the mellow tigger's musings

When I win the lottery (I'd have to play it first) and win enough money that I never have to work again, then I have a few lifetimes of things I'd like to accomplish instead of what I have historically done for money. Topping that list is a new life of...

1. writing a computer game,
2. learning physics and becoming an astronomer,
3. learning biochemistry and developing new forms of berries (with B12 and other essential molecules) and trees (large enough to hollow out and live inside),
4. learning chemical engineering and developing alternatives to glass windows that can be sustainably built from local materials anywhere in the world (some kind of translucent rain-proof cellulose pane maybe), and
5. playing computer games for the entertainment of others (and I've already chosen the channel name "Late to the Game" as an old-timer).

Now, I found another lifetime project to perform.

6. Breeding least weasels in an effort to repopulate the species and maybe even investigate them as a candidate for domestication.

I know that someday Hope will die, and she's already a terrible mouser due to her reduced hearing, so I have a mouse running around the walls/ceiling of my house at all hours of day and night. She never notices when it's finally out-and-about on the floor, but I do. A tiny mouser who can actually fit in mouse holes would be a great addition to human domestic life. I wonder if I should get another ferret someday, after Hope isn't here? Decades ago, I had one named Crack Weasel Very, very rarely, ferrets are available in the Twin Cities for adoption.

Stupid capitalism and "earning an income". I'd rather have the world that I can imagine, with time enough to make it real.

Serious question: Why do otters dance?

I didn't even know that otters dance, until I saw the nature video, below. It's just a stationary camera in a nature area in northern Minnesota, with a large rock in its viewing range. I figure most people arrive at this video to see the native wolves, as it's hosted on the Voyageurs Wolf Project channel. You can see otters dance, however, at the time marks 0:22, 1:14, 2:07, and 2:47.

Near as I can tell from that short video, it seems to be a poop-promoting maneuver. I did some minimal searching online, and it seems well known that otters do their little poop dance, but I'm not seeing any hints of why they do it. Is it necessary movement for some sort of natural bowel obstruction (like cats puking up hairballs instead of passing them where they might cause problems). Or is it purely a social phenomenon, a behavioral brain worm passed down through untold generations of otters?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Hope spent much of today in severe constipation. She was vomiting all over the house. She was straining to poop everywhere. She kept returning to the desk where I was working at my job to strain near my keyboard. I had conflicting wishes about whether she would finally succeed or not. When I took her to the animal hospital back in July, the vet there just used her hands at Hope's haunches to push the poop out directly. I wish I had that skill, but I'm just afraid to hurt her. I tried using a paper towel to gently press around her anus. Hope growled her displeasure at me but held her position bravely. It didn't help, though. The vomiting and straining continued for several more hours.

Finally, I found a very large poop behind my chair in the living room, and she was acting much more normal again. It's weird to be so glad about a bowel movement. I was so thankful that another crisis was averted that I wanted to share a photo.

Click to see the large poop from the old, frail cat...

In less literal but more figurative poop news, I'd like to say that most of the information on the internet these days about the highly unusual 3I/ATLAS object is just... well... poop. I recommend not trusting any search engine or social platform to give you any good information at all. This search link, however, will give you actual published scientific papers on the topic.

https://arxiv.org/search/?query=3I+Atlas&searchtype=all&source=header

There seems to be a lack of recent official observations published. I found a video that explained the very limited field of view of our space-based telescopes. It described how they must always point away from the sun to escape damage to sensitive detectors, so there's really only about a 90-degree arc in which they are allowed to point at any given time. They have about a 270-degree arc that is forbidden, because it is too sunward-facing. As they travel with us around the sun, these space-based telescopes can eventually watch all of the sky. At any given time, however, there is a very large exclusion arc. 3I/ATLAS has traveled far enough into our solar system that it is now out of arc-range for those instruments. Instead, ground-based observatories are trying to collect data.

Or so I'm told by the internet. I wish I could source those details for confirmation, but I haven't been able to do so yet. So maybe that's all poop too. I wish I had more official training in astronomy. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to know more about.