welcome to my busted mind

hey, I'm Nika, I'm 30 and use they/them pronouns! I am an ecologist, and an immigrant in Scotland. I queue posts semi-regularly.

[hope-for-the-planet]

70% Drop in Levels of Forever Chemicals Observed in Seabird Eggs Tracks Regulatory Success

These pescatarian birds are directly exposed to PFAS contamination due to the island's position near the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

While continued vigilance a regulation is needed, this data indicates that regulations are working to reduce PFAS concentrations in marine ecosystems.

[sattarehi]

Yes!!!! I did a review of literature on PFASs in human drinking water about half a year ago, and there is a lot of really good progress! Please celebrate this, please don't let this solution be forgotten (at least so quickly) as the ozone layer or acid rain.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

Environmental problems CAN BE SOLVED.

[wearegoingfuckinganywhereman]

[dovesndecay]

Microaggressions against polyamory in interpersonal interactions are important and should be discussed, but I do wish more of the conversation focused on the ways that systemic amatonormativity impact things like family units, taxes, healthcare, inheritances, housing, childcare, etc.

I'm not dating or married or related to anyone I live with, and our household of four adults can't get any kind of financial or food or housing aid because we count as three separate households despite our semi-blended finances and living together for a decade. There are laws that have been proposed (at least, I don't know if any passed) that limit housing to nuclear families.

Amatonormativity and polyphobia are not just theoretical "people are kinda mean about this sometimes" -- they are real and materially impactful systemic issues, and they affect all of us.

[kuutamosonaatti]

Morsiuslahja, pehmokissa (handmade cat plush) A wedding gift for a bride from a groom, 1920-1922

[depsidase]

[bisexualityjunkie]

[importantcatpics]

[kayla-denker]

Hey, you, cis girl that's very (correctly) vocal about women being allowed to talk about their periods, do you include trans women in that?

I ask because every single time I've tried to talk about it to anyone that isn't a trans woman they get fucking angry. Which has caused me to have to just suffer in silence every single month. So I really relate to cis women when they talk about literally the exact same thing; being shamed by everyone around them their whole lives for talking about their periods, so they just suffer in silence every month as it negatively impacts their work and social lives. But I don't even feel like I can voice that I am literally dealing with the same exact thing because most of y'all react like you want to throw me in front of a bus for saying it, even those of you who act like your such big great transfem allies.

[kayla-denker]

I guess I'll take this opportunity to talk about trans women periods. The first thing any tme person thinks when they hear this is always "how can trans women have periods? They don't have uteruses!"

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

"But you can't call it a period then because that refers to MENSTRUATION!" is another one I hear all the time. This is incorrect. You use the word "period" instead of just "menstruation" because it doesn't just refer to menstruation. It refers to a period at the end of the hormone cycle where we experience a host of symptoms. And not all cis women experience all of the symptoms that encompass the period. Not all cis women get migraines, or body aches, or have severe depression. If a cis woman gets a hysterectomy she doesn't menstruate either! In that instance she experiences an identical period to what trans women experience. Yet, I doubt you'd insist that cis women who've had hysterectomies don't have periods.

[kayla-denker]

Oh, another thing that I personally discovered after bottom surgery: vaginal odor changes for trans women during our periods too. I was not expecting that because I always thought it was just from menstruation. But nope, the ph levels of a trans woman's vagina are the same of as a cis woman's vagina, and it changes during our periods just the same.

[maryfitzroy]

What Movement Would You Have Joined in Early Modern Europe? A Typology Quiz — theodramatist

A typology quiz for the years 1500 to 1789. Thirty-four questions, thirty-four types—humanist, Puritan, philosophe, magus, salonnière, merce

babe wake up new quiz dropped

[coldalbion]

[isawken]

do u think sinkdog yearns to run on all fours. do u think sinkdog wants to growl and howl with a pack to call her own. do u think sinkdog craves freedom from her imposed domesticity, dreams of bathing in rivers unfathomably larger than the water that runs through her, desires a life that is free and covered in dirt and smells like dirt too and she never has to swallow soap ever again if she does not want to or do you think she’s like. so into doing the dishes it doesn’t even cross her mind

[identitty-dickruption]

my safe clothing items that I wear day in day out for years and years should never break or rip or wear down. the power of friendship should stop that kind of thing

[wholesome-animal-images]

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

It's always "stop harming yourself or we'll have to lock you up!!!" and never "what do you need to change to want to harm yourself less and how can we help you make some of these changes?" and that's why we're not getting anywhere

[thornysort]

not a human, not a machine / print

[confessionsdiaz]

i am well aware of the absolutely fucked up things eating disorders do to people’s brains, and i am sympathetic, but I still think acknowledging publicly that these celebrities are promoting looking emaciated on death’s door is important. Can you imagine being 13 and seeing this shit? Every celebrity event looks like a thinspo board, it’s awful.

[confessionsdiaz]

People talk about women's bodies far too much; this is true. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be addressing the elephant in the room of insane weight loss and eds. it isnt fucking normal or healthy

[bakedbananners]

hey girl. I mean. SecurityUnit.

[70sscifiart]

A 1968 sketch by Syd Mead depicting a space station under construction

[70sscifiart]

Hey, I found the final version, too!