I had no idea, when I began to probe the subject of tardigrades, how quickly I'd be in over my head. Soon I felt I was trapped in some sort of ceaseless pageant of unnameable, formless horror.
As it turns out, tardigrades don't just live in stagnant mudpuddles, National Geographic specials on microbiology or Wikipedia entries that go on forever. They have invaded the culture. Here I hadn't even heard of them, and now they are seemingly everywhere, especially in DeviantArt. The artist didn't have to exaggerate very much to create this frightening gangsta 'grade.
And this. What is this? The General Patton of tardigrades?
It gets a bit ridiculous, but yes, there are Tardy (or Grade, whichever you prefer) stuffies. This one is named Tardy O'Grady.
This looks like a twisted loaf of garlic bread to me, but it's a 3D printed copy of a tardigrade. Believe me, there were much worse things floating around the internet, including tardigrade jewelry (wtf???) and crochet patterns to Make your own Grade.
And you can keep them as pets, too! Approximately 350 tardigrades to one drop of water.
Fiction. While most of us will
probably never be personally assaulted by a tardigrade, this does not
mean that they are harmless. In fact, their very existence is deeply
detrimental to our mental health. We understand that there’s virtually
no escape from these water bears; they’re hiding beneath the ice in the
Arctic Ocean, at the top of the Himalayas, in our backyards, and
everywhere in between. Even if we can’t see them, we can feel their
presence and sense that they are awaiting our demise. Their silence is
deafening.
As humans, we struggle to cope with this dark reality;
the long, sinister shadow cast by tardigrades shapes our identities and
prevents us from forming “healthy relationships” with other people. We
often find ourselves unable to sleep, our minds victims of the night as
they become caught in infinite water bear thought-loops. In our moments
of weakness, we can’t help but wonder: What if there was a pill or an
elixir we could take that would transform us from human to tardigrade?
Would we consider taking such a thing? Perhaps, if we did take it, we
would realize that we have in fact been living a lie; that, all along,
we were actually tardigrades trapped in human bodies. Once corrected to
our true form, we would command respect from our fellow tardigrades and
be elected to a prestigious position with much responsibility. The
important work we’d accomplish would earn admiration from our peers and
maybe even the love of a beautiful female water bear with whom we could
settle down and start a family. Our parents would finally see that we
aren’t the disappointments they always thought we were. For the first
time in our lives, we’d feel accepted, appreciated, and loved.
The tardigrade genome has been sequenced, and it has the most
foreign DNA of any animal
Water
bears just got even weirder.
FIONA MACDONALD
25 NOV
2015
Scientists
have sequenced the entire genome of thetardigrade, AKA the water
bear, for the first time. And it turns out that this weird little creature has
the most foreign genes of any animal studied so far – or to put it another way,
roughly one-sixth of the tardigrade's genome was stolen from other species. We
have to admit, we're kinda not surprised.
A
little background here for those who aren’t familiar with the strangeness that
is the tardigrade – the microscopic water creature grows to just over 1 mm on
average, and is the only animal that can survive in the harsh environment of
space. It can also withstand temperatures fromjust above
absolute zeroto well
above the boiling point of water, can cope with ridiculous amounts of pressure
and radiation, and can live for more than 10 years without food or water.
Basically, it's nearly impossible to kill, and now scientists have shown that
its DNA is just as bizarre as it is.
So
what's foreign DNA and why does it matter that tardigrades have so much of it?
The term refers to genes that have come from another organism via a process
known ashorizontal gene
transfer, as opposed to being passed down through traditional
reproduction.
Horizontal
gene transfer occurs in humans and other animals occasionally, usually as
a result of gene swapping with viruses, but to put it into perspective, most
animals have less than 1 percent of their genome made up of foreign
DNA. Before this, the rotifer – another microscopic water creature – was
believed to have the most foreign genes of any animal, with 8 or 9 percent.
But
the new research has shown that approximately 6,000 of the tardigrade’s genes
come from foreign species, which equates to around 17.5 percent.
“We
had no idea that an animal genome could be composed of so much foreign DNA,”said study
co-author Bob Goldstein, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We knew many animals acquire
foreign genes, but we had no idea that it happens to this degree.”
