Winter Theme Week: Why Is Falling So Funny?

By: | December 28, 2018

This week, we’re celebrating the holiday by looking at some favorite wintry posts. On Feb 26, 2013, Christie considered why falling [for example, in the snow] is so funny.

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The other morning while we were walking our dogs, my husband slipped on some snow and fell down in front of me. One moment he was stepping over a log, and the next he was on his back, feet up in the air. I laughed hysterically.

He wasn’t hurt. Nor was he amused. And his grumpiness just made the whole episode that much more comical. I couldn’t stop laughing, even after he pointed out that it was actually kind of mean to giggle over his misfortune. I agreed that it was rotten of me, yet I couldn’t stop smirking.

And that got me wondering — why is it so funny when someone falls?

Turns out, scientists are on it. I’ll explain their findings in a minute. But first, notice how many examples of this kind of humor circulate on the internet. Here are three of them, starting with the Ice Man. I dare you not to laugh.

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Winter Theme Week: Consensual Hallucination

By: | December 27, 2018

This holiday week, we’re looking back at some favorite posts about snow and ice. This post originally ran on Sept 22, 2011 when the concept of Game Transfer Phenomena was first identified. It has been updated with an anecdote that demonstrates how playing too much Mario Kart could save you from an icy death.

When William Gibson coined the term cyberspace in 1984 in the book Neuromancer, he described it as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators in every nation.”

Decades later, Gibson declared that cyberspace was everting. Which is to say, entering the next phase of its evolution by creeping out of the virtual boundaries that once defined it and into what we consider “real life.”

Earlier this week, a study out of Nottingham Trent University and Stockholm University hinted at what I think is the real potential of the internet: imbuing plain vanilla reality with an extra, shared dimension. Moving our consensual hallucination into reality.

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Winter Theme Week: Ice is the Worst

By: | December 26, 2018

This holiday week, we’re looking back on some favorite posts about snow, ice, and cold weather. In this post, originally published March 6, 2015, Helen tells ice to go back to where it came from.

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I am on the record as loving snow and cheerfully tolerating cold. So you’d think I would love winter. And I do, mostly. But as of this week, I am very much ready for winter to pack up its bags and leave the D.C. area.

The reason: ice. Ice is the worst.

Ok, it’s good in drinks and I don’t mind skating on it. But it refuses to stay confined to ice rinks where it can be Zambonied into shape. It has a cruel habit of forming on sidewalks and other places where humans need to walk. And it’s out to get me.

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Winter Theme Week: Below the Snow

By: | December 25, 2018

This holiday week, we’re looking back on some favorite posts about winter, snow, and ice. This post by Cameron about life under the snow originally ran on June 5, 2013.

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It’s after Memorial Day, so I should be wearing white instead of thinking about the white stuff.  (Although if I were in the Arctic Circle or even in Vermont and New York, where a late-May storm dropped a foot or more in some spots, I might be thinking about snow quite a bit).

Even when I do think about winter, I mostly think about all the fun things that take place on the snow’s surface. Or all the fun things that take place inside: hot chocolate, eating, reading by the fire. Once spring comes, when the world outside is buzzing (and boing-ing), there’s no excuse to stay inside with a good book.

I’m not the only one who needs a winter retreat. In snow-covered spots food can be scarce; the wind-chilled open air, brutal. But for creatures that aren’t able to curl up with cocoa, the snow itself forms the insulation for a shelter under the snow.

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Winter Theme Week: Cold Hands, Warm Space Heater

By: | December 24, 2018

This week we’re celebrating the holiday by looking back on some favorite posts about snow, cold, and ice. This post originally ran Nov 20, 2014.

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On my way to the dry cleaners, I passed a gaggle of highschoolers on their way home from class. The high was 16 degrees yesterday, and the wind made it feel like single digits. But most of these students were dressed for a crisp fall day. One kid, some Justin Bieberesque boy on a bike, sported a sweatshirt instead of a jacket. The sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, leaving his forearms exposed. On his hands he wore lime green fingerless gloves. The girl next to him had a light coat that she had failed to button. Gusts of polar wind whipped it to and fro.

“Hell no!” I thought. “Go home and put on some proper winter clothes you dumbasses.” If it hadn’t been so cold I might have rolled down my window and yelled it.

I was stupid once too. In North Dakota, where I grew up, winters were brutal. Yet, as a teen I used to drive half an hour to school in a Dodge with a broken heater. And because it was the era of what my father calls “mall bangs,” I never wore a hat, even on those -20 days when the wind would freeze your nose hairs and steal the air from your lungs. On the coldest days, I might put my lightly gloved hands over my naked ears. Teenagers are idiots. But they also seem to be immune to the cold.

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Abstruse Goose: Tradeoff

By: | December 21, 2018

AG has found a fatal flaw in one of the Just-So stories that naturalists tell, that is, they’re either saying that creatures in fancy dress get sexually selected while the ones in sweats and sneaks don’t; or else they’re saying creatures in quiet camouflage don’t get noticed and eaten.  So which is it?  I can think of cases where both are true — swanky male goldfinches vs little grey-brown sparrows that look like dead leaves.  C’mon naturalists, I’m waiting.

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https://abstrusegoose.com/604

Seal is Alive and Well

By: | December 20, 2018

On Poipu Beach on Kauai, bikini-clad humans are sometimes joined by two endangered species: monk seals* and green sea turtles. Both are there for the same reason we are—to bask in the sun. But while the only beings taking notice of me as I lie supine on the soft beige sand are the fearless wild chickens that roam this island in search of stolen morsels of spam misubi, the turtles and seals draw a crowd of gawkers who gaze at them through their phone screens with…slightly aggressive reverence .

The monk seals have their own goons. Well, goons is perhaps a rather strong description for the amiable retirees in lawn chairs that show up when a monk seal is spotted and erect a temporary fence around the lolling pinnipeds. They pop up a sign that reassures the public that despite not moving, the “seal is alive and well.” They are stern with those who would seek to breach the fence to photograph or cuddle the seals. Of course, the seals are not without their own defenses.

“The real trouble is when people try to hug them,” one of the seal protectors told me. “That’s when people get bit.”

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Looking at Lichen in 2018

By: | December 19, 2018

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, a beautiful sunny afternoon, I met a friend and her sister in a park along a creek for a lichen walk.

I had a small obsession with lichens a few years ago, and I wrote about it in a three-part series for this blog. (Part one, part two, part three.) Lichens are a symbiosis: A fungus provides shelter and structure, and cyanobacteria or algae live in its tissues, making energy from sunlight to keep the whole thing going. And, scientists have learned since I last wrote about lichen, many species contain a third partner, a strain of yeast. 

I brought my lighted hand lens and guide book, holdovers from my lichen moment of 2016; they brought observational skills and tree knowledge. We started with a tree close to a picnic table, handy for coats and bags.

I started with what I remembered – that a lot of lichens that look the same at first glance are actually different species. Several were sage green, but one had long black eyelash-like cilia sticking out from its edges. Others had tiny black spots, or skinnier lobes, or a different shade of green. On the sunny side of the tree, a crust-like yellowish species was growing.

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