Yep @canisnatatrix - Tumblr Blog

Cave woman would have not known about the menopause until the life expectancy increased. Maybe there is another human hormonal change that we are not aware of as we have not reached the particular age it happens.

tiliatree

Totally incorrect! Actually, the fact that human females live past their reproductive life span is responsible for a great deal of human evolution, especially the ways in which we differ from our close ape relatives. This is called the Grandmother hypothesis.

Let me explain.

So the idea that human life expectancy has increased due to modern advancements is a myth. The average life span has certainly increased, however this is not because humans live longer (we have always lived to around 70-90yrs), but because infant mortality has decreased. In other words, modern medicine and abundant access to resources have decreased how how many children die, therefore increasing the average years humans live past birth.

So, Humans have known about menopause since the beginning, and it’s actually a huge part of our evolutionary history. Other apes do not live past their reproductive life span, as their bodies degrade shortly after ceasing to be fertile- evolution is all about how many offspring can be produce after all. Its generally a waste of resources to continue feeding adults who cannot reproduce when fertile adults and children are competing for those same resources.

So the fact that human females live for upwards of 30yrs past fertility was considered an evolutionary paradox. The key is that humans are really smart (sort of). We require a very long time to develop our brains, and so our infants are completely useless- unable to evan walk for a year, much less feed or protect themselves until middle childhood. They require a lot of attention and caring for, constant vigilence, not to mention hours spent teaching them basic survival tasks.

As a result, humans developed cooperative childraising systems, in which members outside of the child’s immediate family are responsible for caring for the young. However, if all the adults are busy raising their own children, no one would ever care for anyone else’s, except the older, not-yet-fertile children (who do assume childrearing roles, but are still developing and therefore are not good at it.) As a result, the females who stayed alive past their reproductive life span, no longer responsible for their own children, were able to care for the children of their children, allowing for their genes to be passed down more successfully. This creates a positive feedback system in which females lifespan progressively increases, since the older the grandmother, the more children the mother is able to have, and the more successfully they will be raised to adulthood, passing on the genes for long life to their children in turn.

This effect however decreased with subsequent generations: it’s less economical to have a grandmother AND a great grandmother taking care of the young. The payoffs aren’t high enough to push our lifespans even higher.

Tldr; humans have always had unusually long lifespans BECAUSE menopause occurs, and this is an integral aspect of our evolution, causing us to be as intelligent and adaptive as we are.

jamyesterday

Even better, one of the ways we know about the grandmother effect is because you also see it in orcas! They can live to 80, but generally stop breeding in their 30s. There are three known species that have this kind of menapause– us, orcas and the Short-Finned Pilot Whale (also another very social species).

There’s a really nice explanation on this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/15/killer-whales-explain-meaning-of-the-menopause

kawuli

So a few years ago I was working with a nutrition project in Mali targeting child malnutrition. A lot of these kinds of programs target young mothers for nutrition education, because women are the ones who cook, mothers feed their kids, makes sense.

Actually, these folks found that it was most effective to target not mothers, but grandmothers. Because in the big extended families most Malians live in, the grandmothers have more influence, so they can negotiate a better distribution of food. Usually, everyone in the family eats out of one big bowl (or a handful of big bowls, because sometimes families are 50+ people). The men always eat first, then the women and kids, so the men get all the good bits of meat that were in the stew. Because “they’re working in the fields more so they need more food.” This is a tricky thing to change, and young women have very little influence over intra-family dynamics. Older women, though, can organize their sons, can talk to their husbands, often control meal planning and budgeting, so if you help them understand that actually, kids need more nutritionally dense foods because their stomachs are smaller, so giving them the leftovers all the time isn’t good enough… then you’re more likely to see actual change in kids’ diets and health.

So yeah, grandmothers are important.

12b6

Listen, I liked Sanders. But the Supreme Court is the only thing I care about right now.

