TIL the reason you don’t find much Lyme’s Disease in California is not because we don’t have Ticks, or Lyme Disease Vectors; but rather: because the Western Fence Lizard (if you live anywhere in California this is your regular Garden Variety Lizard) has adapted a passive immune response that makes their blood lethal to Lyme Disease Bacteria. Any Tick that feeds on one gets its gut cleansed of Lyme Disease as a side effect.
There is a new vaccine going into Phase 3 trials from Valneva and Pfizer as well as a monoclonal antibody-based prophylactic treatment being researched at UMass!
i always thought it was silly that people would get so pedantic & heated over the idea of fantasy novels using words derived from real locations like "champagne" or "lesbian" or whatever. "a fantasy setting cant have words that are dependent on real-world context" i have bad news for you about all words
like the way i see it if youre writing a high fantasy novel in (eg) english then either (a) youre treating the characters as not *literally* speaking english, & the book is framed as translating or otherwise rendering their speech in english, meaning that literally any english word should be fair game because it's something for the benefit of the reader, not something the characters are actually Saying, or (b) youre saying the characters *are* literally speaking english, in which case youve already fudged your fantasy setting's relationship to language so much that youve forfeited your right to pedantry
calling women anything other than women is actual 2022 misogyny and i’m tired of calling it anything else.
bleeders, menstruators, chest feeders, pregnant people, people with uteruses, people who menstruate, birthing persons, uterus owners, uterus bearers, anything of that sort is woman-hating nonsense.
women. women women women women women.
if you think women are “karens” or transphobic or terfs or any other negative word for not wanting to be dehumanized, you hate women and don’t think we deserve any basic respect. that’s it.
I had covid when I was 30 weeks pregnant with Bum Bum, and I developed a secondary pneumonia infection and had to go to the ER. My nurse made this super big show of calling me a “pregnant person” every chance she got. I finally told her she didn’t need to say “pregnant person” and I would really prefer being called a pregnant woman or expectant mother.
This B (I hated her for other reasons at this point) got all huffy about how “we try to be inclusive and we understand that some of our pregnant patients do not identify as women or mothers.”
Maybe it was because I’d been there for four hours in a bed I couldn’t adjust with a nurse I didn’t like and the equivalent of a watermelon jammed into my diaphragm, but I snapped “Well, I DO. I do not appreciate being called a pregnant person. I am a woman and a mother and you will refer to me as such or I’ll file a complaint.”
The nurse looked at me like I’d slapped her. I’m not even kidding.
Woman and Mother are titles I have freaking earned, thank you very much. I suffered the travails of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and postpartum TWICE and I did not do that so you could erase it by calling me anything other than what I am.
For my fellow lefties: What ATBNL is describing is being misgendered. Because guess what! Calling someone by neutral pronouns when they are a woman is still misgendering. Use gender-neutral language for people who are gender-neutral, or when describing mixed-gender groups. It is not a Get Out Of Bigotry Free card.
Use the pronouns and language people want you to use.
This video has been getting AI accusations and it isn't! All these types of woods exist! Though some of them are local names, I was able to track all of them down! Here are all the woods shown in the video!
Purpleheart Wood: Peltogyne genus, native to Central and South American rainforests. Freshly cut it's light brown, then turns into rich shades of purple. It turns brown in UV light so it has to be finished with a UV inhibitor to keep those gorgeous colors.
Namnu (various): A type of precious wood found in China/South Asia, sourced from various different species of trees, hence the different examples shown here. High grades of the wood are known for the optical effect shown in the video. Unfortunately the types of trees that produce the wood are all critically endangered, which is why the examples shown are all items or pillars or fragments of pieces. The species are all strictly protected and new trees cannot be harvested.
That example in the video is just that one video that goes around with the inside of a tree that's been struck burning while it still stands, but sometimes trees that have been struck by lightning and are cut down can have neat burn patterns in the wood (example), as the lightning goes to ground, so some people might want that. Who am I to judge.
Chicken-blood vine wood: Species is Spatholobus suberectus and it's only that bright when it's cut, it dries to a more woody color. Here's a page with examples of what the wood looks like when it's dried and some things made with it.