So
where is the tardigrade getting all its genes from? The foreign DNA comes primarily
from bacteria, but also from plants, fungi, andArchaea. And it’s this
incredible variety of genes that researchers suggest has allowed the water bear
to survive in such extreme conditions.
“Animals
that can survive extreme stresses may be particularly prone to acquiring
foreign genes – and bacterial genes might be better able to withstand stresses
than animal ones,”said one of the
researchers, Thomas Boothby.
The
team hasn't investigated exactly how this gene-stealing is happening just yet,
but they propose that it's a result of one of the tardigrade's other crazy
survival mechanisms – the ability to dry out until its body is less than 3
percent water, and then come bounce back once they're rehydrated.
When
this desiccation happens, scientists know that their DNA breaks down into tiny
pieces. They also know that when their cells rehydrate, there's a point in time
when the cell nucleus is leaky, allowing DNA and other molecules to pass
through. That means that while the tardigrade is quickly patching up its own
genome, it may accidentally be stitching in another organism's genes.
This
would be a random process, but the genes that get passed down would be those
that help the animals survive. Further research now needs to be done into
exactly how tardigrades are obtaining this foreign DNA, and how often it’s
happening. But what’s really exciting is that it provides new insight into
exactly how life evolves.
“We
think of the tree of life, with genetic material passing vertically from mom
and dad. But with horizontal gene transfer becoming more widely accepted and
more well known, at least in certain organisms, it is beginning to change the
way we think about evolution and inheritance of genetic material,”said Boothby. “Instead
of thinking of the tree of life, we can think about the web of life and genetic
material crossing from branch to branch ... it’s exciting. We are beginning to
adjust our understanding of how evolution works.”
The
research, which has beenpublished inPNAS, could
also provide some insight into useful genes we could use in medicine and drug
development. So long live the water bear, in all its weirdness.
No, this is not a vacuum-cleaner bag from an ancient upright Hoover.
It is not a frightening Halloween costume made out of old army tents.
It is not a hazmat suit for an armadillo.
It is not a - uh - um. I hope it's fake because if it's real, I will be having trouble sleeping.
But no. This is called a tardigrade and it is real. I have a whole lot of information on it and even a gif, none of which will post right now. Maybe not this, either.
Morgan Freeman's new film Momentum is a late contender for the title of 2015's biggest flop after making just $74 in Britain during its opening weekend.
The thriller, which also stars former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko and The Following's James Purefoy, opened in the U.K. last weekend, but box office figures show it brought in a paltry sum in its first three days in cinemas.
Momentum garnered scathing reviews from critics, who called the film "preposterous", and it earned less than $100 amid reports some theatres failed to register any ticket sales at all.
It also failed to make an impression on the box office chart, and the news will be a blow to Olga, whose former Bond co-star Daniel Craig is riding high on the success of his latest 007 adventure Spectre.
The British actor's fourth outing as Bond broke box office records following its release in the U.K. last month, and spent three weeks at the top of the chart before it was dethroned by the latest film in The Hunger Games franchise.
News of Momentum's dismal performance comes after editors at Forbes magazine named the biggest box office flops of the year.
The top 10 included Johnny Depp's panned comedy Mortdecai, Kristen Stewart's American Ultra, and Chris Hemsworth's hacker thriller Black Hat.
BLOGGER'S NOTE. In case you've actually been trying to follow this blog in the past 2 weeks, you won't be able to. Things are appearing and disappearing at an alarming rate. Things won't post, it takes forever to get on the site, or all you get is a shit-brown square. Then it seems to come around right again before buggering up even worse. Blogspot is one of the older forms of blog program, but it's not that, because Facebook and YouTube are also causing major problems that can't be fixed. Today Bill was even crawling around behind the computer in the nest of wires, in case the cat somehow dislodged something by jumping into them. No such luck. So posts will be sort of strange for a while. Most of the problem is in posting images, but images are crucial to this image-oriented, gif-oriented, Blingee-oriented, YouTube-video-oriented blog, so it screws things up very badly. The frustration has been huge. I can't find any consistency in the problems either, they seem to clear up, then recur. I am actually at the point of wondering if it just won't ever work right again. I mean ever, though I wonder how that is possible. Why is my computer, or whatever-it-is that drives it, so hopelessly fucked up? Meantime, I took a tiny bit of solace in reading about Morgan Freeman and his $74.00 take at the box office.
