10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #160
This week, #alien enigmas in ancient #Japan, Tiny Yu's monstrous #fish #sculptures, tips to avoid bad decisions, #chickpea and potato stew recipe, #Rothko explained for those who don't get it and much more! #ContentCatnip #InterestingThings
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/08/10/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-160/
Adorable blobby #sculptures, Kagurazaka street after rain, tips to become a better #storyteller and #writer, hand building a tiny house in the woods in 3 months, baked sweet potato #recipe and much more #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/07/27/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-159/
Coldness as a melody, gliding through a river with a magnificent #cat and #fox, why people give up and how to overcome it, #ambient music, #vegan shepherd's pie #recipe, building a pond for local #wildlife and more. #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/07/13/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-158/
#Book #quote: #beauty, even today, especially today, can serve no political party; it only serves, in the long or short term, the pain or freedom of #humankind. #AlbertCamus #ContentCatnip #art #politics #artists
This week, a 4.5 billion year old #meteorite that glows eerily under light, evolution of the world's alphabets in a cool #infographic, #chocolate brownies, honest #brand slogans, different kinds of #futurism and more #ContentCatnip #InterestingThings
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/06/29/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-157/
How to retrain your #brain after #trauma, the coolest surnames in the world, #vegan french toast #recipe, legendary erotica writer Anaïs Nin's amazing #midcentury home, pimped up cars and loads more #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip #interiors
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/06/15/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-156/
10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #156
How to retrain your #brain after #trauma, the coolest surnames in the world, #vegan french toast #recipe, legendary erotica writer Anaïs Nin’s amazing #midcentury home, pimped up cars and loads more #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip #interiors
The ridiculously random nature of gorillas
https://youtu.be/7HmuTqe9s88?feature=shared
Infographic: How To Retrain Your Brain After Trauma
Everyone has likely experienced some trauma throughout their lives, it can be tough-going. Here are some amazing tips to help you to overcome it. From Reddit Cool Guides.
Victor Tomasi – Chakatum
https://youtu.be/OQP8RTTXkSw?feature=shared
Couple after 30 years together
“Fucking quit it, Geoffrey!”
“Quit what?”
Ask Reddit: What are the coolest surnames you’ve ever heard
Many grey horses
Blackfoot
Waterchief
Goodstoney
Klithammer
Sixkiller
Strongcock
Hellgoth
McCool
McLovin
Youngblood
Kilmister
Lawless
Gaylord
Vegan French Toast Recipe by Rainbow Plant Life
This looks amazing, the technical bit of creating the egg replacement and making it perform in the same fluffy way as egg looks a bit tricky…but willing to give it a go!
Vegan French Toast Recipe by Rainbow Plant Life Vegan French Toast Recipe by Rainbow Plant LifeManuel Cosentino (1980) – Behind A Little House
Cat uses a soundboard to tell owner he’s ill
https://youtu.be/t0qVPp3TwW0?si=WAJwcyfaITT6DNPh
One of my favourite non-fiction writers and her sensual sanctuary in Los Angeles. I love the rich burgundy hues, velvet textures and the exquisite corner library. What a beautiful example of mid-century modern! Via Isabel Baldwin
Something about this juxtaposition of the glowing anime rabbits and old style Chinese/Japanese mythological goddess is eerie and weird and yet it works very well!
Via Beautiful Bizarre Magazine
Hyperreal cake slices immortalised in clay and thread by Heather Rios
Insanely skilled artist Heather Rios conjures joy from clay and thread, crafting hyperreal slices of cake that blur the line between dessert and dream. Her sculpted sweets—swirled with embroidery and adorned with blossoms, berries, and porcelain motifs—are impossible confections too intricate for the kitchen. Mounted on vintage plates or nestled into shallow paintings, these playful trompe l’oeils invite indulgence with none of the guilt. A delicious collision of kitsch, craft, and nostalgia, her work is a sugary wink to childhood birthdays and whimsical afternoons. Via ThisisCollossal
Iguanas once “floated” on ocean flotsam vast distances from North America to colonise Fiji
A Fijian crested iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis) resting on a coconut palm on the island of Fiji in the South Pacific. The four species of iguanas that inhabit Fiji and Tonga today are descended from ancestors that colonized the island within the past 34 million years, probably by rafting 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from western North America. Nicholas HessIguanas have often been spotted rafting around the Caribbean on vegetation and, ages ago, evidently caught a 600-mile ride from Central America to colonize the Galapagos Islands. But for long distance travel, the Fiji iguanas can’t be touched.
A new analysis conducted by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco (USF) suggests that sometime after about 34 million years ago, Fiji iguanas landed on the isolated group of South Pacific islands after voyaging 5,000 miles from the western coast of North America — the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any terrestrial vertebrate.