Amber wood: This one took a while. There's a video out there claiming this is "petrified amber wood". That's not possible, I'm a geologist I would know. Since the video is in Chinese originally I presume, "amber wood" must be a translated local name. It's sandalwood, which has that gorgeous bright red color. Even tracked down the video the clip is taken from. "Chandan wood" is another name for sandalwood. Which smells amazing.
Rosewood: The most well known of the woods here in my opinion. There's a number of rosewoods, all in various shades of pinks and reds. True rosewoods are from the genus Dalbergia. Sadly they're all endangered, but illegal harvesting continues.
Purple hainan huanghuali: Dalbergia odorifera, the Chinese rosewood.
Pink oak - Likely pink ivory (Phyllogeiton zeyheri). You need a permit to cut down one of these trees, but it really is that pink. One of the most expensive woods in the world, up there with sandalwood.
Burmese huanghuali: Rosewood...3! This is either Dalbergia oliveri or Pterocarpus indicus, but given that Pterocarpus indicus is descripted as having purplish heartwood, I'm guessing it's Dalbergia oliveri. Though it's not a true rosewood, Pterocarpus indicus is also sadly endangered.
Liudao wood: This is Abelia biflora, though it looks like it has been reclassified as Zabelia biflora recently. Either it only looks like that when the bark is being peeled or it's the lighting in the videos. BUT this wood is used in making Buddhist prayer beads because of both its grain pattern connects to philosophy and its mention in Tibetan Buddhist texts.
Thank you for all that work!! I recognized some of the woods (since my siblings in law woodwork) but not all of them, and was going to look into them when I woke up, but you've gone and brought up all the treasure from the rabbit hole!
This image captures the Tarantula Nebula in all of its cosmic glory. Astronomers study nebulae like this one to learn about how elements form and disperse throughout the galaxy, seeding space with planetary building blocks.
Clouds of dust and gas called nebulae speckle our galaxy. Some are ferocious cosmic factories that churn out baby stars by the hundreds of thousands, while others are grave markers of stars long dead. Astronomers study them to learn about how stars and planets form, and how ingredients are recycled in space.
But all that dust is difficult to see through, and nebulae are often so large that today’s most powerful space telescopes can only realistically study tiny patches of them. That’s where our soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope comes in.
This video of the Eagle Nebula showcases Roman’s superb resolution and wide field of view. It begins with a Hubble image of the famous Pillars of Creation superimposed on a ground-based image. The view then zooms out to show the full field of view of Roman’s Wide Field Instrument. Roman’s images will have the resolution of Hubble while covering an area about 100 times larger in a single pointing.
Roman will pair a large view of space with infrared heat vision. That combination is a game-changer for studying nebulae.
Here’s how it usually works. Ground-based telescopes take large but somewhat blurry images of a nebula. Then space-based observatories like our Hubble and James Webb space telescopes zoom in on small patches to show us the details of particularly interesting regions. But with Roman, we’ll get the big picture and incredible detail all in one.
That saves astronomers a lot of time, which opens up new avenues of exploration. For example, instead of spending several months stitching together hundreds of individual images of the Orion nebula with Hubble or Webb, Roman could cover it in a matter of hours in just a few snapshots.
Roman’s vast surveys will give us a census of stellar nurseries, where fledgling stars are being born from parent clouds of gas and dust. Studying these nebular nesting grounds will reveal millions of stellar embryos, newborn stars still swaddled in shrouds of dust, toddler stars that throw tantrums and flare unpredictably, and young stars that may have planetary systems forming around them.
A single Roman survey of our Milky Way galaxy will capture thousands of nebulae, unveiling planet formation and the full lifecycle of stars like never before. That includes their spectacular final acts.
This Hubble image showcases the Hourglass nebula, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away.
Garden-variety stars like the Sun live fairly placid lives, casually churning out heat and light for billions of years by fusing hydrogen into helium. That nuclear process creates a lot of energy and outward pressure. For a long time, it’s held in check by the inward pull of gravity. But when a star runs out of fuel to fuse, gravity takes over.
Their cores shrink so fast that their outer shells of gas are left behind, which puff out and transform into unique and often psychedelic works of art called planetary nebulae (so-called because they looked similar to planets in early telescopes). Heftier stars meet more dramatic fates, with a runaway reaction that leads to the star’s detonation: a supernova explosion! Both result in nebulae that look like kaleidoscopic dreamscapes.
