c0nc0rdance

Blunt-headed Tree Snakes (Genus Imantodes) Imantodes is a genus of colubrid snakes commonly referred to as blunt-headed vine snakes or blunt-headed tree snakes. The genus consists of seven species that are native to Mexico, Central America, an...

There are 8 species of these rope-walking tree climbers in genus Imantodes.

iNaturalist has some lovely photos of their diversity, but one thing they all have in common: they look like they've been hitting the espresso a little too hard. 🐍👁️

Note the downward-looking pupils that let it scan foliage below it.

Most snakes have poor eyesight, relying on smell or heat, but this little nope-rope (nope-string?) has eyes bigger than its brain.

Bonus: a large mouth lets them swallow prey larger than themselves.

(📷: GeneralApathy YT)

Adorable Weirdos Part 6: Blunthead Tree Snake : For Pete's Snakes! The final adorable weirdo snake in our list (for now) is this little beauty! The odd proportions of the Blunthead Tree Snake (imantodes cenchoa) make it seem almost cartoonish! They reach a maximum le...

They're rear-fanged colubrids: mild venom, but posing no threat to humans. The same cannot be said of tree frogs & small reptiles.

The thin-bodied Imantodes can support its weight over palm leaves, twigs; using its giant light-gathering eyes to spot prey hiding in the branches at night.

A snake has its head right in front of a camera. It has a cream and rasberry coloration in large patches that get smaller on the top of the head. The eyes are comically enormous, lime-green colored, and seem to protrude from a tiny snake skull. From the Wikipedia page on Imantodes cenchoa Colubridae: Imantodes cenchoa Yarina Lodge, Ecuadorian Amazon Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA

The blunthead tree snake (Imantodes cenchoa) looks like what happens if you squeeze a garter snake too hard.

The eyes make up 27% of the head's area, and a thin ribbon body looks out of proportion.

You'll find them high in the trees of Central & South America.

(📷: Geoff Gallice)

Love that for you. Fly high!

I think most literally sushi means "to be sour", but refers in modern terms to the vinegared rice in the same sense that "pickle" refers to "pickled cucumber."

In the case of Narezushi:
'naru' = "to become/mature" + 'sushi' = "to be sour"
"mature sour food"

Good question. I would guess there's a lot of bacteria already present on most fish, so arresting growth with acid and salt QUICKLY would be important, which is the primary role the rice plays, I suspect.

Some fancy California rolls with a ton of pink roe on them and I think maybe cucumber and Krab filling.

So the history goes back to SE Asia, a legacy of pickled fish in rice that produced a taste sensation of raw fish on vinegared rice.

Now I need you all to swear that, should you encounter him in any future afterlife, you won't tell Hanaya Yohei about California rolls. 😬

Chonin - Japanese townspeople Chōnin ("townspeople", 町人; 町 means city ward) was a social class that emerged at the beginning of the 16th century, usually settling around castles (城下町 jōka-machi, "castle towns"). They consisted mai...

This was the McDonald's of its time: assembly-line ready food production using nothing but knives & a rice cooker.

Nori made using paper-making techniques was a handy wrapper.

Food made to order for a growing city of urban dwellers (chōnin class) in Edo, which became Tokyo in 1868.

Hanaya Yohei and the beginning of nigiri-zushi — The Sushi Geek Hanaya Yohei (1799–1858) is widely credited as the inventor of Edomae-zushi .   Born in Fukui prefecture, Yohei arrived in Edo in 1818. Wanting to serve sushi without long preparation...

Enter our hero, Hanaya Yohei, the Japanese chef who created what we think of as MODERN nigiri sushi (nigirizushi) around 1820, the late Edo period.

He pre-vinegared a large boiled rice ball, cut a slice of fresh raw or seared fish to throw on top & added flavor enhancers.

Stock photo of Hayazushi, a compressed slice like a pizza slice, but rice with a thin layer of salmon on top, served with long green leaves underneath it.

What if you didn't want to wait weeks? Then haya-zushi ("fast-sushi") was for you.

Invented in the Edo period (1603 – 1868), it used ready-made vinegar instead of fermentation to create the sour flavor on compressed rice/fish mix.

The fast food version of an already ancient culinary legacy!

To Make Japan's Original Sushi, First Age Fish for Several Months Or even years.

Here, the locals call it 'narezushi,': "matured fish."

This coincides with the spread of rice paddy agriculture, which makes rice a staple crop.