All I can do is try, mates - right? Since I am still trying to figure out why my internet connections are so unpredictably dicey, about all I can do is experiment.
Things do post, sometimes, but you can't go back and repeat the experience. It simply stops. So if you manage to post photos on Facebook, which you occasionally can, if you close FB and open it again, you won't be able to post photos. At all. Not until a certain amount of time goes by. It's as if FB gets tired or something - you wear it out, wear out its ability to display your photos. But there is no indication as to HOW LONG that resting period must be.
If you can GET on Blogspot, which is a trial in itself (a brown square is just as likely), you may be able to make a small post, with some pictures in it, but you may not go back and edit. If you try to, you will lose the whole thing because it will not save. We don't know why.
If you want to upload a wacky delightful Christmas crafts video with Caitlin and Ryan, which is obviously date-sensitive and needs to go up right away, it won't. YouTube is not taking any new videos, or at least none of mine.
-----Original
Message-----
From: Kevin Brownlow
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 1:41
PM
To: Margaret Gunning
Subject: LE MOULIN MAUDIT
At long last I
have located that film you enquired about. LE MOULIN
MAUDIT was made in 1909
by Alfred Machin. The English title was THE
MILL, it was made by Pathe and
the print emanated from the Cinematheque
Francaise, not the EYE Institute,
Amsterdam, as I thought, It was
restored by the CNC. Here is the description
in the Bologna catalogue
for 2009; 'Adultery, madness, murder, suicide and a
sinister windmill
which confers epic dimensions on this six-minute film. The
elderly
husband crucifies his young rival on the mill's sails and their
sombre
shadow in the river beats time as the deadly finale is played out.
Is
this the film that Julien Green (1900-1998) saw as a child and
which
gave him nightmares? The elements and the atmosphere are the same:
a
river, an "avenging mill" and a nightmarish escalation of horror.'
(I
think Mariann Lewinsky wrote that).
You won't be surprised to learn
that the director, Alfred Machin, was
primarilly famous for making films for
children! He was also a
front-line cameraman in WW1. Julien Green was an
American who wrote in
French, and who became the first non-French writer to
be elected to the
Academie Francaise.
Phew!
Very best
Kevin
Thank you for that - it's pretty gruesome stuff. So, would this be shown as
a double feature with a comedy, perhaps a Chaplin film? I am not sure who
the target audience was for this sort of dark expressionist stuff. The first
time I watched it, I thought it must be some kind of faux silent film or
even a parody (the heroine tied to the railroad tracks?). It's just so
sadistic, actually shocking. A morality tale, too - everyone gets punished,
even the punisher. (Those pants, though - I guess he just had to go.) My
favorite moment is when the husband finds the wooden shoes at the bottom of
the ladder. The two of them aren't actually shown going up it - I guess
that would just be too immoral. But the idea of him scurrying up there in
bare feet - . Much more is left to the imagination here. I note too the
woman is wearing an actual corset, not a costume one. I think women were
still wearing them then.
These things are time machines, for
sure.
Margaret
I made a gif of this - I'll try to send it - the
guy going around and around
strapped to the windmill.
POST-BLOG COMMENTS. Along with my gifs of Le Moulin Maudit (which I will post in its entirety when I get around to it, because I have a lot more I want to say about it - it's a brilliant little devilish piece of early filmmaking/storytelling), I wanted to include my lovely email exchange with Kevin Brownlow, which happened today. In case you don't know, he's the world's foremost expert on silent film and an Oscar winner for lifetime achievement in silent film restoration. And! Of all the people I tried to contact and get interested in The Glass Character, he was really the only one that took any interest or bothered to respond. I had initial interest from Rich Correll, who used to be considered Harold's "second son" and who actually phoned me from Los Angeles a couple of years ago. But there was no followup. The trail went cold when he stopped answering my emails and calls for no reason I could ascertain. Likewise with Annette Lloyd - I somehow turned her off, I think, maybe by making too familiar with her biographical subject.
