Phallic Science

The cover of a book titled “Probing Plant Structure” with a very phallic black and white microscopy image of a plant apical meristem

A book opened to a page titled “The Apical Meristem”, showing Plate #69 with a very phallic black and white microscopy image of a plant apical meristem

Free pile score! Awesome plant apical meristem electron microscopy!
#scicomm #botany #plants

…then an electron avalanche is triggered, resulting in the excitation of Nitrogen in the low-pressure upper-atmosphere - which can be seen as a glowing red color, often forming streaks across the sky! 🧵2/2

Strange phallic-shaped red lightning above a haze of clouds over a golden field with a windmill in it

Red Sprites are a form of high-atmosphere lightning, extending upward from lightning clouds. When lightning strikes, it sends electrons from the bottom of the cloud to the ground. If the pull of electrons to the ground is strong enough… 🧵1/2
📸 @paulmsmithphoto.bsky.social

Photo of a terracotta owl sculpture that is very minimalist and phallic

Photo of a surprised looking long eared owl on a tree branch

Similarly, the town of Kikinda, Serbia erected this statue to celebrate their esteemed community members that are the world’s largest roosting population of the Long Eared Owl (Asio otus)

📸 @reuters.com & Brian Sullivan / Macaulay Library

#scicomm #SuperbOwlSunday

Photo if a white phallic owl sculpture

Photo of an owl holding a possum in its claws

Wishing everyone a very Happy #SuperbOwl Sunday!

Sometimes artistic depictions of these incredible creatures doesn’t always go as planned… like this statue of Australia’s largest owl, the Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua)

📸 ABC News & Stephen Mudge

#scicomm #SuperbOwlSunday

#botany #scicomm #roots #phallicscience

Photo showing many dark brown phallic roots growing from the base of a palm tree in a forest

Close-up photo of one of these buttress roots further illuminating it’s phallic nature

How do tall plants keep their footing in shallow, saturated soils? Buttress Roots! A common adaptation in tropical regions - our favorite example is the palm tree, Iriartea deltoidea, which produces a shapely bouquet of buttress roots at the base of its stem to help stabilize it.
📸 Alexey Yakovlev

Front cover of a special issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany titled "Seed Biology: The Birth of Plant Life". The issue is edited by Zsuzsanna Kolbert and Christophe Bailly. The image shows germinating seeds (credit: Juliette Puyaubert & Victoria Gomez, Sorbonne University).

**SPECIAL ISSUE OPEN**

𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞

Guest editors: Zsuzsanna Kolbert & Christophe Bailly

Deadline: 28th February 2025

Email us if you'd like to submit a paper - there's still time!

#JXBspecialissue #seeds #plantscience 🧪

@sebiology.bsky.social

Black and white photos of fossils and a diagram explaining different body parts present in the fossils

This is what the actual fossils look like! …our extremely ancient ancestor 🥹

🧵 3/3
#scicomm #evolution #evo

Tentaculate Fossils from the Cambrian of Canada (British Columbia) and China (Yunnan) Interpreted as Primitive Deuterostomes Molecular and morphological evidence unite the hemichordates and echinoderms as the Ambulacraria, but their earliest history remains almost entirely conjectural. This is on account of the morphologica...

In 2010, Caron, Morris, and Shu gave this charming fellow the name of Herpetogaster collinsi, and placed it within the Deuterostomes, which represents an important step in the evolution of many modern day animals (e.g. humans, lizards, and sea cucumbers) 🧵 2/3

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Black and white drawing of an ancient phallic organism with a curled tail, holdfast, and fern-like crown

This incredible illustration from Marianne Collins depicts is a reconstruction based on a particular soft-bodied organism that’s prevalent in Middle Cambrian fossil. Its odd body plan has historically placed it among phylum Problematica (a.k.a. Incertae sedis) 🧵 1/3

