She comes up with this beauty:

Meet . . . well, I don’t think she has a name. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s a “she,” but it kind of looks like one. So let’s just assume it is, and call her Babe. We do know that she’s from the Taklamakan Desert in northwest China, and that she’s about 3,600 years old. And the reason we know her age is from . . . get ready . . . the cheese that was found around her head and neck — perhaps, as surmised by the experts, as a snack for the afterlife.

Really.

Oddly, scientists seem to be more interested in the cheese than in the mummified remains of the newly-discovered Xiaohe people. I’m not even clear on how they can be sure it is cheese, and not some disgusting blob of . . . well, whatever. But they are; and they say their studies will “show the way humans harnessed microbes to improve their food and how microbes can be used to track cultural influences through the ages.” [Katie Hunt, CNN, September 25, 2024.]

While I can certainly see the importance of those studies in relation to the future preservation of the Earth’s food supply, I’m not a scientist. I’d be much more interested in knowing where she got that hat.

*. *. . *

And while we’re digging into the past — literally — let’s talk about this big fellow — a woolly rhino who has been preserved in the Russian permafrost for more than 32,000 years, and was found with its skin and fur still intact. The paper published in the journal Doklady Earth Sciences also revealed that the woolly rhino had a large fatty hump on its back and that its fur changed color as it grew older. [Issy Ronald, CNN, September 25, 2024.]

Actually, everyone I know over the age of 75 complains about the same thing, so perhaps we homo sapiens are distantly related to the woolly rhino and just never knew it.

I’m sure the scientists who have been working on this unique find know what they’re doing. But looking at the artist’s rendering above, I can’t help wondering whether they might accidentally have stumbled upon the remains of former Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. All he needs is the horns:

*. . *. . *

Now from the ridiculous to the merely amusing, a new study has found that the octopus — normally a solitary creature — can actually work with other fish to hunt. And if the fish-assistants don’t work hard enough, the octopus will punch them to get them moving. [CNN, September 25, 2024.]

That’s clearly harassment. But I guess there’s no such thing as OSHA at the bottom of the sea. Too bad, little fishies.

*. *. . *

And finally, this one simply scares the bejeezus out of me. It has nothing to do with any form of animal life, but takes place several billion light years from Earth, in one of those terrifying black hole things.

This rendering is said to illustrate “massive jets of material shooting from a black hole [that] dwarf even the largest galaxies.” [Ashley Strickland, CNN, September 25, 2024.]

Holy crap!

Again, this is advanced science, so I can’t pretend to comprehend what these things mean. But the report speaks of such terrors as a “megastructure [that] spans 23 million light-years in length, making these black hole jets the largest ever seen.” And: “Black holes are viewed as the garbage disposals of the universe, gobbling up nearly everything that comes close to them.” [Id.]

Okay, I want to know: Just how close is “close”? Or maybe I don’t want to know . . . not about that, or any of the rest of the report. I’m already dreading falling asleep tonight; this is a nightmare just waiting to happen.

Thanks a lot, Ma Nature. I liked it better when we knew less about you.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/26/24