Skitty connoisseur

Trying to paint environments more often

“When he died the ravens sat in the trees outside for a week, watching. Taking turns. A horde of raccoons tried to break into the house every night, tearing at the siding. Eventually they gave up, but it was unsettling.”

New research used an AI (note that this is a good use of AI to analyze data for research, not a LLM) to analyze over 45,000 recorded observations of coral reefs with the goal of finding locations where reefs were more likely to survive higher ocean temperatures into the future. Based on over 40 criteria, the AI model predicted at least 64,000 square miles of reef would be able to survive rising ocean temperatures into 2050 and beyond. That's about the size of Wisconsin.

Corals in these "coral refuges" had some combination of a faster rate of recovery, more heat-resistant species, and better protection from heat-related damage.

The study authors hope that their research can help guide more efficient allocation of limited coral conservation resources.

Although coral reefs face immense threat from climate change, our knowledge of coral conservation has increased by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years. Only two decades ago we couldn't breed corals in human care, now we have mobile coral labs that can breed thousands of coral in just a week. We can restore reefs faster and more successfully, and there are scientists working on breeding more heat-resistant coral lineages.

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

The Animal Photo Reference Repository is an independent, permanently open-access project and funded entirely by donations. Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use all photos in the repository as references.

someone on reddit explained 😭

I love how beautiful Lumiose City looks in the rain.

This art is available as a print at:

"Rainy city" by mariana azzi on INPRNT