Science 🧬 on Instagram: "In research labs and wild habitats alike, plenty of animals have been observed gifting their friends with grub. Bonobos pass morsels of meat to strangers, vampire bats barf blood into hungry relatives’ mouths, and canines tap their snouts to touch screens to share sausages with packmates.⁠ ⁠ But Brucks and Auguste von Bayern, an animal behaviorist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, wanted to test the limits of this generosity in parrots, long considered to be among the brainiest of birds. So they set up an experiment that involved the transfer of treats—with a bit of extra mental gymnastics mixed in.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ After training eight African grey parrots and six blue-headed macaws to barter metal rings for walnuts, the researchers paired the birds up with same-species partners. They then put the parrots in clear chambers joined by a transfer hole and gave one bird—the donor—ten rings, while the other was left with none.⁠ ⁠ Even without the promise of a reward for themselves, seven out of eight of the African grey parrot donors passed some of their available tokens through the transfer hole to their broker partners, usually shuttling them beak to beak. On average, about half the metal rings made it through, allowing the recipients to trade the trinkets for walnuts through another window.⁠ ⁠ “It was amazing to see,” Brucks says. “I thought that when they saw they weren’t gaining anything, they’d stop. But they just kept doing it … some transferred [all] ten of their tokens.”⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ #africangreyparrot #parrots #parrot #greyparrots #biology #science"

@terrifichistory on Instagram: "James Peterson was lobotomized in 1948 because he was gay. After his parents discovered his relationship with another man, he was committed to an asylum, diagnosed with “sexual perversion,” and subjected to a transorbital lobotomy—ice picks driven through his eye sockets into his brain. The procedure took fifteen minutes. The damage was permanent. The doctor told his parents their son was “cured.” What returned was not James, but a hollowed-out shell. Once vibrant and artistic, he became silent, vacant, and compliant, incapable of desire or independence. A photo taken hours after the surgery shows wounds above his eyes and a blank stare. Medical notes called the procedure a success. James lived another 46 years in a group home, never recovering his personality. He died in 1994, though his life had effectively ended in 1948. His partner later donated James’s photo and records to LGBTQ archives, writing: They called it treatment. It was murder. James died for loving me."

Science 🧬 on Instagram: "Earth’s 24-hour day is not a constant. It’s set by a spinning, squishy planet locked in a slow-dance with the Moon. That dance is stretching the day, not by minutes you can feel, but by milliseconds that accumulate across deep time.⁠ ⁠ The main engine behind this shift is tidal friction. The Moon’s gravity raises ocean bulges, and because water and seafloor friction keep those bulges from lining up perfectly, Earth’s rotation loses a tiny bit of energy. Angular momentum doesn’t vanish, it gets transferred outward, nudging the Moon farther away by roughly 3.8 centimeters per year while Earth’s spin very gradually slows. Geological “clocks” preserved in sediment rhythms suggest that around 1.4 billion years ago a day lasted about 18 hours and 41 minutes.⁠ ⁠ Extrapolate that slow brake and you get a 25-hour day on the order of 200 million years from now. The number is a just projection because Earth’s rotation also jitters. Winds and ocean currents trade angular momentum with the solid Earth, and big earthquakes can tweak day length by microseconds.⁠ ⁠ Catching these tiny changes demands precision bordering on the surreal. Geodesists combine atomic clocks, satellite and star-based references, and instruments such as ring-laser gyroscopes that can resolve fractions of a millisecond in day length.⁠"

Good Vibe Quotes on Instagram: "New research shows some female frogs fake their own deaths to avoid unwanted mating. We’re talking full-body limp, floating upside down, even holding their breath. It’s the ultimate ghost move— literally. Turns out “playing dead” isn’t just for opossums... it’s for frog queens dodging thirsty suitors, too. 🐸💀 via @realratedred #NaturelsSavage #FrogFacts #RatedRed #WildScience #NoMeansNo"