This Week, We’re Taking A Look At Manuscripts Having To Do With Health, Medicine, And Human Physiology

Words to replace said, except this actually helps

I got pretty fed up with looking for words to replace said because they weren’t sorted in a way I could easily use/find them for the right time. So I did some myself.

IN RESPONSE TO Acknowledged Answered Protested

INPUT/JOIN CONVERSATION/ASK Added Implored Inquired Insisted Proposed Queried Questioned Recommended Testified

GUILTY/RELUCTANCE/SORRY Admitted Apologized Conceded Confessed Professed

FOR SOMEONE ELSE Advised Criticized Suggested

JUST CHECKING Affirmed Agreed Alleged Confirmed

LOUD Announced Chanted Crowed

LEWD/CUTE/SECRET SPY FEEL Appealed Disclosed Moaned

ANGRY FUCK OFF MATE WANNA FIGHT Argued Barked Challenged Cursed Fumed Growled Hissed Roared Swore

SMARTASS Articulated Asserted Assured Avowed Claimed Commanded Cross-examined Demanded Digressed Directed Foretold Instructed Interrupted Predicted Proclaimed Quoted Theorized

ASSHOLE Bellowed Boasted Bragged

NERVOUS TRAINWRECK Babbled Bawled Mumbled Sputtered Stammered Stuttered

SUAVE MOTHERFUCKER Bargained Divulged Disclosed Exhorted

FIRST OFF Began

LASTLY Concluded Concurred

WEAK PUSY Begged Blurted Complained Cried Faltered Fretted

HAPPY/LOL Cajoled Exclaimed Gushed Jested Joked Laughed

WEIRDLY HAPPY/EXCITED Extolled Jabbered Raved

BRUH, CHILL Cautioned Warned

ACTUALLY, YOU’RE WRONG Chided Contended Corrected Countered Debated Elaborated Objected Ranted Retorted

CHILL SAVAGE Commented Continued Observed Surmised

LISTEN BUDDY Enunciated Explained Elaborated Hinted Implied Lectured Reiterated Recited Reminded Stressed

BRUH I NEED U AND U NEED ME Confided Offered Urged

FINE Consented Decided

TOO EMO FULL OF EMOTIONS Croaked Lamented Pledged Sobbed Sympathized Wailed Whimpered

JUST SAYING Declared Decreed Mentioned Noted Pointed out Postulated Speculated Stated Told Vouched

WASN’T ME Denied Lied

EVIL SMARTASS Dictated Equivocated Ordered Reprimanded Threatened

BORED Droned Sighed

SHHHH IT’S QUIET TIME Echoed Mumbled Murmured Muttered Uttered Whispered

DRAMA QUEEN Exaggerated Panted Pleaded Prayed Preached

OH SHIT Gasped Marveled Screamed Screeched Shouted Shrieked Yelped Yelled

ANNOYED Grumbled Grunted Jeered Quipped Scolded Snapped Snarled Sneered

ANNOYING Nagged

I DON’T REALLY CARE BUT WHATEVER Guessed Ventured

I’M DRUNK OR JUST BEING WEIRDLY EXPRESSIVE FOR A POINT/SARCASM Hooted Howled Yowled

I WONDER Pondered Voiced Wondered

OH, YEAH, WHOOPS Recalled Recited Remembered

SURPRISE BITCH Revealed

IT SEEMS FAKE BUT OKAY/HA ACTUALLY FUNNY BUT I DON’T WANT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD Scoffed Snickered Snorted

BITCHY Tattled Taunted Teased

Edit: People, I’m an English and creative writing double major in college; I understand that there’s nothing wrong with simply using “said.” This was just for fun, and it comes in handy when I need to add pizzazz. 

The Normans - A Timeline

911: According to later writer Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in this year the king of the Franks, Charles the Simple, grants land around the city of Rouen to Rollo, or Rolf, leader of the Vikings who have settled the region: the duchy of Normandy is founded. In return Rollo undertakes to protect the area and to receive baptism, taking the Christian name Robert.

1002: Emma, sister of Duke Richard II of Normandy, marries Æthelred (‘the Unready’), king of England. Their son, the future Edward the Confessor, flees to Normandy 14 years later when England is conquered by King Cnut, and remains there for the next quarter of a century. This dynastic link is later used as one of the justifications for the Norman conquest.

