#bionerd

Night-blooming cereus ~ Selenicereus grandiflorus She blooms only once a year, for a single night. What a beauty. #cactus #nightbloom #flower #botany #rareplants #horticulture #biology #nightbloomingcereus #hawaii #bohemian #rosegold #home #alien #strange #selfie #poisonivy #botanist #bionerd #greeneyes (at Bend, Oregon)

           The landscaped was a blackened mess of death and decay, with the very earth itself dying, sinking in on itself.  What should have been healthy and alive was pulped into a mush that attempted to suck me down with my every step.  I couldn’t imagine how anything could have necrotized the entire horizon so quickly.  It got past our defenses, not through subtlety, but through force.  The fallen lay charred, defaced, or utterly eviscerated and blended in with the mushy bog underfoot.            “All of you, on me, we move as one,” I called, rallying the troops.  There would be a fight ahead, and it would be bloody.  We needed to find the source of the problem and contain it.  We’d eradicate if we could, but we needed to at least hold out until reinforcements came.  Careful to avoid being sucked into the ground, we made our way to the source of the desolation.  It had been brutally hot when I arrived, but the temperature was dropping alarmingly fast. To be honest, I didn’t know if we could even save our forward position before the reinforcements arrived.            “Men, halt!  To arms!” I shouted, throwing my hand up into the air.  Hundreds of soldiers assembled around me, bringing up an assortment of weapons and appendages outfitted for killing.  What I saw sent shivers through my body.  In front of me stood the biggest brute of a virus I had ever seen.  It towered over me, easily ten or so times my height.  For each of my men, it seemed it had two tentacles whipping around, dragging deep scores through the earth and leaving black death and atrophy in their wakes. For better or worse, it seemed rooted into the ground, churning out its defilement.  Even the ground was writhing, and small creatures covered in spikes emerged and took to the air.            “Central has informed me that bodies everywhere are reporting the same infection.  We must be careful.  This will be a battle of attrition.  Dart in, and retreat.  For every tentacle you slash off while staying alive is one step closer to making this an even fight.  For Jackie!”            “FOR JACKIE!” cried my men.  They quickly broke apart into smaller groups to flank the beast from all sides.  The heavily armored foot soldiers bore a path down the middle.  Their muscular legs tearing their boots right out of the mushy group.  It was strange to hear on the field of battle not the clomp of boots but these sinister slurping noises as the ground reacted.            The spike ball beasts flew towards the foot soldiers from above as they busied themselves slashing through the first few tentacles. The beasts rammed into the lines and embedded themselves in whatever they hit.  Cries of wounded and surprised men reached my ears along with more slurping sounds of the beasts that missed my men.  Then, unexpectedly, the beasts exploded in black clouds, pulverizing the men into which they were embedded and knocking all of the others around.  In the middle of what used to be Jackie’s most fearless contingent of soldiers there was a hole that extended so deep, I couldn’t see the bottom, even from my elevated vantage point.  The invader didn’t waste the advantage and began whipping its tentacles, driving them straight through my men.            This is not a great start.  “Aerial unit, I need you to deal with the spiky beasts.  Get them out of the air.  The rest of you, strike from all angles.  We need to distract this thing and take the pressure off our men. Stay strong, Anthony and his men are coming.”  After giving my last set of order, I steeled myself and jumped into the fray.  I made my way to a pocket of soldiers surrounded by limp tentacles trying to fend off the onslaught of more.  Snarling, I leaped into the fray, using my sharp claws to hack through two tentacles coming from behind the soldiers.  The other tentacles quivered in rage and plunged at us.  I launched my rope and lassoed three of the, sequestering them.  My lasso was covered in a cytotoxic substance, and before my eyes, the writing tentacles evaporated.  One attacking tentacle pierced a man, but the soldiers dealt with the rest of the tentacles in our area.            I looked at my man, leaking fluids over the severed tentacle.  The wound had already started to fester and turn black.  “For Jackie,” I said solemnly.            “For Jackie,” he struggled in reply.  I slashed his head off, graciously giving him a quick death.  There was no time to morn in battle.  My soldiers had already moved on to rescue another group that was pinned down.  It was time to deal with the behemoth personally.            I barreled down the center, lacerating any tentacle that tried to strike at me.  I certainly had its attention.  Minions of the beast coalesced out of the tarlike surface on the ground.  They were fiends of all types of nightmares, none of which I had seen before.  Pincers, barbed tails, spiked carapaces, and caustic saliva.  Mortal all the same.  I grabbed a striking tentacle and leapt off it, over the obscene welcoming party. I rained volley after volley of spines down upon them.  As I landed at the foot of the infestation, I sank knee deep into the muck.  Behind me, the spines splinted into a million pieces of shrapnel, shredding the fiends.            A tentacle knocked me sideways and almost snapped off my leg at the knee as it was still stuck in the muck.  I dug my claws into the virus and started pulling myself up it and out of the ground.  Every slash oozed a putrid pus.  About halfway up the vertical portion of this beast, one of those spiked beasts embedded itself next to me.  I hurriedly scrambled laterally and made it to safety right as it exploded, blowing a breach into the exoskeleton.  There was a flood of fluid and what looked like worms rushing out of the virus.  As soon as they reached the ground, the worms buried into the black mush.            I kept climbing until I crested the top and I was staring at a bulbous sphere. This had to be the killshot.  On the other side, I noticed some of the aerial unit had landed and were battling their way to the center, too.  Good, we could push from both sides.  More of the amalgamations of dead tissue stood in front of me.  I shook myself, refreshed the epinephrine coursing through me, and charged.  I batted away front line before they even had time to reach me with their claws.            UGH.  I felt a sharp piercing pain in my leg.  I looked down to see one of the tails embed in me.  The tail quivered and started to melt, but the damage was done.  Rot had already set into my leg.  My seconds were numbered.  I picked up one of the spiked carapace minions and launched it down the center, clearing the way.  Another exploding beast embedded instead behind me.  I hurried away from it.  It went off, and I used the blast to launch me forward.            I landed with claws out, taking down more minions. Every step I took, I made sure to leave oozing gashes behind me.  At the center, I smashed my fish though the crystalized sphere.  It shattered, and the whole beast started shaking.  I charged through the opening, swiping at and slashing everything and anything I could.  Total destruction and nothing else.  I was differentiated from the very beginning for this and nothing else. Walls and internal structures crashed around me as everything heaved uncontrollably.  I knew the job was done and the battle was won when the surface beneath me started rolling in waves.            I was losing my balance on two shaky black legs when the entire thing erupted, sending me backflipping through the air. Through the world rushing by, I could see the virus collapsing.  All of its innards were seeping into the ground.  We won the battle, but I knew this was far from over.  It had a foothold that we might never be able to eradicate.  I did also notice the black was slowly being replaced with healthier reds and whites. There were still some very black pits, however.  I wasn’t sure if the cleaning crews would ever be able to restore those, but they’d move on.  They were battle scars that would never heal, but Jackie would live.            As for me, the excruciating pain had risen through my chest.  Everything beneath it had grown completely numb.  Looking down, I could see it was entirely black.  “FOR JACKIE!” I cried one last time and burst into dust. Back to Table of Contents (x)

