#center for spatial research

[crowroboros]

A Really Cool Detail About Might Crystals in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

The first time I encountered a Might Crystal was maybe ~an hour into the game. I think I found it in a chest or something in Suthorn Forest and the first thing that I thought was "Huh...that looks kind of like bismuth." But, as I was so early on in the story that I didn't know much about what the Might Crystals were, I didn't think much more of it.

Well here I am with 46 additional hours worth of playtime in Echoes of Wisdom, and I'm here to say that there is a very cool reason that Might Crystals resemble bismuth crystals!

Before we get into bismuth, I need to talk about what is going on in Echoes of Wisdom. This WILL contain mid-to-late game spoilers, so do be warned.

Long before Creation there was nothing more than a void—a vast empty oblivion. Occasionally, bits of matter would spark to life in this nothingness. Nothing substantial, just small clumps of reality managing to form only for a moment. Only a moment, for anything that managed to flicker to life was devoured by the one who dwelt within this void:

Null.

Null is the main antagonist of Echoes of Wisdom. It is an ancient, incomprehensible lifeform that thrives in the absoluteness of zero. Nothingness personified.

Seeing the way these sparks of existence were so quickly extinguished, the three Golden Goddesses—Din, the Goddess of Power; Nayru, the Goddess of Wisdom; and Farore, the Goddess of Courage—descended from the heavens and forced Creation. Together, the three built the world itself and everything that makes up reality with Null imprisoned and contained at its center.

The Golden Goddess then departed back to the heavens, leaving behind the Triforce, the Secret Stones (though they aren't relevant for this, just thought I'd throw them in since we know they were created around this time), and the Tris. The Triforce and the Tris served as the glue keeping reality together; the Tris specifically being created to maintain the structure of the world, as even though Null was imprisoned that didn't stop it from consuming and returning the world to nothingness.

From the point of Creation onward, Null and the Tris were locked in a delicate balancing act of destruction and recreation. Null ate away at the world, creating rifts that tore through reality. And in turn, the Tris constantly patched up these rifts, quickly restoring what was lost.

This return to nothingness is a major part of the themes of Echoes of Wisdom, and why Might Crystals likely were inspired by bismuth.

Might Crystals—as well as the energy they produce—are some of the only things capable of withstanding Null and the void. When everything else is lost, these crystals remain. But what does this have to do with Bismuth?

Well visually both Might Crystals and Bismuth share the iconic stairstep spiral growth structure, but the main reason I believe bismuth to be the inspiration for the Might Crystals is the Bismuth-209 isotope.

Bismuth was previously thought to be the heaviest stable element, with only one stable isotope (Bismuth-209). I say previously because in 2003, a research team at the IAS (Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, a research institute in France) came to the realization that the Bismuth-209 isotope is actually undergoing alpha decay at an incredibly slow rate. How slow? Well it was determined that Bismuth-209 has a half life of approximately...

2.01x10^19 years. Or about 20,100,000,000,000,000,000 years (20 quintillion if you don't know/don't want to count out the zeroes).

For reference, that is billions of years longer than the current estimated age of the universe.

It is because of this inconceivably long half-life that it is said that bismuth will be among the last elements to disintegrate. And it is that bit of information that I believe inspired Might Crystals. If you need to come up with a crystal that can withstand nothingness itself and outlive matter in a void that consumes endlessly, what better choice to base it off of than the element that decays so slow that we used to think that it was stable?

I just thought that it was a cool detail. This is a bit different from my other Zelda posts—as this isn't me talking about the lore and story, but rather me talking about a possible irl inspiration for something in the series—but I thought this was really cool and I wanted to share my thoughts.

[circeyoru]

Collection of Overlords _ Part 4 = Requested

[Alastor x Soul Owner of All Overlords!Reader]

The (somewhat) Request (it's more of an ask of when this is gonna be out)

Part 1 — Part 1.5 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 (here) — Part 5 — Part 6 — Part 7 — Part 8 — Part 9  — Part 10 — Part 11 — Part 12 — Part 13 — Part 14 — Part 15 — Part 16 — Epilogue

The reunion and meeting of the century, or perhaps even longer, was on the way. With you seated at the head and your hand-picked souls to the side of the table. To your left starting with the closest was Zestial and Carmilla, to your right should be Alastor but he remained standing by your side behind you so not counting his empty seat, you have Rosie then Zeezi

Now, opposite to you, on the other side of the table were the three Vees, with Vox at the center and the other two, Velvette and Valentino, on either sides

With a soft hum, you decided to change the setting a bit. You snapped your fingers and the long rectangular table changed to a circular one, everyone seated in more sophisticated armchairs catered to their unique forms. There were equal spacing between each of them as well, allowing you to see them individually. The room altered thanks for your spatial ability, making it bigger than what it was

You told Carmilla that she could keep your little table and the chairs once everything was over since you changed things without her knowledge. She was move than happy to accept your gift

Another snap of your fingers and everyone’s preferred drink appeared in front of them and some snacks were placed around the table. You welcomed them to drink and eat to their hearts’ content since it has been a while you had been with them all

“Before we begin… I hope it’s expected that you keep the knowledge I shared during this meeting to yourself, and not attempt to use it to your advantage for future purposes.” You warned with a heavily aura around you. 

All your Overlords bowed their heads deeply as a sign of submission to your command and warning. 

“Now, I’d like to start the meeting with the latest event I’m sure you all are aware of.” You announced, a hologram of the former Hazbin Hotel building appeared at the center of the table, “There wasn’t any request or orders from me, so I believe some rewards are in order.”

While your Overlords nodded in agreement to your plans, you placed your elbows over the surface of the table, plopping your chin on top of your intertwined fingers. You gave them a moment to recall their actions before you revealed your awardees.

“Carmilla Carmine.” You named your first. 

“Yes!” Carmilla strengthened up even more as she put down her cup, folding her hands over her lap while her body was turned in your direction. “My Liege.”

“For your assistance in providing angelic weapons to the soldiers who bravely brought for the Princess’ cause without asking for compensation,” The hologram of the hotel shifted to the side to a territorial map of the Pride Ring, a particular land beside Carmilla’s current domain blinked, “You will be rewarded with an additional land. What do you want it to be for? Name it.”

Carmilla bowed her head as she requested, “If you’ll allow it…” At your silence and smile, she continued, “If I can have a research lab with a testing ground, and another storage unit.”

Your smile widened as your head tilted to the side, “Consider it done.”

Your knuckles knocked on the table. The hologram of that particular domain enlarged and two buildings formed on that land with streets and roads to connect it with Carmilla’s owning domains. Not even a second later, the building shook like an earthquake. Though on the outside, it was merely shaping into what the hologram projected

Things like these were not hard to do, at least, if they were you. You do things like these to reshape Hell into what the human population done in their advancement, that’s how the Pride Ring has been since human souls that are marked to go to Hell was the only Ring they are stay or go to. You do what you could to make the Ring more fitting for them

However, as none realized it was your doing, most would believe Hell’s landscape changes as natural as breathing. Something similar to the ‘mother nature’ concept. It’s enough to give you a good laugh, so you leave it be

Your souls were quick to realize the power they were dealing with. A being capable of shaping Hell without effort and mere thought, it was terrifying yet applaudable. Who would think they have such power? Not even Lucifer can do something of this level 

Just think. What if you were to fight for real with your powers? Right now, you have been behind the scenes lurking. You have your Overlords to reign over certain domains and groups of demons. But what if you were to go to war?

Those under you were aware that you were powerful, yet they can’t measure how much so. They aim to please you not merely for the possibility of being rewarded, but to maintain what freedom you’ve given them and your favour

While they don’t outspokenly discuss it, they are aware of their standing within your Elites

“Next, Rosie.” You turned to the other side.

