fun biology facts + upsetting short story recs

Snakes typically have only one lung. specifically, the right one.1 whyyyyyyy?

otoh (otol?), amphisbaenians (worm lizards) have only the left lung!

evolution is just whimsical like that, shrug

This diagram of snake movement patterns reminds me of Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, a system of dance notation used in Baroque dance from the 16-1700s

which has always seemed to me rather more charming than the more modern Benesh notation (though the latter might be more helpful for robotic motion?)

i do not like to dance but i truly love novelty notation systems

Octopuses2 have donut-shaped brains - the esophagus goes through the middle!

They also have three hearts, which is 1.5x my personal lifetime maximum (along with any Timelord’s) (but fewer total chambers (5) than a Klingon, who has 83 (in just one heart, strangely))

oh and speaking of maritime brains, sea squirts digest their own brain after attaching to their permanent homes

oh and speaking of Star Trek biology in real life, female ferrets experience pon farr (“If mating does not occur, the females will succumb to aplastic anemia and die a most painful death.” - some veterinarian)

short stories I recently read and enjoyed

• Why Don’t We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim

  • and then I got excited about IJK and also discovered:

    • You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday

    • The Massage Lady at Munjeong Road Bathhouse

• Philemon and Baucis (warning: pages are out of order at this link) by Tibor Déry - set during the 1956 Hungarian uprising, reminiscent of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi but darker, and of course there’s the Ovid (aaaahvid) connection in the title (ps this short story inspired a 1978 movie by Károly Makk4 (which I haven’t seen))

  • from the same fantastic anthology, I also loved “Thirty-three” by Ferenc Karinthy (not available in English online, and involves so much rape and murder and genocide from the POV of a perpetrator, but it really hit me)

• The Man in the Black Suit by Stephen King (via) - that feeling when you know something terrible has happened, and all the shit luck in this shit world is nothing but, and time has gone all squiggly around you

• The Swimmer by John Cheever (a classic for good reason! accidentally swimming past your whole life)

• My First Goose by Isaac Babel (old-school pogromface vibes)

perfect sentences (and snippets)

• “What could be more stupid than to tighten up our muscles and set our jaws about virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem? Attention is something quite different.” - Simone Weil (via) (indeed. Attention is not tension. Attention is what prayer tries to be.)

• “Kennedy says he got waylaid by a busy day of falconry, and then had to rush back to New York City for a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House, which ran late.” - NPR

• “to be shamelessly naked is the Yiddish art of war” - The Metropolitan Review

• “If you like a hot, caffeinated beverage in the 19th century, you’re getting involved in something fucked up.” - Behind the Bastards: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil