Sure You Love It

28/11/2025

Tiny purple shells started dotting the sand in La Jolla, and people stopped in their tracks.

They’re violet sea snails, as shiny as beach glass and just as fragile.

Most days they live far offshore, floating at the surface of the open ocean. They don’t swim or crawl like other snails. They ride.

To stay afloat, they blow bubbles into a raft made from their own slime. The bubbles harden into a little life boat, and the snails drift with wind and currents.

When warm water pushes toward shore, the ocean sometimes hands them to us. That’s what happened in San Diego this summer.

Beachgoers found them near the tideline. Some were alive. Some were only shells, still glowing with color.

Scientists say sightings here are rare. A few show up during unusual ocean conditions, then vanish again for years.

If you ever see one, look with your eyes and be gentle. They can stain your fingers purple. They are harmless, but they’ve already had a long ride.

There’s a quiet wonder in meeting a creature built to sail the sea on a handmade raft. It makes the world feel bigger, and a little more magical.

References:
Rare purple sea creature found on SoCal beach. Could warming waters be why? - Los Angeles Times
Violet-colored Sea Snails, Janthina janthina, Wash up on SoCal Beaches - Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Rare purple sea snails wash ashore Southern California beaches - FOX 11 Los Angeles
The harrowing life of the violet snail - The Helm Lab Blog

Disclaimer: Images are generated using AI for illustration purposes only.

28/11/2025

Imagine a shake-up at the top… and instead of casting out the little ones, the new leaders open their circle and help raise them.

That’s the quiet magic of wolves.

When a pack’s leadership shifts, the story doesn’t have to turn cruel. Wolves are deeply social, and the needs of the group come first. New males who take over don’t usually harm the pups already on the ground. They pitch in. They feed them, protect them, travel with them. The pack grows, and so does its strength.

It’s different with lions. In many prides, when new males take over, the cubs of the previous males are often killed. It’s a harsh strategy to bring females back into heat, fast. With wolves, that logic doesn’t apply. Females come into heat only once a year, so killing pups doesn’t speed up breeding. What helps most is numbers - more eyes, more hunters, more bodies to share the winter load.

Researchers in Yellowstone watched this play out. After a takeover, the incoming males raised the ousted male’s pups alongside their mother and older sister. Those youngsters later helped power the pack and even seeded other packs. Care became a strength that echoed forward.

Wolves aren’t perfect heroes. Life is hard, and not every story ends gently. But time and again, we see this choice toward care. It’s a small, stubborn kindness in a wild world - and it tells us something about how families can be made, not just born.

References
When Wolves Adopt Their Rival’s Pups - Discover Magazine
Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs - University of Nebraska - Lincoln (USGS/LD Mech paper)
Adaptations of Female Lions to Infanticide by Incoming Males - The American Naturalist

Disclaimer: Images are generated using AI for illustration purposes only.

28/11/2025

Upcoming Esports Tournaments In 2026

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23/10/2025

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13/10/2025

They watch your hand. They count what lands.

A new study tested dogs with plates of treats. Two plates. Different amounts. The dogs could eat from only one.

Again and again, most dogs picked the plate with more treats. The researchers found dogs use simple number rules to choose. In fact, the size of the difference between piles mattered a lot. Bigger difference, better choices.

This fits what brain scans have shown for years. Dogs have a built-in number sense. Their brains light up more when the number of things on a screen changes. No math class needed.

What does it mean at home? Your dog can notice if one sibling gets three biscuits and they get two. You can’t always sneak one past them.

It doesn’t mean dogs do exact math like we do. But they can compare amounts fast. Especially when the gap is clear.

References
How do dogs quantify things? - Canine Cognition and Human Interaction Lab, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Do dogs follow Weber’s Law? The role of ratio and difference in quantity preference - Psychological Topics
Canine sense of quantity: evidence for numerical ratio-dependent activation in parietotemporal cortex - Biology Letters, The Royal Society
Dogs process numerical quantities in similar brain region as humans - Emory University News
Dogs’ Brains Naturally Process Numbers, Just Like Ours - Smithsonian Magazine

Disclaimer: Images are generated using AI for illustration purposes only.

02/10/2025