If you vote for anyone that isn't the Democrat nominee, we are looking at a 7-2 right-wing SCOTUS. For how long? 30-40 YEARS.

RBG is 87. Breyer is 81. Chances of them making it to 2024 are not great.

For the record, I think this system is FUCKED and this isn't how SCOTUS composition should be decided, but it is how it is right now.

If you care about the rights of women, of minorities of any kind, you really need to vote for the democrat nominee. No third parties or write ins. No abstaining. And for crying out loud, no assuming that Trump won't win even if you don't vote. VOTE BLUE.

12b6

kyraneko

Joe Biden is chemo. Chemo sucks and sorta tries to kill you, but you take it because it kills your cancer faster.

The current state of affairs with regards to how the country’s being run? Cancer.

Bernie Sanders would have been a surgery that cuts the tumor out without long-term damage, but from the looks of it we’re at the point where that’s not a viable option.

Not voting is essential oils: it smells nice and does nothing.

randomslasher

Reblogging for one of the best analogies of this election cycle I’ve ever read.

ruinedchildhood

heartfeltdelight

me and my partner have been obsessed with the unhinged insanity of this video for the last day. I can’t stop thinking about it.

jesuisloupseul

I can feel parts of my body shutting down in self-defense while watching this. The amount of damage food like this does should be criminalized. The sheer amount of dairy in it alone is a capital crime.

I’m reblogging this to find it to use as an appetite suppressant in future.

adulthoodisokay

it just keEPS GOING

bookoisseur

Can we talk about this video and how I CAN NOT.

wilwheaton

…the fuck.

xeduo

The “And One More Thing” quality of this reminds me of the Taco Town SNL sketch

transhumanisticpanspermia

i think what makes this one special is how long into the video it remains credibly edible. like “oh it’s pulled chicken. oh, chicken tacos. chicken tacos in a pizza shape? okay sour cream goes with tacos, the mayo’s weird but. hey wait what are you doing with those frying ingredients”

trappedinavelociraptor

“kind of tempted to make that deep fried bbq chicken deep dish quesadilla pepperoni pizza tonight”

Someone on Twitter made it. It filled them only with regret.

Wow…

Boing

writeouswriter

Concept: We Didn’t Start the Fire, but instead it’s listing everything millennials have supposedly killed

oysters-aint-for-me

diamond rings, outlet malls, eating breakfast cereal hooters, applebee’s, eating sliced american cheese mayonnaise, DUIs, running as an exercise golfing, productivity, marriage, and democracy

we didn’t kill the culture it’s been dead since birth, that’s just life on earth we didn’t kill the culture you don’t have to believe us, it’ll still outlive us

gehayi

Real estate, relationships, marriage-spawned vacation trips,

It’s a fact–Airbnb has killed the hotel industry

Costco, beer, and cash; fabric softener now is bashed,

Napkins, stiletto heels, breastaurants and luncheon meals.

You didn’t kill the culture

It’s been dead for ages, ignore elders’ rages

You didn’t kill the culture

That same accusation hit my generation

oginochihiro

Michigan Gothic

Your hometown is small. It’s always been small. Anybody you ask will say that their hometown is small. Anybody who says they don’t live in a small town is lying.

“Going to university?” your Uncle asks. “Which one?” You name the couple nearby you want to visit. A college from a different state comes up. He’s still smiling, but his eyes have a soft anger that unsettles you.

There wasn’t a Tim Horton’s there yesterday. You walk in and buy a coffee. You come back the next day. There wasn’t a Tim Horton’s there yesterday.

You drive past construction sites everyday. There’s never anybody working on them.

IHOP is just around the corner. IHOP is just around the corner. Just around the corner. Which corner? The corner. IHOP is just around the corner.

The people who go to the rest stops on the highway never come out, so you never go in.

Grandma’s bread sits on the corner of the counter. “Go on,” she says. “Take it. I made it fresh just before you got here.” The mold on the top is old and grey, like grandma.

