Nostr notes by DB 🌱💦

8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, ...

2026-07-19T01:49:29Z

8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?

Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.

Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.

The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.

Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.

A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html

#Butterflies #Science #Nature #Memory

Misan Harriman on the Bafta / BBC scandal, quotes John ...

2026-02-23T22:29:46Z

Misan Harriman on the Bafta / BBC scandal, quotes John Amaechi's excellent piece.

"Involuntary does not mean harmless. If a gun fires without anyone intending to pull the trigger you do not argue about the intent while somebody is bleeding. You address the wound."

https://substack.com/@johnamaechi/note/p-188910437

"When I think about Jewish leadership, when I think of all of ...

2025-05-27T00:59:25Z

"When I think about Jewish leadership, when I think of all of these rabbis, all of these politicians and community leaders. Do they really not understand that for the rest of all of our lives, we are going to be haunted by this and we are going to be called to account, that people are going to have to answer for what's being done to the people of Gaza?

This is going to be for us, the greatest spiritual crisis the Jewish people have faced since the Holocaust. The question will not be 'where was God when Jews were being slaughtered', but 'where were we when we desecrated God's name by allowing in our name, this kind of horror to take place.'

We will not move past this as a people. This will shadow us for the rest of our lives."

- Peter Beinart, journalist & political analyst

#Gaza #Genocide #Holocaust #Judaism #FreePalestine