“Yes, Darling Liege?” Rosie smiled back with a wave, enjoying her cup.

“You’re very brave and noble to allow your Cannibals to go to war against the angels without worrying over the lack of training, you’re not even aware that there’d be angelic weapons provided for them to fight with.” You retold to everyone else of Rosie’s feat, “Very commendable.”

Rosie chuckled, covering her mouth with a shy schoolgirl with their crush, “Aww, you’re giving me too much credit. I didn’t even join the battle!”

You nodded in understanding, “Yes, I’m aware, so in addition to your town expansion, I’ll be paying a visit to Cannibal Town in the near future.” Your smile widened as you spoke, “I’ll provide your people a feast, you can bring everyone around.”

Rosie gasped with joy, unable to hold it up, she got up and came over to hug you tight. “Oh! My Liege! That’s wonderful!” She let you go while ranting on and holding onto you, “Everyone will be so excited to see you again!”

You’ve been wanting to deal with your screaming, pleading, and whining insects for some time. You only require the insects’ soul, their bodies worth nothing to you. Yet the large variety would make for a good feast for the Cannibals that oh so loved to devour the flesh of the demons like a pack of wolves

Your knuckles once again knocked on the surface of the table, Rosie’s town expanded and new buildings were built in an instant, mirroring the hologram on the table. A wave of weaker shakes came to them, though it was because Rosie’s place was farther away

Like your relationship with Carmilla’s daughters, you formed special bonds with the citizens of Cannibal Town. Though you had a good laugh when you realized they first tried to eat you out of fear from your mere unannounced presence. They were immediately immobilized and nearly wiped off the map if not for Rosie’s quick interference

It was understandable for you, since at the time, they barely had enough land to live in and it wasn’t like they were particularly strong demons. Think of a colony of ants, they were only the workers and there were no other demons apart from Rosie that they rely on for their continued survival in Hell

So when you came along with that dangerous aura around you, they had to act. Even if they die trying, at least Rosie could lead the other cannibals away. They were such interesting demons that you came back to greet them again

The quickest way to a cannibal’s heart was food and you had more than enough. Adding to the fact that you gave them homes to live in and a town as their own territory, you were more than reverended by Rosie’s people

“Last.” Your head turned over to Alastor, everyone looked over in suit. “Alastor, My Bloody Doe.”

“My Liege.” Alastor stepped forward and kneeled down to your side, staying below your eye level so you weren’t looking up at him. “And Saviour.”

“Not only have you been helping the Princess with her passion project, but you also battled against Adam, the first man and the extermination’s leader, bravely. For that, let’s fix something precious of yours.” You opened your hand for him to place his broken microphone crane in. 

Alastor presented the two pieces to you and you took it near where it was cut in half. You pushed them together and sparks flew, in a blink of an eye, the crane was as good as new. The eye in the microphone opened and looked around. “Finally! I’m back!”

“Fixed and I added a bit of life to it.” You passed Alastor his reward, “You’ll find that it’ll be near impossible to break it now. Even if it’s broken, it will amend itself to be even stronger.”

Alastor bowed, his head even lower than before, “I’m undeserving of such a gift.”

“Yes, now sit down in your seat, would you?”

Everyone else watched in envy. It was no secret that Alastor was your favourite. They could tell by the title you allow him to address you by and the little nickname you have for him. They also understand why too

Alastor unknowingly cleared a number of weaker Overlords that refused to submit to you, not only removing them from your domain, but he also shared your interest in torturing those souls. Trapping them in his everlasting broadcast. He was the only one who kept the title the sinners gave him; The Radio Demon

While he didn’t start off with complete obedience and submission, his dedication and loyalty to you proved his worth later on. While others waited for your order in fear of appearing arrogant, he seized the opportunity to impress. It was after Alastor’s actions did the others became more active

Without a doubt, Alastor was the quickest you took a liking to. The quickest to gain an interest in and the quickest to raise up your favourability chart

When he disappeared for that long, as did your presence, the other Overlords wondered if there was something amiss. So they silently waited for Alastor to return to get in touch with you once more. As they waited, they got sloppy

A loud slam on the table made everyone turn their heads to the source. Vox, with a shaking fist, was standing up with a scowl on his screen, “Oh for f**k’s sake! He didn’t even win! He lost and retreated! He was a complete showoff and ignorant of his powers! He doesn’t deserve the Master’s praise and reward!”

Zeezi scoffed, folding her arms over her chest, “Like you’ve done f**k!”

Vox growled, turning to the giant Overlord, “You’re in the same boat!”

Zeezi smirked back, “Yeah, but unlike you f**k**, I’m fine with My Sovereign’s decision.” She gasped sarcastically, “Wait! You interrupted!”

“T wouldst doth thee both valorous if ‘t be true thee quiet down. (It would do you both good if you quiet down.)” Zestial warned the two before Vox could continue to embarrass himself.

Velvette got up as well, “You know when to talk when it suits you, don’t you, fossil?!”

Carmilla glared, “It was a word of advice!”

“Please! Like you’re any better.” Valentino taunted back with a grin, “You’re nothing without your little weapons.”

Rosie chuckled condescendingly, “Oh, dear, you’re one to talk. You can’t do much!”

Electricity sparked, Vox’s eye twitched, “You all shut the f**k up! You’re all ganging up on us just because you got numbers now!”

Velvette laughed along, “I bet you’re all a bunch of pussy cats! Can’t fight without guaranteed success.”

Valentino added, “I bet my soul I can take you all on and knock you down a few pegs.”

Crack!

Note: And that's when Velvette knew... she [redacted] Hahahhahaha! This meeting is getting way too long I feel. But it's gonna end somewhere in the next part. Lucifer's gonna appear~ Any theories? Before that, how you think of this part???

Circe Y.

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[musubi-sama]

“Classmates”

You are officially Shoko Ieri’s girlfriend, but why are you being followed and gently threatened by two tall, disgustingly handsome men?

CW: afab!reader x shoko ieri, modern au, mild stalking, the boys being intimidating, toys, cunnilingus, shower sex, lady love, mild plot

AN: This is baby’s first fan fic, my first piece of fiction and self-indulgent prose. The world needs more yuri/sapphic/lady stories and I hope I can do it a modicum of justice. I will probably write out the two flashback references as additional chapters once I figure out what I want to do with them.

WC: 4.9k

Next chapter —

“Let’s continue that little thread from last night after classes today?” she responds before pulling away and heading off to the lecture hall. “I’ll make sure to take ‘extra meticulous’ notes for you!” Your girlfriend puts extra emphasis and holds up sassy airquotes (even gives a little sideways nudge with her hip) because she’s notoriously a poor lecture student and you pay attention almost too much and too well, taking notes furiously from your front and center seat.

You give her a cute giggle and wave as she walks away; you’re heading off to meet with your adviser to discuss a research opportunity. While you walk across the quad into the neighboring dining hall to grab your usual Starbucks order (iced caramel machiatto).

Meanwhile, a pair of tall, offensively handsome men doing what would otherwise be a scene from a spy movie, fold the top half of a newspaper down and watch you and Shoko embrace and go your separate ways.

“Suguru, who the hell was that talking to Sho?” the white-haired, ethereally blue eyed man says a bit too loudly to his dark-haired, enigmatically purple eyed friend. The pair sit on the bench gawking, although the dark haired man winces at the volume of his friend.

“You’re going to give us away, shush, Satoru! I don’t know who she is or what that was about but let’s follow her” Suguru gets up and beckons in your general direction “and see where she goes” Satoru gets up and they both follow you at a safe distance, catching up with you as you are waiting for your order at Starbucks. Satoru perks up and nudges Suguru in the side with a cheeky smile when he hears the barista announce your order. “She can’t be that bad, she’s got a sweet tooth!”

