(Roughly) Daily

… nor, perhaps, more beautiful…

We’ve looked before at the at the “intelligent” accomplishments of the humble slime mold, and wondered what they might mean and what they might teach us. Photographer Barry Webb invites us to appreciate their spendor…

Blown wildly out of proportion in large format, the slime molds that British photographer Barry Webb captures seem atmospheric and sculptural. Stemonitis, for example, looks like dozens of thin pieces of wire with their ends coated in colored wax. But this fungi-like form is one of hundreds of kinds of slime mold, and it typically only reaches a height of about two centimeters at the most. Thanks to Webb’s macro photos, we glimpse a phenomenally beautiful world up-close that is otherwise virtually invisible.

Scientists have documented hundreds of these organisms, which aren’t actually related to plants, fungi, animals, or molds—despite the name. They comprise a unique group unto themselves, more closely related to amoebas. And new discoveries are being made all the time. From mottled gray bulbs that look like snow-covered trees to pink, coral-like tendrils, Webb chronicles a huge array of colors and shapes. He also consistently submits images to local and national botanical records so that researchers have access to high-resolution imagery…

“Barry Webb Documents a Marvelous, Macro Array of Colorful Slime Molds,” from @thisiscolossal.com.

More of Webb’s portraits of slime mold on his site.

* Brandon Keim (in “Complexity Theory in Icky Action: Meet the Slime Mold“)

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As we get small, we might send microscopic greetings to William Ian Beardmore (W. I. B.) Beveridge; he was born on this date in 1908.  A microbiologist and veterinarian who served as  director of the Institute of Animal Pathology at Cambridge, he identified the origin of the Great Influenza (the Spanish Flu pandemic, 1918-19)– a strain of swine flu.

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Happy Shakespeare’s Birthday!

While there is no way to know with certainty the Bard’s birth date, his baptism was recorded at Stratford-on-Avon on April 26, 1564; and three days was the then-customary wait before baptism. In any case, we do know with some certainty that Shakespeare died on this date in 1616.