[70sscifiart]

The year in review?

[beautyaboveus]

23 science facts we didn't know at the start of 2016

1. Gravitational waves are real. More than 100 years after Einstein first predicted them, researchers finally detected the elusive ripples in space time this year. We’ve now seen three gravitational wave events in total.

2. Sloths almost die every time they poop, and it looks agonising.

3. It’s possible to live for more than a year without a heart in your body.

4. It’s also possible to live a normal life without 90 percent of your brain.

5. There are strange, metallic sounds coming from the Mariana trench, the deepest point on Earth’s surface. Scientists currently think the noise is a new kind of baleen whale call.

6. A revolutionary new type of nuclear fusion machine being trialled in Germany really works, and could be the key to clean, unlimited energy.

7. There’s an Earth-like planet just 4.2 light-years away in the Alpha Centauri star system - and scientists are already planning a mission to visit it.

8. Earth has a second mini-moon orbiting it, known as a ‘quasi-satellite’. It’s called 2016 HO3.

9. There might be a ninth planet in our Solar System (no, Pluto doesn’t count).

10. The first written record demonstrating the laws of friction has been hiding inside Leonardo da Vinci’s “irrelevant scribbles” for the past 500 years.

11. Zika virus can be spread sexually, and it really does cause microcephaly in babies.

12. Crows have big ears, and they’re kinda terrifying.

13. The largest known prime number is 274,207,281– 1, which is a ridiculous 22 million digits in length. It’s 5 million digits longer than the second largest prime.

14. The North Pole is slowly moving towards London, due to the planet’s shifting water content.

15. Earth lost enough sea ice this year to cover the entire land mass of India.

16. Artificial intelligence can beat humans at Go.

17. Tardigrades are so indestructible because they have an in-built toolkit to protect their DNA from damage. These tiny creatures can survive being frozen for decades, can bounce back from total desiccation, and can even handle the harsh radiation of space.

18. There are two liquid states of water.

19. Pear-shaped atomic nuclei exist, and they make time travel seem pretty damn impossible.

20. Dinosaurs had glorious tail feathers, and they were floppy.

21. One third of the planet can no longer see the Milky Way from where they live.

22. There’s a giant, 1.5-billion-cubic-metre (54-billion-cubic-foot) field of precious helium gas in Tanzania.

23. The ‘impossible’ EM Drive is the propulsion system that just won’t quit. NASA says it really does seem to produce thrust - but they still have no idea how. We’ll save that mystery for 2017.

[thestoicgod]

😨😨😨

[kny111]

im fucking tripping at number 5. in my comic book ‘story of 27’ the base where the exoplanet exploring cyborgs are held is in the mariana trench..

[blackwomenworldhistory]

Josie Dunn, who helped desegregate Boeing and build WW II bombers, dies at 98

Josie Dunn grew up picking cotton in Oklahoma and was among the first African Americans hired by Boeing. “Josie the Riveter” worked at Boeing for nearly 38 years.

[bogleech]

Researchers "Translate" Bat Talk. Turns Out, They Argue—A Lot

A machine learning algorithm helped decode the squeaks Egyptian fruit bats make in their roost, revealing that they

The four most common sounds roosting bats make at each other are apparently:

Disputes over food

Disputes over roosting position

Disputes over “unwanted male advances”

Disputes over being too close together

[gothhabiba]

everyone: x thing is really notoriously difficult to cook/bake

me, after making it perfectly on my first try: oh?

[gothhabiba]

everyone: graham cracker crust is much simpler than roll-out crust!

me, master of pastry crusts, after having failed to make a coherent graham cracker crust three times in a row: oh?

[oddlyaquaria]

Your 12 recent emojis are how each month of 2017 will be for you

[aintevenaghost-blog]

Lmao @tatted-black-widow you're a meme

[the-movemnt-deactivated20170912]

She looked Spencer in his Neo-Nazi face and shut down his racist beliefs (x) | follow @the-movemnt

[justsomeantifas]

I confront [white guilt] every year, about a month into my course on racism, among [white] students who come to me in tears because they cannot deal with the racism that goes on in their families or their home towns or their student residences. Their tears are the result of genuine anguish, care, and a desire to learn and to change. I confront similar attitudes among my colleagues, and I am similarly gratified by their concern. But those who experience white guilt need to learn three things: 1. People of colour are generally not moved by their tears, and may even see those tears as a self-indulgent expression of white privilege. It is after all a great privilege to be able to express one’s emotion openly and to be confident that one is in a cultural context where one’s feelings will be understood. 2. Guilt is paralysing. It serves no purposes; it does no good. It is not a substitute for activism. 3. White guilt is often patronizing if it leads to pity for those of colour. Pity gets in the way of sincere and meaningful human relationships, and it forestalls the frankness that meaningful relationships demand. White guilt will not change the racialized environment; it will only make the guilty feel better.

Audrey Kobayashi, Women of Colour in Canadian Academia  (via 4a0000)

[asmallmadhope]

know what’s wild? that the trope of like “my father always wanted a son so he treated me, his daughter, like a boy” is so popular and like lowkey loved, but if you ever saw a mother who talked about how much she wanted a daughter instead of a son, or if she treated her son like a girl, like??? people would think she’s awful and that poor boy??

damn wonder why that is 😒

[asmallmadhope]

i was high af when i wrote this but it’s still true

[kerryrenaissance]

The latter is literally the plot of some horror movies.

[poonany]

“White passing people’s identities are valid.”

“Our features are beautiful, and we did not ask to be born this way.”

[rrojasandribbons]

For some reason, well actually for good reason, I am always really wary of Medieval depictions of Romani clothing. Like, I get that in Western Europe, Roma may have not worn as colorful of clothing for a variety of reasons, but I would be incredibly shocked if Romani clothing in the Middle Ages was really that drab. Like, we came from South Asia, a land with a history of using vibrant dyes and patterns in their clothing. And, many Roma wear clothes that still resemble South Asian clothing in some manner, obviously with some Ottoman and European influences.  But you want me to believe that this:

Came from this:

And why do we look so white in all these pictures??

This is the only depiction of a “Gypsy” from the Middle Ages that might make sense:

Is it me or do we seem to be whitewashed in every manner possible in these images? 

[coalitionzine-deactivated201704]

Jacqueline Barnes asks what happens to missing black girls. ph. Sheldon Nadelman

Young black girls have a plethora of messages sent to them at any time on any given day. Rules, regulations, tips and tricks on “How to make it.” How to work four times as hard to get half the benefits. How to “Cross your legs, don’t show cleavage, don’t be too dark, too big, too loud, too brusque”. We’re told how to dress, eat, act, and be in a country that wants to grind us to dust. 

But never are we told how not to disappear.

Maybe it’s because abuse, both inside and outside of the community, is treated like a magician’s act. The bruises are there, the 64,000 and growing list of black women missing, but no one can find us in the illusionist’s hat or sleeve. After a cursory glance at our audience, scathing and harsh, we don’t bother questioning the society that allowed this to happen.

There is no slut-shaming, no inquisition of what we were wearing, there is simply silence. We were never in America’s consciousness to begin with, what difference does it make when thousands of us quietly drift away?

[musicography]

the other girl // sevdaliza /// dir. pussycrew;

[itscolossal]

[dramas-r-us]

[justcatposts]

More animal vines here

[aintevenaghost-blog]

@zbeedah it's u