Grugrugrug

[wheelie-sick]

link

[ayronaught]

Transcript

Everyone's talking about Artemis II, the first humans to travel to the moon in 50 years

Historic, right? BUT nobody's talking about the Deaf people who made it possible.

In the late 1950's, NASA had a problem.

They needed to understand what weightlessness did to the human body but every test subject kept getting violently motion sick

NASA needed to figure out FAST during the space race!

So, they went to Gallaudet University. They recruited 11 Deaf people.

Because a number of Deaf people had lost their hearing to spinal meningitis as children which also damaged their vestibular system.

Their inner ears couldn't be overwhelmed. They were immune to motion sickness.

NASA put them in centrifuges. Put them on zero gravity flights. A room for 12 straight days.

(All caps) It rotated the entire time.

One experiment on a ferry in choppy Nova Scotia waters, the researchers got so seasick they had to cancel it. The Gallaudet Eleven? They were playing cards.

Their bodies gave NASA the data and research it needed to send humans into space.

No Gallaudet Eleven? No Mercury. No Apollo. No Artemis II.

They stood on the shoulders of 11 Deaf people most people have never heard of.

Now you know!

[headpainmigraine]

@ayronaught is a gem in the wasteland, thank you providing transcript! 💐

[sexboobomb]

I want to learn more exclamations that aren’t strictly just religious stuff. “Jesus Christ” this, “oh my god” that, nah I want something fresh.

What are some of y’all’s favorite exclamations that aren’t about god?

[sexboobomb]

first submission and we're already off to a fantastic start. absolutely love this one thank you

[sexboobomb]

ok its time for the challenge round now we want nominations that arent about sex either actually

[mbrainspaz]

had a friend who used to make new ones up on the spot. The only one that stuck with me was 'good golly jelly beans'. If something catastrophic happens I go for 'that's not ideal.'

[foldingfittedsheets]

@chekhovs-tantrum

Absolutely not letting you leave these in the tags.

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

if you’re not ending your emails with “kill me! your slave and enemy,” then what are you doing with your life

[meliohy]

Don’t hide that in the tags @thevastness

[animentality]

[comikbook]

lets make bad art together

[comikbook]

[comikbook]

i just realized that i forgot to put the word “make” in the image and i think thats fitting lets bad art together

[did-you-know]

The oldest living tree ever found was a pine named “Prometheus.” It had been alive since before the Egyptian pyramids were built. Some guy cut it down in 1964. Source

[aclockworknick]

he was actually a forestry graduate student who was doing research on bristlecone pines (Pinus langaevea) and got his increment borer stuck in the tree. this tool costs almost $800, so he asked the forest service if he could cut down the tree to recover the tool. after cutting it down, it became apparent that the tree was actually the oldest living organism. ever. (around 8,000 years old). so, not just some asshole. the guy feels extremely guilty and has even broken down in tears during an interview about the accident

[wellshitcaitlin]

OH MY GOD SO LET ME TELL YOU A STORY

So after the grad student cut down the tree and discovered it was the oldest tree in the world he quit studying forestry and went to study salt flats (can’t cut down the oldest trees in the world on salt flats no siree none of that happening) and he was being interviewed about his research, but in the middle of the interview the reporter just stops and says “wait aren’t the guy that…”

And he just takes off running. Literally. Turns around and runs across the salt flats away from the interview and I feel so bad for him but I can’t help but start crying I’m laughing so hard about it imagine a guy high tailing it across salt flats away from a dude with a recorder

[thoughtsofadame]

its so different to know it was an accident and that NO ONE was aware until after. its not like this was one ignorant guy cutting down a fucking relic.

[gay-irl]

gay irl

[glumshoe]

whoa the exact same thing happened to me once

[marxism-leninism-utenaism]

there are a lot of reasons why someone might become transgender but the most common one is to acquire more powerful sword techniques

[ot3]

the people’s princess.

[senatortedcruz]

Wonderful image

[senatortedcruz]

Wonderful image

[bogleech]

I know it's unfair vilification and stuff but it's also a lot of fun to see old media and stuff where people were SO scared of big animals like lions, sharks, crocodiles and wolves were fully expected to just come and eat you the moment you stepped into their territory. In older media we also made that assumption about gorillas and in still older we thought it'd be whales. But some animals that will actually fuck you up got left behind. Boars will kill you and eat you. They're way more likely to do so than any of those other things actually. Hippos, obviously, got off like bandits always being depicted as cute and dopey. And then there's the squids. Not giant kraken size squids. The eight foot squids that hunt in packs and will fuck you up if you fall in the water at night. I can't BELIEVE people slept on that. It's like all they cared about were the huge deep sea ones we never see. The medium size wolf pack squids were right there.