“Let’s see where she goes from here.” Suguru pinches his chin as he watches you from across the cafe. You navigate around a few tables to reach the exit and head off to your meeting. While waiting for the elevator to the fifth floor, you catch a flash of messy-but-styled white hair from around the corner, but chalk it up to sleep deprivation and stress.

You make it to your adviser and he walks you through a few research opportunities, but the drawback is that you will need to take a year between finishing your primary in-classroom education and your clinical rotations. And the one that you like the most is across the country. Great timing, just after you finally get a girlfriend and think you may have your little life settled into a comfortable routine. Maybe you wait a few weeks to discuss this with Shoko. But maybe she would want you to bring it up sooner, it’s not like you haven’t known her for four years already. The responsible partner would talk about it soon. But you’ve never been too keen on bringing up tough subjects in a reasonable or quick manner, opting to mull quietly, by yourself, not wanting to bother other people or respond to negative feedback.

As you’re arguing with yourself, you take the elevator back down the ground floor and head outside to hole up in the library until Shoko is out of the morning’s lectures.

Except you don’t notice the two tall handsome boys following you from the lobby across the quad. They take notice of your internal conflicts written across your face and lack of spatial awareness to surround you and you bump into a dense, immovable statue. Fortunately for you, it’s not an actual statue, but a person, so there is a softness in the knock and a pair of arms quickly wrap around you to make sure you don’t fall. Two sets of arms, actually.

“Ah, Iamsosorry” You attempt to stammer out as you are brought out of your internal arguments. You look up to see long, feathered jet-black hair, reaching past the shoulders, but pulled partially up into a bun. Face framed by bangs hanging on one side. Piercing, focused, concerned violet eyes, and a soft smile. Your first impression is that he is cat-like. He catches you off-guard but you feel safe. As you step back to give him space and continue to your destination, your back bumps into an equally statuesque figure. But he’s the polar opposite when you tilt your head back and look up at him. A shock of white hair, dark round sunglasses, giant smile bearing all his teeth, ocean blue eyes piercing you. It’s unsettling how it feels like he’s reading every thought you’re having right now, in the past, and the future. “Oh, excuse me…” you mumble but it just trails off.

“Oh hello there.” Suguru places his hands on your shoulders to steady you. It feels nice, reassuring, considering you just knocked around some coastal rocks. “My name is Suguru Geto and this is Satoru Gojo. We just happened to see you walking across campus and you seemed distracted. Wouldn’t want you walking into anyone and causing a disturbance. Present company excluded, of course.”

“Yeah, what’s a girl like you doing so distracted?” You’re caught off guard by the brazen question. And confused by the implications. What kind of girl do they think you are?

“Sorry, I really just want to go to the library. I’m meeting my girlfriend soon.” You try to side-step the pair and they move in tandem to block your path. Ah, you start to feel the familiar anxiety of being pestered by someone who can’t understand that ‘no’ is a full and complete statement. What you fail to notice, is the shock that zipped through the boys’ expressions.

“I am sorry for the brashness of my companion” Suguru tilts his head up to give Satoru a piercing stare before his gaze softens again and he looks back at you. You feel as if you’re the only person in the entire world as he looks down. Completely taken by his gaze, feeling his arms re-settle on your forearms for a moment before dropping to his sides, giving you space with the lack of physical touch. “But we saw you with a friend of ours and we were just concerned for her. She always introduces anyone beyond a mere acquaintance to us, and we are only looking out for her best interests.” Satoru uses this opportunity to step around to your front, hands in his pockets. Although he still has a mischievous grin on his face.

“Er, what? I am sure that any one I am friends with surely doesn’t require a white knight or dark stallion to protect her honor.” You attempt to cut the conversation short.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely correct, dear. How about we get to know you over dinner? Our treat for being so forward. Tomorrow, pick you up at 7:00? I know a place that does great bananas foster with homemade caramel” Satoru winks, and you realize you’re still holding your coffee. You’re clutching it now, hoping he didn’t see that you asked for extra caramel drizzle in your coffee today. You’re a people pleaser, so you just quickly agree to the plans. You ask for their LineID and as you’re walking away, you get two messages immediately:

Can’t wait to see you, sweets! Looking forward to dinner and getting to know you.

Finally making it to the library, feeling buzzed, and not from the sugar or caffeine. But you manage to find some shred of focus for the next two hours. Your phone buzzes and you start to pack up your books and laptop. You respond to Shoko’s message that she’s out of class and heading to the dining hall with a quick “Yay, save me a seat!” message even though you know you don’t have to ask.

“How was the Pharmacology lecture?” You ask, while attempting to unhinge your jaw around a particularly ambitious forkful of salad. Your girlfriend just smiles at you over her soup.

“Hm, well you know how engaging Dr. Smith is at his age. I made sure to get an audio recording of the lectures and of course the slide notes include the markups from in-class.”

“Aww, thank you! You’re the best.”

Shoko gives you a fond smile as you both settle back into eating lunch. You continue chatting about classes, you feel confident over your polite dodging of any real answer to how your adviser meeting went “Ah, well, I am waiting for him to email me with some details on a couple research opportunities.” Shoko seems satisfied, or at least doesn’t have any follow up questions to your response. You don’t feel comfortable about lying to your best friend, your girlfriend, but you didn’t really tell her lies. Just, not the whole truth. You’ll tell her, soon. You promised yourself. That was the decision you had settled on right as you bumped into-

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something. I have two friends I’ve known since forever and I want to introduce you to them. I have kept you from them until now because they can be somewhat, very, incredibly, protective of me and intrusive to anyone who gets close. But they are good people, even if I have to kick their asses when they pull their little “baby Shoko” stunts.” Shoko puts her hands on yours and looks straight at you, although struggles to keep eye contact when she mentions her friends’ not-so-kind traits.

You consider her question and do not want to respond too quickly or eagerly, but you have wanted to build some new relationships before your life gets too much more hectic with clerkships, graduation, and intern year on the horizon. And if these new friends are already friends with Shoko, then it’s even easier because you would want any new friends to be comfortable with both of you. You may only be newly dating, but you’ve already fallen for Shoko quite hard and want to settle down. Or something like that? You haven’t taken a breath to really figure your brain out.

“Oh, well, why don’t we get drinks and see how things go? I like the idea of making new friends, let’s give it a try!” You try to hold back your over-eagerness, but you let slip big excited eyes and slotting your fingers into Shoko’s hands and squeezing. A small squeal may have also escaped your lips, you’re bad a poker. And Shoko loves it. She gives you a soft smile, leans over to drop a peck on your cheek. The rest of lunch passes with easy conversation. You head off to your afternoon lectures and study sessions together.

After classes finished, you both headed back to Shoko’s apartment. Even before you started dating, you spent most of your free time at her place. It was closer, bigger, quieter, and nicer than your apartment. You grab a pair of beers from the fridge after you finished cleaning up from dinner and walk over to the couch. Shoko turned on Netflix and started the nightly ritual of scrolling new and recently updated shows to see what caught either of your interests before settling on one of the six shows you’re already in the middle of watching. You sit sideways and hand over one of the beers, laying your legs across your girlfriend’s lap. She settles on watching the next episode of your shared guilty pleasure, Doctor X. During the opening credits, your phone buzzes several times with messages on Line.

“Ugh, what is it now? I should’ve left it in the bedroom” you grumble as you lean over to the table and pick up your phone that has now buzzed four times. You see a newly familiar name pop up and scowl.

“What’s wrong, love?” Shoko perks up and looks over to you as you start to read the messages, more coming in while you’re reading.

“I literally ran into a pair of criminally attractive guys. Boys, really. They did that High School-Hollywood thing of boxing me in, making me look up, and then not taking no for an answer. I agreed to get dinner with them tomorrow just so they’d leave me alone and go away.” You flash her the phone with the messages. Her usually subtle expression shifted much more dramatically when she saw who you were talking about.

