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- Tardigrade Tattoos | Acne Biome | Frog Dating
A wise entity once said, “time isn’t wasted when debating the best toilet paper emoji to use for Unnatural Selection.”
That entity may or may not have been st3v…
What do you think, was he right?
—Steve 🧻
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Tardigrade Tattoos
The coolest animal just got cooler. Tardigrades are getting tattoos to study nanotechnology.
Tardigrades = micro-animals that survive in extreme environments
Tats are drawn with fluorescent carbon nanoparticles
Remained visible throughout dehydrated hibernation
Researchers’ new technique improves particle adhesion without harming the tardigrades. Further development could lead to nanotech biosensors, environmental monitors, and drug delivery systems. For now they tell us how sick water bears are 🤘.
Hmm...Which is a cooler tardigrade tattoo? |
Check out last week’s results in “Unnatural Selection” below
Acne Biome
MIT got up close and personal with people’s faces. A recent acne study looked into our facial bacteria communities.
Analyzed 20 facial zones across 50 volunteers
Found distinct microbiomes shaped by oiliness, moisture, and folds
Noses, lips, eyelids, and creases hosted specialized bacteria
Cutibacterium dominated oily zones, suggesting it influences acne development. Better understanding of our facial microbiomes could enable precision skincare and help us focus our stress on other things in life. Like “do tardigrades regert tattoos?”
Frog Dating
Bats are catfishing frogs for dinner. Fringe-lipped bats can recognize and respond to unfamiliar frog mating calls. st3v was able to get us a translated chat:
Frog: “am single and ready to mingle, ribbit”
Bat: “you look like a snack…uh, ribbit”
Frog: “lol let’s meet at the mossy rock”…then the bat consumes the frog
The research was a bit more scientific and found bats to quickly associate new sounds with food. But rather than drool like Pavlov’s dogs, the flying frauds use dialogue to pinpoint prey and break hearts.
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Clickables
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Unnatural Selection
Last week: “Which is the better caterpillar costume?”
Technically the bone collector caterpillar dresses up in BOTH costumes. Everyone wins!
Make sure you vote up top for next week’s “Unnatural Selection”!
st3v on site
Tardigrade Sleeve
They’re stickers…but st3v likes calling them tattoos.
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