[bogleech]

Oh some of you don't know about the squids. I talked about them in another thread that went kinda viral somewhere or other but one of the reasons you should not swim in the open ocean at night in many parts of the world is that the water starts teeming with these:

And as you can see it is not like instant death, they too are just animals and they are often just gently curious about the presence of humans! But people who study and dive with sharks will tell you you're safe as long as you stay calm and know what you're doing. The world's leading professional night divers and experts on these squids, specifically??? Stress in every interview and article and paper they write in that you simply do not fuck around with these squids. They know what they're doing and they still all have at least one story of being attacked, in some cases having to be hospitalized. Considering just how rarely anybody puts themselves in the pitch dark nighttime ocean on purpose, let alone during a squid feeding frenzy, it sounds like they're quite a bit more likely to consider you potential food than other marine predators. We also don't know how many fatal attacks might have ever happened, because what humboldt squid like to do with large prey is just drag it away into the darkness forever. The two worst attacks ever proven involved two or three squid at a time latching on to a diver (in BOTH cases they were professionals and knew the risk!) and jetting straight downward with enough force that both divers suffered injury from the sudden pressure change alone, including burst eardrums, nearly passed out and they probably would have died if they hadn't broken free. In general, people who die drowning in the dark open ocean are either never found, or they're found in pieces picked over by enough scavengers that the precise cause of death can only be narrowed down to "the sea." But now you know ONE of "the sea's" possible murder weapons :)

There's a short section on Humboldt squid in Wikipedia's entry for Cephalopod attacks on humans:

Cephalopod attack - Wikipedia

And if you can get past some of Animal Planet's hokey presentation style, this video includes a bit of interview with one of those professional experts who still got nearly squidded from existence:

There is of course some debate about all this, with some arguing that all proven documented attacks occurred on people with reflective diving equipment, which they say the squid must have mistaken for the shine of fish. However, there are lots and lots of people who have to fish around these squids to survive, who do not have access to that kind of equipment, and also have a consensus that if you fall in the water when big squids are out hunting you might disappear without a trace or perhaps just get your head bitten open. With many modern science guys agreeing with this sentiment, this is one case where the "they're just misunderstood sea friends" crowd is kind of outnumbered. The sea at night is theirs and not ours is all. It's not ours during the day either but since we are neither marine nor nocturnal animals we are double fools in the eyes of the squids, which by the way are these eyes:

No for real:

[my-ants-are-anxious]

Absolutely! Also, the Humboldt squid will hunt in packs, sometimes with one flashing brightly to draw attention while the others approach in near unseeable camoflage!

[bogleech]

Beautiful footage of the nefarious sea demons also :)

Also because I can't reblog every addition together:

Okay where's the other 1199

[spiralshellsreblogs]

I absolutely adore Humboldt squid. I saw a doc once where a scientist was cage diving to study them, and one of the squid squeezed it's entire massive body through the cage bars, bit the guy and squeezed right back out.

[bogleech]

Why isnt this an animal that's already long gone viral like honey badgers once did. This is the animal that actually gives no fucks. People really are just that obsessed with bigger squids I guess? But the bigger ones frankly come across as big softies in comparison. One big sea monster can never be as intimidating as a thousand coordinated man sized sea monsters.

This is why I thought that if mermaids had a cultural equivalent to lycanthropy it'd be weresquids. Fun fact nocturnal marine life increases activity on the brightest nights ie the full moon.

[lasrina]

This is all fascinating but I'm reblogging it exclusively for the phrase "got nearly squidded from existence."

[lesslaivyy]

[vitchuatlocalhost-deactivated20]

[importantcatpics]

[enki2]

[hylianengineer]

@copperbadge this seems up your alley

[copperbadge]

If the system ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! Accounting may not be the oldest profession, but someone had to keep the books for them.

I mean, in theory I know that Excel is based on the structure of earlier accounting technology that's been around for hundreds of years -- what do we think we did to track commerce before computers? -- but it still kind of blows my mind to, for example, look at my ancestor's journal from a whaling voyage in 1770 and see spreadsheets in the back.

[charaznablespeteevee]

[uququ]

after a couple hours chopping dried sea urchins into tiny pieces with a razor blade you start referring to the razor blade as yourself in your thoughts. a little while afterwards you'll inevitably think something along the lines of "i'm getting a bit dull, i'm going to have to throw myself out & get myself a new self" at which point your internal monologue has pretty much returned to baseline

[life-of-jauxro]

[anachronic-cobra]

This happens with mobility aids too. I bump into shit with my forearm crutches and say "ow" before I realize those are not, in fact, More Legs. Then when I get up and try to walk without them for a second there's a moment of feeling like a dog walking upright

[hapalopus]

If you find this interesting, look into extended mind/body theory :)

Author: Rachel Bourbaki Category: Philosophy of Mind and Language Word Count: 1000 Can your mind be outside of your body? Typically we think

[thatfandomhoe73]

I think there’s a teaboot(?) post about this with a huge security cam system

[teaboot]

Yeah I get twitchy when I don't have my eyes

[catsofyore]

A thoughtful silver chonk in an ocean of shag carpet. No date/info.

[soracities]

think it's a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead. that there isn't their life and our life. nor your life and my life. that it's just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled w it as deep as entanglement goes. v neat i think.