But at the right time of a cold winter day (late evening), at the right place (I saw it in a forest) you can see spiders walking all over the snow hunting.
If you see it in person it's a really weird phenomen. Makes you realize how many spiders there actually are too.
> "Mima" is a name derived from a Chinook Jargon term meaning "a little further along or "downstream".
To keep the random learning going, Chinook Jargon [1] is fascinating in itself. A few years ago someone on this site suggested a book called You Can't Win, an autobiography of a reformed hobo/thief/addict written in the 20s. It's fantastic, especially the audiobook version on Spotify. Googling now, I'm seeing it got a (poorly reviewed) movie adaptation this year [2].
Anyway, when locked in a British Colombia jail around the turn of the century, the thief/author used it to communicate with his Chinese cellmate [3]:
> A priest visited the jail one day and gave me a pamphlet on which he had printed the Chinook language. In answer to my question he told me it contained about three hundred words—nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It was created by the Hudson Bay traders, years before, and taught to all the Northwest Indians to simplify trading with the different tribes. […]
> One day he came in with a scared-looking China boy about twenty years old. “Yank, here’s a cellmate for you.” He locked the Chinese in, thinking he was punishing me. The China boy later proved the jailer’s undoing and my deliverance. He knew some Chinook, but not one word of English. I learned from the Indian trusty that he was held for trial, charged with stealing a considerable sum of money from his employer, and that his case was about as hopeless as mine.
But that's fine too. If the complexity of the natural world is just emergent behaviors, then emergence itself never ceases to amaze. Because one wouldn't normally expect that our "cold" physical laws could lead to the variety of life.
I highly recommend the book "Deep Simplicity" by John Gribbin.^1
It explores precisely this topic: the emergence of unexpectedly rich, complex behaviors from very simple rules given feedback and sensitivity to initial conditions.
Wait until you hear about Ice Worms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_worm
And sailing stones, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones and toneballs https://luthierblogmartinahawe.wordpress.com/toneballs/
I like how they installed a GPS module into one of the rocks to track its path.
Thanks to your comment TIL that snow algae is a thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_algae
I don't have a Wikipedia link for this.
But at the right time of a cold winter day (late evening), at the right place (I saw it in a forest) you can see spiders walking all over the snow hunting.
If you see it in person it's a really weird phenomen. Makes you realize how many spiders there actually are too.
Another fun one is Mima Mounds, mounds found all over and especially in North America that don’t have established causes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mima_mounds
From your article:
> "Mima" is a name derived from a Chinook Jargon term meaning "a little further along or "downstream".
To keep the random learning going, Chinook Jargon [1] is fascinating in itself. A few years ago someone on this site suggested a book called You Can't Win, an autobiography of a reformed hobo/thief/addict written in the 20s. It's fantastic, especially the audiobook version on Spotify. Googling now, I'm seeing it got a (poorly reviewed) movie adaptation this year [2].
Anyway, when locked in a British Colombia jail around the turn of the century, the thief/author used it to communicate with his Chinese cellmate [3]:
> A priest visited the jail one day and gave me a pamphlet on which he had printed the Chinook language. In answer to my question he told me it contained about three hundred words—nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It was created by the Hudson Bay traders, years before, and taught to all the Northwest Indians to simplify trading with the different tribes. […]
> One day he came in with a scared-looking China boy about twenty years old. “Yank, here’s a cellmate for you.” He locked the Chinese in, thinking he was punishing me. The China boy later proved the jailer’s undoing and my deliverance. He knew some Chinook, but not one word of English. I learned from the Indian trusty that he was held for trial, charged with stealing a considerable sum of money from his employer, and that his case was about as hopeless as mine.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_Jargon
2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1402593/
3. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/69404/pg69404-images.ht...
Also a reminder that a lot of life is basic physics and a simple state machine.
e.g. even the development of eyeballs started with a slightly photoreceptive skin cell and then evolution hill climbing took care of the rest.
But that's fine too. If the complexity of the natural world is just emergent behaviors, then emergence itself never ceases to amaze. Because one wouldn't normally expect that our "cold" physical laws could lead to the variety of life.
I highly recommend the book "Deep Simplicity" by John Gribbin.^1
It explores precisely this topic: the emergence of unexpectedly rich, complex behaviors from very simple rules given feedback and sensitivity to initial conditions.
1. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/71851/deep-simplici...
Another recommendation, with a biological slant: One Hand Clapping: Unraveling the Mystery of the Human Mind by Nikolay Kukushkin.
https://nikolaykukushkin.com/book