#ampullae

Rainbowberry went to Gwithti an Pystri - A Cabinet of Folklore and Magic.

In Falmouth, in Cornwall, England.

Stingrays have a network of tiny sensory organs called ampullae of Lorenzini surrounding their mouths. The organs allow the stingray to detect the bioelectric fields created by other animals in the water. 

Have you ever noticed that Great White Sharks have all these black dots around their face, resembling black heads?

The following information is from Science and the Sea

The ampullae of Lorenzini (electroreceptors) are the small pores around this shark’s snout. 

Most sharks have keen senses that allow them to track prey, predators, and mates at varying distances. At close range, they also rely on a network of sensors known as ampullae of Lorenzini, named for the Italian scientist who discovered them more than three centuries ago.

The network consists of hundreds or thousands of pores on the shark’s head that are big enough to see with the naked eye. The pores open onto canals that are lined with small hairs like those inside the human ear. Each canal leads to a small gel-filled chamber -- the ampulla -- that’s lined with nerve cells.

These organs detect the electrical impulses generated by the muscle contractions of nearby fish, seals, or other creatures. They’re so sensitive that they can even detect a beating heart. But they only work at close range -- within a few inches. That helps the shark keep its prey in the crosshairs for its final attack. It even helps the shark find fish that have buried themselves in the sand.

Right? Don’t get me wrong; I love the canonical reintroduction to the cast; it gives me warm fuzzies as a player; and it has been 20 in-world years. People find joy and resilience and hope in the smallest things. But you’d think we’d have some messier and darker post-Mesa desperation in our faces, too, at least on behalf of the science team.

I’m always happy when Barney sunnily HEYA GORDON’s us in the intro. But at the same time, there are moments where the family sitcom-esque variety of love we see all over the place in HL sometimes doesn’t quite feel totally human in context. There was more space for darkness, I think, and emotional fragility. The ugly and crumbly and noble and self-destroying emotions. Alyx can’t be expected to carry the whole cast’s grief and vulnerability by herself!

yeas :)

he looked like a sausage when he was baby so

In the Star Wars: Forces of Destiny short “Art History,” Sabine Wren and her brother Tristen climb a mountain in a dusty landscape, stopping to look at a monumental statue of their ancestor, the ancient Mandalorian warrior Tarre Vizsela. Vizsela, the first Mandalorian inducted into the Jedi Order, had created the darksaber, which Sabine now wields. Upon seeing the statue, Sabine reacts in wonder: “Amazing, right? So much history and hope in one carving.”

....

This short encapsulates much of how Star Wars utilizes the medieval as inspiration. The statue is reminiscent of an effigy of a medieval knight, and Vizsela’s armor is reminiscent of aspects of plate armor. The Jedi clutches his darksaber in a way that simultaneously recalls a knight holding or gesturing to his sword and holding his hands as if in prayer.

For European believers, relics allowed worshipers to encounter some aspect of an object of devotion—a holy person or place—when the object itself was physically unavailable or geographically inaccessible. They often contained something of a saint’s essence; sometimes a relic was part of the saint’s body, but it could also be something that came into contact with the saint during their lifetime, or even came into contact with the saint’s shrine after their death.

This is one in a series presenting news on technology and innovation, made possible with generous support from the Lemelson Foundation.

Sharks have a secret weapon in their snouts that helps them hunt prey. It's an organ that can sense faint electrical signals given off by other, delicious creatures. Now, engineers in Indiana have made a new material for electronics that mimics the shark's sensor. It even works in salt water, which is usually a harsh environment for electronics. (Drop your smartphone in the ocean, for instance, and that’s the end of the phone.)

The new device may be useful in ways from studying marine life to building new tools for submarines. It’s made from a substance called samarium nickelate, or SNO. And it can detect some of the weakest electric fields found in the sea.

Many marine animals, from tiny clams to big fish, produce electric signals. Sharks and other ocean predators, including skates and rays, sense those electric fields. They do it using organs known as ampullae (AM-puh-lay) of Lorenzini. Scientists call such tissues electroreceptors because they detect electric fields.

The ampullae look like a line of small holes, or pores, near the mouth on a shark's snout. Those pores lead to short channels filled with a jelly-like substance. At the other end of the channels, behind the jelly, are special sensing cells.

When a fish swims nearby that gives off an electric field, those cells send signals to the shark's brain: “Dinner!”

Explainer: Quantum is the world of the super small

The new SNO detects electricity, too. It's an example of a quantum material. That means it has electronic properties — ones that scientists can't fully explain. (These properties, called quantum effects, are due to the weird behaviors of atoms at the smallest scales.) Even though scientists don't understand exactly why a quantum material does what it does, they still can study its effects.