I shouldn't be here @cinnabi - Tumblr Blog

Nishimoto Ryota

a piece of wood carved to fit perfectly into a zippered plastic bag

What do you mean “chat” is now referring to ChatGPT and not twitch chat? What? What? What the fuck? No?

When I address chat I am speaking to a presumed Greek chorus of real human people shitposting on their lunch break, not a machine that devours lakes to covert electricity into slop.

draconym

Me: Fuck, the paper towels I want are on the top shelf.

The Sir David Attenborough That Lives In My Brain: Being smaller-than-average presents an added challenge to foraging ... but necessity is the mother of invention. A little creativity turns a baguette into a tool, and voilà--

(paper towel roll falls on my face)

Sir David Attenborough, pleasantly: Success.

#in honour of the big man's bday #David a

great-and-small

The group chat officially deemed me an “eccentric” just because I’m doing an Argonian ichthyologist play-through of Skyrim rn where my character is writing a thesis on Cyrodilic Spadetails and I shared the character’s hypothetical research folder that I created to help with my immersion in the role.

Like sorry I take the RP in RPG seriously but how else would I get into the headspace of a character who is only slaying dragons to sell their bones and fund research that will hopefully be published in the Tamriel Journal of Limnetic Science??

iwillstealyournamelikeafae

this is unironically how I play skyrim too. I once made an alchemist who was very committed to studying alchemy and I wrote some notes on the side about the different alchemy ingredients and what they are used for. I also described the colour and their texture, occasionally how they taste and smell. I truly believe this is how skyrim was meant to be played

vil-gereon

@sky-scribbles

#I've done a book journal before #aka I read all the books in character #that was fun

localpubliclibrary

Man no one even remembers laptop in bed. It was laptop in bed for years. Now it's just phone in bed. Maybe tablet. But usually phone. So much has changed

#that was my teen experience #tumblr on one tab #Omegle on the other #and a show/movie for good measure

greater-than-the-sword

When you're a kid you just take trees for granted. Then when you get to be an adult you realize that a fully mature tree cannot be created in an amount of time that fits in a convenient landscaping timeframe for love nor money nor all the powers of science. Then you realize that people are very very very cavalier about chopping them down

#people who moved into my childhood home cut down all the trees my mum planted #when I say I sobbed

beemovieerotica

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

beemovieerotica

@velvetdemon I'm doing a full reply because I want to give this question the time and space it deserves, and I really do appreciate your curiosity about this.

The short answer: It is deeply unethical. There are nowhere near enough willing patients in the world to be able to do this, and it would be criminal to put them through this.

The long answer: The one side of the equation you're focusing on is: how much of a drug is too much, to the point where it will cause negative side effects or even death? And this is crucial to know. But it's not just a matter of finding out the lethal dosage of a heart cholesterol medication, you need to know that it can actually lower the cholesterol of any living thing. There is no way to know this without giving it first to...a living thing.

But beyond this, I need to emphasize: The goal of a drug trial is to effectively cure people who are already suffering from disease, who are living on limited time.

Drug trials don't just happen on any member of the public, they need to happen specifically on people affected by the disease you're trying to treat. There is at any time a very limited and very marginalized population of the world affected by early onset, familial Parkinson's disease. Because you cannot ethically induce disease in a human being, you are working with, speaking with, and helping patients and their families who are hopeful and desperate for a cure.

If you were to jump straight to human trials from petri dishes, not knowing absolutely anything about how the drug functions in a living, breathing animal body, it would look like this:

We didn't know that minute quantities of the drug interact lethally with x, y, z medication that people are commonly also taking. X number of patients have died as a result.

We didn't know that the drug is fatal to people with [common variant] in their genetics. X more patients have died.

We didn't know the drug exacerbates x, y, z chronic illnesses. X number of people have acquired permanent, lifelong disabilities.

We didn't know the best way to deliver the drug, so we tried multiple ways: the people who received it intravenously are now suffering from a painful, costly, and debilitating condition that did not happen with the ingested form.

I could go on, and on, and on.

The vast majority of these problems can be nearly or almost entirely averted by testing other animals first.

These are all people who possibly could have waited for the normal progression from animal testing to human testing and thus received better outcomes. Some people will pass away in the time it takes to get to that point, and that's heartbreaking, and we all wish science could be faster.

