Zombie setting where the undead are drawn towards unhygienic scents, so survivors constantly bathe to avoid being eaten.

#this makes me curiously sad #the idea of flowers covering the undead #that symbol of human love is what makes them docile

Link for full article below.

*pretends to be shocked but also maybe this will make people realize that Indigenous People Know What The Hell They’re Doing and Deserve Respect*

3 other fun/cool facts about the Inuit:

1. They also invented kayaks and dog booties.

Dog booties are actually really important for working sled dogs in winter to protect their paw pads from iceburn and keep ice from getting in between their toes and burning them that way.

2. The traditional Inuit diet is one of the healthiest in the world, and the most balanced for the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 consumption

Most modern diets consume way too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3.

3. Inuit is a plural noun. When speaking about a single person the correct word is Inuk (always capitalized)

For example, “This Inuk woman is wearing traditional Inuit tattoos”.

And she is wonderful

Never a bad time to remember that indigenous people are wonderful and deserve to have a good day.

Well my week has been exciting so far.

I had some other work to do this morning (Figuring out some algae stuff involving 1000 L mesocosm up a mountain) so mystery species has been sitting alone in the lab all morning…..

Made it up to the lab today to find this. It’s probably from the fridge defrosting and not the creepy “algae”.

June 13th Update.

According to a few colleagues it’s either a plant, an algae, or a fungi. So that’s been helpful.

After a day with some sunlight I think I might be seeing some chloroplasts.

It seems to like the nutrient solution I added yesterday though!

I for one welcome our new plant, algae, or fungi overlords.

I was about to say “in a sensible lab people wouldn’t waste time with this, they’d autoclave the bottles and move on” but on reflection I can’t think of a single bio lab I’ve been in that wouldn’t immediately go “ooh, mystery algae, that sounds like a fun challenge; let’s devote multiple hours to identifying it for no reason”.

I need updates tell me about the algae

The mystery algae/plant/fungi/alien is stuck in the university growth chamber. With everything going on I probably won’t get to check in on it until September, possibly not until 2021.

So by that time it will have developed what, writing?

God I hope so, then I can train it to write my thesis!

This entire post is the most on-brand biologist thing I have seen in my entire godforsaken life. The moment this pandemic is over these guys have another crisis ready for us.

Can we get an update cause this is crazy

Update: Due to the global pandemic, the algae has been left alone in a weird hidden growth chamber for a year and will likely stay there for another year. Enjoy that information!

Friday, August 13th, 2021: Yesterday I visited the algae. Today I am going to bring a preserved sample home.

I’m going to be in the field for the next 2 or 3 weeks but soon after that I hope to once again try to ID it.

Any botanists/mycologists who want to help out? I’m afraid if it’s not algae my ID skills are very rusty.

Here it is, in all it’s glory, after 2 years in isolation.

This is Christ-like love!

x

Everything about this is a masterpiece: the girl that says “wow” and the girl that says “hi” shyly and bill awkwardly lifting his hand to say hi to them I’m cracking THE FUCK UP

The way they all immediately straightened up their postures like the fuckin pope walked in 😂 the sheer power this cool science man has over the american people is palpable

pitter patter putter patter *you look down and see this*

I would do anything for the terra cotta corn puppy

x

Ah but to be a waterdrop with googly eyes

Ghibli character

SCREAMING

AUDIO DESCRIPTION Cashier: “Is that everything?” Customer: (referencing the person coming in the shop door) “I don’t know, is THAT for sale??” Blue shorts hottie: “Oooh baby, I’ve GOT a husband…”

You have to mention that EVERYONE in this clip has a country accent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/mcdonalds-marseille-food-bank/

"There is nothing more dangerous than capitalism – it’s insatiable,” says Fati Bouarua. “We have seen that marching and screaming in the street is not enough, and so we need to make social alternatives that cannot be crushed by capital. And we have no fears, only determination.”

Happy Pride Month!

Reminder that Billie Joe Armstrong publicly came out as bisexual in 1995!

And that Green Day used their platform to bring openly gay punk band Pansy Division on tour with them in 1994!

<3_<3

A WHOLESOME SOUL

Our love matters , too!

[Image description: 10 photos of queer Black couples. End image description]

“if you liked this title you may enjoy” but with animal species

If You Liked [PINE MARTENS]

You May Also Enjoy:

If You Liked [THE ROSEFINCH]

You Should Try [STRAWBERRY FINCHES]

Also Try [LEUCISTIC CARDINALS]

If you liked [CAPYBARA]

You may enjoy [QUOKKA and BEAVERS]

Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 

i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “the fuck” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s fucked up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary shit also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know shit ok

One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not fpr the life of them figure out what tf it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to as a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.

