I hypothesize "without a top": the "bottom" cells form earlier; then at some (early) point, the cells nearest the stem (except for the evenly spaced stripes) switch to a no-chlorophyll state. Maybe the roughness of the boundary correlates with how early that switch occurs?

I don't know, but I'd guess it's a signal acting only on the part that grows after time T. But I'm interested in the invariant green stripes that extend into the yellow — they're lighter than their surroundings in the left gourd, but darker in the right gourd! Discrete chlorophyll levels?

too soon?

I didn't know much about it beforehand when I visited in c.2017, and I thought at first I was looking at a few glass flowers and such "implanted" in a hortus siccus…but my mind was blown when I realized that it was all…all of it!…handmade!…glass!

ok, let's generously say 99.9% of all alien societies do plateau and stop exploring; this does not put a dent in the Fermi "paradox" since all it takes is >one< society that never plateaus to colonize the entire galaxy in a shockingly short time. At least one of our common intuitions is still wrong.

Thanks for the update and best wishes to you both!

This weekend I examined some nematodes I found in a dead beetle in my yard — from the zigzag pattern of intestine cells I think it might be an Auanema (famous for having 3 sexual morphs: males, females, and hermaphrodites) species, but will have to check the sequence to know for sure:

A long-ago tyrant named Mandy
thought a likeness in stone would be dandy,
but the statue fell down,
leaving only a frown,
and the rest has become rather sandy.

if the レジ袋 magically opens as soon as they push the button you would have the chance to do the funniest thing