“Wait. You ran into, literally? Gojo and Geto? Tall, one with white hair sticking up in stupid directions and acting with way too much bravado, the other with big ear gauges and an air of incredible self-confidence? Today? Where? When?” She stops her idle massaging of your legs and turns towards you, taking your phone to read more carefully what they had sent:

Heyyyyyy. Wear something cute? Do you like Mediterranean? :)

“Yyyyeah that matches the pair. Why, do you know them? Have they bothered you on campus before?”

Shoko snickers softly. “You could say that. Remember the pair of friends I wanted you to meet? Looks like they found you first.”

“Oh.” You look down at your hands for a moment and then suddenly you remember what Suguru said to you “we saw you with a friend of ours and we were just concerned for her…” “Oh, wait a second. You’re the friend they were talking about!” And you relay the conversation you had with Suguru and Satoru to Shoko who just shakes her head and sucks her teeth.

“Yeah, those bastards. I told them to wait till this weekend, I had news for them and someone to meet. But they just HAD to get impatient.”

“I will call off dinner! Can I have my phone back, please?” you reach out your hand to begin composing a polite response to the nuisance pair.

“No, don’t. Just have them come over first. And then they can take BOTH of us to dinner.”

As soon as you send off your address, you put your phone down. Shoko’s ministrations on your legs intensifies subtly, but clearly with an agenda. You lean back against the arm of the couch as Shoko slowly massages her hands up your legs, focusing on the softer flesh on the insides of your thighs. You part your legs for her slightly as she gets closer to your clothed core.

The days have been long and you’ve hardly had time for yourself or your relationship since you’ve put official titles on it. You shift yourself so you’re now straddling Shoko. You reach your hands around her neck, threading your hands under her long, wheat-colored brown hair. When you met her, her hair was only touching her shoulders, but now it’s reaching far down her back. Her lips are so soft and inviting, a gentle sheen of spit covering them. Your eyes rake over her face, taking in every facial micromovement. You admire her lone freckle below her eye, something you’ve always found cute.

You lean in, lips parting slightly as her eyes glance up at you, pupils darkening in desire. As your tongues slipped past each other, they danced delicately but with increasing urgency as your lips press harder and Shoko takes a brief opening to nip at your lower lip, drawing out a soft moan from you. Your hands hold her neck tighter, one slipping up through her hair, giving it a light tug. Her hands start sliding back in between your legs, the side of her pinky finger lightly grazing your center which elicits a small grind from you. As your kiss slowly turns more frantic, trading breaks for air with trails of urgency on each others jawline, Shoko reaches under your shirt to gently wrap her hands under your voluminous tits. Still seated in a soft bralette, your nipples begin to harden as her hands slowly squeeze and make their way into the bralette and find your nipples with a soft squeeze.

You drop your hands to your sides and toss your head back at the sharp, but pleasurable sensations and start to roll your hips in Shoko’s lap, looking for some friction and relief for the growing tension. You whimper as the pinching and squeezing intensifies, tilting your head back up and you are met with eyes filled with pure lust. “I told you I wanted to continue from last night” Shoko growls. You just respond with a low moan. Shoko then uses her forearms to slide your shirt up and over your head, taking your bralette with it.

Now, your fully exposed chest and abdomen, your nipples clearly taut in response to the pleasure being shown to them. Shoko then leans down to one, taking it in her mouth with a light suck. Keeping her hand squeezing the other, she lightly bites down, rolling the puckered nipple in her teeth, sliding her slick tongue across. She releases it with a pop, letting it and your breast drop and give a little lewd jiggle. She repeats the process on your other nipple. You are still wantonly grinding your hips in her lap, keening against her touch.

As your body continues to relax, your brain slowly shutting off the noise and entering that cozy, listful, lustful subspace headspace, your hands claw at your girlfriends’ shirt and pull it off of her during a brief moment when her lips aren’t attached to your body. The moment her skin is exposed, you bring yourself vertical and then over, pressing your breasts into hers, enjoying the soft and supple squeezes from your body weight onto Shoko. You reach in to grasp the sides of your shared mass of tits, squeezing and pushing them together.

You are in a daze, skin on fire, as you are drunk from your beer and the lust spreading through your veins. You always knew you were bisexual, although you couldn’t put a fine point on it until you met Shoko while at your lab’s new grad student orientation 3 and a half years ago. You moved across the country for grad school, knowing you’d need to start over again and find new (local) friends. You were taking in the space when you turned around and saw Shoko Ieri walk in the room, immediately disorienting you and a sudden warmth spreading into your center. You couldn’t look her in the eye for the entire first month.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Shoko brings you out of your daze as she wraps her hand around the back of your neck. “Want to start with that new toy I picked up recently?”

“O-oh, yeah, I haven’t tried something like that before!” You start to untangle yourself from Shoko and roll off the couch. You’re chased by Shoko into the bedroom as she reaches out to pinch at your sweatpants-covered ass, you making sure she can still catch you. There’s fun in the chase, but so is there in getting caught. You leap at the bed, spin around and sit on your legs patiently while Shoko disappears into her closet. She returns quickly, now in nothing but a lace thong and brandishing a modest, slightly curved silicone dildo in her hands, twirling her hair with her other hand. You bounce a bit in anticipation, soft tits still jiggling as you stop moving. You move to remove your sweatpants, but are cut off.

“Ah ah ah, hands off. Why are you trying to deny me the fun? I said we are going to continue from yesterday. Which means it’s my turn to return the favor.”

“We don’t need to keep a running tally for equitability sake!” you whine, sticking your lip out in an over-exaggerated pout.

“You’re right, but since this is celebrating us putting some structure and a title to” she waves her hand between the two of you “this, I want to finish what you started. Now, lay back, please.” You settle on the duvet, heart racing, feeling giddy. Last night you off-handedly said ‘I love you’ over dinner at home. It came out of nowhere, but you were just chatting and catching up from the day over a bowl of spaghetti, and it just fell out of your mouth while Shoko nearly choked mid-slurp.

Shoko sets the toy down on the bed and climbs up the bed, caging you in. As she reaches your middle, she sits back on her heels and tugs at your pants. She loved how you always returned to your own apartment or hers and would immediately change into comfortable room wear, shedding the stuffy denim and wired bras for soft cottons and gentle elastics. Pulling your hair back to keep it out of your face, it certainly made easier to grab in the heat of sex and teasing. After she removed your pants and panties, reveling at your exposed frame, Shoko admired your neatly trimmed hair framing your glistening pussy. “Mine.”

Soft kisses with small nibbles sprinkled in begin to chase up the inside of your legs, feet planted on the bed. As the kisses intensify, your knees fall further apart. Your hands come up to your hair as you lace your fingers through to ground yourself. Gently, two fingers spread your folds open and you let out a small gasp. “Mmm I just love to tease your pussy.” One slender finger slides in, your soft walls pulling it in deeper until your girlfriend’s middle finger is sheathed up to the knuckle. She flips her palm upwards and curls the finger inside of you while bringing her thumb to rest on your hardening clitoris. Your hips begin to buck at the movements, moans increasing. Slowly sliding her finger out, pressure still on your clit, Shoko adds a second finger and begins to rub circles with her thumb and thrusting her fingers in and out. She looks up from her ministrations to watch your face go through a million small emotions in pleasure. “That’s it, love. Let me hear you, don’t hold back.” You unwind on her hand, fluttering around her fingers, riding out your high with loud moans and grinding hips.

