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Pycnanthemum virginianum (Virginia Mountain Mint) is native to the Eastern United States and Canada. It is one of twenty species (not including varieties) in the Pycnanthemum genus, all of which are native to portions of the US and Canada. It is in the Lamiaceae (Mint) family, but is not as vigourous and is easier to contain than many other species.

P. virginianum is a valuable species for native pollinators. The flower structure is such that nectar is easily accessible to polinators with short mouth parts, feeding a wide diversity of visitors. These small, compact, white flowers are especially attractive to wasps, while the purple markings attract bees who might otherwise pass up a white flower.

P. virginianum is a perennial that grows 1-3 ft tall. It prefers partial to full sun, and tolerates a wide variety of soil compositions but prefers moist areas. All parts of the plant are non-toxic.

Check out Pycnanthemum species at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to find your local Pycnanthemums! (and credit to their photo archive for this lovely photo).

#plants #native plants #native plant gardening #gardening #botany #ecology #united states #northeastern united states #canada #polinators #wildflowers #native bees #pycnanthemum posting

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! 💐

#science #space science #space travel

solarprominence

I maintain that the best summation of my feminist beliefs are that men and women are not fundamentally different. There are a few quantifiable differences if you average out every woman and every man, but they are not qualitative. And most of them are socially constructed, and would be fixed if we started treating men and women the same. Neither is inherently smarter, neither is inherently kinder, neither is inherently more stoic or stronger or angrier or softer. Everyone is obsessed with the differences between women and men, with finding them and creating them and distancing themselves from the "other half". It's fucked up

#gender stuff #social structures

thejewellerybox

Masy the Chameleon ring by Boucheron, 2016

Pink, yellow, orange, purple, and blue sapphires, set in yellow gold. This originally retailed at around $50,000.

From 'Animaux de Collection'.

#art #jewelry

herpsandbirds

can I get some snakes in the same genus as garters? I’m kinda curious because today I picked up a big garter and after a photo I realized SHE WAS GIVING BIRTH! 😭 I had no clue their particular genus gives live birth and now I’m wondering what other snakes are in the same genus as garters

THAMNOPHIS!!!

Ok so, all the snakes in this genus are basically "garter snakes". Some of the snakes that don't have as much cross banding are called ribbon snakes, but ribbon snakes are basically "garter snakes".

They are all live bearing. This genus is North American, found from Canada to Costa Rica.

Here are some examples:

Oregon Red-spotted Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis concinnus), family Colubridae, Oregon, USA

photograph by Dan Loida Buama-Hyman

Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis s. sirtalis), family Colubridae, Ohio, USA

This individual is unusually bluish.

Garter snakes are actually mildly venomous. This venom is not injected into the prey through fangs. The saliva has venom components, and enters the prey through the bite wound.

This venom is effective against small cold blooded prey, and is not medically significant to humans.

It has a paralytic effect on prey.

* It might work to slow down an earthworm so it can be swallowed, but for you it will have no effect or cause mild pain, redness and swelling.

photograph by Ryan Wagner

http://herpingmichigan.blogspot.com/

San Francisco Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia), family Colubridae, coastal California, USA

ENDANGERED.

photograph by Matome

Butler’s Garter Snake (Thamnophis butleri), family Colubridae, Wisconsin, USA

photograph by Mike Day

Plains Garter Snake (Thamnophis radix), family Colubridae, OH, USA

photograph by Adrian Bara-Popa

Narrow-headed Garter Snake (Thamnophis rufipunctatus), family Colubridae, found in and near streams in NM and AZ, USA

photograph by Bruce Christman

Northwestern Garter Snake (Thamnophis ordinoides), family Colubridae, BC, Canada

Photograph by Scott Gillingwater

Red-stripe Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis proximus rubrilineatus), family Colubridae, found in central and West TX, USA

A sub-species of the Western Ribbon Snake

photograph by Garter Kings

Coast Gartersnake (Thamnophis elegans terrestris), “flame phase”, family Colubridae, central coast of California, USA

photograph by Emile Badojr

Blackneck Garter Snake (Thamnophis cyrtopsis), family Colubridae, Arizona, USA

photograph by Justin Doll

#snakes #beafts #animal photography

evergreen-femme

had to share this

wizardshark

In every way this is set up to be a joke like any other short video, it even uses the trope of main character in a wig to represent their mom, but it isn't funny at all. It's just sweet and nice

alfedena

Entry level jobs haven't existed since the 2008 crash. 90% of hiring managers won't hire recent graduates. A quarter of job listings are ghost jobs. Companies hire part time so that they don't have to give benefits. Federal minimum wage hasn't increased since 2009. The True Unemployment Rate is 25%. Master's are the new bachelor's. For most the job search takes over a year. 75% of resumes are never. actually seen by the hiring team.

vergess

Imperialist core entry level jobs have been replaced with outsourcing for the working class and internships for the wealthy.

The lack of entry level jobs means that recent graduates are not hired because they are expected to know in advance how to behave in the workplace rather than being trained when they begin working.

Actually as many as 1-in-3 job listings are fake, because this allows companies to claim they are "actively recruiting and growing" even when they aren't, which looks good to investors and can lead to government benefits as well.

In the US, hiring several part time jobs allows companies to save about 30% on benefits compared to hiring one full time job. This is directly because of the US's predatory healthcare system and lack of the worker protections common in other imperialist core economies.

The US minimum wage has been static for my entire adult life, in part because efforts to pin the minimum wage to cost of living metrics are constantly stonewalled by wealthy political groups.

The US labor participation rate is around 80% of abled adults, which yes, does mean about 20% of abled adults are not working, but perhaps much more damningly, this is actually very high participation compared to a lot of US history, and yet the cost of living and pay are so mismatched that quality of life is reaching impressive lows.

