FLY HIGH

Kate. 30. She/they. I'd breathe deep, but I've got asthma.

[scratch-meowt]

my hottest take

[keeper-of-the-flames]

Counter point, those machines can make me a peach sprite.

[pusheenthenerdcat]

guys did you know the tech in that nefangled machine revolutionized preemie healthcare

[maimonideznuts]

[pusheenthenerdcat]

yeah the guy who invented them made incredibly precise infusion pumps (as opposed to gravity fed ivs) which not only meant they could give medications to teeny tiny babies safely, it's also used for insulin pumps and portable dialysis machines. the key element is that it's a peristaltic pump so the liquid stays in sterile tubing for safety

(unholy drink cloaca uses it to dispense precise amounts of flavored sugar syrup)

[hedgebotherer]

Then how the haters loved him,

As they shouted out with glee,

"Unholy Drink Cloaca

You'll go down in history!"

[naamahdarling]

You DON'T get this on any other site in quite this format.

[supermariomamafucker]

Lets all suck on glass together and make the aquarium clean for everyone

[anistarrose]

if you are a parent, or may become one, or you are otherwise likely to arrive in the situation of caring for a child while they eat, promise me this: if a child doesn't like a certain food or food group, you will ask them WHY. and specifically, you will pay attention to either confirming or ruling out "it makes my mouth itch" or "it makes my stomach hurt," both of which are medically important info that children may not provide unprompted. which i know because this PSA has been brought to you by "i spent my entire childhood and much of my early teens eating peas and lentils while wondering why everyone else liked the Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation so much, like were they a bunch of legume masochists or something, before i finally realized that Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation was in fact a sinister demon appearing only to me, and her true demonic name was: Legume Allergy"

[anistarrose]

with nothing but affection and care for many of you reporting itchy mouths and "spicy" foods in the notes:

Oral Allergy Syndrome: Why Foods Make Your Mouth Itchy

Learn more about oral allergy syndrome, an allergic reaction to certain foods, including fruits, vegetables and nuts.

[ID: edited conversation screenshot:

Blue: what are u trying to say

Yellow: (image of the Cleveland Clinic's Oral Allergy Syndrome article) go here

Blue: in the oral allergy syndrome information ?

Yellow: go in the OAS information

End ID.]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[socpens]

rate my setup

[draconym]

i would rather see the information for an event handwritten in sharpie on a paper towel than see another AI generated flyer

[aj-living-life]

Saving this post to show my boss who I told the AI flier makes us look lazy and ignorant, and offered to hand draw one. She still printed tons of ai fliers and I'm tempted to make a better one just because it annoys me so much.

[aj-living-life]

Fun update: event was canceled because literally nobody rsvp'd to the AI flier.

[ieafy]

friendly neighbourhood Skitty

[couthbbg]

can't today. busy.

[charmedslayer]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003)

[my-dailydreams]

[what-even-is-thiss]

It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles

[what-even-is-thiss]

The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.

These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.

[untitledgoosegay]

Yacouba Sawadogo - Wikipedia

The half-circles are called zaï! They're a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.

He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.

Immensely cool dude. He's been a personal hero since I learned about him.

[she-is-amused]

Ooooh, Mr. Sawadoga innovated the traditional zai method by adding manure and other biological matter to the holes! This put nutrients in the soil as well as helping even more with water retention and attracted termites whose tunnels helped loosen the compacted earth, all of which supported plant-growth like no zai before! Which increased water-retention even further! Oh excellent, excellent work!

[shannoneichorn]

It is a crime that the link preview doesn't show Mr. Sawadoga's face, so here's his photo from Wikipedia.

This is the face of a man adding beauty to the world and making the future better.

[i-am-a-megalodon]

This is beautiful. I love this.

[precision-instrument]

I love it when I catch people doing these at the gym. Give me ten stop-and-grovels

[draculasdaughter]

This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…

[three-blogs-in-a-trenchcoat]

Listen, this is serious.

Do not use the website called Sci-Hub!

It lets people access scientific articles for free. This is dangerous. It helps the free flow of knowledge and reduces the competitive edge of all the people who worked really hard to have been born into a wealth.

Like, it’s literally a website where you can type in the DOI of an article and read it, without ever having to pay the publisher who exploited the author.

So, again, do not, under any circumstance, use Sci-Hub. I mean, can you imagine a world where knowledge is free and easily accessible to everyone? Even, y'know, poor people?

[whateverthebeeswant]

Libgen also has many books online, including textbooks, searchable by name, author, and ISBN. Can you imagine textbook companies not getting their hard-earned income from poor college students? Here is the link just so you make sure that you never accidentally stumble across this horrible, unethical website.

[three-blogs-in-a-trenchcoat]

Oh, and while we’re talking about books, if you’ve managed to stay clear from Libgen, definitely don’t go to zlibrary, where you can also find a lot of textbooks, but unfortunately they’re completely free.

[teachingtales]

Reblogging so you know which sites to totally avoid

[professionalwritingnerd]

[catboybiologist]

Scihub SUCKS because even if you can’t access papers by their title directly, you can look the paper up through the journal source, grab the DOI number from reference, and input it into scihub anyways to reliably and safely retrieve the paper you were after.

Which is soooo horrible oh nooooo

[no-one-offical]

‎

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[lostsometime]

ok sorry to double reblog BUT I just looked him up and he does these fantastic videos where he breaks down HOW he actually mimics the other artists’ styles. Like for ed Sheeran, he explains how he brings his voice forward in the mouth, while Adam Levine sings in the back of the mouth, stuff like that. It’s SO COOL, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually break down how to do this sort of thing, as a skill, instead of just treating it like a neat trick they just happen to be good at. https://www.tiktok.com/@justinjmooremusic

Check him out he’s so cool

[wifegideonnav]

“bits to use in everyday conversations”

[minecraft]

[canoncanidae]

[autism-freaks]

I think it's a common misconception that domesticating animals is somewhat like enslaving them. It really is more of a symbiotic relationship. No wild animal would have willingly put up with early humans if they didn't get something out of it. Wolves wouldn't have stayed with us and become dogs if they weren't getting food and safety out of it. Many large herbivores that are now domesticated could and would have easily trampled their early human captors or broken their enclosures open if they didn't have a reason to stay. Sometimes individual animals still do if we don't give them what they need.

The animals that have stayed with us for thousands of years have evolved to cooperate with us better. Dogs have additional facial muscles around their eyes that wolves lack in order to mimic human facial expressions. Sheep grow their wool perpetually while their wild counterparts don't because a bigger fleece means they're more likely to be allowed to breed and be kept around. Domestic dairy cows produce much more milk than wild bovine species and domestic hens lay more eggs. Do you know how energy costly producing eggs or milk is for an animal? It's pretty intense! They wouldn't be able to do that if we hadn't given them the food and safety from predators and the elements to.

And we really need to show these animals respect and gratitude for what they give us by taking excellent care of them. They gave up a lot to be with us, often including the means to take care of themselves in the wild. That's a huge reason why I'm not against using animal products, but I hate factory farming. They are still living, breathing creatures with needs and feelings. They deserve a comfortable life and, when the time comes, a humane death.

[alexaloraetheris]

Fun fact! Not only is everything here correct, it's the reason we haven't domesticated bears!

This is a bit to the left of my area of expertise, so bear with me (heh), but there had been attempts to domesticate brown bears several times in human history! Vikings were the first ones we have records of (that I know of) and also in the Roman empire, India and even the Victorians. There were absolutely a few generations of tame brown bears, from pets to zoo performers to hunters and war bears. They did have a chance of being domesticated like the wolves had been.

And all of that effort? Resulted in jack shit. Level of domestication remained zero. The bears got out of that domestication experiment with zero genes altered. There is several reasons for that, one of which being that they live too long and don't breed as fast, and also they are very individual animals as opposed to wolves, so they don't play well in groups, which is kinda necessary.

But the biggest reason? BEARS DON'T NEED HUMANS. There is absolutely no point in a bear's life cycle where it's survival would be immensely impacted for the better by human intervention. They can hunt and forage on their own, no help necessary. They have no trouble surviving harsh climates, so human houses weren't a temptation. They're solitary, so they didn't seek out companionship when alone. They occupy a similar dietary niche as humans so were more competition for resources that an opportunity for mutualism. They certainly didn't need protection.

So even though humans (being human) tried to domesticate bears, bears weren't really playing ball with that. They were just fine on their own, and saw no sufficient incentive to change themselves to fit into a relationship with humans. Sure there are some weirdoes who got fairy-napped as cubs and are happy living with humans, but their genes aren't useful enough to bring into the pool. They saw what happened to the wolves who got too close to the human fire and missionaries are mauled on sight.

The bears are bears, and bears they will stay.

[alexaloraetheris]

@mediterranean-ground-cuckoo you have activated a sleeper agent I didn't know I had in my brain.

Because it's kinda already happened, but not really? The thing about cheetahs is that they are very, very endangered, part of the reason being that cheetah cub mortality rate is something like 80%, which is abnormally high even for wild animals. Cheetahs don't make dens where they can stash their cubs, so they have to sort of drag them around with them and hope predators mistake them for a badger and don't attack them (cheetah cubs have very fluffy fur on top of them as camouflage).

Add in the fact that tjey're basically horse software running on cat hardware? These guys are an anxious wreck, every single one of them. And if left on their own they will absolutely form a positive feedback loop of scaring each other half to death and be too stressed to breed.

Enter wildlife conservation scientists.

These guys really want cheetahs to stay around, and stay wild animals. They are very fucking careful to let cheetahs be wild animals while making sure they don't perish entirely to enviroment, starvation and predation, and that they preferably breed.

Cheetahs see humans staying back and keeping a respectful distance but helping whenever they need it. Everyone who knows cats knows this is basically a marriage proposal done right.

So humans want cheetahs to be proper wild animals. Cheetahs have tried being wild animals and said 'Fuck that shit! That's hard! Come pet me and keep me safe!'

Add in the fact that cheetah gene pool is so fucking limited they can basically all be each other's organ donors, you also gotta bolster their diversity, preferably with healthy cheetahs from zoos, and those are so used to humans some of them will just come up to you and demand to be petted. If it's one of those that was raised with helper dogs? That's basically an oversized housecat, or at least it really wants you to think it is.

And there is also a historical precedent for this! Fucking pharaos kept cheetahs as pets, and if taken young they can be tamed in, like, a year. Tame cheetahs were noble gifts in the Ming dynasty. The Mughals used them as hunting animals (though it might have been carcals or leopards).

Quite frankly, the only reason cheetahs HADN'T been domesticated so far is because getting them to breed in captivity is real fucking hard, and consistent sucesses were achieved only in the seventies. The males need to have their bromance packs (pardon, coalitions) and females need to have a large area to roam. Kinda hard to arrange without a whole lot of land.

So this is, in fact, the exact reverse of bears.