fidgetiest.bsky.social
@fidgetiest.bsky.social
Here, have some assorted fun #animalfacts and some mostly fairly upsetting great short stories - todaythings.substack.com/p/fun-biolog...

#storyrec #booksky #recommendation #literature #snakes #octopus #inverts #marinebiology
fun biology facts + upsetting short story recs
(two great tastes that taste great together?)
todaythings.substack.com
October 30, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Been a month since my last infodump post, but here’s a new one - todaythings.substack.com/p/ur-so-hot-... (the writing timeslot has mostly been co-opted by climbing instead lately) #inverts #snails #garbagepailkids #breathing #artspiegelman #plankton
ur so hot no fungus can survive in you
+ snails, Garbage Pail Kids, macroplankton, & let's just breathe (shall we?)
todaythings.substack.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:50 AM
rabbit holes I got curiously sucked down into while reading @asimovpress.bsky.social’s great article on hirudotherapy -

open.substack.com/pub/todaythi...

#leeches #inverts
this is my brain on leeches
I just want to bring you along for a reprise of the journey of how I read Asimov Press’s Leeches and the Legitimizing of Folk-Medicine, because man was it fun for my brain
open.substack.com
August 26, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Tom Lehrer outlived his obituary writer by two years archive.is/gY3Xa
July 27, 2025 at 10:38 PM
11 April 1849 - Herman Melville possibly refers to a baby as "Moloch of a baby."

fragmentsfromawritingdesk.blogspot.com/2015/07/sez-...
Words Herman Melville is Reported to have Spoken
fragmentsfromawritingdesk.blogspot.com
July 26, 2025 at 11:11 PM
hooded nudibranchs smell like watermelon
+ fruit flies using bloom filters, ladybug STIs, & short stories about motherhood

open.substack.com/pub/todaythi...

#nudibranch #seaslugs #inverts #marinelife #algorithm #amreading #booksky #shortstories #ladybugs #motherhood #readingrecs #TIL
hooded nudibranchs smell like watermelon
+ fruit flies using bloom filters, ladybug STIs, & short stories about motherhood
open.substack.com
July 22, 2025 at 8:12 AM
I assumed Isaac Bashevis Singer's Meshugah must’ve inspired The Producers (1967) until I noticed it was first published in 1981-83

Pretty convinced this means Isaac Bashevis Singer was directly inspired by Mel Brooks #booksky

truly feels like learning Tolstoy was inspired by Star Trek or something
June 26, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Horseshoe crabs, so very many eyes, web fic recs, & an explanation of commercial shrimp peeling machines

#horseshoecrab #shrimp #inverts #engineering (and my vaguely guilty indulgence in actually really delightful #rationalist fiction)

open.substack.com/pub/todaythi...
i got to touch a horseshoe crab's mouth
so very many eyes, web fic recs, & an explanation of commercial shrimp peeling machines
open.substack.com
May 28, 2025 at 6:21 PM
I got distracted thinking about whether one oughta eat a #pumpkintoadlet this morning

open.substack.com/pub/todaythi... #frog #etymology #herps
how many calories from a pumpkin toadlet
+ some etymological & other digressions
open.substack.com
May 16, 2025 at 11:04 PM
books I’d run a slow read for if I was gonna run one, + fly brain #maps, capillary-ratchet-feeding birds, bone-collecting #caterpillars, & a fun tax #loophole

also I just discovered the awesome @virtualflybrain.bsky.social

#drosophilia #phalarope #invertebrates #booksky #literature
if i were gonna run a slow read, it'd be for this
+ fly brain maps, capillary-ratchet-feeding birds, bone-collecting caterpillars, & taxes
todaythings.substack.com
May 13, 2025 at 10:34 AM
screwworms, snakebite dude, and getting stigmericly borked
the victory of atom and romance
screwworms, snakebite dude, and getting stigmericly borked
todaythings.substack.com
May 5, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Microwaving hamsters for their own good (thanks #tomscott), a surprise #statistician, drug gangs assisting rogue miners, vehicles vs cheeses, QWOP crossed with Codex Seraphinianus but for #linguistics, some #shortstory & art recs, + ofc #swole #invertebrates

todaythings.substack.com/p/lets-micro...
let's microwave hamsters for their own good, help rogue miners compare vehicles and cheeses, learn statistics & languages, read short stories, appreciate art, & get swole
“By a strange twist of fate, the microwave was invented to meet a need to heat hamsters humanely in 1950s laboratories.”
todaythings.substack.com
May 1, 2025 at 11:34 AM
let's all disguise ourselves as stinging #caterpillars while having #Odysseus, Michalina Janoszanka, & #AnishKapoor on the brain - oh & #Dostoevsky #art!

todaythings.substack.com/p/lets-all-d...

<3 <3 <3 @danielmendelsohn.bsky.social & @publicdomainrev.bsky.social for this one #booksky #bookish
let's all disguise ourselves as stinging caterpillars
while having Odysseus, Michalina Janoszanka, & Anish Kapoor on the brain
todaythings.substack.com
March 31, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted
I've been on the octopus beat for more than thirty years and I will never leave it because they still have the power to make me yell EXCUSE ME WHAT
March 12, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Happy fish doorbell day! Also some entertaining friendships in history todaythings.substack.com/p/happy-fish...
happy fish doorbell day! and other friendships? to aspire to
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin shared a bed one night...
todaythings.substack.com
March 3, 2025 at 9:44 PM
#sharks, elegant technique, a translator ceding his identity to an author, air conditioner effect on finance (ps I maintain a calendar of nyc events that I find interesting nowadays) todaythings.substack.com/p/sharks-and...
sharks & elegant technique are not yet a matter of indifference
ps I maintain a calendar of NYC events that I find interesting nowadays
todaythings.substack.com
February 14, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Now I really wanna read a manga about magnapinna. It’d be an epistolary romance btwn 2 marine biologists who cite each other’s papers but never met. Turns out they’ve had rare sightings (citings) of the same giant squid who swims through both their bodies of work over the years. Illustrated by CLAMP
don't you hate it when you try to type "manga" but your browser's autocomplete sends you to the wiki page for the bigfin squid, Magnapinna, the deepest living squid found as deep as 6000 meters under the sea, growing up to 8 meters long, first discovered in 1883, but the adults only first seen in—
February 11, 2025 at 4:22 PM
My list of best books I read in 2024 got crazy long todaythings.substack.com/p/the-best-b... #yearinbooks #booksky
The best books I read in 2024
very long but very worth it
todaythings.substack.com
January 1, 2025 at 5:38 PM