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Life’s Better Down Stream

River ecosystems are actually deceptively complex, there's a bunch of different types of organisms living in all different parts of the river. The easiest way to describe it would be to divide the river into three parts: The top layer of water, the middle, and the bottom. Different types of organisms exist in each of these sections, and some are more influenced by river flow than others.

"Plankton" is a general term. It includes a huge variety of organisms.

There are organisms in plants that will get washed into the water and start to grow and then get classified as plankton. There are bacteria in the air that will start to grow in water and then become classified as plankton. Even newborn fish can be plankton as long as they can't swim strong and just go with the flow. Basically as long as they can't move by themselves and are photosynthetic and life in water, it's a plankton.

It's important to point out that Neustonic fish aren't constantly fighting against the current. They can float above or under the surface, and if they wanted to stay in the same place then they'd have to use energy to swim against the river current. These can be fish, or even water striders which float along the top of the water.

Even in the most rapid of rivers, there will always be eddies, fissures, and washouts where fish can literally duck into into to sleep, eat, and mate.

The plankton grow and reproduce in ponds, and lakes upstream.

Even mountain based rivers have millions of contributing streams many of which only add water when they over flow with rains. There is a constant addition of nutrients and organisms that come from everywhere even farmers fields. This why algae blooms happen more frequently.

It's impossible to stop the addition of plankton and other nutrients that are constantly being added, to do so you would have to kill the river. Some systems are so complex that the actual source of the river becomes a disputed issue.

Rivers begin as tiny trucks that combine to form small streams which band together to form a small rubber that grows add it goes along merging with other sources.

The top of the river is not a raging rising body of water washing everything away in its path.

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Paedophryne Amauensis

World's Smallest Frog (and Vertebrate)

Paedophryne amauensis was discovered in 2009 by a research team from Louisiana State University, this wee beastie holds the title of the world's smallest vertebrate at 7.7mm in length.

The previous champion was a fish called Paedocypris progenetica, meassured 7.9mm in length.

Hailing from the undergrowth of Papua New Guinea's rain forests, they live a crepuscular lifestyle – coming out at dawn n' dusk to call (presumably to find other smol frog hotties), with a series of high-pitched notes said to resemble that of an insect. In fact, this is how they were discovered – boffins took recordings of evening frog calls and noticed one they couldn't quite identify.

By scooping up and closely examining bits o' leaf matter from where they thought the noise was coming from, they managed to spot a wee frog or two crawling about.

What's very interesting is that they emerge as a smaller adult instead of having to develop from a tadpole.

Most amphibians have a typical three stage life cycle – eggs, then aquatic tadpole-ey things with gills, then mature adults without gills – there are plenty of notable exceptions. Turns out most super miniature frogs, like Paedophryne amauensis, ditch the tadpole stage altogether, with their eggs hatching directly into even teenier versions of the adults.

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Dante: The Divine Comedy

It certainly is not a piece of theology so it should not be viewed as doctrine, and is full of errors, but really, it wasn't meant to be doctrine. It is meant to help us grow as people. Basically the only parts literally taken from scripture and church teaching are the existence of heaven, hell, and purgatory. But as literature, it is easily one of the greatest things ever written.

It's more of a tale of the spiritual life rather than about the afterlife itself. I thoroughly enjoyed getting a different perspective of Hell, purgatory and heaven. I liked the ideas he was trying to portray.

Even if Dante's The Divine Comedy isn't particularly accurate. Yet,I would say it affects not only Catholics, but all Christians to some extent.

The Divine Comedy is an epic poem so it's not 100% literally accurate, it's a deeply allegorical work and as such there's definitely a lot spiritually and theologically to be learned from it. Some parts are in line with Catholic belief though. For instance while we can't know who's in hell or its exact layout it has been traditionally believed that hell is indeed layered or sinners in hell being punished to the severity of their sin.

We may know that it isn't biblical, but for the most part it is the same description you end up with most places (although not everyone adds in the ice). The conclusions Dante drew still affect how we "view" hell and how it appears in our mind. This is the same for Milton's paradise lost. it may not be biblical, but it definitely influences thoughts and mental pictures.

Dante was Catholic. And because of that he does a pretty good job with his poetic descriptions of theological reality.