Overwater dispersal is the main way newly formed islands get populated by plants and animals, including humans, often leading to the evolution of new species and entirely new ecosystems. Understanding how these colonizations happen has fascinated scientists since the time of Charles Darwin, the originator of the theory of evolution by natural selection.
The new analysis, to be published next week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the arrival of the ancestors of the Fiji iguanas coincided with the formation of these volcanic islands. The estimated time of the arrival, 34 million years ago or more recently, is based on the timing of the genetic divergence of the Fiji iguanas, Brachylophus, from their closest relatives, the North American desert iguanas, Dipsosaurus.
Previously, biologists had proposed that Fiji iguanas may have descended from an older lineage that was more widespread around the Pacific but has since died out, leaving Brachylophus as the sole iguanids in the western Pacific Ocean. Another option was that the iguanas hitchhiked from tropical parts of South America and then through Antarctica or even Australia, though there is no genetic or fossil evidence to support this.
The new analysis puts those theories to rest.
“We found that the Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the North American desert iguanas, something that hadn’t been figured out before, and that the lineage of Fiji iguanas split from their sister lineage relatively recently, much closer to 30 million years ago, either post-dating or at about the same time that there was volcanic activity that could have produced land,” said lead author Simon Scarpetta, a herpetologist and paleontologist who is a former postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and is now an assistant professor at USF in the Department of Environmental Science.
“That they reached Fiji directly from North America seems crazy,” said co-author Jimmy McGuire, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and herpetology curator at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. “But alternative models involving colonization from adjacent land areas don’t really work for the time frame, since we know that they arrived in Fiji within the last 34 million years or so. This suggests that as soon as land appeared where Fiji now resides, these iguanas may have colonized it. Regardless of the actual timing of dispersal, the event itself was spectacular.”
While sailors today can take advantage of favorable winds to reach Fiji from California in about a month, an iguana — or more likely a group of iguanas — would probably have taken much longer to ride flotsam through the doldrums and across the equator to Fiji and Tonga, where this group of iguanas is found. Luckily, iguanas are large and herbivorous and used to long periods without food and water. And if the flotsam consisted of uprooted trees, the raft itself would have provided food.
“You could imagine some kind of cyclone knocking over trees where there were a bunch of iguanas and maybe their eggs, and then they caught the ocean currents and rafted over,” Scarpetta said.
The Fiji iguanas are an outlier
All told, there are over 2,100 species in the suborder Iguania, a large group that also includes animals such as chameleons, anoles, bearded dragons and horned lizards. What most people think of as iguanas are the Western Hemisphere family of lizards, Iguanidae, that include and mostly look like the widespread green iguana of Central and South America that Carl Linnaeus described as Iguana iguana in 1758. There are 45 species of Iguanidae living in the Caribbean and the tropical, subtropical and desert areas of North, Central and South America. These include the well-known marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands, but also the chuckwallas of the American Southwest.
The Fiji iguanas are an outlier, sitting all alone in the middle of the Pacific. The four species on Fiji and Tonga are listed as endangered, primarily because of habitat loss, predation by invasive rats and exploitation by smugglers feeding the exotic pet trade.
Biologists had speculated, based on a few fossils found in east Asia, that an ancestral population of iguanids, now extinct, lived around the Pacific Rim and somehow made their way to the middle of the Pacific, island-hopping along the way. They may have journeyed by land and sea from America via the Bering Land Bridge and on through Indonesia and Australia or down along the Pacific coast of the Americas and through Antarctica. Or they could have rafted from South America with the Humboldt Current, gyring into the South Pacific.
Previous genetic analyses of a few genes for iguanid lizards were inconclusive about the relationship of the Fiji iguanas to all the rest. Scarpetta, while a postdoctoral fellow with McGuire a few years ago, embarked on a comprehensive survey of all genera in the Iguania to clarify the family tree of the group.
“Different relationships have been inferred in these various analyses, none with particularly strong support,” McGuire said. “So there was still this uncertainty about where Brachylophus really fits within the iguanid phylogeny. Simon’s data really nailed this thing.”
Scarpetta collected genome-wide sequence DNA from more than 4,000 genes and from tissues of more than 200 iguanian specimens housed in museum collections around the world. As he began comparing these data, one result stood out clearly: The Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the iguanas in the genus Dipsosaurus. The most widespread of these is the North American desert iguana, Dipsosaurus dorsalis, which is adapted to the searing heat of the deserts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico. The other species in the genus is native to Santa Catalina Island in the Sea of Cortez.
“Iguanas and desert iguanas, in particular, are resistant to starvation and dehydration, so my thought process is, if there had to be any group of vertebrate or any group of lizard that really could make an 8,000 kilometer journey across the Pacific on a mass of vegetation, a desert iguana-like ancestor would be the one,” Scarpetta said.
