Author: Rauf Aliev

In the wild, fig wasps climb in through this hole at the bottom of the fig to lay their eggs inside. Along the way, the wasp loses its wings because the hole is too small. Subsequently, the wasp dies inside the fig. The eggs wait for their time. Inside, a new generation of wasps begins to grow. Males fertilize the females and also die inside the fig, as they are born wingless, while the females emerge to find a new fig. By the way, a fig is essentially an inside-out flower. Wasps thereby pollinate it. We eat self-pollinating figs and only the female fruits, but you can’t explain that to the fig wasps. 🙂

Enjoy your meal, I’m going to eat this fig now

Some people get flies in their kitchen, but we had a bat. Time to sleep. Rescued, released. Pretty one

The deer was stunned for about five minutes. This video is a small “montage”. Probably his parents told him that if he doesn’t move, no one will notice him. Seems like they told our Yuki the same thing.

By the way, Yuki is very accurate at distinguishing between natural sounds and artificial sounds (no matter how similar they might seem to us), and reacts very differently to them. He instantly picks up on birds – no wonder, given his hunting breed. And deer fascinate him.

I always believed that behavior programming comes not from genes, but from upbringing. You know, the young ones observe how their mom and dad react. It seems like some stuff might actually be passed down through DNA. At least the most basic things.

Interesting video about mathematical topology. How to turn a sphere inside out without bending the surface? Excellent visualization and explanation

EPAM Global unexpectedly delighted with an unsolicited gift. I go out to walk the dog, and there’s a package at the door. With a thermos! How nice!

Yuki at our place loves to sleep the days away. Thankfully, almost the whole nights too. Especially in the morning. We joke that he got it from Lisa. But in between, at some random times of the day, he gets playful and needs the attention of the entire family all at once. We’ve already burned this off a couple of times by riding bikes – he dashes along with me on a leash until his batteries run out. In the comments – a photo of what Yuki looks like after such a “run”.

Our Yuki (watch with sound)

Correspondence with my daughter:

– why are you taking so long?

– I got held up

I wonder, are homonyms and homographs in the Russian language its richness or its poverty? Please explain?

People try to climb aboard an airplane during the evacuation of American troops. South Vietnam, April 1, 1975

(Colorized)

Finished watching the documentary series “Living Pushkin” by Parfenov. Very interesting, highly recommend. Made back in 1999. How did I miss it!

P.S. Pushkin – “greetings from our quarantine to yours”.

“The cholera epidemic came to Russia from India. Fearing panic, the authorities hid the first fatal cases in Moscow from the population. The real chaos happened when the number of sick reached the thousands. Wealthy families, terrified, fled Moscow.”

Here’s what Pushkin writes to Natalia Goncharova:

“Entry to Moscow is forbidden, and here I am locked up in Boldino. (…) I have completely lost my courage, and really don’t know what to do. Clearly, this year (may it be cursed!) our wedding cannot happen. (…) It would be unforgivable to voluntarily expose oneself to the danger amidst cholera. I know well that they always exaggerate the devastation and the number of victims; a young woman from Constantinople once told me that only the rabble dies from cholera — all this is fine and superb; but still, decent people need to take precautions, as this is what saves them, not their elegance or their good manners. So, you are well sheltered from cholera in the countryside, aren’t you? We are not surrounded by quarantines, but the epidemic has not penetrated here yet.”

Such was the self-isolation then. By the way, half a million fell ill then, and every second or third patient died. Right at the start of the pandemic, I was reading a smart book about various contagions, and I remember a wonderful story about how in London, John Snow (not that one, another) identified the source of cholera spread – a water pump on Broad Street through analyzing the distribution of the infected. “The map marked the locations of water pumps and the number of deaths from cholera in each building. Snow relied on statistical data to firmly prove the connection between the water source and the disease. The resulting overall picture of the epidemic showed that the greatest number of deaths occurred around the water pump on Broad Street”. At that time, the laboratory could not yet confirm the presence of cholera. They shut off the pump, and it saved London.