This is part of my webcomic Postcards in Braille, which you can read on ComicFury or Tapastic. Updates on Mondays!
This comic/guide works well enough on its own, so I thought it’d be nice to post it here as well 😀 Braille is really cool and you don’t need to be blind or visually impaired to learn it – and spreading the use of Braille can help us build a more inclusive society! everyone wins!
Bonus fun fact: Braille is originally based on Night writing (or sonography), a tactile reading/writing system created for soldiers to communicate silently at night. Louis Braille adapted it into easier to read cells, creating the Braille system. Good to know it evolved into something so useful!
Madagascar, Tsingy. These knife-like limestone formations stretch over 70 meters into the air. Known as The Forest Of Knives, these razor-sharp limestone points can slice through equipment and flesh easily, which makes traversing them extremely difficult and dangerous, some climbers have been known to get through over 15 pairs of boots! It is estimated that the Tsingy has the largest underground cave system in the world and many animals live among the endless maze of disorienting corridors, humid caves, and unforgiving razors at the ground level.
(Image one credit: Pierre-Yves Babelon)
WHOA!!!
Yeah it’s pretty sweet and for anyone who is about to ask, it’s a Sifaka lemur!
Tsingy is formed by mildly acidic rainwater dissolving into the softer strata of limestone from above, and carved it out from underneath, eroding the solid rock both vertically and horizontally, and wearing it away on every surface to a sponge-like, porous honeycomb of limestone cells.
So many of you are probably thinking “Wow I’d love to go and climb around it” and yeah I don’t blame you, it looks amazing. The Tsingy are located in the ANKARA geographic park.
However it’s also incredibly dangerous, due to the fact that those spires are literally razor-sharp. Seriously, most of the park is completely unexplored because it’s so dangerous and you will burn through shoes like anything. It’s not something to just have a walk around, it’s genuinely a feat.
GEEZ!!! That’s amazing!! Is it because it’s porous/spongy that it can support those large overhangs? Also, I assume that the tops of the ridges are sharp, but is it also razor sharp down the sides where it’s porous?
I imagine it has something to do with it as well as lucky balance.
In Malagasy (the native language), the word tsingy means “where one cannot walk barefoot.”
Tsingy formations started about 200 million years ago when a bed of porous limestone was deposited in a lagoon. Over time the land was lifted up and sea levels began to fall as well which exposed the limestone bed that had been protected under the salt water of the lagoon. After it was exposed, fresh ground water started the chemical erosion process that formed caves about 1.8 million years ago.
The calcium carbonate in limestone dissolves easily in the presence of water so the fault lines from the plate tectonic uplift were the first to erode and begin this amazing transformation.
I’ll be honest though, that’s about the full extent of my knowledge when it comes to the Tsingy. They’re cool as fuck though!
it took me 3 times reading this post to realized that (wild) meant living in the wild and wasn’t just a casual remark on the longevity of these organisms
A special eye protein is helping birds to “see” Earth’s magnetic field! If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is.
The ability to see Earth’s magnetic field, known as magnetoreception, relies on the presence of specifically the blue wavelength of light. The complex process involves “radical” intermediate molecules which are sensitive to Earth’s magnetic field. The Earth’s magnetic field, as it relates to the direction the bird is facing, could alter the intermediate radical molecules differently, giving the bird a sense for where it is facing in relation to the Earth’s magnetic field.
While the exact way birds visualize Earth’s magnetic field is part of further investigation, scientists believe the Cry4 protein acts as sort of a filter over the bird’s vision. This filter would allow birds to see a sort of compass of the Earth and direct their migratory flights accordingly.
I ONLY JUST LEARNED ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF THIS MUSHROOM????? WHICH ERUPTS FROM AN EGG BEFORE UNCURLING HELLISH ARMS, EXPOSING ITS STICKY MASS OF SPORES TO BE SPREAD BY FLIES ATTRACTED BY THE SCENT OF ROTTING FLESH???
Admittedly, I am easily won over by all organisms that attract flies with the scent of rotting flesh. But the octopus stinkhorn (Clathrus archeri) also has tentacles, a freaky egg stage, and blackish goop, so it’s my favorite now.
It’s in my queue of Botanical Illustrations for a gallery show! also feat. Corpse Flower,
Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a selection of carnivorous plants, the poisonous things lurking in your back yard and several Pieces of dead and decaying things!
The show’s called “Dead, Decaying and Disgusting- The Ugly Side of Plants and Fungi” and it’s an educational exhibit for kids, supposed to be up at CU Bpulder next summer but the gallery head is doing a terrible job answering her email. (Due to contracts, I can’t post any of the works until they’re done, but you bet they will be all over when it’s ready)
Everyone’s hair changes colour depending on their mood. It has vastly helped people communicate emotions that they can’t put into words. You’ve discovered that you can change the colour of your hair at will.
Plume de Lynx 