Maybe bcause I'm traveling right now, but I have read this like a dozen times and I don't understand. Someone help 😅 Long quote:

"In 2010, while driving on the highway, I listened to a fascinating episode of the NPR show Radiolab, called “Words.” The hosts described how the use of words—associating things with names—allows us to perceive the world in a completely different way than if we did not have words. They describe an experiment in which rats are placed in an all-white room with food hidden in one of the corners. The rat sees the food, but, before it can reach it, the experimenters spin the rat or otherwise make it disoriented enough to not remember which corner has the food. What the experimenters found is that the rats, in picking which corner to approach, approached each corner an equal number of times—in other words, it had a 25 percent chance of choosing the correct corner. When the experiment is repeated with one of the walls painted blue and the food always placed in the left-hand corner of the blue wall, the wall can then serve as a “navigational cue” to help the rats understand where the food is. But even with this new blue wall, the rats still only guess the correct corner 25 percent of the time. While rats can recognize blue as a distinct color and left as a distinct direction, they cannot piece these two bits of information together. “Left of the blue wall” is impossible for rats to grasp. In a similar experiment, children up to the age of six will behave as the rats did, likely because their spatial awareness (essentially the idea of prepositions—“of,” “under,” “on,” “through,” etc.) takes that long to develop. This experiment suggests that the use of words and the context they provide fundamentally changes how we can literally see the world. When one interviewer asked, “What is thought without language?” the other replied, “Well, I don’t think it’s very much at all.” The use of words to name things gives our world shape, depth, and perspective. Those who can speak or understand a language are inheriting with it the ability to see the world in a unique way, fundamentally informed by that culture. Different cultures will carry different contexts—as such, different languages will offer different perspectives and ways of seeing the world. There is a vast system of meaning, interpreting, and perceiving particular to each culture and language. Every language tells a different story."

The bold line is where my question comes in. How does an experiment about visual data using a critter we don't speak the language of show that words contextualize visual input? Like, I for sure agree with the overall point we are trying to make here but I cannot grasp why we are using rat eyeballs to make it?? When humans develop enough to be able to conceptualize left of blue are we saying that's because of language, which rats never develop thus left of blue never makes sense to them?

It’ll be summer in the northern hemisphere soon and with the sunshine and warm weather will come lots of critters! To celebrate, I thought it might be fun to do a vote for another buddy read/readalong that will start June 1st!

For me, summer makes me think of long days and hazy evenings, staying outside until the sun sets and the fireflies emerge, and enjoying the songs of cicadas and the buzzing of bees and wasps. In that vein, here are the potential selections:

🌕 Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leigh Ann Henion 🪰 Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies by Sara Lewis 🐝 Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect by Eric R. Eaton

I’ll post a comment with each of these titles and their book descriptions, please upvote the book you’d most like to read! Voting will close April 30th at 11:59PM EST and I’ll make a post announcing the winner May 1st so that we'll have a month to get a hold of the book in time for June! As a reminder, this is an unofficial readalong for those participating in this quest and is not affiliated with a badge.

Super excited to see what ya’ll pick 💚

Posted April 15th, 2026

So I have arachnophobia. Well, I also fear other bugs that are not spiders, but mostly it's these ones which freak me out so much. It's pretty bad, to the point where seeing a tiny one in my room can ruin my whole evening. I was wondering "what if there's a book out there that can help me see them in a different way?". Perhaps that will help me overcome this fear little by little.

"With only 32 adult teeth, which had to last the rest of my life, I found myself experiencing tooth envy toward my gastropod companion. It seemed far more sensible to belong to a species that had evolved natural tooth replacement than to belong to one that had developed the dental profession."

first of all, hilarious commentary on the dental industry, second - snails have several thousand teeth!! in 8 rows!! pointing inward!! its so delightfully weird to me that they have teeth.