Six Foot Long Scorpions
There was a super interesting article in the SF Chronicle today about scorpions. It profiled Lauren Esposito, an arachnologist at the California Academy of Sciences, and her work studying these creatures. The venom found in some species of scorpions has been used to provide us with insights in fighting disease and developing opioid free pain relief. She discussed how original scorpions were over six feet long. Can you image?
It all began, she said, about 450 million years ago, when the ancestors of scorpions became the first arthropods to leave the sea. At the time, they were monsters, up to 6½ feet long, with stingers to match.
Source: Bay Area scientist stung by public’s perception of scorpions as scary scourge - SFChronicle.com
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- Setting up ANTLR4 on Windows
- Using cgit
- Convert Markdown to PDF in Sublime Text
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Rewrote my blog with Zine from Drew DeVault's blog
- A eulogy for Vim from Drew DeVault's blog
- Pluralistic: AI "journalists" prove that media bosses don't give a shit (11 Mar 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Avi Alkalay: Uniqlo T-Shirt Bash Script Easter Egg from Fedora People
- Offline 23 hours a day from Derek Sivers blog
- Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- On Alliances from Smashing Frames
- Acting ethically in an imperfect world from Smashing Frames
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
“The system is so twisted that even Apple itself begs for these reviews from its own apps.”
A good post by John Gruber on Daring Fireball investigating why apps pester you with the annoying “enjoying this app?” windows and attendant semi-shady practices (choose 5 stars and you get sent to App Store, but choose anything less, and your review will...
via Unsung April 20, 2026Issue 104 – World Tyranny Financial
As the Trump family’s crypto dealings raise more alarms, crypto enforcement is falling to new lows
via Citation Needed April 20, 2026Thank You For Being a Friend
It's been one of those months, and by that, I mean one of the 663 months since I was born. This won't be a long post, because I only have two things to say. First, I'm really glad we re-ordered the GMI (Guaranteed Minimum
via Coding Horror April 20, 2026Generated by openring