Eye of Nature

[Kevin W. @Brink_Thinker]

Nothing prepares you for a baby’s face when mom decides to rest ❤️

[Muse @xmuse_]

This is what a contrabase E-flat Aeolian drone flute sounds like 🎶

Made by Garrison Sheffield of Scissortail Flutes.

[Restoring Your Faith in Humanity @HumanityChad]

CCTV caught these snow leopards being absolute cuddle bugs

[PROTECT ALL WILDLIFE @Protect_Wldlife]

Please Be Kind To Moles.

They are beneficial to soil health, acting as natural aerators and pest control by consuming lawn-damaging grubs, beetles, and larvae.

They do not eat plants, and their removal often leads to new moles occupying the vacant tunnel system, making it a futile effort.

Apart from that, it is CRUEL!

[Nature Unedited @NatureUnedited]

A leopard watches the sunset while perched high in a tree in the Masai Mara, Kenya 🐆🌴

[Nature is Amazing ☘️ @AMAZlNGNATURE]

Seeing animals enjoying their lives freely in nature is one the deepest joys of my life

[Nature is Amazing ☘️ @AMAZlNGNATURE]

Spectacular starling murmuration filmed in the skies of Sardinia.

[The Golden Age @thegoldenaged]

"Don't pet the wildlife"
Meanwhile, the wildlife:

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

In only 63 days, a mother bird builds a perfect nest and raises a beautiful brood of chicks. A quiet masterpiece of nature.

https://t.co/bsX44a5Wmd

[Curiosity @MAstronomers]

Julian Voss-Andreae, a quantum physicist-turned-sculptor, builds blending figurative sculptures that vanish in front of our eyes — like particles phasing out of existence.

https://t.co/jbaluxMxQx

[Royal Institute of Navigation @at_RIN]

Incredible footage of #murmuration

🎥 peggydolane

#RIN #Navigation #wildlife #nature #murmuration #starlings

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

A lesson for humanity. 🙌🙏🫶👇

[Global Statistics @Globalstats11]

@InternetH0F The most Australian video I've ever seen

[Curiosity @MAstronomers]

The American woodcock teaching its kids how to bob and dance 🕺🐦

This creates soil vibrations that expose earthworms—while the chicks follow along.

[The Best @TheBestqueenx]

It is one of the great nature artists.

[Niko McCarty. @NikoMcCarty]

This video is one of the first times I thought biology was “cool.”

It shows a neutrophil cell chasing a bacterium. Originally recorded in the 1950s by David Rogers at Vanderbilt University, the video gave me a deeper appreciation for life, even at the level of a single cell, because the neutrophil's movements seem so intentful, purposeful, aware.

It wasn’t until recently, though, that I actually tried to demystify the neutrophil’s movements and understand how they happen.

Here's what I learned:

1. The neutrophil's surface has thousands of protein receptors. Molecules secreted by the bacteria collide with these receptors. When that happens, the proteins change shape, slightly, and initiate a signaling cascade.

2. The neutrophil “knows” where to go because of a discrepancy in bound vs. unbound receptors. The side of the cell closest to the microbe will, probabilistically, have more "bound" receptors than the other side (because the molecules secreted by the microbe have a concentration gradient). This is how the neutrophil figures out which way to move.

3. Each bound receptor activates several G proteins located inside the cell membrane. Each G protein, in turn, switches on PI3K enzymes. In this way, the original signal is amplified; a single "activated" receptor might cause ~100 copies of PI3K to get switched on downstream.

4. The PI3K enzymes stick phosphates onto lipids in the cell membrane. The side of the neutrophil facing the bacterium now has more phosphates than the "back" side. Phosphate-binding proteins, such as GEF, accumulate and then recruit Rac, thus activating it. Rac, in turn, acts like a molecular switch, ultimately recruiting Arp2/3. (TL;DR: A bunch of proteins get activated, and the high phosphate concentration at the leading edge is the key signal for all this.)

5. At any given moment, the neutrophil has millions of actin molecules. These are the proteins used to build the cytoskeleton. Half of the actins are already “assembled” into filaments, but the other half are just floating around. Arp2/3 acts as a nucleator, grabbing onto actin and then starting a new cytoskeletal branch. More actin is assembled at the leading edge (where the Arp2/3 has accumulated), where they each push on the cell membrane with ~2 piconewtons of force. Hundreds of actin chains, pushing together, causes the cell to form protrusions.

6. The assembling actin chains push the cell at a speed of ~20 micrometers per minute (the length of about ten E. coli cells placed end-to-end.) As all of this is happening, another signaling cascade, nucleated at the back end of the cell, is dismantling actin filaments and recycling them. All this happens over a span of about 30 seconds.

Much of this process is invisible; what we see, instead, is "just" a cell chasing its prey. But that's the wonderful thing about biology: A singular observation is usually more than enough fodder for a lifetime of work. The well is deep. There is always more to learn.

[PROTECT ALL WILDLIFE @Protect_Wldlife]

Elusive. Ethereal. Endangered.

With barely 10,000 left in the wild and scattered sightings in NE India, the Clouded Leopard is our most secretive big cat.

Here, a rare glimpse ~ a mother with her cubs, guardians of an ancient rainforest. A sight so rare that it’s mythical.

#WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Wildlife #Leopards #CloudedLeopards

[Dr Tom Montgomery @DrTOMontgomery]

#Nature

In these dark days, a reminder that there are spectacular wonders on this planet—let us protect them and their habitat, because all the money in the world won't bring them back.

📽️Credit: John Aitchison. It took 3 weeks to film this sequence.

[Oceaiii🐋🐬 @oceaiii]

Kelp forests are gorgeous ecosystems with all kinds of marine life, look at the rise of this little seal! Captivating 🦭

[Nature Unedited @NatureUnedited]

A family of wild Pallas’s cats filmed in the grasslands of Qinghai Province, China, shows they look grumpier as they get older 🐈