Tag: they r weird

Brain short-circuits

Awhile ago, I went to a psychiatrist for some assorted cognitive testing, and one of the tests made my brain argue with itself. 

The first page of one test is really simple. It’s about 50 color blocks, arranged in neat rows. The blocks are all either red, blue, or green. You just list them off, in order, as fast as you can. 

The second is also really simple. It’s 50 words in black ink, all either “red”, “blue”, or “orange”. Just read the words. Same deal, easy. 

The third is where it starts getting tricky. There are words again, and you read what the words say, but the words are printed in red, blue, and green ink, never aligning with what the word says. “Red” printed in blue, for example. That one takes some focusing. 

The fourth, again, words in colors, but some of the words are in boxes. You have to say what color the words are, except if the word is in a box, in which case you say the word itself. That one, I could feel the reading part of my brain and the color-recognition part fighting each other. At one point I said “orange”, despite orange being neither a color that was present or a color that could be made with the ones present. The lady gave me a bit of an odd look on that. 

It’s kinda fun when your brain stumbles over itself because a seemingly simple task is not going as planned.

why-animals-do-the-thing:

oeuns:

iloveurcat:

keanuital:

Who’d have thought it, a cat that loves puddles 😮😂

😹😹😹

@why-animals-do-the-thing why ?

It apparently finds it enriching! 

It’s a trope that cats hate water, but that’s not a blanket rule. Some breeds are really interested in water – Turkish Vans come to mind as well-known examples – and some individuals just don’t care about getting wet or actually like the feel of water. I get lots of asks about cats that like to play in the bathtub, or like having water poured on their backs. So, for whatever reason, this kitteh has decided the fun of playing in the water is worth whatever discomfort it might being – or he just is fine getting wet! 

(Here is a beautiful thing about Turkish Vans swimming I found while trying to make sure I remembered what breeds like water. You should go look at it.)

bogleech:

fake-album-covers:

Teach a Man to fish- Where’d My Fish Go?

*Salps are basically gelatinous sea animals related to us vertebrates, but with no bones. They just have a notochord, or “brain stem” similar to what BECOMES our spine later in fetal development.

Anatomy like theirs is older than fish, almost as old as animal life itself.

Other species in their group lose the notochord and become sea squirts. This includes these guys who also went around tumblr:

Some salps during certain portions of their life cycle form a growing chain of clones:

Michael Zeigler photographed this mer-dog looking as confused as we are by its ancient distant cousin.