I saw a pastor of acorn woodpeckers a block away from my house today It's been weeks since I felt that happy #californiawildlife #BioNerd

Two Women Scientists have a new post up (authored by me)! I discuss the issue of biologists fear of math and why need to confront it. Check it out!

We also found a Ocypode quadrata AKA a Ghost Crab! He did not want Devon nor I to pass 😂 #GandalfCrab #BirdIsland #NatureReserve #BioNerd (at Bird Island, North Carolina)

We found some Sabatia stellaris! A beautiful flowering herb that typically blooms in September. They are also known as "marsh" or "sea pinks" 🤓 #BirdIsland #NatureReserve #BioNerd #getonmylevel (at Bird Island, North Carolina)

Ikea knows how to get into our stacionary lover heart ♥ (yes these are from Ikea!!! I bought three a5 blank notebooks in black and those three cute ones with blank paper as well! I wanna test the paper quality) I'll actually use this post to say that I'll try to improve my tumblr page (yes know that the school year is over and I have almost nothing to show you guys smh but I'm still using my bujo so prepare for many pics) I changed the theme and I think I finnaly love it! The studyblr community has been a safe space full of amazing and motivated people so I hope to join it again and make some original content! Well I won't bore you more! Have a great weekend cute people xx

#lichen porn from the #willow we had to cut this morning. #instapics #lichenporn #bionerd #adventures2017 I'm usually not for cutting down trees but this one was already half dead / hollow inside and a threat to our house / roof aswell as the railroad tracks nearby. (hier: Wolznach)