The analysis determined that the two lineages, Brachylophus and Dipsosaurus, diverged about 34 million years ago, which doesn’t fit with earlier theories of the origin of the Fiji iguanas.
“When you don’t really know where Brachylophus fits at the base of the tree, then where they came from can also be almost anywhere,” McGuire said. “So it was much easier to imagine that Brachylophus originated from South America, since we already have marine and land iguanas in the Galapagos that almost certainly dispersed to the islands from the mainland.”
With the new analysis, a South American origin can be ruled out. And because the Fiji Islands emerged from the sea also about 34 million years ago, the iguanas may have serendipitously intersected the islands not long after. Other islands aside from Fiji and Tonga could also have harbored iguanas, Scarpetta noted, but it is the nature of volcanic islands to disappear as readily as they appear. Evidence of other Pacific Island iguanas, if they existed, has probably been lost.
Scarpetta, who has been enamored with salamanders, snakes and lizards since before high school, continues to analyze genome-wide data for Iguanian lizards to learn more about their evolutionary relationships and to infer their movements and interactions through time and space.
University of California – Berkeley. “Iguanas floated one-fifth of the way around the world to colonize Fiji.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 March 2025.
Just an awesome skateboarding corgi!
https://tech.lgbt/@Natasha_Jay/114534429170107819
Studio Job’s fantastical pimped up car
Studio Job is an avant-garde studio in the Netherlands and Milan. They are known for their provocative and whimsical creations. In 2013, they transformed a 4WD into an extraordinary art installation. Dubbed “Automobile,” this piece showcases Studio Job’s eclectic quirky styling, using materials like aluminium, bronze, brass, oak, ceramic, Swarovski crystals, hand-blown glass, leather, rubber, stained glass, and gold. Described as “a masterpiece,” the installation encapsulates the studio’s diverse oeuvre. Explore more of Studio Job’s work on the Inspiration Grid website.
Did you enjoy this collection? let me know what you think of it below. Thank you for reading my dear friends!
Content Catnip
Follow me on Mastodon Watch my videos Donate to my Ko Fi#animals #anime #art #brain #ContentCatnip #creativity #History #inspiration #InterestingThings #interiors #midcentury #Music #nature #Philosophy #recipe #storytelling #trauma #vegan
#Vegan almond butter date latte #recipe, things you can control, gigantic ancient #sloths, a quote from #Thoreau, walking with #dinosaurs #art by Kristen Eisenbraun and much more #ContentCatnip #InterestingThings
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/06/01/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-155/
10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #154
Eye-popping art by Joel Rea and Ed Binkly, ultra satisfying #vegan white bean #soup, a summary 50 #interiordesign styles, a cottage made of mud, how to get various stains out of different materials. #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/05/18/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-154/
Macabre and unsettling furry #puppets, the #psychology of #colour in popular #films, British seaside simulator app, neon #art by AK Berlin that are a blast from the 80's, eerie and strange portals and much more. #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/05/04/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-153/
Iconic photos, ancient Egyptian bread recipe, popular #culture and #childhood for different generations, stained glass #owls, surfing the great wave off #Kanagawa, #cats by #LeonorFini and loads more #ContentCatnip #InterestingThings
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/04/27/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-152/
Simple rules for living a great #life, St Giles Cathedral #Edinburgh at sunset, classic Siouxie and the Banshees, sea cucumber skin under the microscope, Yasui Sotaro's #art and loads more #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/04/13/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-151/
This week: 90's Grrl #Grunge, #cat goddess #Bastet, 8 factors for #happiness in one helpful #infographic, mythical #beasts of #Scandinavia, #soups and stews from around the world and much more. #ContentCatnip #InterestingThings
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/03/30/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-150/
This week, ancient #forest restoration in #Ireland, a grid of #emotions, funky #house music, #Greenland's long-living #sharks, exotic roast #potatoes, giant #cats colliding with tiny #trains and much more. #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/03/16/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-149/
Floaty #Japanese environmental #ambient #music, the #etymology of #bread, ancient manuscripts of #alchemy, poisonous snakes in an infographic, Strasbourg, #fantasy #art and much more. #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/03/02/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-148/
10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #148
Floaty #Japanese environmental #ambient #music, the #etymology of #bread, ancient manuscripts of #alchemy, poisonous snakes in an infographic, Strasbourg, #fantasy #art and much more. #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
Osaki Seiichi – The Tale Of A Long Forgotten Sunken City
https://youtu.be/dQDU02JYuMI?feature=shared
‘Give us this day our daily bread’ has a whole new meaning now
The words “lord” and “lady” descend from old english words that mean “bread-guardian” and “bread-kneader”, respectively!