Masters degrees are being devalued as a consequence of the prior devaluation of Bachelors, that itself caused by the destruction and devaluation of compulsory public schooling in the US. This combines with the absence of entry level positions in deeply fraught ways.

I am unable to corroborate the claim that US job searches average greater than a year. However they do average well over 7 months, and the US's notoriously spiteful and underpaying unemployment system cuts off support much sooner than that. If you can even get unemployment support in the first place.

And finally, yes, 75% of completed and successful applications will be automatically rejected by machines without human oversight. That's for complete applications on the company's own site with resumes attached. Just plain resumes, and applications completed on third party sites like Indeed, have much worse numbers than even that.

#current events #job hunting #economics

sleaterkinnie-deactivated202412

i love this image

digitaldiscipline

do you love the colour of this thigh (bruise)

youthincare

people should be allowed to have low ambition, and also be able to feed a family on the salary of a cashier at a convenience store.

aetherograph

And! We need cashiers. And convenience stores. And I think it's kind of broken that society says people who want to do stuff like that have "low" ambition (not you OP, I get you're using it illustratively because that's what society labels said jobs) and don't deserve to live at the same standard as people with "high" ambitions.

If we need someone to do a job, that job is a role in the community and deserves not just a salary but cultural respect for the role.

"high" ambition jobs are all jobs that involve domineering and controlling others. "low" ambition jobs are all jobs that involve service to others. Have you noticed? Because I have noticed.

But serving others is actually more needed than controlling them.

blunt-skuncher402

People are shocked when I say I'd trade my office job for a career in food service or cashiering if I could pay my bills with it. I love customer service--it's legitimately my passion. But I get paid and treated like dogshit in those jobs, so it's not worth it.

korunak

christ in the wilderness, ivan kramskoy

thatbitchsimone

he looks like he needs a cigarette

@apocrypals

yo huge fucking reminder that TJD / “total joyous day” or any other positive word that start with J is a NAZI DOGWHISTLE

TJD stands for total Jewish death .

TKD / “Total kind day” / any other positive word variations that start with k is another NAZI DOGWHISTLE.

It stands for total [Jewish slur] death. please keep looking out for people saying these words.

theres-a-hole-in-my-wall

t[x]d is almost always a nazi dogwhistle! Totally [x] day is always a nazi dogwhistle. There's also tnd (total n-word death) and tgd/trd (total g-slur death/total roma death) that I'm aware of

But there must be more

#dog whistles

rosewitchhh-deactivated20211123

DISCUSS

#well no one has tried to kill me yet...

thelawfulchaotic

Anyway I’m making a new party and it’s called the People Alive Party and it’s all about people being alive (at least until they’re fuckoff old or until they voluntarily relinquish the state of being alive).

We don’t give a fuck about punishment. We do medical research. We give housing and food. Education makes people live longer? Build the Schools. How will we do abortion control? How does it strike you to have free childcare until age 6? Three years each of parental leave? How about just paying money to kids so they have money to be alive?

Prisons kill people. What if we tried to prevent murder instead. What if you could get free housing and food and childcare if you left your abusive partner. What if we could make it so that your name disappears off the Internet when they try to track you.

Anyway. People Alive: For Alive People.

aetherograph

Yes this, let's goooooo!

Montessori works best? Teachers get training in that pedagogy and we build and supply public schools to be Montessori. Absolute bodily autonomy for everyone. Children are people let's sign and ratify the UN children's rights charter. Youth liberation--what if leaving your abusive parent/guardian was easier i.e. you could get housing and food and all the things you need to be alive without relying on your parent/guardian for it? Humans need stuff to be alive? Ok that stuff is provided and guaranteed by the government now--water, food, medicine, housing, etc. Safe dosing centres help people using drugs stay alive? Cool let's build more of those and staff them with kind and competent medical practitioners. Disabled people need buildings altered so they can get in? Cool let's alter those buildings! The outside world needs some alterations to be safe and navigable for disabled folks and children? Cool let's do it! Art and nature make people thrive better? Cool let's put all the art and nature all over the places we live. Murals and greenspaces and all that. Play is good for all ages? Cool let's make play an integral part of the outside world: swings at bus stops, public art you can play with and climb on, recess breaks and playgrounds for everybody not just kids. There's people that are in danger at their workplace because they lack workplace protections? Well let's make it so they can have workplace protections like everyone else and a chance to unionise then! Give OSHA, FDA, USDA, and the IRS teeth (i.e. staff). Put a labour rights lawyer in the NLRB again and give them TEETH. Dissolve the DHS and separate out all the departments properly again so they can work better. Maybe revisit and update some of the research the Department of Home Economics was doing in regard to ergonomics of household chores, design, and giving people resources so they can live better in their homes. These are all departments that are there to keep people alive!

(ergonomics of household chores and practical issues of storage and design in the home is my pet issue. People completely dismiss it because they hate chores and assign them as Oppressive OR they straight-up don't know that the actual dactual government--the Department of Home Economics, which was a branch of government that employed women as a majority, the first and only time that has happened--did a lot of research and sent out resources and information to help people make the tasks of daily living better and easier; there were recipe books for cafeterias and households that figured out how to get everyone nutrition on a budget, there were garden plans, seed banks, sewing patterns, closet and storage DIY plans to add storage to old houses, as well as the fitted kitchen itself, one of the only real pieces of evidence that this happened at all. No matter how poorly designed your kitchen feels, the fact that it has counters all around the edges that are fitted to the wall is itself because of the research done by the DHE. And making your home work better helps keep you alive!)

I believe the government's job is to make sure everyone stays alive and is thriving. That is the whole reason we as human animals even made a thing called "government" in the first place.

#social structures #community organization #government policy