This image of supernova remnant W49B combines X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and green, radio data from the NSF’s Very Large Array in pink, and infrared data from Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in yellow.
Star deaths create conditions so extreme that it can form new elements. The iron, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and nickel that together account for around 96% of the Earth's bulk were flung into space by supernova explosions. And some of the elements that make up your DNA, like carbon and nitrogen, were forged by smaller dying stars. You are literally made of stardust!
Roman will help us learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout the galaxy, all while exploring many other cosmic questions.
This artist’s concept visualizes visible light in blue, showing how its short wavelength means it will easily run into dust particles. Longer wavelength infrared light, visualized in orange, can more easily pass through dust.
Roman’s infrared vision is key, because it will allow astronomers to see through the dust that often blocks telescopes that view other types of light. It’s hard for visible light to penetrate this dusty haze because the particles are the same size or even larger than the light’s wavelength. Since infrared light travels in longer waves, it hardly notices the tiny particles and can pass more easily through dusty regions.
By seeing through dust, we'll get a far better view of stars and other objects that are in nebulae and the cosmic structures that lie behind them. Astronomers will soon be able to chart our galaxy like never before!
An artist’s concept based on the final design of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
We’re only about a month out from launch, and so close to a completely new understanding of the universe and our place within it. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at nasa.gov/roman, and virtually tour the Roman observatory here.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
2025 boyfriend: I have been DMing instagram models and purchasing their OnlyFans content with money from our shared bank account. Also, I am a high value redpilled male and you should work your ass off for crumbs of my affection.
Iron Age boyfriend: help girl they’re cutting my nipples off with a ceremonial knife and throwing my bound corpse into a bog
2025 boyfriend: Despite cheating on you and leeching off you for 6 months, I am going to have a screaming crying breakdown when you try to leave me and piss myself and get so very angry when you call my mom to come get me.
Iron Age boyfriend: the crops would not grow, they are saying I have displeased the gods, this is the only way to save the people, my blood will sate this land I have dishonored. also I have 6 parasites and 3 serious infectious diseases so I was going to go soon anyway I think.
I’d like to issue a public apology for not making it clear I have never had a boyfriend from the Iron Age and this post is a hypothetical creative work about the stark differences in quality of life and dating culture in 2025 and 2 thousand years ago in Iron Age Ireland. I am so sorry for not clarifying that and potentially spreading misinformation about the 6’6" Irish dreamboat that must have been the Old Croghan Man.
Rude. Also, the crazy height estimate on Old Croghan Man isn’t so bizarre within the context of other Iron Age Irish bog mummies. Cashel Man and Gallagh Man were also very tall for prehistoric humans. Not sure what was going on in Ireland but there were a lot of tall 20 something guys being thrown in bogs ritualistically for several thousand years.
2. They help other people understand what a healthy relationship looks like.
3. Fights can last for weeks and still be part of a healthy marriage.
4. Stereotypes. Break all the marriage stereotypes.
5. Soft cute couple moments DON’T stop after marriage.
6. Marriage is completely independent of character arcs. Those two individuals with trauma will still be two individuals with trauma but with gold rings.
7. A healthy marriage is one where people understand that their partners have baggage/trauma/flaws, but love them even in rough patches.
8. It isn’t that healthy marriages aren’t compelling, it’s that people don’t know how to write marriages correctly.
9. Marriages being an end goal often perpetuates that women are trophies to be won.
10. Marriages being an end goal often perpetuates that someone’s “freedom” ends there. Bury this trope, please, I beg of you.
Writing a healthy marriage is a more natural, interesting, and satisfactory progression of romance than undoing progress made in an earlier installment of the series in order to prolong the “chase.” Give your characters happiness; then threaten it for the plot of the sequel, not by having the characters be stupid within the context of their relationship, but by applying exterior stresses that strain untested parts of the relationship, so that the plot is resolved by the couple working together (even when it may seem they are not!) to pass the test of their relationship and also save the day. Nothing is more satisfactory to watch than that. Nothing.
(Detective series do this better, more often, than other genres.)
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