Alex Wild

Macro photograph of somewhat slender-necked red ground beetle with metallic blue/purple elytra, facing us while walking over a rough granite substrate.

Say hello to this Brachinus bombardier beetle from Arizona. So-named because it creates a hot, aimable explosion out of its butt when disturbed. I did not disturb it.

Prehistoric tracks found after floodwaters recede in Central Texas The tracks may belong to a giant carnivore and herbivores.

The tracks may belong to a giant carnivore and herbivores.

This dude was at Rutgers at the time and might fit the profile.

Martin Nowak - Wikipedia

I’m guessing it’s a reference to Nowak, whose research was Epstein funded, though I don’t think there’s any evidence it went deeper than funding.

Top-down macro image in portrait orientation of an inpressively angular tank of an ant with broad, sharp shoulders and ahead that looks like a fancy helmet with retractable antennae. The ant is mostly black, but is covered in glittering fine silver hairs over its entire body.

One of my favorite ants, the Texas turtle ant Cephalotes texanus. Photo is a live stack of three images, to improve depth of field.

I could do without your passing along the lab leak conspiracy as though it were something other than political propaganda.

From the UTAustin community on Reddit: Help From fellow students!!! Explore this post and more from the UTAustin community

Another one:

i think it is hard for some people to really their heads around the reality that kennedy is staunchly anti-vaccine and thinks that people should suffer through disease and that those who die deserved it and that those who survive are a better order of human being

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

If governors can simply “remove” state legislators they disagree with, we no longer live in a democracy.

RFK Jr. pulls funding for vaccines being developed to fight respiratory viruses The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent flu, COVID-19 and H5N1 infections.

Those mRNA vaccine programs that RFK Jr. is killing because he claims they don't work?
The people who invented them got the f***ing Nobel Prize.
And they've saved literally millions of lives already.

www.pbs.org/newshour/hea...

This would end the legitimacy of the Texas state government.

If the Trumpists just start arresting democrats, blue states should think less about redrawing their congressional districts, and more about seizing federal assets and seceding.

The FBI stepping in to detain and return Texas democrats to Texas, when Texas democrats have not broken a single law, would be pure, unfettered dictatorship.

A president who can simply order feds to arrest and move people for no legal reason is a dictator.

update, we may be entering new territory www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/u...

For the first couple weeks, it'll be blow flies, obviously.

But those will be eaten by spiders, and then those by even larger spiders, so my guess is, it'll all be giant spiders.

I hadn't yet heard of this sort of conference scam. Seems like the kind of extortion that would cause a mass vendor pullout.

From the UTAustin community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the UTAustin community

Apparently some returning UT students are finding out that the Trump regime cancelled their Pell grants.

Photo of a bee perched on the center of a yellow flower, its mouth parts extended to collect nectar. The bee has a brilliant metallic green head and thorax, with black and yellow striped legs and abdomen. It's eye is a pretty mottled green.

These bi-colored striped sweat bees live in tiny holes sprinkled around our yard and look like sparkling jewels

Not all mosquitoes bite! - South Central Florida Life Everglades National Park shared this information about mosquitoes: "Would it surprise you to learn that all adult mosquitoes feed on the nectar of flowers? This means that they are likely …

Here's a source with an attribution:

Y'all give up so easily in attributing images that took considerable expertise and time to create. This one is from mosquito guy Larry Reeves:

When it’s quiet at night
you can hear the katydidn’t

Dramatic portrait oriented macro photo of a blocky, armored ant with a rounded plate-like head, rearing up towards the sky, its antennae raised.

And this one's for the cover of Turtle Ant Weekly.

Top-down macro photograph of three blocky, black ants on a white background. All the ants are covered in evenly-spaced, silvery hairs, giving a glittery appearance. The ants at left and center have large, plate-like heads, the one at center, the queen, is quite elongated.

My project this evening was this composite photograph showing caste in Texas turtle ants: soldier, queen, and worker. This is one of those twig-nesting ants whose soldiers serve as living guard doors, using that massive head to block the entrance.

This may be the point, though. The fascists don't want Americans leaving, either. They want full control over everything we all do.

This reminds me of the political escalations ahead of the Civil War.

Thought about it for a bit, and here's what I came up with.

It'll work as a serious of huge government contracts going out to people who donate to ruling party politcians, in exchange for a variety of powerpoint presentations and little else, though the coke-fueled yacht parties will be insane.

It'll be fun when the SpaceX rocket contracted to carry Uranium to the moon explodes over Florida.

Green apple!

Delicious, juicy, faintly translucent green Polyphemus caterpillar

OKAY, HELP US SETTLE THIS: if this caterpillar was a gummy candy, would it be LIME or GREEN APPLE?