You don’t walk home. You run home.

The public libraries are always too quiet. You can hear the shadows moving in there. They don’t like to be heard. You don’t go in the library anymore.

Your family is taking a trip to Lake Michigan. Your entire family is taking a trip to Lake Michigan. Your neighbors’ families are taking a trip to Lake Michigan. All at once. You home they all return this time.

Don’t ask how long the farm has been there.

IHOP is just around the corner.

theoriginalap

Michigan Gothic

(All examples based on own experiences)

• The factories downriver have been closed since long before you were born, but in the darkness you can see their lights still burning. Beckoning the Union men who worked them to pick up their tools and return. Or perhaps they never really left.

• Fall brings a trip to the apple orchard. My, the apples are sure bright this year, a deep red that reminds you of something vaguely familiar. You ignore the faint metallic taste of their juice as you take a bite.

• Behind your apartment complex are woods, no more than a patch of trees and a few trails really. You know not to go in there without a friend. Time passes differently out there, forts and structures you didn’t build. And never, ever go into the woods at night.

• The entire city of Detroit is a Liminal space. The people aren’t what’s scary, don’t let the media fool you. It is the vast, unnatural emptiness of a city that once held four million souls that is unnerving. You don’t put that many people in one place, for that long, without them leaving something behind, intentional or not.

• The river churns angrily in all seasons, waiting for its next unsuspecting victim to slip into its depths unnatural and uncharted. What goes into the river is lost, sacrificed, and it does not do to try and take back what you have given.

• There are Church carnivals in the summer and fall, but you never see anyone at the Churches beyond this. You pass them and their cemeteries hurriedly, as the dead and their God stand in silent judgment.

• You sit in a dingy wearhouse repurposed as an auction house, your mother and grandmother in the back with the elderly. A woman of seemingly impossible age speaks lucidly of events of history, local and national, that you know she could not possibly have been old enough to remember much less live through. The years pass, but she never seems to age.

• The most frightening moment in a storm is not the tornado warning, or the siren itself. It is that short instance when the air cools and the wind dies and hangs unnaturally still around you. As you retreat to cover, you feel Something watching you, stalking you like prey.

• The storm winds howl and whisper in tongues unearthly yet strangely familiar.

• Don’t ask about what goes on on Zug Island. Most don’t know and those who do will never tell you the truth, for they wish they didn’t know it themselves.

bansheecarol

small town michigan gothic

(aka i hop on this bandwagon. inspired by my own experiences. midwesterngothic)

the teens with black eyeliner hang out in the graveyard. they’re there in the morning. they’re there at noon. they’re there at night. we’re just hanging out, they say when you ask. something winged and dark swoops down. you should go home, they say. you never know who might be hanging out around here. the creature swoops again. one of them laughs at your flinch. really, they say. go home.

at four am, the big box store’s lights go out in the parking lot. it is so dark. there is no moon. the parking lot lights are out. it is so dark. your car doesn’t start. you just wanted to see the stars. you can’t see them now. the lights have gone out.

it’s called bledfest, and there are people you have never seen before meandering around. people in black wander through the farmer’s market. the softball team stops practicing in the fields. it’s a music festival. you can hear screaming from the school where the bands are playing. the softball team and the market packs up and leaves. the people don’t stop coming. there’s not enough parking in the town to hold this many people, but they are here nonetheless. ten dollars to get in, someone yells. the screaming continues.

the sidewalks don’t start or end right. there are cracks in them, but nothing grows. sometimes, there’s ants. ants that crawl over shoes, over socks, that swarm, black and fuzzy, when you kick their hills. the ants in the forests are more red. they swarm too, but you don’t have to kick the ant hills. you just have to stay still long enough.

the mill has a river running next to it. you struggle to take off your shirt and splash into the icy cold water on a hot summer’s day. you don’t know what’s in there, your friends warn. anything could be in there. fishhooks or broken glass or. they bite their lip. something brushes against your leg. the sign next to the bank says “no fishing. yes, john, even you.”

the orchard is alive with people. the trees are ripe with apples. people are sitting in the trees, feet dangling down and faces hidden by the branches. dark, sticky, hot juice drips onto your face, and when you look up, there’s a gangly teen eating an apple. dark juice drips down their chin. you walk on.

fragmentedvisions

Michigan Gothic

Acres and acres of forests. The leaves begin to change color. The leaves begin to scream. Their dying wails diminish as they fall fall fall to the ground.