As you come back down, Shoko reaches over to the toy, aligning the flat, angled tip with your hole, pulling out her fingers. “Ready?” she whispers, but with an edge of gravel on her voice. She also grabs a small remote that you didn’t initially see and reaches up to place it in your hands. “I also got a treat for you. Feel free to press the buttons as you want and see what happens”

Slowly, Shoko presses the toy into your soaked pussy, as the tip disappears in, she turns it on to the lowest vibration setting. You give a sharp inhale as you push your head back further into the pillows. You recollect yourself as the toy makes its way further into you, and bring your hand up to see what this remote is. Just two buttons, marked by a plus and minus sign. You touch the plus button and suddenly a sultry and surprised “Ahhh mmmmm” Shoko whines from between your legs. Her progress to slide in the toy momentarily halted as she adjusted to the vibrating inside of her. She regains composure as she seats the toy fully inside you and rotates it around until you slam your eyes shut and cry out in pure pleasure. “Ah ha, found it. So hot.” Shoko bought a g-spot vibrator and adjusted it till she found the right spot inside of you.

Squirming somewhat, Shoko slowly moves the vibrator around, placing her free hand on your abdomen with pressure against you. Your hips begin to gyrate and roll with increased intensity every time the head of the toy makes contact with the spongy sensitive bundle of nerves inside your walls. “Sho—Shooookoooo ple- FUCK please~” you preen and attempt to stammer out some words. You increase the intensity on the remote.

“Ye-s, l-ove? You’re doing so, so, hnf, well, better than the fantasies I had all day of this- of this mooooment.” Shoko showers you with praise, stuttered by her own building pleasure, knowing exactly what is to come next.

“Ahhh, Sho—Shoko, I’m-com-” You attempt to tell her what you’re feeling as the pressure in your abdomen has reached a fever pitch, ready to incinerate you at the lightest touch. Shoko steadies the vibrator right on the nerves and brings her thumb up to apply pressure to your clit and lowers her body to get closer to your core. “Give it all to me.” At that moment you scream obscenities as your body releases the built-up pressure and you squirt directly into Shoko’s waiting mouth. Helping you ride out your pleasure pushed Shoko over the edge, too, as she rolls her hips along with the waves of her own orgasm. As your body begins to slow it’s movements, she turns off the vibrator and removes it from you. She also reaches down to her own bullet vibrator and removes it, still shaking as you’re too high on your own pleasure to find the remote.

Shoko sits up and wipes your slick from her face, reaching a hand up to you to clean off. “Good girl.” You whimper at the affirmation, pulling on her wrist to bring her up to you, her body draped on yours. When you finish lapping up the wetness on her hand, you twist your head over and your mouths meet in lazy but passionate kissing. Tongues lazily exploring each other, gratitude shared between the two of you.

“Shower?” You nod, slowly rolling yourself over, legs finding the ground albeit a bit shakily. Shoko steps out ahead, sliding into the en suite ahead of you to warm up the shower and grab towels. You stand in front of the mirror admiring your body, re-adjusting your hair and pulling the strays that have fallen out back up. You step in to the shower, bottoms of your feet chilled on the hard tile floor, but skin warmed by the scaldingly hot shower.

“Ahhhh, perfect” You reach out to rest your hands on Shoko’s waist as you both take a moment to relax in the warmth of each other and the water.

“Yeah, you are, love.” You giggle at the admiration. Shoko’s hands come up to gently massage your breasts, lightly pinching your nipples. She closes the gap between you and nudges her leg in between yours, rubbing her thigh against your sensitive folds. You let out a soft moan, feeling sensitive and on-edge already, after just a moment. “I’m not done with you yet.”

You continue to grind on her thigh as she holds pressure against your heat. Your hands slide up to Shoko’s chin, cupping her face and you dive in for a kiss. Your lips are urgent and needy as you moan into her mouth, biting her lips with every wave of building pressure. After several minutes, Shoko breaks the kiss, pulling away and you whine as her leg also pulls back. She begins kissing down the column of your neck, down the center of your clevage, past your navel, sinking to her knees to worship at your altar.

Wordlessly, Shoko nudges your legs further apart, guiding you so you are now leaning against the cold wall of the shower. Placing her hands on the front of your thighs, she slides them up to your folds and with her thumbs, spreads your pussy open, exposing your wet core to the warm shower air. She leans in to take a soft lick, savoring the first taste. You lean back on the wall for support, hands threading through Shoko’s hair.

“God you taste amazing. I can’t get enough of you.” Shoko uses her nose to rub against your oversensitive clit, reaching her tongue inside your sensitive cunt, applying light suction as she goes. Drinking up every drop your body offers, you can feel her moans reaching deep within you. Moving between deep licks inside your pussy to abusing your clit with the tip and flat of her tongue, you can feel the coil again twisting inside of you. With your moans completely unrestrained, you use your grip on her head to keep her pinned against your center.

“Baby, love, god” Shoko praises you at each short breath she takes. You don’t even have a moment to tell her as suddenly the coil snaps and you silently scream as she eagerly accepts the orgasm she pulled from your body. Her hands wrapping around your hips, holding you close as you buck against her touch. Once you have stopped moving so harshly, she stands up and your lips crash together one more time, you licking your wetness off her face, her embracing and holding you.

“I’ve never felt so relaxed with someone, Sho. You’re my best friend, my love, I can’t see a future without you.” Your mouth is moving faster than your brain, letting your admissions tumble out. A common occurrence for you recently. Shoko just smiles and you wash each other clean, taking time to massage tender areas, and scrub the rough ones. After you step out of the shower, you both go through your nightly skin care and pre-bed routines. Passing products between each other, prepping and moving as one practiced unit.

Now laying in bed, you are in the crook of your girlfriends’ arm while you both scroll on your phones. Eventually putting them down and rolling into a more comfortable sleeping position (as cute as cuddling is, you both know that it’s not comfortable for sleeping all night. No one likes numb limbs!). You both drift off to sleep, feeling happy and content with each other.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Webb's autopsy of planet swallowed by star yields surprise

Observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have provided a surprising twist in the narrative surrounding what is believed to be the first star observed in the act of swallowing a planet. The new findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, suggest that the star actually did not swell to envelop a planet as previously hypothesized. Instead, Webb's observations show the planet's orbit shrank over time, slowly bringing the planet closer to its demise until it was engulfed in full.

"Because this is such a novel event, we didn't quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction," said Ryan Lau, lead author of the new paper and astronomer at NSF NOIRLab (National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) in Tucson, Arizona. "With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own."

Two instruments aboard Webb conducted the post-mortem of the scene—Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph). The researchers were able to come to their conclusion using a two-pronged investigative approach.

Constraining the how

The star at the center of this scene is located in the Milky Way galaxy about 12,000 light-years away from Earth.

The brightening event, formally called ZTF SLRN-2020, was originally spotted as a flash of optical light using the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego, California. Data from NASA's NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) showed the star actually brightened in the infrared a year before the optical light flash, hinting at the presence of dust.

This initial 2023 investigation led researchers to believe that the star was more sun-like, and had been in the process of aging into a red giant over hundreds of thousands of years, slowly expanding as it exhausted its hydrogen fuel.

However, Webb's MIRI told a different story. With powerful sensitivity and spatial resolution, Webb was able to precisely measure the hidden emission from the star and its immediate surroundings, which lie in a very crowded region of space. The researchers found the star was not as bright as it should have been if it had evolved into a red giant, indicating there was no swelling to engulf the planet as once thought.

Reconstructing the scene

Researchers suggest that, at one point, the planet was about Jupiter-sized, but orbited quite close to the star, even closer than Mercury's orbit around our sun. Over millions of years, the planet orbited closer and closer to the star, leading to the catastrophic consequence.

"The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere. Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment," said team member Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The planet, as it's falling in, started to sort of smear around the star."

In its final splashdown, the planet would have blasted gas away from the outer layers of the star. As it expanded and cooled off, the heavy elements in this gas condensed into cold dust over the next year.