...but WHY did the King Fire end up shaped like that?! The fire began downslope (yellow) and then quickly ran upslope (orange > red). Since heat rises, slopes become a natural path of least resistance allowing fires to move easily and rapidly upslope. 
🧵2/2

📸 Natural Hazards by Keller & DeVecchio

As our hearts ache for everyone in LA, we're reminded of the heaviness that can come with inhabiting fire-adapted landscapes. It can be difficult to find light in a moment of such darkness, but I hope this map of the 2014 King Fire is a moment of levity. Fire can be such a dick sometimes. 🧵1/2

A bile acid could explain how calorie restriction slows ageing Lithocholic acid might mediate calorie restriction’s health benefits.

A story that brings together calorie restriction, the gut microbiome and red wine. All my favourite things

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Photos in my original post from the Tyler Farms seed company, where you can get seeds to grow your own Peter Peppers!

www.tyler-farms.com

Evolutionary ecology of pungency in wild chilies | PNAS The primary function of fruit is to attract animals that disperse viable seeds, but the nutritional rewards that attract beneficial consumers also ...

This discovery was first published by @tewksjj.bsky.social et al in my favorite journal:

www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

You may have noticed the spiciest part of the pepper is the seeds and the pith round the seeds - this is no accident. Capsaicin is an anti-fungal that evolved to protect the next generation (in the seeds) from fungal pathogens. More pathogenic fungi = more capsaicin. …🧵

A pepper plant with a very phallic orange-green pepper in the foreground and a green pepper in the background

A pepper plant with a very phallic red pepper

The Peter Pepper is an heirloom chili pepper (Capsicum annuum var. annuum) with a spice level of 10,000-23,000 Scoville Units, making it slightly hotter than a jalapeño. This spice is caused by the molecule Capsaicin, which evolved as part of an evolutionary arms race: fungi vs. pepper… 🧵

A photo of erect pitcher plants

If you ever find yourself without potable water in a jungle, just look for some pitcher plants with young, unopened pitchers, like this Nepenthes bokorensis in Cambodia. They have pure water inside!

Account deletion confirmation from The Other Place

Well that was cathartic. Thanks and welcome to my new followers! Onwards to a brighter, bluer, skyier future full of silly, yet very serious #scicomm 🤗

Oh yes! Please DM me! Especially if you can tell me who to credit/cite and the scientific context or fun science fact related to the photo!

Hi! I’d love to be added! This account might seem silly at first glance, but we’re all about the science and #scicomm!

Once I hit 50 followers here, I’ll delete my account on That Other Site

#scicomm #sciart #funnyscience

Microscopy image of the brain of a fruit fly larva with the cytoskeletal tubulin network highlighted in a bright rainbow of color on a black background

One of my favorite photos from Nikon’s Small World competition. This is the brain of a fruit fly larva. Those psychedelic rainbow colors are photoconvertible EOS-tagged tubulin cytoskeleton showing neuronal connections.
📸 @vgelfand.bsky.social & Wen Lu from Northwestern U.

Hi! Thanks for putting this together! …add me please?!

...the name of this fungus is Neurospora crassa. It's most famous for nearly 100years of basic genetics and cell bio research. It's also among the very first organisms to thrive following wildfires, and it's edible (e.g. oncom)! No matter the venue, it begins with two spores fusing together...🍆🍄‍🟫

...since they're genetically identical, they made the quick decision to collaborate and completely fuse together so they end up growing as one individual from that point onwards. Thus two spores become one tube, or hypha. These fun guys will eventually grow up into a cute pink fluffy mold... 🧵

Wondering about my profile pic? I'm so glad you asked! It's a baby fungus under the microscope! Two spores landed right next to each other, and when they started to germinate, they became a aware of each other and realized that they were related! Clones, in fact, from the same parent!... 🧵

Hello BlueSky! Excited to be here. This is a lighthearted #scicomm account that's all about the science, though at first glance you may think you saw something else 👀 ...come for the uncanny images, stay for the random facts you didn't even know you needed to know!