Like stringy green brains

Yep, stringy green brains, that’s what some types of algae look like when they begin to dry out. Perhaps no one else has seen algae quite that way because when I did a Google search for “stringy green brains” I got asked if I meant “stringy green beans” or “string green beans,” but there were no hits for my “stringy green brains” search string. Coincidentally, when I recently attended a talk by physicist Steven Weinberg, who lives in Austin, he said there is so far no good experimental evidence for string theory. And I’m not stringing you along when I say that the picture above is from a tributary of Bull Creek on January 29th, and that two years ago I referred to algae in this configuration as corrugated.

In the picture below, from a different tributary of Bull Creek on February 13th, you get to compare a somewhat drier patch of algae. If you want to keep on being cerebral, now you can think of these algae as neurons. Just don’t let the neuralgae give you neuralgia.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman