Frost Flowers are delicate, cotton-candy-like structures that need the perfect conditions to form. They occur when the temperature is right around freezing, and commonly appear on rotten, waterlogged plants. It has to freeze very gently because the water contained in the vessels and tubes of woody plants needs to freeze slowly, from the top to the bottom. If temperatures get too cold, the plant will freeze too quickly. As water is wicked up, the ice gets pushed out the top by forces not totally understood. The result is extruded sheets or ribbons of ice that look like frozen blooms attached to the vegetation.
Photo credit: Katie Solari
Ernst Haeckel pieces.
Purchase for the history or the illustrations?
Bat-eating spiders are common and apparently creep around every continent, except Antarctica, devouring various bat species. Here, a dead bat (Rhinolophus cornutus orii) caught in the web of a female Nephila pilipes on Amami-Oshima Island, Japan.
Photo credit: Yasunori Maezono, Kyoto University, Japan
Butterflies scaveging dead fish
‘A Tooth For An Eye’ deconstructs images of maleness, power and leadership. Who are the people we trust as our leaders and why? What do we have to learn from those we consider inferior? In a sport setting where one would traditionally consider a group of men as powerful and in charge, an unexpected leader emerges. A child enters and allows the men to let go of their hierarchies, machismo and fear of intimacy, as they follow her into a dance. Their lack of expertise and vulnerability shines through as they perform the choreography. Amateurs and skilled dancers alike express joy and a sense of freedom; There is no prestige in their performance. The child is powerful, tough and sweet all at once, roaring “I’m telling you stories, trust me”. There is no shame in her girliness, rather she possesses knowledge that the men lost a long time ago.
Dir. Roxy Farhat & Kakan Hermansson
