Author Archives: caitlinburke
Occam’s Razor Is Too Dull
This strikes me as rather sad, not least because it has the potential to (perhaps inadvertently) hold back some really interesting work:
ABSTRACT: From the process of organic evolution to the analysis of insect societies as self-organizing systems, biology is full of awe-inspiring examples of complexity arising from simplicity. Yet in the contemporary study of animal cognition, demonstrations that complex human-like behavior arises from simple mechanisms rather than from ‘higher’ processes, such as insight or theory of mind, are often seen as uninteresting and ‘killjoy’, almost a denial of mental continuity between other species and humans. At the same time, however, research elsewhere in psychology increasingly reveals an unexpected role in human behavior for simple, unconscious and sometimes irrational processes shared by other animals. Greater appreciation of such mechanisms in nonhuman species would contribute to a deeper, more truly comparative psychology.
“Clever animals and killjoy explanations in comparative psychology.” (essay; Sara J. Shettleworth)
Mmm, Caturday
Drying Dance
This bird spent several minutes pushing wings and tail under the water.
And then danced on the surface to shake off the rinse.
Bringer of Suffering
I had hay fever as a kid, but I don’t remember it being particularly bothersome. My worst experience with allergies was when I acquired a cat allergy in my late 20s—pretty inconvenient. And I figured that dust and cats were going to be it, until pollen came back to haunt me.
I can handle most flowers and grasses now, but trees finally caught up to me. Junipers, so I have the added indignity of having my “hay fever” in the winter.
So I actually felt itchy looking at this gallery, in which the Telegraph offers us the opportunity to “know [the] enemy” through Martin Oeggerli’s scanning electron microscope images. Some of them are even creepier than this one.
More at Oeggerli’s website.
Pinhole Sculpture
This image was made in a pinhole camera fashioned from a human skull. Pinhole cameras need no moving parts – any chamber that has a minuscule hole and some photographic film facing it can take photos with some detail, and often the results are similarly dreamy.
Skulls, of course, have lots of big holes, and Wayne Martin Belger closed those off and created a new hole for the exposures. The camera that made this photo is called Third Eye.
More about the pinhole skull camera at Inhabitat, and more about Wayne Martin Belger’s cameras at his website, including more about this camera. And more about the history and workings of pinhole cameras.
Best Name in All of Taxonomy
Found on the shelf or coastal pelagic on various bottoms (sand, mud, rocks and seaweeds). Gregarious, ascending to the surface mainly at night. Omnivorous, feeding mainly on crustaceans, also planktophagous. Hermaphroditic, generally protogynous.
Design Sponge Kitties
Design Sponge is a home and product design blog. It features reviews, DIY projects, and city and product guides as well as the expected examples of beautiful stuff. And it demonstrates over and over that a cat elevates a place from a mere dwelling to a home.
Sneak Peek: Best of Cats collects cat-containing classics from Design Sponge’s Sneak Peek category, which takes a look into wonderful living spaces.
Medicinal Laughter
In light of these findings for positive wellbeing, as well as of the complex conceptual content of sense of humor, it is possible that sense of humor is best conceived of as one aspect of a broader psychological characteristic that facilitates a general state of wellbeing, rather than a specific emotional state of mirthfulness.
In an endearingly not particularly funny article, Mark Crislip at Science-Based Medicine explores laughter as medicine and sense of humor as a marker for health (and touches on something I’ve always suspected: the more you complain, the harder you are to kill).
