John L. Taylor @johnnylogic@qoto.org

Recent research has shown that a particular algae has recently merged with a cyanobacteria (effectively making it an organelle) to allow it to fix nitrogen. This transition from endosymbiosis to organelle has happened notably a few times in evolutionarily history: 2.2 billion years ago a single-celled organism swallowed up a bacterium that became mitochondria and later some cells absorbed cyanobacteria, resulting in chloroplasts. #biology

Scientists have found the smallest example of a biological self-similar fractal in a well-known cyanobacteria. The asymmetric assembly of a particular enzyme used in the Krebs cycle in this bacteria forms a Sierpiński triangle (aka a repeating triforce, to Zelda fans). Cool! #biology

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

• From “Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems”

#Nature #Poetry

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

-- Mary Oliver, “Invitation,” A Thousand Mornings (New York: Penguin Books, 2013).

#Poetry, #wonder