Of Hagfish and Twitter

One of my granddaughter Leya's hobbies is making slime. Yes, slime. It's quite the "in" toy nowadays, and you'll pay top dollar for it at your local toy store; Leya, however, has developed an endlessly-adjustable formula for mixing play slime at home using various combinations of ingredients and fragrances. Slime is fun. Who knew?

Thus it was that this interesting article in The Atlantic Monthly caught my eye recently: No One Is Prepared for Hagfish Slime.

Yes, it seems that the humble and unfortunately-named hagfish, along with its numerous other unique and interesting features, uses slime as a defensive weapon.

When threatened, the hagfish exudes small amounts of slime (about a teaspoonful) from pores in its skin, and that small amount of slime can expand in volume up to 10,000 times ... clogging the eyes, mouths, and gills of attacking predators. The picture below shows the aftermath of a highway accident in Oregon in which a truck carrying a load of hagfish (for export to South Korean restaurants, where they are considered a delicacy) overturned and covered the road - and the pictured car - in slime generated by the truckload of panicked fish.

I think this is a very interesting capability, although perhaps not as unique as one might think. Consider such predatory creatures as donaldtrumpus egoisticus maximus and rogerstoneius dirtytricksibus, both of which respond to the least attack with bursts of slime from their overdeveloped Twitter glands. Indeed, there are many subspecies of homo sapiens* that have the same reflexive reaction to ideas they don't like.

Speaking of that sort of slime, let us not forget that uncontrolled and thoughtless social media was foretold in the Bible: Chapter 11 of Genesis, verses 1-9, tells the story of the construction of the tower of Babel; with verse 3 addressing the issue of building material ...

And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime** had they for mortar.

And to this day, slime remains the mortar that connects many of the thoughts of the ignorant.

All in all, I think I prefer Leya's slime which, while yucky, is harmless and made for fun.

Have a good day. Keep away from the online slime.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* In case you weren't aware, the Latin "homo sapiens" translates as "wise man;" surely a laughable misnomer among much of the population.

** The King James Version of the Bible from which I drew this quote uses the word "slime," while the New Revised Standard Version uses the word "bitumen." While "bitumen" may be a more accurate translation of the original word for the cement the builders used, I believe "slime" works better as a contextual metaphor.