But the cost of expediting science could mean a life of profoundly greater suffering or an even shorter life than the one where no intervention happens at all. And at that point, you have completely exhausted your trust, your goodwill, and your patients' hope, after you've failed to do anything or even worsened the lives of people who are already deeply suffering.

manslaughter

hi, i’m an animal research professional. making sure laboratory animals stay alive, healthy, and enriched has been my full-time job for several years now.

animal research is not the mad scientist wild west that PETA wants you to think it is. there are extremely strict federal laws in place to protect the well being of these animals. animal welfare organizations like AAALAC ensure that lab animals are treated with dignity & respect and are given enough specialized care & enrichment to be happy and content in captivity, just like AZA accreditation with zoos.

not a single animal from a zebrafish to a mouse to a dog to a macaque goes unaccounted for. if an animal gets moved to a new cage, paired for breeding, has a procedure performed on it, gives birth, gets sick or injured, dies, etc. it is legally required that this information is recorded and kept on file for the US federal government to access. failing to record & retain this information is very much punishable by US federal law.

let me tell you - if you abuse or kill an animal, even a mouse - you are almost certainly getting both fired & blacklisted from the industry. if you abuse or kill a more ‘advanced’ animal, such as a dog or monkey, you will likely face criminal charges. killing a monkey is as serious and disastrous as a nuclear meltdown. you are expected to reasonably explain every illness, injury, or death of an animal under your care. you must record all of this information. animals that are clearly suffering with low QOL are required to be euthanized according to AVMA guidelines.

research animals are highly expensive. yes, even the "lesser" animals like mice. the cheapest mice will run you a few hundred $ per individual, with some of the most expensive mice i've cared for being $25,000 per individual. in research we have the "three Rs" - reduction (reduce amount of necessary animals to a minimum), refinement (refine processes to ensure research is accurate and animals feel no pain or distress), and replacement (replace animals with non-living research models as they become available). i can assure you no proper research team is wasting animals (*do not* say "b-b-but elon musk--" his research team is actively being investigated for animal abuse by the government).

research methods that do not require live animals are currently being looked into & efforts spearheaded by - you guessed it - the animal research industry itself (notice how the animal rights people are strangely silent & unhelpful when it comes to this?) but current technology is rudimentary and does not compare to live animal models.

some research animal fun facts (US edition):

all species of animals are only allowed to have one single major surgery performed on them in their entire lifetime.

institutions with nonhuman primates must have a behavior program in place (run by knowledgeable primate specialists) to ensure that they are happy and receiving enough daily enrichment and social interaction.

institutions with dogs are required to have physical exercise programs in place. this means every individual dog gets a substantial amount of leashed AND free-roaming exercise daily, including playgroups with other dogs.

a majority of nonhuman primates get to retire to sanctuaries like peaceable primate sanctuary, and almost all dogs get retired and adopted out by organizations like homes for animal heroes. some institutions will also adopt out unneeded young rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, etc.

some strains of mice glow neon green (or orange or blue) under UV light. this is not harmful to them and is commonly seen in cancer research.

so yes, you can rest knowing that laboratory animals are treated with the utmost respect by their caretakers. and you can stop this awful, ignorant talk of human experimentation that will only end in the abuse of nonwhite people, LGBT people, disabled people, indigenous people, and so many others. please just take a look at this wikipedia page if you think “ethical” human experimentation can exist.

#yes yes yes #animal models are essential but they are also respected and cared for

fairycosmos

emotional neglect from your parents is so hard to contend with. they didn't beat the fuck out of me exactly but they didn't care if i got hurt or what the fuck i was doing and they didn't teach me how to be a person in the most fundamental ways. and you can't explain this to anyone without sounding like an angsty teenager who can't get over anything

#yup #it's fucked me up for years

lesbianjaxsondart

if you put the new harry potter show on my dash in any way it's gonna be an automatic unfollow from me, guys. like. it's 2026. come the fuck on

jaxantics

json-derulo

the hot & sour soup from the chinese place in our neighborhood has a 100% success rate of improving or all-out ending my migraines. partner, scientist that he is, did some research into why that might be (and also anything else that might help me, since I try not to google my own symptoms due to my unfortunate tendency to WebMD myself into thinking I’m dying). that ultimately led me to try a daily magnesium tablet starting on saturday. I’m now 48+ hours headache-free for the first time in literal weeks. don’t worry, I’m keeping a level head about it. I know this isn’t a magical cure-all and it very well might just be a coincidence. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment scheduled for wednesday and I’m not canceling it. but holy shit, it’s incredible to feel like myself again. thank you partner. thank you hot & sour soup. thank you yummy minerals