1016: A group of Norman pilgrims en route to Jerusalem are ‘invited’ to help liberate southern Italy from Byzantine (Greek) control. Norman knights have already been operating as mercenaries here since the turn of the first millennium, selling their military services to rival Lombard, Greek and Muslim rulers.

1035: Having ruled Normandy for eight years, Duke Robert I falls ill on his return from

a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and dies at Nicaea. By prior agreement, Robert is succeeded by his illegitimate son William, the future Conqueror of England, then aged just seven or eight. A decade of violence follows as Norman nobles fight each other for control of the young duke and his duchy.

1051: Duke William visits England. His rule in Normandy now established, and newly married to Matilda of Flanders, William crosses the Channel to speak with his second cousin, King Edward the Confessor of England. The subject of their conference is unknown, but later chroniclers assert that at this time Edward promises William the English succession.

1059: Pope Nicholas II invests the Norman Robert Guiscard with the dukedoms of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. The popes had opposed the ambitions of the Normans in Italy, but defeat in battle at Civitate in southern Italy in 1053 had caused them to reconsider. In 1060 Robert and his brother Roger embark on the conquest of Sicily, and Roger subsequently rules the island as its great count.

1066: Edward the Confessor dies on 5 January, and the throne is immediately taken by his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson, the most powerful earl in England, with strong popular backing. Harold defeats his Norwegian namesake at Stamford Bridge in September. But on 14 October William’s Norman forces defeat Harold’s army at Hastings. William is crowned as England’s king on Christmas Day.

1069: The initial years of William’s reign in England are marked by almost constant English rebellion, matched by violent Norman repression. In autumn 1069 a fresh English revolt is triggered by a Danish invasion. William responds by laying waste to the country north of the Humber, destroying crops and cattle in a campaign that becomes known as the Harrying of the North, leading to widespread famine and death.

1086: Worried by the threat of Danish invasion, at Christmas 1085 William decides to survey his kingdom – partly to assess its wealth, and partly to settle arguments about landownership created by 20 years of conquest. The results, later redacted and compiled as Domesday Book, are probably brought to him in August 1086 at Old Sarum (near Salisbury), where all landowners swear an oath to him.

1087: William retaliates against a French invasion of Normandy. While attacking Mantes he is taken ill or injured – possibly damaging his intestines on the pommel of his saddle – and retires to Rouen, where he dies on 9 September. Taken to Caen for burial, his body proves too fat for its stone sarcophagus, and bursts when monks try to force it in. His eldest surviving son, Robert Curthose, becomes duke of Normandy, while England passes to his second son, William Rufus.

1096: Following a call to arms by Pope Urban II in 1095, many Normans set out towards the Holy Land on the First Crusade, determined to recover Jerusalem. Among them are Robert Curthose, who mortgages Normandy to his younger brother, William Rufus, and William the Conqueror’s notorious half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Odo dies en route and is buried in Palermo, but Robert goes on to win victories in Palestine and is present when Jerusalem falls.

1100: Having succeeded his father in 1087 and defeated Robert Curthose’s attempts to unseat him, the rule of William II (‘Rufus’, depicted below) seems secure. But on 2 August 1100, while hunting in the New Forest with some of his barons, William is struck by a stray arrow and killed. His body is carted to Winchester for burial, and the English throne passes to his younger brother, Henry, who is crowned in Westminster Abbey just three days later.

1101: Roger I of Sicily dies. By the end of his long rule, Count Roger has gained control over the whole of Sicily – the central Muslim town of Enna submitted in 1087, and the last emirs in the southeast surrendered in 1091. He is briefly succeeded by his eldest son, Simon, but the new count dies in 1105 and is succeeded by his younger brother, Roger II.

1120: On 25 November Henry I sets out across the Channel from Normandy to England. One of the vessels in his fleet, the White Ship, strikes a rock soon after its departure, with the loss of all but one of its passengers. One of the drowned is the king’s only legitimate son, William Ætheling. Henry responds by fixing the succession on his daughter, Matilda, and marrying her to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou.