Inspecting the leftovers

While the researchers did expect an expanding cloud of cooler dust around the star, a look with the powerful NIRSpec revealed a hot circumstellar disk of molecular gas closer in. Furthermore, Webb's high spectral resolution was able to detect certain molecules in this accretion disk, including carbon monoxide.

"With such a transformative telescope like Webb, it was hard for me to have any expectations of what we'd find in the immediate surroundings of the star," said Colette Salyk of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, an exoplanet researcher and co-author on the new paper.

"I will say, I could not have expected seeing what has the characteristics of a planet-forming region, even though planets are not forming here, in the aftermath of an engulfment."

The ability to characterize this gas opens more questions for researchers about what actually happened once the planet was fully swallowed by the star.

"This is truly the precipice of studying these events. This is the only one we've observed in action, and this is the best detection of the aftermath after things have settled back down," Lau said. "We hope this is just the start of our sample."

These observations, taken under Guaranteed Time Observation program 1240, which was specifically designed to investigate a family of mysterious, sudden, infrared brightening events, were among the first Target of Opportunity programs performed by Webb.

These types of study are reserved for events, like supernova explosions, that are expected to occur, but researchers don't exactly know when or where. NASA's space telescopes are part of a growing, international network that stands ready to witness these fleeting changes, to help us understand how the universe works.

Researchers expect to add to their sample and identify future events like this using the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will survey large areas of the sky repeatedly to look for changes over time.

TOP IMAGE: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of what is thought to be the first-ever recorded planetary engulfment event revealed a hot accretion disk surrounding the star, with an expanding cloud of cooler dust enveloping the scene. Webb also revealed that the star did not swell to swallow the planet, but the planet’s orbit actually slowly depreciated over time, as seen in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, R. Crawford (STScI)

LOWER IMAGE: Schematic illustration of the preengulfment and postengulfment interpretation of ZTF SLRN-2020. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal (2025). DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/adb429

[embodiedfutures]

nov 9 - nov 13 readings

hi! this is reaux (she/they)! as many of you know, BFP is slowly waking up and will be undergoing a full makeover in the coming months. in the mean time, to help get back into the pattern of posting and to continue to share resources, i want to start posting what i read each week!

without further ado, here is everything i've been learning from and engaging with so far just between last saturday night [nov 9, 2024] and right now [wednesday afternoon, nov 13, 2024]! i tried to post this on tiktok @/edgeofeden.17 (go check me out for cool political talks and reading recs!) with my reactions as well, but they said it violated community guidelines :(

journal article: The House on Bayou Road: Atlantic Creole Networks in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

wikipedia: Plaçage

wikipedia: Signare

paperback book: Africans In Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth-Century

article: Why Is Gen Z So Sex-Negative?: A prehistory of the Puriteen.

article: Policy-makers must not look to the “Nordic model” for sex trade legislation

article: Sex workers face unique challenges when trying to unionize: Anti-sex work stigma and labor status create roadblocks in sex workers’ fight against the industry status quo

wikipedia: Decriminalization of sex work

short youtube video: "Decriminalization of sex work does not mean the decriminalization of human trafficking."

short youtube video: What About Legalization? Decriminalization is the only solution

short youtube video: Dis/Ability and Sex Work Decriminalization

short youtube video: "Helping people through police is inherently coercive." - Gilda Merlot

wikipedia: Page Act of 1875

essay: Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde

wikipedia: Erotic Capital

long youtube video: KATHERINE MCKITTRICK: Curiosities, Wonder, and Black Methodologies // 09.14.20

journal article: Black life is Not Ungeographic! Applying a Black Geographic Lens to Rural Education Research in the Black Belt

journal article: Black matters are spatial matters: Black geographies for the twenty-first century

journal article: Unspoken Grammar of Place: Anti-Blackness as a Spatial Imaginary in Education

short video: Chicago Works | Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons

zine: Evaluating What Skills You Can Bring to Radical Organizing

diagram + workbook?: The Social Change Ecosystem Map (2020)

essay: How to Build Language Justice

guide: Anti-Oppressive Facilitation for Democratic Process: Making Meetings Awesome for Everyone

radical resource library: Center for Liberatory Practice & Poetry

short essay: The Short Instructional Manifesto for Relationship Anarchy

essay/blog post: Access Intimacy: The Missing Link

i think that's everything? whew. let's see how i finish off the week! if you need PDFs for anything i didn't directly link, lmk and i'll find a way to get it to you. might upload it to my google drive or something!

--

topics: Louisiana Creole history + heritage, women of color + erotic capital, sex work decriminalization, Black geography, revolutionary organizing, language, relationship anarchy, disability, intimacy

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

North American bird populations are plummeting, especially in drylands, grasslands and the Arctic where they have historically been most abundant, new research has found.

The analysis of almost 500 species of NorthAmerican birds indicates that three out of four species are suffering declines across their ranges, with two in three shrinking significantly.

“We’re not just seeing small shifts happening — we’re documenting populations declining where they were once really abundant,” said lead author of the paper Alison Johnston, an ecological statistician who was formerly with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and is now director of the Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, as the Cornell Chronicle reported. “Locations that once provided ideal habitat and climate for these species are no longer suitable. I think this is indicative of more major shifts happening for the nature that’s around us.”

Of the species the researchers examined, 83 percent were losing more of their populations in places they were most plentiful.

The team at the Lab of Ornithology analyzed birdwatchers’ observations of 36 million birds shared in the lab’s eBird program, as well as environmental variables derived from satellite images of 495 North American bird species from 2007 to 2021.

“We’ve known for several years that a lot of bird species in North America have been declining. With this study, we were aiming to understand in much finer spatial resolution where birds were declining and where they might be increasing. Rather than having a range-wide trend to see if a species is going up or down, we want to know where it is going up and down,” Johnston said, as reported by The Guardian.

The stark findings followed the recent United States’ State of the Birds 2025 report, which found declines in bird species across nearly every biome in the country, the Cornell Chronicle reported.

The research team said additional studies would be necessary to explain the causes of the declines, with populations falling by over 10 percent annually in some areas. Habitat changes and global heating were posited as the main theoretical causes, but the researchers ultimately didn’t know, Johnston said.

The research featured recent trends in bird populations at scales of 16.78 square miles — the smallest ever attempted for a study covering such a big geographic area.

“This is the first time we’ve had fine scale information on population changes across such broad spatial extents and across entire ranges of species. And that provides us a better lens to understand the changes that are happening with bird populations,” said Amanda Rodewald, a professor in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell, as well as the faculty director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, as reported by the Cornell Chronicle.

[lepertamar]

[. . .] they sent a loudspeaker circling the head of an owl along a light-rail, traveling at a constant distance from the owl’s head: part halo and part ring of Saturn. Observing the neural response, they discovered something never before seen in nature — particular auditory neurons in the owl’s brain were responding only when a sound was coming from a particular direction: geolocation not by satellite but by sound, doing overground what cetaceans do underwater.

[. . .] Animals have brain maps for vision and touch, but these are built from visual images and touch receptors that map onto the brain through direct point-to-point projections. With ears, it’s entirely different. The brain compares information received from each ear about the timing and intensity of a sound and then translates the differences into a unified perception of a single sound issuing from a specific region of space. The resulting auditory map allows owls to “see” the world in two dimensions with their ears.

[. . .] As other neuroscientists picked up the thread, they discovered that a barn owl’s brain performs complex mathematical computations to accomplish this spatial specificity, not merely adding and multiplying signals but engaging in a kind of probabilistic statistical calculation known as Bayesian inference.

Further research into the brain anatomy of owls revealed something even more astonishing: part of their hearing nerve branches off into the optical center of the brain, so that auditory input is processed by the visual system — literally a way of seeing with sound.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 24, 2025

Deciphering neuronal variability across states reveals dynamic sensory encoding. Akella, S., Ledochowitsch, P., Siegle, J. H., Belski, H., Denman, D. D., Buice, M. A., Durand, S., Koch, C., Olsen, S. R., & Jia, X. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 1768.