The Cherry festival is upon us and the harvests are red and juicy this year, the toil and sacrifice of the farmers has been accepted.

While swimming in Lake Huron you feel something brush against you, your friends tell you it’s just a fish, you nod and accept this; but fish don’t have finger nails.

“The engine is the heart of a car” is the note you receive with the life insurance check and the body of your spouse, they could have at least sewn the hole back up.

A fresh batch of fudge has been made, a tourist asks what the secret ingredient is as the proprietor gives a knowing smile, another tourist vanishes.

A bonfire on a beach is a great way to spend a summer night. The darkness creeps in, you remind your friends to add more logs, but, you have run out. The shadows are getting closer. Nick went to get more wood but he hasn’t been seen in nearly four hours. You and your friends mourn and huddle closer as the shadows begin to whisper.

A storm is coming in off the lake, the wind changes direction and you breathe a sigh of relief, until you notice the clouds are still getting closer.

Your car inexplicably stops on the side of M-25. The deer surround you, it’s hunting season.

The robins sing. The robins get louder. The robins have grown. Insect will no longer sustain their young.

It’s the hottest year on record and the bodies begin to rise from Lake Superior.

The boats rocking is gently lulling you to sleep, the anchor has been dropped, the anchor has been cut, the rocking is no longer gentle. Something is attempting to capsize you, and it’s working.

The locals know not to swim at this beach. Never this beach. Only tourists and the young and reckless dare to swim at this beach.

The lakes have frozen over, the ice caves have risen. You stand in the middle of the lake as the crack of the ice sounds like a gunshot.

The Sleeping Bear Dunes wake up, hundreds are injured, dozens are dead.

mree63

Michigan Gothic

“Where are you from?”

She points to a spot on her hand.

“Where do you live?”

A different spot on her hand.

“What’s the name of the city?”

She stares at you blankly; her map has no names. Only skin and tendons and bones. More cartilage than cartography.

andrewgarfieldsbutch

Michigan Gothic

for one hour each day it rains. for one hour each day it is blisteringly hot. the next hour it is snowing. the next, hail. no one knows what season it is.

zebra mussels coat the bottom of every lake. the beaches are permanently stained red from the bloody feet of those foolish enough to swim there.

skeletal remains of shipwrecked freighters rise high out of the water, illuminated by the green glow from a hundred lighthouses. when you get close to them you are overwhelmed by the drone of a fog horn that seems to live inside your head. your eyes roll back, your boat is flooding. get away from the wreck. you are surrounded by lighthouses. where did all these lighthouses come from.

what’s in the pasties? some joke that it’s humans but you know the truth. the black squirrels with demonic red eyes would take over otherwise. the pasties keep michigan safe.

the horses on mackinac island are the same ones that have been there since the beginning of time. everyone talks about the Grand Hotel but no one ever actually goes there. it smells like fudge and rotting meat. it is where the horses keep their humans.

unsuspecting tourists cross to the wrong side of sleeping bear dunes into the sharp-toothed maw of the actual sleeping bear. this is how she’s fed. everyone lives in terror of when she will awake.

it is march 23rd. all of the sudden everyone around you begins chanting at once. O B E R O N everyone drones. people fall to the ground, limbs jerking, foam dripping from their mouth. it smells like oranges and beer. strangled cries echo throughout cities O B E R O N they scream. the bars are locked and shuttered, the patrons trapped inside.

