Weirdiocity

Hermit Crab (Parapagurus foraminosus) with an Anemone Shell. Photo Credit: Greg Rouse By Sabrina Groves Ecosystems are full of symbiotic relationships, evolved interactions between organisms from different species, with benefits for one or multiple of the individuals involved. Made famous by Eric Carles’s children’s book, A House for a Hermit Crab , the mutualistic relationship between hermit crabs and sea anemones has become a iconographic example of interspecies cooperation. When placed on a hermit crab’s shell, an anemone becomes a loyal protector, fending off the hermit crab’s (now cautious) enemies. In exchange, the anemone is granted mobility, allowing it to collect amble amounts of food, including some scraps from its companion’s meals.

By Sabrina Groves, Author & Illustrator Need a meal, call a chef. Have a leak, get a plumber. Intuitive sayings, such as these, drive vocational understandings and career boundaries. But, are these barriers as defined as they appear? In today’s post, I’ll be examining a job swap in an effort to challenge vocational norms and simultaneously highlight some pretty cool aspects of the brain. To be fair, I’ve chosen two seemingly different careers with some notable parallels, so my comparison is not entirely random, but it serves the point.

Green Basilisk Lizard running on water. Photo courtesy: Amazopedia  In the Animal Kingdom, swimming is a pretty common ability, while water running is downright uncanny. Of the more than 1,200 animal species that walk on water, large animals make up the minority. Today, we’ll investigate the anomalous basilisk lizard as an example of a mid-weight water runner, explore the physics behind its motion, and determine what it would take for humans to hone such skills. 

Sweating Milk? It trickles down the body, leaving faint, sticky droplets in its wake. An excellent description of human sweat— minus the BO— but the opaque substance is too thick, too adhesive to fit my sweat schema. Wet. White. Milk?