“And all the air a solemn stillness holds / Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight”

A little bit of this, a little bit of that:

The Glue Famine. Spoiler: it's the slime. Warning: long-ass read is long and snarky. (via?)

Octonions! And how they might be a route to a grand unified theory. I especially appreciate that this article goes into the algebraic symmetries lost with each successive division algebra (though it doesn't bring out that these losses are deeply tied to why there aren't hexadecinions). (via, which has more material)

Live stream of bears catching salmon at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray in an entomological mood.