thousands of cars line the highway, snaking down I-94, I-96, I-75. they are waiting for the dark man to return from o h i o. he will distribute the fireworks. later the sky will seem as though it is on fire, the sound of explosions never ceasing. it is fourth of july weekend. night never comes.

no one has ever left michigan adventure.

the ghost of henry ford appears in the passenger seat of anyone with a foreign car. he opens his mouth in a silent scream. bugs pour out. he disappears. toyotas and audis are found abandoned everywhere along the road, the bones of their drivers picked clean.

petoskey stones are found on the beach each morning arranged in the shape of strange circular sigils. no one knows what happens if you step in the center, but the life-like garden sculptures sold at every small town art fair offer some clues. their stone eyes plead for you to help them.

time does not exist in meijer. it is a respite from the ills of the outside world. although not technically trapped, many never leave.

all residents are tested each year to ensure they have ingested the required amount of better made chips and faygo. if not, their hands are cut off. without their hand maps, these criminals wander the state, unable to find their home. “where are you from?” people ask. the deviants turn their dead eyes toward their stump dripping blood and point to the air above it. it is no use. the ultimate punishment.

stereokink

michigan gothic

a small boy appears in the cornfields around your house. you ask him where he came from. he says nothing, but reaches for your hand. he presses his finger into your palm.

the lakes are angry and they send snow. the people whisper while warming their hands, “it’s not as bad as ‘78.” once, you ask your father, “what happened in ‘78?” he sniffs the air. “winter is meant to end,” is his nonreply.

the lake towns are flooded with tourists who never travel from very far. the clerk at the rental cabin has never checked someone out. tourists still check in.

you have an upset stomach and your mother brings you a ginger ale. the name on the bottle is a famous alchemist who went mad. it’s also your last name. you try not to think about it.

the only way out is through a cut of land called indiana, ever since the wolverines tore through ohio. you’ve learned to sleep through their screams.

it’s fall and the word on everyone’s lips is “lions.” you’ve never seen one, but every fall, you hold out hope. within a month, you assume they’re dead.

your cousin invites you for a visit and tells you not to park in the garage. later, he opens the garage door to show you a sea of drink containers. you take a step in. “be careful,” he says, “those are worth something.”

you are from kalamazoo. you’ve lived your entire life in kalamazoo. your family and friends are all in kalamazoo. you’re watching tv one day and you hear it. “kalamazoo isn’t a real place.” you look down. your body flickers.

afro-elf

a complete list of my proposals for disney+ which are better than whatever the fuck else they have going on

the adventures of helen cho: a series where helen cho goes around the world saving the world with science

where in the world is nakia?: nakia fights international crime and still manages to have a steady wash day routine

jabariland: a dramedy about the daily lives of the jabari tribe

sons of odin: a sitcom about teenage thor and loki getting into shenanigans and constantly dancing around the idea of fratricide

howling commandos: please

the bad place: wacky adventures in the soul stone

brooklyn boys: mockumentary style series where bucky and sam navigate the high rent and high stakes of being occasionally retired in new york with wacky neighbors

mj on the case: michelle’s true crime investigative blog takes her into dangerous situations and spider-man is always “just there” “coincidentally” to save her

steven yeun as iron fist: steven yeun as iron fist

lady sif’s wild rides: lady sif got really into motorcycles while asgard blew up and now she hosts a motorcycle lifestyle show

afro-elf

YES

corrucyst

someone: so what do you think is the solution to homelessness?

me, socialist:

left-reminders

Let homeless people occupy peopleless homes, build houses for use rather than exchange, 3D print comfortable houses in a day, convert corporate skyscrapers into housing and commercial malls into publicly-accessible community centers with living commons and entertainment

seconddoubt

When you say it to people and they break

“But the money? … we can’t just? But, Money? We can’t just… help… people? Can we? The Money. We can’t just help people? Like that? We can’t just? Money?”