph: Romain Barats #photography#birds#penguins#Antarctica

Banisteriopsis muricata (red ayahuasca); confocal image #plants#microscopy#confocal#imaging#photography#ayahuasca

Banisteriopsis caapi (ayahuasca / yagé); confocal image #plants#microscopy#confocal#imaging#photography#ayahuasca

A house stands empty as a wildfire approaches a neighbourhood in Indonesia’s South Sumatra. Experts warn the worst could be yet to come as rain heavy enough to extinguish fires is not forecast until November. Photograph: Mast Irham/EPA #photography#wildfires#Indonesia

Who painted them? Denbighshire, UK ‘So many painted lady butterflies have visited the buddleia in our garden during the hot weather.’ Photograph: Helen Evans #photography#butterflies#flowers#BloomScrolling

Mimosa tenuiflora (tepezcohuite); confocal image #plants#microscopy#confocal#imaging

Nicotiana rustica (tobacco); confocal image #plants#microscopy#confocal#imaging#tobacco

Huarango tree geoglyph, Nazca Lines, southern coastal Peru #photography#Peru#geoglyph#NazcaLines

The Barefoot Volcanologist ‘On the ash-covered plains of Mount Yasur on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu, Phillip – an internationally recognised, self-taught volcanologist stands barefoot atop a volcanic rock bomb. Dressed in a lava-protection suit gifted to him by visiting researchers, he is framed by the smouldering volcano behind him, where a plume of gas and sulphur rises into the sky. Photograph: Elle Leontiev #photography#portraits#volcanos

2/ He was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013. On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police after connecting a computer to the university's network in an unlocked closet and setting it to download a large number of academic journal articles from JSTOR. He was charged with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, #AaronSwartz

6/ Assessing Recovery: Visiting old, experimental test-mining sites from decades past to see if life has managed to recover (spoiler: deep-sea ecosystems recover extraordinarily slowly, taking centuries or millennia). #SMARTEX#CCZ#DeepSeaMining

9/ Ever wondered how such a soft body survives the immense pressure at the depth of 5km?

1. The "No Air" Rule (Zero Pressure Gradient)If you take a balloon down to 5km, it will collapse. If you take a human down, our air-filled lungs and sinuses will crush. But water itself is practically incompressible. Deep-sea creatures like the Barbie Pig have absolutely no gas-filled cavities in their bodies.

#science #ocean #pressure

12/ Deep-sea animals combat this by packing their tissues with specialized molecules called piezolytes (the most common being TMAO, or trimethylamine oxide). These molecules act like microscopic scaffolding. They bind to water molecules and hold proteins in their proper three-dimensional shape, preventing the sheer weight of the ocean from squashing the animal's biochemistry. #science#biology#marine

7/ The Discovery of the "Barbie Pig" During one of the ROV dives to a depth of around 5,000 meters, the team's cameras captured a striking, neon-pink, sausage-like creature walking across the abyssal sediment on stumpy, fleshy legs. Because of its vibrant bubblegum-pink color and sea-pig-like posture, the researchers playfully dubbed it the "Barbie Pig. #MarineLife

@poligraf@mastodon.online @palestine@a.gup.pe @palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@fedibird.com Above all, they need the bombing & shooting to stop.

Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan. Fires have ravaged tens of thousands of acres in the Indonesian province. Photograph: Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images #photography#wildfires#Indonesia

A view of a Palestinian village after it was demolished by the Israeli army, in Masafer Yatta near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 23. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma #photography#Palestine#WestBank#domicide#displacement

The World: A Brief Introduction by Richard Haassm 2020 An invaluable primer from Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, that will help anyone, expert and non-expert alike, navigate a time in which many of our biggest challenges come from the world beyond our borders. #books#nonfiction#world#history

1/ NORMAN G. FINKELSTEIN (b. 1953) is an American political scientist and activist whose primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein received his doctorate from Princeton University, where his early research set the stage for a lifetime of challenging mainstream historical narratives. #NormanGFinkelstein

@gvenema@fairmove.net What's great about the game is how faithfully it treats the 1964 novel! It acts almost like an interactive companion/prequel on Regis III, keeping the late-50s atompunk aesthetic and forcing players directly into Lem’s central philosophical dilemma: human hubris vs. non-biological swarm evolution. He really was decades ahead of his time.

10/ 2. The "Olive Oil" Cell Membranes

At 5 kilometers deep, the ocean is not only heavy but freezing cold. Under those conditions, the fats in normal animal cell membranes would pack tightly together and turn solid, like a stick of butter left in the fridge. To prevent their cells from turning into stiff, brittle walls that would easily rupture, deep-sea creatures build their cell membranes with massive amounts of unsaturated fatty acids.

#oceans #biology #MarineLife

8/ It is a specialized sea cucumber (Amperima) that acts as a deep-sea vacuum cleaner, sifting through the top layer of sediment to feast on "marine snow"—decayed organic material drifting down from the sunlit surface miles above. The discovery highlights the race against time scientists face: discovering and understanding how this fragile ecosystem functions before human industry reshapes the ocean floor forever. #MarineLife#SeaCucumber

2/ Led by researchers from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, the expedition team sailed out into the central Pacific Ocean to study a remote abyssal region called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). The CCZ is a massive swath of the Pacific Ocean stretching between Hawaii and Mexico at depths of 4,000 to 5,500 meters (13,000 to 18,000 feet). On its pitch-black floor lie trillions of potato-sized rocks called polymetallic nodules. #CCZ

5/ Cataloging Life: Documenting the weird and delicate fauna (like glass sponges that can live for thousands of years, sea anemones, and deep-sea sea pigs like Amperima, nicknamed "Barbie Pig") before industrial activity disturbs them. Measuring Plume Impacts: Studying how underwater mining vehicles kick up heavy plumes of sediment that drift over hundreds of miles, potentially choking soft-bodied filter feeders. #SMARTEX#CCZ#biodiversity

3/ These nodules are incredibly rich in valuable metals: Nickel Cobalt Copper Manganese Because these metals are key components in electric vehicle batteries and green energy technology, deep-sea mining companies are eager to strip-mine the CCZ seafloor to harvest them However, the nodules are the habitat. In an environment made almost entirely of fine, soft mud, these hard rocks are the only surfaces available for corals, sponges, and smaller organisms to anchor themselves

@randahl@mastodon.social No Hit in Poland: There is no official confirmation from NATO, the Polish military, or international authorities that a missile landed in or struck Otrocz or any part of Poland.

Nine orangutans have so far been evacuated from the Ketapang district of West Kalimantan province because of the threat from wildfires. Photograph: Muffidz Masum/Indonesia Ministry of Forestry/YIARI/AFP/Getty Images #photography#wildfires#Indonesia#orangutans

11/ This keeps their cellular boundaries fluid and flexible—acting more like liquid olive oil than solid butter.

1. Chemical Scaffolding (Piezolytes)

Even if your body doesn't crush, extreme hydrostatic pressure can literally force water molecules into the folds of your enzymes and proteins, warping their shape so they stop working.

#science #biology