Of all the people I contacted, or tried to, Kevin Brownlow was the least likely to respond because of his tremendous status and obvious busy-ness as a world figure in cinema. He's also well into his seventies and has devoted decades to the cause. As a matter of fact, he began when silent films were still being melted down and made into bootheels and such, tossed aside as dross that no one would be interested in watching. He met Harold Lloyd when he was a young film student and immediately loved him, seeing him as charming, unpretentious and not at all vain or self-obsessed. The first time I sent an email to a major film figure and actually got a RESPONSE, I was amazed. Kevin Brownlow, for whom words like "distinguished" seem invented, with that cut-glass English accent, turned out to be jolly good fun, accessible, and friendly. He usually answered my questions promptly and with pleasure. Though I knew he wouldn't have time to read it, he agreed to write a blurb for my book that leant the back cover more than a touch of class. If you're interested in silent film, then he is interested in talking to you. I didn't find this kind of courtesy and respect anywhere else, and I don't think I ever will. This doesn't bring me any closer to my movie version of The Glass Character. It doesn't make the book A Success in the mysterious way it is supposed to be. But it was and is a wondrous thing to connect with someone like this. And to have him do some homework on this movie I asked about, and to GET BACK TO ME about it, is nothing short of a bloody miracle in an age when the unanswered email and the ignored request seems like the norm.
POST-BLOG-POST REVELATION! Today, a couple of weeks later, I actually got something in the mail - but it wasn't just anything. It was postmarked from Britain, neatly addressed by hand (a rarity in itself) with no return address.
I opened it, and saw a greeting card:
A Christmas card from Kevin Brownlow, signing himself as Kevin, yes, as if we're friends. . . or at least, as if he's a wonderful and warm person who goes to the trouble to handwrite a card and send it all the way over the ocean to me.
He has done this sort of thing before, when he sent me a wonderful antique postcard of Rudolph Valentine which sits on my desk in a lucite frame.
Somebody has to come through for me, I guess. And the fact that it's the one who knows the most about this subject is not lost on me. Some days, rare days, almost nonexistent days, this all seems worthwhile.
POST TO THE POST-POST! The card contained an enclosure: a photocopy of a page from a book. It's a little hard to read what's on it, so I'll transcribe:
"Lashed to a windmill by a Nebraska mob that dragged him from court, a murderer faces an exotic death. The sherriff halted the rite - depicted in the Police News in 1884 - and the man got a life term instead."
Kevin's comment was, "This isn't very Christmassy but it certainly is a coincidence! Just came across it in Time/Life's THE OLD WEST."
Nebraska, eh? That's where Harold was born and raised. But this poor man, like St. Peter, is being crucified upside-down.
All is buggered. There is some mysterious problem in my computer that is causing intermittent panic: for some unknown reason, last week, things started to fuck up. I couldn't get on sites, when normally my computer functions at light speed. When I finally did get on them, things didn't work, particularly posting photos (which is what I live for!). Text would sort of post, sometimes. This wasn't just on the blog but on Facebook. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Other things have quirked and eluded me. Some posts have refused to save, or refused to show up at all. (This just happened here, by the way. Everything looked perfect, I had all the photos in place, then it froze and refused to save or post, so this is about the tenth time I've had to find some other way to do this.) I have tried EVERYTHING, and my son the computer genius spent two long sessions with it and tried every purgative, every exorcistic thing that existed in his repertoire (and he does this for a living and has never been stumped before). My husband screwed around with the router, though I don't even know what that IS, and for a brief, blissful while all the problems went away, before they all came back. I would put up with it and try to find workarounds, except - sometimes it just stops. Google Chrome won't even go ON this page and gives me a gigantic brown square, just the background, which is totally absurd. I'd rather have a white page! This is not good, as there is a subtle feeling of erosion, as if the (relatively-new) computer, recently switched to Windows 10, is about to pack it in for good.
The Windows 10, by the way, was a fix, not a cause. This happened spontaneously. Installing Firefox (which now works marginally better than Chrome, but only to get me ON the blog) didn't help. Is it the new photo program that came with Windows 10? Actually, it has been working well, and I like everything but the editing program which I can do in Windows Live. Or at least I've done it successfully up to now, though "up to now" doesn't mean much any more. Is my computer confused? Why? Why does it suddenly work "almost" normally, then go wildly catawampus again (and that IS the technical term)?
