I’m hoping everyone is enjoying themselves, not getting unduly stressed, and eating in a most unhealthy yet satisfying way – if not, let me know, because we have more cookies here this year than we can manage…
I’m not much for blogging about personal details, but I do have to enthuse a little about one of my gifts, Evolution’s Witness – How Eyes Evolved, by Ivan Schwab. I’ve had my eye on this book (a ha ha) for, well, ever since this post on Panda’s Thumb, so that’s actually longer than I thought. The same image was the subject of a post here as well. I’ve only had a bare moment to flip through the book, but I’m already captivated, so I might actually be featuring snippets and items of interest in ongoing posts, sort of a long-form book review.
Now, in looking up an appropriate link for the book, I find that Dr. Schwab also has a blog, and a TEDx Talk video to check out – why didn’t I think to look up his name earlier? In fact, I’m just going to go ahead and embed the video, because in it, he talks about two subjects that I’ve had a particular interest in.
Which subjects were they? I can’t believe you’re asking – it only means you haven’t done the required reading (which is every single one of my past posts, and of course the entire photo gallery.) But they were the jumping spider’s eyes, which I’ve done twice, and the curious facets of the grass shrimp’s eyes (a species discussed in the immediately previous post as well.) The satellite he mentions in there, by the way, is the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
That’s enough links to make you think I’m alternating font colors for the post, so let’s see if I can manage to avoid any more. The easiest way is by not writing much beyond this, so I’ll leave you with an appropriate image from a few days back, as one of the cats peered out from beneath the tree through a gap in the branches. This was their first christmas tree, and they were very well behaved with it though, granted, we did not put any ornaments within easy reach. They appeared to enjoy the day as well, since they had plenty of wrapping-paper balls to slap across the floor, and a Nerf-like gun shooting fascinating darts for them to chase (yes, it was my gift, and yes, I’m 49 years old – what’s your point? You got something to say?)
All the best, everyone!