1130: Roger II is crowned king of Sicily, having pushed for royal status in order to assert his authority over the barons of southern Italy. A disputed papal succession in 1130 has provided an opportunity and, in return for support against a papal rival, Pope Anacletus II confers the kingship on Roger in September. He is crowned in Palermo Cathedral on Christmas Day.

1135: Henry I dies in Normandy on 1 December, reportedly after ignoring doctor’s orders and eating his favourite dish - lampreys. His body is shipped back to England for burial at the abbey he founded in Reading. Many of his barons reject the rule of his daughter, Matilda, instead backing his nephew, Stephen, who is crowned as England’s new king on 22 December.

1154: King Stephen, the last Norman king of England, dies. His death ends the vicious civil war between him and his cousin Matilda that lasted for most of his reign. As a result of the Treaty of Wallingford, which Stephen was pressured to sign in 1153, he is succeeded by Matilda’s son Henry of Anjou, who takes the throne as Henry II.

1174: King William II of Sicily begins the construction of the great church at Monreale (‘Mount Royal’), nine miles from his capital at Palermo. The building is a fusion of Byzantine, Latin and Muslim architectural styles, and is decorated throughout with gold mosaics, including the earliest depiction of Thomas Becket, martyred in 1170.

1194: Norman rule on Sicily ends. Tancred of Lecce, son of Roger III, Duke of Apulia, seizes the throne on William’s death in 1189; on his death in 1194 he is succeeded by his young son, William III. Eight months later, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, husband of Roger II’s daughter Constance, invades Sicily and is crowned in Palermo on Christmas Day. The following day, Constance gives birth to their son, the future Frederick II.

1204: King John loses Normandy to the French. The youngest son of Henry II, John had succeeded to England, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine after the death of his elder brother, Richard the Lionheart, in 1199. But in just five years he lost almost all of his continental lands to his rival King Philip Augustus of France – the end of England’s link with Normandy.

Artist profile: Gerard Sekoto

‘Art is the spark, the illumination which is socially significant for it brings about understanding’ – Gerard Sekoto (1913–1993)

Gerard Sekoto was born in Botshabelo, Mpumalanga province, in 1913, the year in which the Natives Land Act dispossessed many black South Africans of their ancestral lands. In 1938 Sekoto moved to Sophiatown, Johannesburg. He held his first solo exhibition the following year, and in 1940 the Johannesburg Art Gallery purchased his work Yellow Houses – A Street in Sophiatown (1939–1940). It was the first painting by a black South African artist to be acquired by a South African art institution, although Sekoto had to pose as a cleaner to see his own painting hanging in the gallery.

Sekoto based this painting, titled Song of the Pick (1946), on a photograph taken in the 1930s of black South African workers labouring under the watchful eye of a white foreman standing behind them. However, in his painting the dynamic has changed. Sekoto has enhanced the grace and power of the labourers, turning them to confront the small and puny figure of the overseer, who appears about to be impaled by their pickaxes.

Sekoto painted this work in the township of Eastwood in Pretoria, shortly before moving to Paris in what became a lifelong exile from South Africa. During the 1980s, postcard-sized reproductions of this iconic painting were widely distributed in South Africa, as both a badge of honour and a source of inspiration in the struggle against apartheid.

Explore a diverse range of art stretching back 100,000 years in our exhibition South Africa: the art of a nation (27 October 2016 – 26 February 2017).

Exhibition sponsored by Betsy and Jack Ryan

Logistics partner IAG Cargo

Song of the Pick, 1946. Image © Iziko Museums of South Africa, Art Collections, Cape Town. Photo by Carina Beyer.

Song of the Pick was based on this image, taken by photographer Andrew Goldie in the 1930s.

In a recent video, Practical Engineering tackles an important and often-overlooked challenge in civil engineering: dam failure. At its simplest, a levee or dam is a wall built to hold back water, and the higher that water is, the greater the pressure at its base. That pressure can drive water to seep between the grains of soil beneath the dam. As you can see in the demo below, seeping water can take a curving path through the soil beneath a dam in order to get to the other side. When too much water makes it into the soil, it pushes grains apart and makes them slip easily; this is known as liquefaction. As the name suggests, the sediment begins behaving like a fluid, quickly leading to a complete failure of the dam as its foundation flows away. With older infrastructure and increased flooding from extreme weather events, this is a serious problem facing many communities. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering)

Smuggling salt is Slovenian culture!

Be proud of smuggling salt, people! We certainly are!

A degree with a difference: using South African sign language instead of the written word

This Masters degree sets a precedent in South Africa and gives universities that want to be truly inclusive a lot to think about.

Nyeleti Nokwazi Nkwinika was a year into her Master’s dissertation in English, and she was struggling. This has nothing to do with her work ethic: the problem lay with her hearing. Nyeleti was born deaf and like many others in her situation, she battles with written language.

Most deaf people are born into hearing families who don’t have any skills in Sign Language. In Nyeleti’s case, she only learned to use South African Sign Language fluently at school. When she got to high school she attended a mainstream hearing school with several other top performing deaf pupils from her previous school.

By then, she had missed out on too many years of access to English. South African Sign Language and English are differently structured. This can make it hard to learn for deaf people who’ve only ever used sign language to communicate. It’s also very difficult to learn written English when one has never heard the language or used it for conversational purposes.

List of medieval European scientists

Anthemius of Tralles (ca. 474 – ca. 534): a professor of geometry and architecture, authored many influential works on mathematics and was one of the architects of the famed Hagia Sophia, the largest building in the world at its time. His works were among the most important source texts in the Arab world and Western Europe for centuries after.

John Philoponus (ca. 490–ca. 570): also known as John the Grammarian, a Christian Byzantine philosopher, launched a revolution in the understanding of physics by critiquing and correcting the earlier works of Aristotle. In the process he proposed important concepts such as a rudimentary notion of inertia and the invariant acceleration of falling objects. Although his works were repressed at various times in the Byzantine Empire, because of religious controversy, they would nevertheless become important to the understanding of physics throughout Europe and the Arab world.

Paul of Aegina (ca. 625–ca. 690): considered by some to be the greatest Christian Byzantine surgeon, developed many novel surgical techniques and authored the medical encyclopedia Medical Compendium in Seven Books. The book on surgery in particular was the definitive treatise in Europe and the Islamic world for hundreds of years.

The Venerable Bede (ca. 672–735): a Christian monk of the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow who wrote a work On the Nature of Things, several books on the mathematical / astronomical subject of computus, the most influential entitled On the Reckoning of Time. He made original discoveries concerning the nature of the tides and his works on computus became required elements of the training of clergy, and thus greatly influenced early medieval knowledge of the natural world.

Rabanus Maurus (c. 780 – 856): a Christian monk and teacher, later archbishop of Mainz, who wrote a treatise on Computus and the encyclopedic work De universo. His teaching earned him the accolade of "Praeceptor Germaniae," or "the teacher of Germany."

Abbas Ibn Firnas (810 – 887): a polymath and inventor in Muslim Spain, made contributions in a variety of fields and is most known for his contributions to glass-making and aviation. He developed novel ways of manufacturing and using glass. He broke his back at an unsuccessful attempt at flying a primitive hang glider in 875.

Pope Sylvester II (c. 946–1003): a Christian scholar, teacher, mathematician, and later pope, reintroduced the abacus and armillary sphere to Western Europe after they had been lost for centuries following the Greco-Roman era. He was also responsible in part for the spread of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Western Europe.

Maslamah al-Majriti (died 1008): a mathematician, astronomer, and chemist in Muslim Spain, made contributions in many areas, from new techniques for surveying to updating and improving the astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi and inventing a process for producing mercury oxide.[citation needed] He is most famous, though, for having helped transmit knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to Muslim Spain and Christian Western Europe.

Abulcasis (936-1013): a physician and scientist in Muslim Spain, is considered to be the father of modern surgery. He wrote numerous medical texts, developed many innovative surgical instruments, and developed a variety of new surgical techniques and practices. His texts were considered the definitive works on surgery in Europe until the Renaissance.

Constantine the African (c. 1020&–1087): a Christian native of Carthage, is best known for his translating of ancient Greek and Roman medical texts from Arabic into Latin while working at the Schola Medica Salernitana in Salerno, Italy. Among the works he translated were those of Hippocrates and Galen.

Arzachel (1028–1087): the foremost astronomer of the early second millennium, lived in Muslim Spain and greatly expanded the understanding and accuracy of planetary models and terrestrial measurements used for navigation. He developed key technologies including the equatorium and universal latitude-independent astrolabe.

Avempace (died 1138): a famous physicist from Muslim Spain who had an important influence on later physicists such as Galileo. He was the first to theorize the concept of a reaction force for every force exerted.

Adelard of Bath (c. 1080 – c. 1152): was a 12th-century English scholar, known for his work in astronomy, astrology, philosophy and mathematics.

Avenzoar (1091–1161): from Muslim Spain, introduced an experimental method in surgery, employing animal testing in order to experiment with surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.[4] He also performed the earliest dissections and postmortem autopsies on both humans as well as animals.

Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253): Bishop of Lincoln, was the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of optics, astronomy and geometry. In his commentaries on Aristotle's scientific works, he affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences. Roger Bacon was influenced by his work on optics and astronomy.

Albert the Great (1193–1280): Doctor Universalis, was one of the most prominent representatives of the philosophical tradition emerging from the Dominican Order. He is one of the thirty-three Saints of the Roman Catholic Church honored with the title of Doctor of the Church. He became famous for his vast knowledge and for his defence of the pacific coexistence between science and religion. Albert was an essential figure in introducing Greek and Islamic science into the medieval universities, although not without hesitation with regard to particular Aristotelian theses. In one of his most famous sayings he asserted: "Science does not consist in ratifying what others say, but of searching for the causes of phenomena." Thomas Aquinas was his most famous pupil.

John of Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256): was a scholar, monk, and astronomer (probably English, but possibly Irish or Scottish) who taught at the University of Paris and wrote an authoritative and influential mediaeval astronomy text, the Tractatus de Sphaera; the Algorismus, which introduced calculations with Hindu-Arabic numerals into the European university curriculum; the Compotus ecclesiasticis on Easter reckoning; and the Tractatus de quadrante on the construction and use of the astronomical quadrant.

Jordanus de Nemore (late 12th, early 13th century): was one of the major pure mathematicians of the Middle Ages. He wrote treatises on mechanics ("the science of weights"), on basic and advanced arithmetic, on algebra, on geometry, and on the mathematics of stereographic projection.

Villard de Honnecourt (fl. 13th century): a French engineer and architect who made sketches of mechanical devices such as automatons and perhaps drew a picture of an early escapement mechanism for clockworks.

Roger Bacon (1214–94): Doctor Admirabilis, joined the Franciscan Order around 1240 where, influenced by Grosseteste, Alhacen and others, he dedicated himself to studies where he implemented the observation of nature and experimentation as the foundation of natural knowledge. Bacon wrote in such areas as mechanics, astronomy, geography and, most of all, optics. The optical research of Grosseteste and Bacon established optics as an area of study at the medieval university and formed the basis for a continuous tradition of research into optics that went all the way up to the beginning of the 17th century and the foundation of modern optics by Kepler.[8]

Ibn al-Baitar (died 1248): a botanist and pharmacist in Muslim Spain, researched over 1400 types of plants, foods, and drugs and compiled pharmaceutical and medical encyclopedias documenting his research. These were used in the Islamic world and Europe until the 19th century.

Theodoric Borgognoni (1205-1296): was an Italian Dominican friar and Bishop of Cervia who promoted the uses of both antiseptics and anaesthetics in surgery. His written work had a deep impact on Henri de Mondeville, who studied under him while living in Italy and later became the court physician for King Philip IV of France.

William of Saliceto (1210-1277): was an Italian surgeon of Lombardy who advanced medical knowledge and even challenged the work of the renowned Greco-Roman surgeon Galen (129-216 AD) by arguing that allowing pus to form in wounds was detrimental to the health of he patient.

Thomas Aquinas (1227–74): Doctor Angelicus, was an Italian theologian and friar in the Dominican Order. As his mentor Albert the Great, he is a Catholic Saint and Doctor of the Church. In addition to his extensive commentaries on Aristotle's scientific treatises, he was also said to have written an important alchemical treatise titled Aurora Consurgens. However, his most lasting contribution to the scientific development of the period was his role in the incorporation of Aristotelianism into the Scholastic tradition.

Arnaldus de Villa Nova (1235-1313): was an alchemist, astrologer, and physician from the Crown of Aragon who translated various Arabic medical texts, including those of Avicenna, and performed optical experiments with camera obscura.

John Duns Scotus (1266–1308): Doctor Subtilis, was a member of the Franciscan Order, philosopher and theologian. Emerging from the academic environment of the University of Oxford. where the presence of Grosseteste and Bacon was still palpable, he had a different view on the relationship between reason and faith as that of Thomas Aquinas. For Duns Scotus, the truths of faith could not be comprehended through the use of reason. Philosophy, hence, should not be a servant to theology, but act independently. He was the mentor of one of the greatest names of philosophy in the Middle Ages: William of Ockham.

Mondino de Liuzzi (c. 1270-1326): was an Italian physician, surgeon, and anatomist from Bologna who was one of the first in Medieval Europe to advocate for the public dissection of cadavers for advancing the field of anatomy. This followed a long-held Christian ban on dissections performed by the Alexandrian school in the late Roman Empire.

William of Ockham (1285–1350): Doctor Invincibilis, was an English Franciscan friar, philosopher, logician and theologian. Ockham defended the principle of parsimony, which could already be seen in the works of his mentor Duns Scotus. His principle later became known as Occam's Razor and states that if there are various equally valid explanations for a fact, then the simplest one should be chosen. This became a foundation of what would come to be known as the scientific method and one of the pillars of reductionism in science. Ockham probably died of the Black Plague. Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme were his followers.

Jacopo Dondi dell'Orologio (1290-1359): was an Italian doctor, clockmaker, and astronomer from Padua who wrote on a number of scientific subjects such as pharmacology, surgery, astrology, and natural sciences. He also designed an astronomical clock.

Richard of Wallingford (1292-1336): an English abbot, mathematician, astronomer, and horologist who designed an astronomical clock as well as an equatorium to calculate the lunar, solar and planetary longitudes, as well as predict eclipses.

Jean Buridan (1300–58): was a French philosopher and priest. Although he was one of the most famous and influent philosophers of the late Middle Ages, his work today is not renowned by people other than philosophers and historians. One of his most significant contributions to science was the development of the theory of impetus, that explained the movement of projectiles and objects in free-fall. This theory gave way to the dynamics of Galileo Galilei and for Isaac Newton's famous principle of Inertia.

Guy de Chauliac (1300-1368): was a French physician and surgeon who wrote the Chirurgia magna, a widely read publication throughout medieval Europe that became one of the standard textbooks for medical knowledge for the next three centuries. During the Black Death he clearly distinguished Bubonic Plague and Pneumonic Plague as separate diseases, that they were contagious from person to person, and offered advice such as quarantine to avoid their spread in the population. He also served as the personal physician for three successive popes of the Avignon Papacy.

John Arderne (1307-1392): was an English physician and surgeon who invented his own anesthetic that combined hemlock, henbane, and opium. In his writings, he also described how to properly excise and remove the abscess caused by anal fistula.

Nicole Oresme (c. 1323–82): was one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century. A theologian and bishop of Lisieux, he wrote influential treatises in both Latin and French on mathematics, physics, astronomy, and economics. In addition to these contributions, Oresme strongly opposed astrology and speculated about the possibility of a plurality of worlds.

Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio (c. 1330-1388): was a clockmaker from Padua, Italy who designed the astarium, an astronomical clock and planetarium that utilized the escapement mechanism that had been recently invented in Europe. He also attempted to describe the mechanics of the solar system with mathematical precision.

tag yourself I’m the data noodle

Julie D’Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and shag a nun.

(via Feminism)

Sailor’s Eyeballs (Valonia ventricosa)

Known as bubble algae or sailor’s eyeballs, Valonia ventricosa are one of the world’s largest single-celled organisms. They’re found in almost every ocean in the world, mostly in tropical and sub-tropical regions among coral rubble.

These tough, shiny multi-nucleic cells, a kind of green algae, usually grow to be 0.4 to 1.5 inches in diameter but sometimes reach up to 2 inches across. By comparison, most human cells are so small they’re invisible to the naked eye; Valonia ventricosa are larger than your fingernail!

photograph by Alexander Vasenin | Wikipedia

via: American Museum of Natural History