The blog is the only way I can express myself as a writer now, sad as that may seem. The only rule is that I do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want. It's a combination of enjoyable sharing of quirky things, and (sometimes) ranty self-expression. It has no central theme, but similar subjects come up regularly, because these are the things I care about.
So far I can post text without any problem, but who knows what is next. I may have to write with a sharp stick and a little pile of dog poo. This video you see (at the bottom, if it's still there) - I've seen it before, it's fun - would not MOVE so I could write some text under it. It's like sorcerer has gotten his wonky fingers in here and flicked the workings of it this way and that. The WORST is when it all works beautifully again, because the next time I try to use it, one subtle thing will be buggered up - or un-subtle thing - then another, then another, until I am back to the dreaded shit-brown square.
This reminds me of those demonic medical symptoms you get, and believe me I've had them, where when you finally get in to see a doctor, the symptoms are completely gone. Then you go home, a month goes by when you feel a lot better and you're sure you're all right, and then you begin to feel just a little scribbly niggle of pain in the deepest pit of your abdomen. And within a month you're screwed, and on ANOTHER waiting list. Then, just as you walk into the doctor's office, the symptoms all go away.
I've been through that in the past few years, and I am not convinced I am in the clear yet. But this is a mere computer, is it not? Since the worst symptom right now (?) seems to be very erratic posting of photos, MAYBE there's something wrong with - but no, it couldn't be, because the problems started well in advance of installing Windows 10.
I realize this is boring, but I am anxious beyond what I can say. No one seems to understand why it's so significant to me. I failed pretty abysmally at everything else - I can't sell books worth two hoots, though I do think I write good ones. (It's not that, so please don't say something like, "Ohhhh, don't worry, Margaret, your writing REALLY isn't so bad!") Most of what I wrote never saw the light of day. Honest writers, all two of them, admit they have unpublished manuscripts lurking around in their files. I published something like three out of seven. I remember a time when publishing even ONE was a golden dream, something I thought I'd never attain. But I didn't know what it would be like, the loneliness and isolation, the disappointment, and the need to keep it to myself because failure just embarrasses everyone. I've gotten to the point that I just can't do it any more.
This has become a screed. My problems probably won't happen in this post, for the computer sticks its tongue out at me regularly, dangles a hope of wholeness and function. (Oops. After dangling hope by posting one or two images, it now has shut down again. Last time this happened, all my changes were lost and I was back to square one.) Nobody realizes why this bothers me so much, and I am totally convinced other people don't even have it. Or if they do, they laugh it off, it has nothing to do with their identity. IDENTITY? Isn't that just a given? Why do you need to work so hard to maintain it, to support it? What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?
Anyway, I don't know why this is even going up here at all except that I have HAD IT, had it with all the crap that is going on. I know a blog isn't a personal journal, but I also know it's not whatever I have been doing all day for four solid years, with literally thousands of posts. Only one gained a vast readership (I See Dead People: Victorian Post-Mortem Photography) from being on Pinterest: last time I checked, it was at 106,192 views, and the time before that, a few months ago, about 100,000. Considering my average is around 25, that's not too shabby.
I will make an attempt to post some images here. The sorcerer who has been screwing with my head may well allow them this time, who knows. Or not. Like life's problems - no, like MY problems, I am sure everyone else is consistent - it's intermittent and maddening.
Which is why this funny horse video is posted at the bottom.
(P. S. At the moment, I can't even save this, let alone post it. I had to go back and restore all my changes from memory. WHY is this happening? More to the point, how the hell do I get OUT of here??)
I used to call this "life". I used to call this "normal". I had nothing
to compare it to, since the outside looked so perfect and so much energy
went into maintaining it. I see now that a number of key people in my
family of origin had narcissistic personality disorder. They were not
arrogant power-brokers but sad, powerless people who desperately needed a
facade of control, and had to suck the vitality out of the most
vulnerable (youngest) members of the family in order to feel
whole/alive. You don't get revenge against such people because they have
more evasive/responsibility-escaping twists and turns than an octopus.
But sometimes, if you just hold up a mirror, the narcissist will start
to blink and primp in it as usual, but then the death rays coming out of
their eyes will bounce right back at them. And that will be that.