Goals as reward-producing programs. Davidson, G., Todd, G., Togelius, J., Gureckis, T. M., & Lake, B. M. (2025). Nature Machine Intelligence, 7(2), 205–220.

How plasticity shapes the formation of neuronal assemblies driven by oscillatory and stochastic inputs. Devalle, F., & Roxin, A. (2025). Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 53(1), 9–23.

Noradrenergic and Dopaminergic modulation of meta-cognition and meta-control. Ershadmanesh, S., Rajabi, S., Rostami, R., Moran, R., & Dayan, P. (2025). PLOS Computational Biology, 21(2), e1012675.

A neural implementation model of feedback-based motor learning. Feulner, B., Perich, M. G., Miller, L. E., Clopath, C., & Gallego, J. A. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 1805.

Contextual cues facilitate dynamic value encoding in the mesolimbic dopamine system. Fraser, K. M., Collins, V., Wolff, A. R., Ottenheimer, D. J., Bornhoft, K. N., Pat, F., Chen, B. J., Janak, P. H., & Saunders, B. T. (2025). Current Biology, 35(4), 746-760.e5.

Policy Complexity Suppresses Dopamine Responses. Gershman, S. J., & Lak, A. (2025). Journal of Neuroscience, 45(9), e1756242024.

An image-computable model of speeded decision-making. Jaffe, P. I., Santiago-Reyes, G. X., Schafer, R. J., Bissett, P. G., & Poldrack, R. A. (2025). eLife, 13, e98351.3.

A Shift Toward Supercritical Brain Dynamics Predicts Alzheimer’s Disease Progression. Javed, E., Suárez-Méndez, I., Susi, G., Román, J. V., Palva, J. M., Maestú, F., & Palva, S. (2025). Journal of Neuroscience, 45(9), e0688242024.

Choosing is losing: How opportunity cost influences valuations and choice. Lejarraga, T., & Sákovics, J. (2025). Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 124, 102901.

Probabilistically constrained vector summation of motion direction in the mouse superior colliculus. Li, C., DePiero, V. J., Chen, H., Tanabe, S., & Cang, J. (2025). Current Biology, 35(4), 723-733.e3.

Testing the memory encoding cost theory using the multiple cues paradigm. Li, J., Song, H., Huang, X., Fu, Y., Guan, C., Chen, L., Shen, M., & Chen, H. (2025). Vision Research, 228, 108552.

Emergence of Categorical Representations in Parietal and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex across Extended Training. Liu, Z., Zhang, Y., Wen, C., Yuan, J., Zhang, J., & Seger, C. A. (2025). Journal of Neuroscience, 45(9), e1315242024.

The Polar Saccadic Flow model: Re-modeling the center bias from fixations to saccades. Mairon, R., & Ben-Shahar, O. (2025). Vision Research, 228, 108546.

Cortical Encoding of Spatial Structure and Semantic Content in 3D Natural Scenes. Mononen, R., Saarela, T., Vallinoja, J., Olkkonen, M., & Henriksson, L. (2025). Journal of Neuroscience, 45(9), e2157232024.

Multiple brain activation patterns for the same perceptual decision-making task. Nakuci, J., Yeon, J., Haddara, N., Kim, J.-H., Kim, S.-P., & Rahnev, D. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 1785.

Striatal dopamine D2/D3 receptor regulation of human reward processing and behaviour. Osugo, M., Wall, M. B., Selvaggi, P., Zahid, U., Finelli, V., Chapman, G. E., Whitehurst, T., Onwordi, E. C., Statton, B., McCutcheon, R. A., Murray, R. M., Marques, T. R., Mehta, M. A., & Howes, O. D. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 1852.

Detecting Directional Coupling in Network Dynamical Systems via Kalman’s Observability. Succar, R., & Porfiri, M. (2025). Physical Review Letters, 134(7), 077401.

Extended Cognitive Load Induces Fast Neural Responses Leading to Commission Errors. Taddeini, F., Avvenuti, G., Vergani, A. A., Carpaneto, J., Setti, F., Bergamo, D., Fiorini, L., Pietrini, P., Ricciardi, E., Bernardi, G., & Mazzoni, A. (2025). eNeuro, 12(2).

Striatal arbitration between choice strategies guides few-shot adaptation. Yang, M. A., Jung, M. W., & Lee, S. W. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 1811.

[bpod-bpod]

Breaking Down Barriers

A strong wall keeps invaders out, but a flimsy fence is easier to breach. Such is the case, researchers have found, with two types of colorectal cancer that respond differently to immunotherapy. By mapping the microenvironments in and around tumours with a combination of genetic sequencing and imaging, the team revealed that immune checkpoint blockade therapy works in one type but not the other in part because of the physical barriers they build around themselves. In one type, a poorly organised boundary between tumour (pictured, pink) and stroma (supportive tissue around the tumour, green) allows immune cells in to tackle the tumour, whereas when this barrier is well structured, immune cells are blocked out. This highlights the influence spatial organisation of tumours has on treatment response, and raises the possibility that first targeting the barrier could prime more tumours for treatment and open the gate for more effective immunotherapy.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Yu Feng and Wenjuan Ma, and colleagues

Shanxi Medical University—BGI Collaborative Center for Future Medicine, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan; State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, November 2024

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Bluesky

[persepoliste]

a year into my master's—some favorite resources

context: i am studying an MRes in sociology at a european university.

notion—lifesaver

google drive—because my school runs on google

adobe acrobat plugin for google drive—great for annotations

goodnotes—better than notion if you have access to powerpoints before class! (implies having a tablet)

slidesgo—cute presentation designs, can be edited and made into templates!

pomodoro kitty—cutest website ever, keeps me accountable!

thematic selections on theconversation (in my case, "environment")—great for keeping up with the latest research in your area of choice!

greek alphabet letters website—for math/stats

stack overflow—a lifesaver for those of us learning r

statistics by jim—simple but amazing explanations

center for spatial research tutorials (columbia university)—great for qgis!

plus jstor and some others i cannot legally name, obviously...

that's it! i don't really use paper. hopes this reaches the right audience <3 good luck with back to school prep!

[clouds-of-wings]

The brain is the organ that learns, so it is designed to be changed by your experiences. It still amazes me but it’s true: Whatever we repeatedly sense and feel and want and think is slowly but surely sculpting neural structure. As you read this, in the five cups of tofu-like tissue inside your head, nested amidst a trillion support cells, 80-100 billion neurons are signaling each other in a network with about half a quadrillion connections called synapses. All this incredibly fast, complex, and dynamic neural activity is continually changing your brain. Active synapses become more sensitive, new synapses start growing within minutes, busy regions get more blood since they need more oxygen and glucose to do their work, and genes inside neurons turn on or off. Meanwhile, less active connections wither away in a process sometimes called neural Darwinism: the survival of the busiest. All mental activity—sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings, conscious and unconscious processes—is based on underlying neural activity. Much mental and therefore neural activity flows through the brain like ripples on a river, with no lasting effects on its channel. But intense, prolonged, or repeated mental/neural activity—especially if it is conscious—will leave an enduring imprint in neural structure, like a surging current reshaping a riverbed. In the saying in neuroscience: Neurons that fire together, wire together. Mental states become neural traits. Day after day, your mind is building your brain. This is what scientists call “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” which is a hot area of research these days. For example, London taxi drivers memorizing the city’s spaghetti snarl of streets have thickened neural layers in their hippocampus, the region that helps make visual-spatial memories; like building a muscle, these drivers worked a part of their brain and grew new tissue there. Moving from the cab to the cushion, mindfulness meditators have increased gray matter—which means a thicker cortex—in three key regions: prefrontal areas behind the forehead that control attention; the insula, which we use for tuning into ourselves and others; and the hippocampus. Your experiences don’t just grow new synapses, remarkable as that is by itself, but also somehow reach down into your genes—into little strips of atoms in the twisted molecules of DNA inside the nuclei of neurons – and change how they operate. For instance, if you routinely practice relaxation, it will increase the activity of genes that calm down stress reactions, making you more resilient.

