Sandeep Kasani

Frontend Web developer, Tinkerer, IIT Guwahati graduate, Lazy guy

[Jan @Jan812314]

I had to stop and watch this video twice. It is truly fascinating. This is a male spending everything he has so a female will choose him.

Courtship is expensive. These males are not showing off for the camera. They are spending energy, risking predators, and advertising genes.

What you are watching is mate selection in real time.

Birds-of-paradise (New Guinea and nearby islands) cleared display courts and built living ornaments; iridescent breast shields, wire plumes, and capes that only work at a precise angle of light. Females choose.

The prairie bird is a Greater Sage-Grouse on a lek. Same rule, different stage. Males gulp air, pop yellow throat sacs, and fan a spiked tail at dawn. One or two males usually win almost every mating.

The New Zealand tūī uses white throat tufts and a wild mix of notes. The myna is a skilled mimic with a yellow “mask.” The red-winged blackbird flashes those red-and-yellow epaulets from a cattail and sings to hold a marsh territory.

Different continents. Same math: females pick, so males step up their game.

Watch the posture, not just the color. The fan, the freeze, the bounce, the gape. Those are signals honed over thousands of generations. Nature did not do this by accident. It did this because choice is ruthless and beauty is a bill that has to be paid.

If you watch it again, I am certain that you will see more the second time like I did.

[ℂ𝕣𝕪𝕡𝕥𝕠𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤🤍 @CryptoEmpressX]

They may be twins, but they’re completely opposite 😂😂

[Nature Unedited @NatureUnedited]

Today I learned that squirrels can be black, and they roll their babies into tiny fluffy balls to make carrying them easier

[Nature Unedited @NatureUnedited]

A mother cat teaching her kittens that their dog friend is harmless

[SriSathya @sathyashrii]

Sometimes, the smallest act leaves the biggest mark. ❤️🥹

[Sann @san_x_m]

In 1986 a young forest officer did something nobody else ever managed.

He arrested Veerappan.

Veerappan escaped. 5 years later he sent the officer a message. He said he was ready to surrender, but only to him, and only if he came alone and unarmed.

He went.

His name was Pandillapalli Srinivas.

He was an officer of the Indian Forest Service in Karnataka, posted in the forests on the border with Tamil Nadu. Those forests belonged, in practice, to one man.

Veerappan was wanted for killing about 200 elephants for their ivory and smuggling around 10,000 tonnes of sandalwood. He had killed forest officers and policemen. The villages around the forest protected him, some out of fear and some because nobody from the government had ever done anything for them.

Srinivas decided that was the real problem.

So instead of only hunting Veerappan, he went into the villages. He built roads. He brought drinking water to tribal settlements. He started a mobile dispensary. He built more than 40 houses for homeless families, paying for them out of his own salary. He talked more than 100 of Veerappan's men into giving up and coming back to ordinary life.

He built a temple in Gopinatham, Veerappan's own village.

He was the first officer those villagers had ever trusted.

On 9th November 1991 a wireless message reached him. Veerappan wanted to surrender. The condition was that Srinivas must come personally, without guards, without a weapon, with a few villagers Veerappan had named.

Other officers warned him not to go. Veerappan's own brother had come to him, told him Veerappan had given up his gun, and convinced him it was real.

Srinivas believed people could change. He had watched more than 100 of them do it.

The next morning, 10th November 1991, he walked into the forest near Gopinatham.

He was shot. Then his head was cut off. It was never found.

He was 37.

In January 1992 India gave him the Kirti Chakra, the second highest award for bravery in peacetime. His mother went to receive it.

Veerappan was finally killed by the police in 2004, 13 years later.

The villagers of Gopinatham still pray every day at the temple Srinivas built for them. The forest department restored the jeep he used to drive, and keeps it in a museum at Kollegal.

He tried to end Veerappan's power by giving the people around him a reason to trust someone else.

Veerappan understood that was more dangerous to him than any gun.

[The World Update @TheWorld_Update]

World’s heaviest snake, filmed underwater in the Amazon. The cameraman had nerves of steel. 🐍

[Amit T @amittalwalkar]

Laxman Sivaramakrishnan 🗣️:

I got a call from the TNCA saying, "Sachin Tendulkar is asking if you can come and bowl in the nets."

So I went there and was bowling over the stumps, then he said bowl round the stumps.

Ok, I bowled round the stumps for a while.

I was thinking, what is he going to do?

Then after bowling 4-5 balls, I told Sachin, "Me bowling round the wickets is of no use, in a match there will be footmarks, here there are no footmarks because no one has bowled from that side of the net."

He said, "Very good point, we have to play by creating a match-like situation."

He scratched the entire leg side with his spikes and dug up the pitch.

He told the groundsmen, "Don't touch this pitch for a week, at the end whatever money it costs to repair this pitch, I will give it."

It was by bowling in those rough patches he developed three sweep shots.

@LaxmanSivarama1 Sir, Indian cricket fans are forever indebted to you for helping the master invent a paddle sweep that he used so effectively against the wizard called Warne in the 1998 series and later used it against all with absolute perfection.

[Aparna @chhuti_is]

This most beautiful photograph.

[Mayukh Biswas @MayukhDuke]

Humanity. ❤️

Fishermen rescue elephant calf from Teesta River in Gajoldoba, reunite it with mother.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

The superb lyrebird is an Australian songbird. It is one of the world's largest songbirds, and is renowned for its elaborate tail and courtship displays, and its excellent mimicry.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Swans might have one of the most underrated landing techniques in the animal kingdom.

[Shivani @meme_ki_diwani]

Harmanpurito kauru😭😭

[Anirudh Kalra @CricketKalra]

A compilation of Venkatesh Prasad's Leg Cutters.
Some Absolute Beauties Here.

[_khamoshii_ @_khamoshii_]

This was so heartwarming ✨️

People are literally asking Nagalakshmi ma'am the secret to raising kids like Pragg and Vaishali.

[anand mahindra @anandmahindra]

When an Army man needed one arrow for history, he shot a perfect 10…

Dhiraj Bommadevara became the first Indian man to win the Recurve title at the Archery World Cup Final.

But maybe there’s an even bigger story here.

India finished ahead of Korea with six golds at the last Asian Championships. This year our archers have repeatedly beaten the traditional powerhouses, Korea and China, at World Cup events.

Are we on the cusp of a golden era for Indian archery?

It certainly looks like we have it in our ‘sights.’

🇮🇳👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

Crows so excited to show their favourite human their tree, hopping ahead and looking back to check they’re following, because they know their featherless friend can’t keep up if they fly.

[anand mahindra @anandmahindra]

And my final Global Chess League post for the day…

Hey Sagar, I didn’t know @AiyyoShraddha was at the Opening Ceremony!

I’m a fan.

Would have enjoyed meeting her…

[Ammar @AmmarIrl]

The Quietest Performance That Creates The Biggest Laughs

[Cartoon Fun Times @funcartun]

Cartoons from this era were not made for children 😛🎬