I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.

Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”

Omg the ancient child proofing add on tho lol

I remember years ago on a forum (email list, that’s how old) a woman talking about going to a museum, and seeing among the women’s household objects a number of fired clay items referred to as “prayer objects”.  (Apparently this sort of labeling is not uncommon when you have something that every house has and appears to be important, but no-one knows what it is.)  She found a docent and said, “Excuse me, but I think those are drop spindles.”  “Why would you think that, ma’am?”  “Because they look just like the ones my husband makes for me.  See?”  They got all excited, took tons of pictures and video of her spinning with her spindle.  When she was back in the area a few years later, they were still on display, but labeled as drop spindles.

So ancient Roman statues have some really weird hairstyles. Archaeologists just couldn’t figure them out. They didn’t have hairspray or modern hair bands, or elastic at all, but some of these things defied gravity better than Marge Simpson’s beehive.

Eventually they decided, wigs. Must be wigs. Or maybe hats. Definitely not real hair.

A hairdresser comes a long, looks at a few and is like, “Yeah, they’re sewn.”

“Don’t be silly!” the archaeologists cry. “How foolish, sewn hair indeed! LOL!”

So she went away and recreated them on real people using a needle and thread and the mystery of Roman hairstyles was solved.

She now works as a hair archaeologist and I believe she has a YouTube channel now where she recreates forgotten hairstyles, using only what they had available at the time.

Yeah, my generally policy is to take the phrase “used for ritual purposes” as “we don’t know wtf it was for” until evidence suggests otherwise.

And even if we do know, sometimes “ritual purposes” are totally practical? Like.

This is a yad. You use it when you’re reading from a Sefer Torah so you never actually touch the parchment. The text can be very small in some Torot, so the yad keeps your place. Reading Torah is a ritual, so this object is “for ritual purposes”….

….by which I mean “parchment and vegetable-based ink will break down very quickly when constantly exposed to the oil in your fingers, so it’s better and safer to use a piece of inert metal.” There is nothing sacred or special about the yad itself, although they do tend to be very pretty (and some communities will say it’s a mark of respect for the sacredness of the scroll to not touch it). If you needed to, you could technically use a capped pen as a yad. Or a plastic ruler. Or even an unused disposable chopstick, if for whatever reason you were reading a Sefer Torah and it was the only vaguely yad-shaped object available to you. As long as it won’t damage the parchment, it can be used. The exact appropriateness of these objects can be debated (I would personally not use a chopstick even if it was new), but all of them would do the job.

Now imagine: in a world where the Israelites had died out rather than entering the diaspora (G-d forbid), how many archaeologists would assume the little pointy finger thing “represented the hand of G-d” or some weird thing like that, rather than “it’s literally just in the shape your hand would be making if you were doing this with your fingers”? What are the odds that some, or even many, of the “ritual purposes” objects we find could have been used in prayer AND ALSO be completely practical? Or that if they didn’t seem entirely practical (why NOT have a yad that’s just like a chopstick?), maybe ancient people ALSO JUST LIKED THINGS THAT LOOKED NICE?

A reminder that “ritual” in archaeology doesn’t always mean for special ceremonies or purpose. Do you use your toothbrush every morning? BOOM. That toothbrush is a ritual item. Artifacts that were used for daily activities will also be called ritual. So yes, sometimes “ritual” means we have no idea, or it might mean we know EXACTLY what it’s for. And in my experience, we know EXACTLY what things are for by asking crafts people and others outside of our discipline, because they will see the things we don’t! That’s why collaboration is beautiful

Let me tell you bout my best friend, he’s a warm hearted Straight person who’ll love me till the end.

Who would have thought he was bi and we were going to be together going on 6+ years now ♥

Wait, is there a thread where I can read all about this development?!?!!

We met in 2012 when I came to Uruguay for the first time after leaving when I was 5. I was in my junior year and he was in his senior. We were in the same friend group with his friends and his girlfriends friends. I always saw him as a friend and knew that he was straight. Anyways I came back to the US to finish my senior year and graduate. We always stayed in touch. After my senior year ended I came back to Uruguay and the DAY I got Back his girlfriend admitted to him that she cheated on him and she was dumping him. He was depressed for months and we hung out every day since we didn’t work and still lived with our parents. I always knew he was straight so I never even saw him as an option. One night we were in my room at my parents watching a movie, and he turned around and kissed me. We started kissing every day for months after that. Then got more serious and then eventually became best best friend and partners. I love him with everything and love seeing him grow every day.

Sorry for the long post, but that’s love