What I did on my Holidays

Sex and Death: The roles of the Horse Goddess in Indo-European Mythology Phylogenetic classification of Corvids & other projects Follow the adventures of a nerd as she tries to write a 2500 word essay, get into vet school and not get bored. I like science - all of it, but especially genetics. I like mythology and linguistics and cartography and books. Having been set the challenge of doing a project on anything I liked, I was offered the medium of tumblr. Although I opted to write a conventional(ish) essay, I decided to document my research (and procrastination) here. Yes, I swear. I FOLLOW BACK #teamfollowback

[research-scrapbook-blog]

[mapsontheweb]

Frequency of red hair in Europe

[research-scrapbook-blog]

WHAT. WHAT IS THE GINGER CLUMP IN RUSSIA? MUST LOOK IT UP.

[cheeso]

what if everyone in the world could manipulate one crab. and it was their soul crab and like if we sycnhronized our thoughts our crabs could work together as an army and overthrow evil governments but you could also use your crab for evil like to snip someone

it would be an interesting view into the hearts of humans, these soul crabs

[homosethsual]

It’s 2AM somewhere

[cheeso]

crabs have no concept of time. only creation and destruction

[ryandonato-deactivated20130922]

[jjswag21]

Congratulations, you broke physics.

[secretobama]

this gave me an aneurysm

[folksongsandfolly]

The “but how?” photoset

[best-of-funny]

X

[sndwave]

In order, left to right and top to bottom:

Not sure, but probably from a layer of ice underneath the snow (against the metal), most likely with a minor icey layer on top as well, melted and slid down into shape, then refroze in the pictured position.

The box is longer back towards the vent, where you can’t see, and cats are both majorly fluffy for most breeds and like to curl up in tight spaces. That’s actually a very achievable spot for the cat!

Most likely the car spun on a patch of ice (note the ice on the curb), and stopped just right. It’s a one-in-a-million, but when it happens you certainly wouldn’t let the opportunity go by for a picture to make everyone go “how the fuck?”

Platforms an inch or two under the surface, I’ve seen this plenty of times. Nice gymnastics skills, though.

This one took me a while. Notice how soon after he hits the water, he moves his arms, separating them? He does this so the innertube (or whatever it’s called) can escape from his forearms, slide under his body as it’s still tilted towards the surface, and pop up behind him. 

This one is simply lots of practice.

This one is also lots of practice and also lots of flexibility, probably with some gymnastics training.

This is a painting. I can’t remember the exact post, but this is a painting. A really, really realistic painting.

This one is the photographic proof of Why You Shouldn’t Let Physics Majors Play Jenga. There’s a tumblr post somewhere about it.

And this is one is air pressure, the pressure of the air in the glass in conjunction with the room’s air pressure is preventing the water from leaving the glass. I don’t know exactly which force or what is the chief cause, but my teacher showed us how to do it in one of my summer classes a few years ago.

I’m not 100% on some, but I’m fairly confident for most of them.

[asian-deactivated20130821]

*tears up*

[k-lionheart-deactivated20171126]

Get ready for the Disney movies, people.

[sparklerogers]

So I’m reading the article and then this:

For example, there is the tale of a maiden who escapes a witch by transforming herself into a pond. The witch then lies on her stomach and drinks all the water, swallowing the young girl, who uses a knife to cut her way out of the witch.

German fairytales are so brutal. (I love that)

[scienceisbeauty]

Diatoms Pleurosigma, birefringence image (polarized light microscope)

Credit&Source: Michael Shribak, The Cellular Dynamics Program at the MBL.

[youknowyourebritishwhen]

beautifull british bbc headline

[forestbee]

Friend: "Does ke$ha go by k€sha in Europe??"

  Oh. :’) 

[todropscience]

EMBRYO FIN WHALE

Preserved from the days of the Antarctic whaling. The mother whale was landed at South Georgia.

Fin whales are the second largest whales in the world next to the blue whale. They can grow up to 25 metres long. This embryo is only about 4 cm long.

Between the 1900s and the 1960s, thousands and thousands of whales were fished out the waters surrounding Antarctica.

source: Museum Shetland Archive

[mapsontheweb]

London Underground depicted in a circular map format.

[unknown-endangered]

Saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica)

Critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.

Saiga tatarica has populations in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, with the Kazakh population also migrating to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the winter. During winter, the coat changes from thin and buff-coloured to thick and white. Its fascinating nose is believed to help filter out dust in the dry summer months, and to warm freezing air before it reaches the lungs in winter. The nose also swells in males during the mating season, when males compete with each other for harems of females.

Habitat degradation and hunting are thought to be the main threats to S. tatarica. The horns are used in traditional Chinese medicine, and as only males have them, populations can quickly become unbalanced with far more females than males.

S. tatarica is listed under Appendix II of CITES, and hunting is banned over its entire range. Better enforcement of anti-poaching laws and more research into the reproduction of this species are still needed. 

[dailyanimals]

[10knotes]

bryarly:

“I’m sad.”

“OK. I’ll lick you until you’re not sad.”

“…OK.”

[anatomicalart]

[ethantate]

[asgardiancherrypudding-blog]

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW, GENDER ROLES?

[zombielynx21-deactivated2018121]

This is actually probably the best way to do things.

[kqedscience]

British Cat DNA Database helps convict killer "Fingerprints are not the only thing that killers can leave behind - add cat hair to that list. A British university said Wednesday that its DNA database of British felines helped convict a man of manslaughter, illustrating how the genetic material of pets can be used by crime scene investigators.”

[itsokaytobesmart]

[medicalschool]

Huge Viruses Are Shaking Up The Tree of Life

Pandoraviruses are challenging some long-held biological beliefs. These newly-discovered beasts are larger, in size and in genetic complexity, than any other virus that we know of (details on the graphic are below). They are not as doom-worthy as their name implies, but they may have opened a box full of new biological forms that will challenge what we think of when we say “alive” or “virus”. For the scientific low-down on pandoraviruses, check out this great article by Carl Zimmer.

Giant viruses of all kinds seem to be more common than we’ve ever imagined. It makes sense, in a way. Just like there is not a clear transition point between any two species, the complexity of life should also exist on a continuum from the small (bacterial viruses) to the complex (us). So maybe these little guys aren’t so surprising after all?

I drew up a little graphic (above) to show just how large and complex pandoraviruses are compared to other life forms. 

Pandoraviruses are huge. A human egg cell is about 100 millionths of a meter across. An E. coli is about 50 times smaller. But pandoraviruses (which dwarf flu viruses) are nearly as big as the bacterium! 

The area of the circles show how many genes each type of cell contains. The human genome has about 20,000 genes, while E. coli has about 4,500. Compared to a measly 13 genes in the flu virus, pandoraviruses have about 2,500!, almost none of which seem to be related to known genes.

The size of the genome, in bases, is where it gets weird. The human egg’s genome, at 3 billion bases, dwarfs them all. E. coli and pandoraviruses have around 4 and 2 million, respectively. And there’s a tiny little single pixel in there representing the 13,588 letters of the influenza genome.

I can’t wait to see what other kinds of life/not life we find inside this Pandora’s box.