The OctoPost: Willpower and Curiosity
Last month I celebrated my birthday by doodling cephalopod prompts. You can see them all at this Bluesky thread, or on Instagram or Facebook.
Cephalopod News
A cuttlefish self-control experiment published in 2021 showed that these cephalopods can pass a version of the classic “marshmallow test”: declining a lesser treat now in favor of a better treat to come. I only just saw this excellent video of the research, thanks to my uncle Brian who sent the link:
This newsletter is a brief one, as I have to prepare for several events…
My News
TOMORROW March 6, 2025, 6:30 PT: "Ocean Ancients" Lightning Talks with Seattle Aquarium (online, free)
March 7, 2025: Writers Week at Los Altos High School (in person)
May 7, 2025, 3:45pm PT/6:45pm ET: "The Hidden World of Baby Animals" with Smithsonian Associates (online, tickets here)
If you’re looking for more of my writing, I contributed a short piece about Rice’s whales to Smithsonian. These crticially endangered cetaceans live only in the Gulf of Mexico, where they pursue very particular prey and vibrate the water with distinctive calls (mp3s here).
Funny Pages
A few weeks ago, I read a great line in Charlie Jane Anders’ newsletter: "I've started thinking of curiosity as the opposite of depression." Mere hours later, I attended a writing workshop in which Jacqui Banaszynski urged us to cultivate endless curiosity. Faced with such serendipity, I had to sketch something.