These flying cuties are extremely silent and haunt riversides throughout Australia. I love them and I’m a bit obsessed.
https://youtu.be/_5SaGn9wEsE?si=FHFIVKIbUCgPVn0w
Ask Reddit: What’s the weakest compliment you have ever heard?
How to give some a back-handed compliment about their appearance. I have heard some of these in the past myself, which always made me feel weird like the person actually secretly hated me. Reading some of these from Reddit I chuckled a bit and felt a bit relieved other people get these kinds of comments as well.
Music for Resilience 3 “One Spirit” Meditative Music on Arabic Oud – Nao Sogabe
Arabic oud by Japanese artist Nao Sogabe, click image to go to video.
Music for Resilience 3 “One Spirit” Meditative Music on Arabic Oud – Nao SogabeVolcano lightning in Guatemala
The top 30 most venomous snakes in the world
Lentil Bolognese recipe by Rainbow Plant Life
I originally found this amazing cook on YouTube and her recipes are delicious and use simple, low-cost ingredients. Via Rainbow Plant Life
Lentil Bolognese recipe by Rainbow Plant LifePsychological Healing Through Celestial Art by Myriam Wares
Artist Myriam Wares creates stunning illustrations featuring celestial motifs that transport viewers to ethereal realms. Something about this image unlocks psychological healing for me. Each piece radiates an undeniable aura, with masterful use of light and shadow adding depth and life. Via Inspiration Grid
A view onto Strasbourg in springtime
It’s firmly on my bucket list this place. Via the always enjoyable travel blog Strafari.
Clavis Artis: Alchemical manuscript some say is made from ‘dragon’s skin’
The Clavis Artis, an enigmatic alchemical manuscript, dances between mystery and myth. Allegedly penned on dragon skin in the thirteenth century, it truly hails from late seventeenth-century Germany. With rare and bizarre illustrations—think interspecies kissing and moon-hovering nudes—the manuscript bewilders even the keenest minds. Held in Trieste and Rome, these images, some nearly lost to dragon’s breath in a 2004 fire, continue to intrigue and mortify people. Read more on Public Domain Review.
Some of the images from the codex are quite violent and shocking, a couple of babies being gutted (OMG) but some of the more tame ones are below, including some below of interspecies tongue kissing and two mermen holding hands inside of a mystical genie bottle…enjoy!
Two mermen seem to be getting cosy inside of a womb-like bottle. A bearded lady force feeds a dragon with a magical potion as a celestial event unfolds.A medieval lion and dragon enjoy some interspecies French kissing. A three-faced merman holding a sun and moon in his hands…oh my!I was not expecting this woman to have this deep gutteral and heavy voice like a banshee from hell. I do like a bit of metal and I’m now in love with this band.
https://youtu.be/19wFCqtZqRQ?si=k6bz3VhihDpxu87P
Cerrate Octopuses: Angry Ballroom Dancers of the Ocean Floor
John Bauer’s ‘The Ring’ transports us into a captivating world of myth and magic, set against the backdrop of ancient Nordic forests. With Bauer’s signature illustrations, the story unfolds around an enchanted ring that binds the fates of its characters in a web of adventure, love, and destiny. This beautifully illustrated book offers a glimpse into a realm where magic and mortal destinies intertwine.
John Bauer – The Ring John Bauer – The Ring 1914Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard
Did you enjoy this collection? let me know what you think of it below. Thank you for reading my dear friends!
Content Catnip
Follow me on Mastodon Watch my videos Donate to my Ko Fi#alchemy #ambient #animals #anime #art #bread #ContentCatnip #creativity #etymology #fantasy #History #inspiration #InterestingThings #Japanese #Music #nature #Philosophy #storytelling #vegan
Enchanted woodland #creatures, #creative #inspiration, epic and dark #dinosaur #synth #music, uncovering your subconscious mind, wheelbarrows, a 400 year old cat door, where the wealthiest people live and loads more! It's #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/02/16/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-147/
Prog #rock from #Ukraine, a good #dog's #retirement, how #apes recognise each other, maps of #lichen in #ambient #music form and much more #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2025/02/02/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-146/
10 #InterestingThings I Found on the Internet 143 – Content Catnip
This week’s #InterestingThings Polish #owls, old-fashioned #dog names, UK jungle and 90’s style R&B, #London’s lost #medieval bridges where people once lived, Marcin Minor’s therapeutic #surreal #art and much more #ContentCatnip Source: 10 #InterestingThings I Found on the Internet 143 – Content Catnip
This week's #InterestingThings Polish #owls, old-fashioned #dog names, UK jungle and 90's style R&B, #London's lost #medieval bridges where people once lived, Marcin Minor's therapeutic #surreal #art and much more #ContentCatnip
http://contentcatnip.com/2024/12/22/10-interesting-things-i-found-on-the-internet-143/
