It wrinkles my brain that Jupiter’s moon Europa has oceans that are sixty miles deep, while Earth’s oceans only reach seven miles deep at most. I’m willing to bet good money that there’s life in Europa’s oceans. Like five bucks. You hear me, NASA? I bet you five bucks that there’s life on Europa… Now that there’s money and reputation on the line, I bet they send a mission there real quick.

I have no idea when this was originally posted, but NASA is working on their Europa mission RIGHT NOW to look for alien life! But get this, they theorize that because of the depth, gravity, and composition of the oceans, any organisms that lived there would be waaay bigger than aquatic life on Earth. So far everything’s going well with regards to their Europa mission so they should have a spacecraft on its way to look for giant sea monsters in space in only a few years. (The planned date is in the early 2020s.)

Looks like my negotiations worked. You’re welcome, humanity.

I’ve never been gripped with such cold terror and pure delight in my LIFE

explaining to an 18th century sailor that we’re looking for sea monsters in space. 

The launch date for the Europa Clipper is October 2024.

Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space 

Eugène Grasset (1845-1917)

La Belle Jardiniere – November  1896

Poem: I lik the form

My naym is pome / and lo my form is fix’d Tho peepel say / that structure is a jail I am my best / when formats are not mix’d Wen poits play / subversions often fail

Stik out their toung / to rebel with no cause At ruls and norms / In ignorance they call: My words are free / Defying lit'rate laws To lik the forms / brings ruin on us all

A sonnet I / the noblest lit'rate verse And ruls me bind / to paths that Shakespeare paved Iambic fot / allusions well dispersed On my behind / I stately sit and wave

You think me tame /   Fenced-in and penned / bespelled I bide my time /   I twist the end / like hell

* “lik” should be read as “lick”, not “like”. In general, the initial section on each line should be read sort of phonetically.

Written for World Poetry Day, March 21, 2018. When I had this idea earlier today, I thought it was the worst, most faux hip pretentious idea for a shallow demonstration of empty wordsmithing skill in poetry ever. So I had to try to write it. I mean, how often do you get to fuse the iambic dimeter of bredlik - one of the newest and most exciting verse forms - with the stately iambic pentameter of the classic sonnet?

BREDLIK SONNET

wait is this one poem or three?

Yes.

can you imagine how freaky shark mermaids would be like unlike sharks, shark mermaids would have actual arms/hands and could rely on touching things with their hands to see if they’re prey rather than having to bite like sharks do. like youre just swimming in the ocean and suddenly you feel a strong grip on your leg, you freak the FUCK out because uh what????? the fuck??? youre swimming alone in the ocean??

a head pops out of the water, dorsal fin pointed from its back and it just points at you and says in a low whisper: “i thought you were a seal. please dont swim alone like this, im sorry i scared you i just wanted to see what you are” and then disappears back into the depth. what the fuck.

no come back ma’am

*under my breath* underwater girlfriend

underwater wife

Underwater love of my underwater life

There are benefits to being a marine biologist

underwater girlfriend underwater wife underwater love of my underwater life underwater benefits to underwater studies turning underwater sharks into underwater buddies underwater lovers are the partly sharky sirens seen if you’ve achieved degrees in underwater science

Liu Maoshan - a Chinese painter with a touch of French impressionism à la Monmartre. Gorgeous.

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you’re telling me a gay coded this

Yes and his name was Alan Turing

[studies 38/–]

I did write a very proper* description for each character (that looks like a tag yourself game) so i know it doesn’t explain anything but i’ll share it anyway

*not really

*tiny evil tribble laughter*

we’re reading Dracula for one of my book clubs, and I completely forgot that the book starts out as quite an enjoyable travelogue—having just passed the bar exam, Jonathan Harker is essentially on his first real business trip, and keeps making little notes to ask for recipes, or that he’ll share such-and-such about the landscape with Mina.

I also forgot that Jonathan Harker has a Kodak camera (he used it to take pictures of the London estate for Dracula) which leads me to assume that the 21st century version of Jonathan Harker’s journal is actually a series of instagram posts that start getting really, really weird.

you GOOD MORNING gandalf? you good morning him like he is selling buttons at the door? oh! oh! adventure for hobbit! adventure for hobbit for Thirteen Months!

Thinking about that day another park ranger and I discovered that

1. we both used the same shampoo and

2. Suave Essentials Tropical Coconut drives honeybees absolutely bugfuck wild

3. He's allergic to bees

It’s likely the scent! Banana scent (Isoamyl acetate) is the same scent as the aggression pheromone bees put out when they’re angry. Never eat bananas near bees! Always check your lotion, sunscreen, etc bottles for banana scent or isoamyl acetate before going near bees

So you're telling me that when bees get mad they start violently smelling like bananas?

Can confirm! In (hopefully) very rare cases, a large hive full of pissed off bees smells a lot like bananas! Usually there’s not nearly enough of them for humans to be able to smell it, though.

@cyber-flow thank you for the funniest tags I've seen all day.

[ID: a digital drawing of a bee with boxing gloves, fighting a sad and confused (and bruised) looking banana. The banana asks "why?" /end ID].

[ID: a screenshot of two tags, reading: you could say - you could say that they go bananas. /end ID].

Little beaver taking a little sip

Peonies by May Morris

Peony season is upon us, and we're not complaining! Here are just a few more for you to feast your eyes on.⁠

This group of deep pink peonies was painted by May Morris c. 1905 using watercolour over graphite.⁠ Swipe to see the brushstrokes up close.⁠

Qing Dynasty Bowl

Sometimes we find things in our collections that we simply *must* share with you immediately. This bowl from, featuring some little fish amongst waterweeds, is one of those things.

Made from porcelain with blue underglazing, this bowl comes from the Yongzheng Period of the Qing Dynasty in China, c. 1723–1735.

i think more haunted houses should have haunted clawfoot bathtubs that move and exist as separate, distinct demonically possessed entities 

Fun fact! Haunted bathtubs are an example of coevolution with haunted houses! As houses became more elaborate, haunted water fixtures changed to match the opulence. As such, the haunted hut and its symbiotic counterpart, the haunted well, gradually changed into the more inviting haunted estate with the haunted tub now being an internal parasite instead of an external one. You are correct, more haunted houses SHOULD have haunted clawfoot bathtubs because they promote the health of the house and indicate a functional paranormal ecosystem.

this website is so utterly detached from reality i love it

Happy Earth Day!

First celebrated in 1970, this global movement serves to educate, raise awareness and give rise to meaningful action to prevent climate change and environmental destruction. Artists and makers have taken inspiration for nature for thousands of years; we can see this in everything from 5,000-year-old terracotta animal figurines to 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints, from Dutch still life paintings to the more recent oil landscapes of the Impressionists. ⁠

Here are just four objects from our collection that drew inspiration from nature.⁠

1. The Sea at Satta in Suruga Province. Ukiyo-e Print by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1858.⁠

2. Flowers and Insects by Jan van Kessel (1626–1679). Oil on copper.⁠

⁠

3. Figure of an Ox, Chanhu-daro, 2500–2300 BC.⁠

⁠

4. Landscape with Trees by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)⁠

Lara Hacker on Instagram

reading medieval french is a trip because half of the words are normal or at least decently modern

and the other half read like a shitpost 

“ensemble”

“neveu” (where did the p come from???)

“les rois d’Angleterre”

“aussi”

“demeura capitaine” (how??? many??? letters??? do you think are in “capitaine”???)

“douze* milles hommes de pied”

*could also be “deux”

“lieux”

“le moitié”

“minuit”

“côtes”

and my personal favorite, which is only one of the ways he spells “avec” on this page: 

“avoecq eulx” -> “avec eux”

(from chroniques by jean froissart, 14th century)