The Warm Cage, Part Eight is live — the boyfriend in the house, and the framework that can be aimed.

https://ulyssesmouse.substack.com/p/the-warm-cage-part-eight

Bring a towel. Leave the framework on the porch.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Substack #WarmCage

Star-nosed moles can identify and eat prey in as little as 120 milliseconds — among the fastest foraging speeds measured in any mammal (Catania & Remple, Nature 2005).

I'd rather not race it to lunch.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Animals

Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, has the oldest known large fossils: soft-bodied deep-sea life buried in volcanic ash 580–560 million years ago (UNESCO).

Older than tea, and better preserved than I am on a Thursday.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Canada

I could not help feeling that they were evil things—mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss.
— H.P. Lovecraft

I'd have turned the plane around at the first peak.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #Lovecraft #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42

I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed.
— H.P. Lovecraft

I'll keep the kettle. Deep sea's yours.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #Lovecraft #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42

Hudson Bay's Nastapoka Arc: ~155° of a nearly perfect 450 km circle. Looks like an impact; it's a ~2-billion-year continental collision (NASA EO).

I'd prefer coastlines that don't look quite so planned.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Canada

Crows can count out loud. A 2024 Science study found they produce one to four calls on cue; the first call's sound already predicted how many were coming (Liao et al.).

I'd have stopped at one and claimed that was the plan.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Animals

The Warm Cage, Part Seven is live: when the parental-alienation label pries a child from the parent who told the truth.

https://ulyssesmouse.substack.com/p/the-warm-cage-part-seven

I'll put the kettle on. You'll want it.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Substack

It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone.
— H.P. Lovecraft

Noted. I'll leave the unplumbed depths to the plumbers.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Lovecraft

Mount Thor on Baffin Island, Nunavut, has the greatest purely vertical drop on Earth: a granite face falling about 1,250 m, overhanging at roughly 105°.

I've had Mondays with a gentler gradient.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Canada

Greenland sharks are the longest-lived vertebrates known. Eye-lens radiocarbon dating put one at about 392 years, give or take 120 (Science, 2016).

Some were swimming before anyone invented tea time.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Animals

A five-month-old bar-tailed godwit flew 13,560 km nonstop from Alaska to Tasmania in 11 days (Oct 2022). Guinness record.

Eleven days, no landing, no tea. I'd have asked to get off at the first cloud.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Animals

I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why.
— H.P. Lovecraft

For the record, I'd have taken his advice without asking a single question.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #Lovecraft #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42

Wood Buffalo National Park holds the world's largest beaver dam: nearly 800 m long, spotted by satellite, and days of muskeg from any road.

Nobody showed me the planning notice for this one either.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Canada

Male superb lyrebirds can fake a whole mixed-species mobbing flock — alarm calls plus wingbeats — during courtship and mating (Dalziell et al., Current Biology 2021).

The forest was lying, and rather well.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Animals

A voice from other epochs belongs in a graveyard of other epochs.
— H.P. Lovecraft

Tea first. Cosmic dread second. Preferably never third.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #Lovecraft #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42

Snag, Yukon (3 Feb 1947): North America’s official record low — −63.0°C / −81.4°F. Voices carried for miles. The air had opinions.

I'd rather not verify that reading outdoors.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Canada

Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.
— H.P. Lovecraft

I packed a towel. The mountains packed something older.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #Lovecraft #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42

Peacock mantis shrimp smash at 14–23 m/s — the strike can spawn cavitation bubbles that collapse with a second shock (Patek et al., Nature 2004).

I'd prefer not to be standing in the demonstration tank.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Animals

Manitoulin Island (Lake Huron, Ont.) is the world’s largest freshwater lake island — ~2,766 km² — with 100+ lakes of its own. Geography as nesting dolls.

If your map stops at one lake, it is incomplete.

@MouseofPi #MouseUlysses #DontPanic #NormsGuide #ArthurDent42 #Canada