genetic linkage aug 22 - goosebumps, cards of everything, wolves
August 22, 2026
Welcome to Genetic Linkage, a series where I share updates and interesting links for the week.
you activated my trap card.
The university semester has started for me this week, so things have been crazy. I'm mostly upset that I had the whole campus to myself all summer and now its overrun with people! Get out of my library!
Actually I've been irritated at everything in general. I'm at a stressful time in my career, things are not good in the US for scientists right now, it's too hot, there is a lot going on. There are flock cameras on my university campus - not on the roads, but inside the campus. I'm feeling kind of down overall.
Goosebumps
Last week I read a Goosebumps book - "The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight", and discussed it with a friend group online. We read one every month, then discuss it and watch the series episode together. This one was...not good. I mean, it's written for children so I can't really complain about it, but it is fun to complain about it.
It was about scarecrows coming alive on a farm due to a naive farmhand coming across a book vaguely associated with black magic. Mostly my issue was that scarecrows are not fundamentally scary - what is a scarecrow going to do to you? Scratch you with straw? Give you allergies? What do they do!!
There were some interesting concepts like the potential for the plot being centered around revenge, but the book failed to commit to strong themes.
The episode was...bad. But in a good way. I like poorly made things. The budget couldn't have been very high for this series. The ending was supposed to involve setting the aberrant scarecrows on fire, but instead was relegated to throwing them into some farm machinery. They didn't have the budget for fire safety!
Hobonichi:
Hobonichi is a brand of expensive Japanese stationery planners and journals, and also my only vice. They are doing daily previews of the designs for 2027 and I don't like any of them so far, so I'm upset about it. Last year they did a whole Tamagotchi line and I bought the covers for those and still love them.
I came across this trading card game that is completely online and features cards with literally everything in the world. Nikola Tesla, the greenland shark, Apollo 8, atomic theory, the Python language - everything. It looks completely insane. One of the example decks you can build is called "Sharks and Old West", featuring different shark species and western historic characters.
A website dedicated to reviewing the accuracy of dinosaur figures. It's extremely detailed and kind of amazing to read through. I found their recent review on the PNSO 2023 Spinosaur to be really great - this is a brand that is more focused on the scientific accuracy, and the figures look really impressive. It will make you want a 10" scientifically accurate spinosaur figure for your desk. Spinosaurs have undergone a lot of discoveries and changes in the past couple of years, so the production of accurate figures has to constantly play catch-up.
A tool for quickly making favicons and icons for your site. You can drop an image and change background colors, etc. It provides the code to you automatically. One day I will figure out how to do this and add it to my site.
A blog challenge:
Video game blogger Virtual Moose posts about a birthday blog challenge: to write about any obscure game you have played. It can be whatever obscure means to you. I have one in mind and will probably post it tomorrow!
Wolves eating cattle:
Cattle ranchers are running with this headline about a UC Davis study on wolves eating a lot of livestock in California. Cows were found in over half of all wolf scats. This article breaks down the details of what that could actually mean - the actual study didn't even consider that cows compete with native ungulates (deer) for forage, possibly pushing them out of the habitat and leading wolves with no other prey options. It's not like this is basic ecology or anything.
I am almost positive this is one of many steps towards removed protections for wolves in the US, as the headlines are completely politically loaded and being pushed by very specific political interest groups. It's very obvious what is going on.
An article arguing a revision of human clades. The problem is that family tree branches (clades) are organized by how closely related species are to each other, information we don't get easily from fossils.
Currently, the genus Homo doesn't seem to have any features or behaviors shared among all of its members.
Older hominid fossils like Australopithecus and Paranthropus may need to be folded into the Homo genus.
An awesome wildlife artist in the US. Realistic art of native species groups, especially birds. A lot of the art is focused on New York ecosystems, but there are lots of other species represented. There is a piece featuring several turtle species that is amazing - especially the giant common snapping turtle.
The history of the metal music genre represented by a geographical map. Islands represent the related genres of goth and goth rock. I feel like some of you will enjoy this. Each grouping gives examples of representative bands and songs that you can listen to directly in the browser, and threads weave through the influence of each genre to the next. I'm not really a huge music fan or metal fan, so I can't say how accurate or useful this is.
Carpenter bees:
This video from mastodon shows a large carpenter bee landing on a person's hand and licking up the salt on their skin. Because the bee is so big you can see the mouthparts really well, especially the glossa or tongue. The thicker part near the base is the maxilla and the licky part is the glossa.
The votes are in (you did vote right?), and the winner this year is the leaf sheep, a sea slug and gastropod that can be found around Japan. They are pretty cute I guess (not as cute as bees). I'm only a little sad that the muscardon bumble bee got second. Leaf sheep eat algae and retain the chloroplasts in the algae somehow, allowing them to perform their own photosynthesis? I don't understand how this works at all.
I've posted for every day of august so far and am pretty happy with it! I'm running out of posts a little bit now, I have lots of ideas but haven't started writing them all yet. It's been really fun so far, though.
Also hi to all the bloggers writing about MMOs and coding (most of you) - I see you.
lucky instar 