The next iteration was 'namanari': "partially fermented"

Fermentation was shorter (weeks), leaving edible rice to eat with the less-pickled fish.

Look, this COULD be AI, but it's an accurate representation of food preservation in Japan. Stolen from "200 IQ" which looks very sus. Two men with chonmag (shaved tonsures and hair pulled back into a queue) move cut fish and veggies into barrels.

They're using fermentation of the rice to produce lactic acid that inhibits microbial growth, the same as in sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles.

The rice is discarded before eating the fish.

This idea travels to Japan around the same time that Julius Caesar fails to invent the stab-proof toga (~50 BC).

A whole fish sits next to salt and rice filled barrels, I think. It's got stylized kanji in vertical lines along the side. There are trays of cuts of fish, or vegetables next to the barrels.

I'm craving sushi: let's talk about who *invented it*.

Our story starts in the Mekong River valley: Laos, Cambodia, Thailand.

Locals realize they can preserve river fish in barrels with layers of salt & rice for YEARS, a precaution against drought, famine.

Say "cannot" very quickly.

Elephantid Genomes Reveal the Molecular Bases of Woolly Mammoth Adaptations to the Arctic - PubMed Woolly mammoths and living elephants are characterized by major phenotypic differences that have allowed them to live in very different environments. To identify the genetic changes that underlie the suite of woolly mammoth adaptations to extreme cold, we sequenced the nuclear genome from three Asia …

I was about to do some quick checking on elephantid divergence, then I noticed the first author on the first paper I came across and decided to stop.

"Daisy, I need you to step into my office for a minute. Bring your badge with you."

Hell yeah.

A clipart cartoon image showing a computer screen overloaded with email message icons, the red words "SPAM" and the number 365 as in a notification window for unread messages. Stolen from an Internet clipart collection.

At least a few of you don't know the full answer to the question:

"Why do email clients have a 'SPAM' folder?"

The answer involves WWII, Monty Python, and early chat programs.

One day, we'll get this thing resolved.

1500 kb worth of precision edits without off-target insertions? Viable implantation in a surrogate where pregnancy is 22 months?

Might actually be easier to work on a TARDIS.

America celebrated for uniting the world under one banner!

a man in a suit is saying `` take a seat '' while sitting at a table . Alt: a man in a suit is saying `` take a seat '' while sitting at a table .

It would be like if Chris Hansen ran a second show called "To Recognize a Community Champion (with cash money)"

My amazing 7th grade English teacher had one lesson a year where she read us Beowulf sitting on the floor around a simulated campfire using the Old English.

It was amazing because you pick so much up from the intonation & patterns that are familiar.

a man wearing a helmet and chain mail is holding a sword over his head Alt: A French soldier wearing a helmet and chain mail is patting his helmeted head and blowing a raspberry at the camera.

What I'm saying is: if King Arthur spoke Middle English, this guy is the one who is pronouncing it right when he says "English kn-igg-its."

They were the 'Kn-igg-its' of the Round Table.

Guh-naw on that for a while.

Chaucer's Pilgrim's Progress written in the very fancy script associated with that work. An illustration of a man in black hat and robe holds a rosary over one hand.

Chaucer would have pronounced the (now silent) g- in "gnaw" & the related gnawing insect, the "gnat."

Old English "cnotta" became Middle English "knotte", but it wasn't until Modern English that it became "nŏt", with a silent k- to indicate the different meaning.

a cat laying on a blanket with its paws on someone 's hand Alt: a cat laying on a blanket is gnawing and licking on a hind leg with a satisfied intense look.

Gnaw isn't "guh-naw", it's "gn-aw".

Around the time of Shakespeare, as Middle English transitioned to Modern English, people decided these digraph sounds were 'linguistically illegal'.

"kn-ow" simplified to "nōw," but the spelling of the original pronunciation was preserved to avoid confusion.

a black cat with long teeth is laying on a box Alt: a black cat with long teeth is biting a cardboard box. His long canines (felines?) sink into the cardboard.

What do "gnaw", "gnat", "knight", "knot" & "know" have in common?

You're saying them all wrong.

At least, according to Old English, which voiced the initial consonants.

Take "knight", from German 'Knecht'. There's a distinct sound for the digraph (two letters) -kn.

Not "kuh-necht", "kn-echt."

We're a uniquely destructive invasive species. 🤷

Sparrow whose mouth is overflowing with seed bits

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