Yet again, it is late and I spent a lot of the night doing THINGS. I really need a course in time management or something. Or someone to sit in my living room and say, “STOP EFFING AROUND ON THE INTERNET AND DO YOUR STUFF, YO!” Like a little gym trainer, only for internet usage. Or a little drill sergeant. “DROP AND GIMME TWENTY SOLDIER!!!”
Some of what I had to do was blog-related. Some was not. I had to play with the phone a little. It needed some apps on it. Like Pandora. Why didn’t you people tell me about how amazing Pandora is? I had it for like 4 seconds on The Phone With No Memory (which is how I will now refer to the Droid, may it rest in peace, it has since been donated to the battered women’s shelter) and then it sucked up all the memory so I couldn’t keep it. I now have all the stations and it already played a song that made me weep and weep and have a stomachache of memories, so PROBABLY that should make me hate it, but I don’t. I love it for being psychic. THANK YOU PANDORA!
Anyway, TODAY, we are talking about SCIENCE. Because often we don’t talk about it enough. And I feel this means we are underutilizing our Science Fellow. I mean, how often does a blog have a Science Fellow? And then not to use him enough? It’s a shame, really. (Not to mention, we have the BEST Science Fellow, who is also one of my absolute favorite human beings in this entire world. And there are a lot of people in the world. I just Googled it. About 7 billion people. I only have about, oh, let’s say, ten-ish favorite people? Maybe twelve, if I’m being totally gracious. I mean, I haven’t met ALL the people – and I don’t want to, honestly, people make me itchy – but to be one of 10 or 12 out of seven billion people is pretty damn good, yo. That’s just how awesome our Andreas is.)
So today we’re talking about the following:
- Brains and the relative size thereof;
- Sexy bird rump-shakery; and
- Intergalactic flora.
All of these things, I’m sure, our Science Fellow will like to talk to us about. I feel like he should live closer. He could sit here and correct me as I write these things. Also maybe fix my heater, it’s being weird. Andreas, can you fix my heater? It’s being weird.
First! BRAINSSSSS! (Calm down, zombies, not for you.)
According to this article, big brains cost us a LOT. So really, it’s all about either being a dummy and having all the things or being a smartie and having to settle, I suppose. Grumble.
See, the bigger the brain, relatively, the more energy it needs. This takes energy away from other things, like reproduction. So, by experimenting on guppies (which are VERY much like humans, what with the gills and the swimming and the scales and all) they saw that the brainier guppies had fewer babies. I guess this is a problem if you’re a guppy, because they want to have all the babies. But isn’t there an overpopulation problem with humans? I don’t think we need to be having all the babies, even if we are the smartest. Maybe us smarties don’t WANT to have all the babies. Maybe we’re SELECTIVE about our baby-making. I feel like this is an indictment about smart people.
Then this article went on to say that the small family size may LEAD to large brains. Which I don’t know about. Do they mean that children from smaller families tend to have larger brains? Because they get more one-on-one time? I’m not really sure. I guess if that’s what they’re saying, I’m behind that. What do you think, Andreas, is that what they’re saying? This is not the best-written article, and I almost feel like it was translated from another language at times.
So I guess you can be dumb and have all the kids (and I’d like to say that maybe you’d be happier; I don’t know too many intelligent happy people, to be honest, because we tend to overthink) and be smart and have…less kids? I don’t know about this article at all. I know some smart people with large families. I know some not-so-smart people with small families. This is all very odd to me. Andreas, your turn, what the hell?

For example,if you have one of these…well, I’d wonder about your brain-size. (I like the zombie version of this, though.)
Next! SEXY BIRD RUMP-SHAKERY!
So apparently some birds woo each other with sexy rump-shakery. I like that. I like that some birds totally shake a tailfeather. And then that’s how they get the ladies.
Apparently, even DINOSAUR BIRDS used to rump-shake. You GUYS! Dinosaur birds!
Here is an oviraptor. Who knows if this is what they really looked like but dude, this tailfeather-thingy makes me laugh SO HARD. It looks like a dragonfly is attached to his tail-area. This dino-bird has all the bling.
So apparently oviraptors (which reminds me of those evil velociraptors from Jurassic Park that stalked those kids in the kitchen and that freaked my shit OUT, yo) used to dance for their lady-friends. To show their interest and such. How do scientists know this? I have no idea. I just think it’s kind of awesome.
Now, I am sad that men TODAY don’t dance to try to woo us. Just birds. What’s comparable to sexy bird rump-shakery in our menfolks today? Taking us out to dinner, I guess? SIGH NOT THE SAME. My version of sexy rump-shakery would be to…um…woo me with well-written emails. Write me something spectacular. Use grammar and puctuation well. Make me effing LAUGH. That’s my sexy rump-shakery right there. Someone else’s might be, oh, I don’t know, wherefore art thou Romeoing from the balcony or taking her to play skee-ball or one of those Bull Durham kisses that last three days, I can’t tell what your rump-shakery might be. I just know what mine is. And it’s words. Woo me with words and you’ve got me, fellas. You can bring me words instead of flowers. Flowers just die and drop all those messy petals on the rug and make me and Dumbcat sneeze, anyway.
Finally: MARTIAN FLOWERS!
Look, the Mars Curiosity (which I will never think of without thinking of my beloved NASA mohawk dude, sigh…)
I don’t think this looks like a flower. But they’re calling it a flower. I think it looks like a squished shiny frog, to be honest. Is this like a Rorshach test?
Apparently they found something else a few days ago they were all jazzed about and it was just space garbage because we’re tired of dirtying up our own planet so we’re leaving space-litter on OTHER planets now.
But THIS one, they don’t know what it is but it might be a mineral outcropping on Mars or it might be a MARTIAN SPACE FLOWER or it might just be a trick of the camera, who knows.
People make me smile. I don’t think it’s a mystery. It’s a rock. A shiny pretty rock. We have those on Earth, too. I pick ’em up a lot, bring ’em home. I like rocks a lot. Especially shiny ones.
But I also like a sense of magic and mystery. So, think it’s a space flower, my darlings. I will never be the one that tells you it’s not. If you want to think there are mysteries and magic on Mars, you can think that. I’ll let you.
I still think it looks like a squished shiny frog, though. And wouldn’t a squished shiny Martian space-frog be even COOLER than a space-flower?
There, Andreas, we have brains (not the zombie-kind) and sexy rump-shakery and suspicious Martian flora. ALL FOR YOU! VERY SCIENCY!
Also, Andreas, do you have the number for the NASA mohawk guy? Because I kind of want to…um…do PG-13 to R-rated things with him. And I’m sure all you sciency types have each other’s numbers. Thanks, Andreas, you’ve got my back.
Happy weekend, everyone!