-- Rick Hanson for The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley: How to grow the good in your brain

[mindblowingscience]

Imagine living in a cool, green city flush with parks and threaded with footpaths, bike lanes, and buses, which ferry people to shops, schools, and service centers in a matter of minutes. That breezy dream is the epitome of urban planning, encapsulated in the idea of the 15-minute city, where all basic needs and services are within a quarter of an hour's reach, improving public health and lowering vehicle emissions. Artificial intelligence could help urban planners realize that vision faster, with a new study from researchers at Tsinghua University in China demonstrating how machine learning can generate more efficient spatial layouts than humans can, and in a fraction of the time. Automation scientist Yu Zheng and colleagues wanted to find new solutions to improve our cities, which are fast becoming congested and concrete. They developed an AI system to tackle the most tedious, computational tasks of urban planning – and found it produces urban plans that outperform human designs by about 50 percent on three metrics: access to services and green spaces, and traffic levels.

Continue Reading.

[the-most-humble-blog]

🔥 THE IRREFUTABLE MATH & SCIENCE BEHIND WHY “EQUALITY” IS A FAIRYTALE🔥

WHY MODERN SOCIETY PROMOTES THE OPPOSITE OF “TOLERANCE”

📌 “We just want equality!” screams the movement that thrives on outrage, manufactured victimhood, and eroding meritocracy. 📌 “Feminism is about fairness!” they say—while demanding one-sided benefits, unearned advantages, and special treatment. 📌 “We stand for tolerance!” while canceling, silencing, and demonizing anyone who dares to question their contradictions.

But what happens when you strip away the emotional rhetoric and apply pure, irrefutable logic, math, and science?

🔥 It falls apart instantly. 🔥

Welcome to the cold, mathematical breakdown of why “equality” is a myth and why feminism isn’t about fairness—it’s about control.

And if you can’t handle numbers, logic, and provable reality? 📌 Congratulations. You just earned a spot on the Kamala Soccer Team.

🚀 1️⃣ IRREFUTABLE SCIENCE: MEN & WOMEN ARE NOT “EQUAL” 🚀

Let’s start with basic biological, neurological, and psychological facts.

💀 PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: IT’S NOT EVEN CLOSE.

✔ Muscle Mass & Strength:

Men have 61% more upper body muscle mass than women. (Source: Journal of Applied Physiology)

Average male grip strength is stronger than 99% of female grip strength. (Source: National Library of Medicine)

Men’s bone density is 30% higher, making them far more resistant to fractures. (Source: American Journal of Physical Anthropology)

✔ Athletic Performance Disparity:

The fastest female sprinter in history (Florence Griffith-Joyner, 10.49s 100m) would be beaten by over 14,000 male athletes today. (Source: Olympic Records & High School Track Data)

The top-ranked female tennis player, Serena Williams, admitted she would struggle to beat the 700th-ranked male player.

📌 The idea of “equality” in physical ability? Mathematically absurd.

🧠 2️⃣ NEUROLOGICAL DIFFERENCES: THE BRAINS AREN’T BUILT THE SAME.

🔹 Men have 10% larger brain volume than women. (Source: Neuroscientific Research, Oxford) 🔹 Men excel in spatial reasoning, complex problem-solving, and pattern recognition. 🔹 Women show stronger verbal skills but score lower in mechanical reasoning and abstract problem-solving. 🔹 Men have a higher tolerance for stress and risk-taking, making them better suited for high-stakes industries. (Source: Psychological Bulletin, APA)

📌 Not worse, not better—just DIFFERENT. The idea that both genders should perform equally in all fields? Mathematically baseless.

📉 3️⃣ THE EQUALITY DELUSION: ACTUAL DATA EXPOSES THE LIE

Feminists push the “oppression” narrative, but the hard data? Says otherwise.

🔹 Workplace Deaths: ✔ 93% of workplace deaths are men. ✔ The most dangerous jobs—logging, construction, military, oil drilling—are overwhelmingly male. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

🔹 Family Court & Custody: ✔ Men lose custody battles 85% of the time. ✔ Women initiate 70% of divorces, but still walk away with assets and child support. (Source: National Center for Family & Marriage Research)

🔹 Criminal Sentencing Disparity: ✔ Women receive 63% lighter sentences for the exact same crimes as men. ✔ Men are far more likely to be falsely accused of crimes without evidence. (Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission)

📌 Feminists scream about “oppression” but ignore all the areas where they hold privilege.

🤡 4️⃣ MODERN FEMINISM = ANYTHING BUT “TOLERANCE”

For a movement that claims to be about “equality” and “acceptance,” feminism today:

❌ Silences anyone who disagrees. ❌ Cancels men for opinions they don’t like. ❌ Demonizes masculinity while demanding the benefits of it. ❌ Crushes meritocracy by forcing quotas instead of earning positions.

✔ They claim they want “strong men” but shame men who exhibit strength. ✔ They claim they want “equality” but demand special treatment. ✔ They claim they want “respect” but refuse to be held to the same standards as men.

📌 It’s not about tolerance—it’s about CONTROL.

🛑 FINAL VERDICT: EQUALITY IS A MYTH—MATH & SCIENCE PROVE IT.

Men and women are not interchangeable. Biology, neurology, and psychology prove this without a doubt. Feminism? It has devolved into a movement of control, entitlement, and special privileges—not actual fairness.

If you reject math, science, and facts? 💀 You belong on the Kamala Soccer Team.

🚀 REBLOG if you’re tired of fabricated narratives. 🔥 FOLLOW if you know real tolerance comes from truth, not censorship. 💀 LIKE if you support facts over feelings. 💬 COMMENT if you’ve ever seen “equality” crumble the second reality hits.

⚖️ LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This post is written for the purpose of artistic expression, cultural commentary, and psychological exploration of social and gender dynamics. It does not condone or encourage violence, harassment, or discrimination of any kind. Any references to power, strength, restraint, or critique are metaphorical, symbolic, and rooted in historical and cultural analysis. This is not a call to action — it’s a cultural mirror. If you feel offended, ask yourself if it’s from actual harm — or from seeing something you hoped no one would say out loud.

✨ TL;DR: If you're mad, it’s probably not because it’s wrong — it’s because you know it’s true.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Ultracompact fiber-tip sensor achieves high sensitivity in magnetic field and temperature measurements

Magnetic field sensing plays a pivotal role in numerous fields of medical, transportation and aerospace. The optical fiber-based magnetic field sensor possesses outstanding characteristics of compactness, long-distance interrogation, low cost and high sensitivity, which has attracted intensive interest. However, the fiber-based magnetic field sensor is generally affected by the temperature perturbation. Recently, although the temperature crosstalk can be effectively eliminated by integrating multiple sensing elements, it is at the cost of increasing the size of the whole sensing components, and the different spatial location of multiple elements could cause the measurement errors in the multi-parameter discriminative sensing. In a new paper published in Light: Advanced Manufacturing, a team of scientists, led by Professor Limin Xiao from Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, China, and co-workers have developed an ultracompact multicore fiber (MCF) tip probes for magnetic field and temperature discriminative sensing.

Read more.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Astronomers discover 2,674 dwarf galaxies using Euclid telescope

ESA's Euclid space telescope has been providing valuable data from the depths of space for almost two years. With its help, the largest and most accurate 3D map of the universe to date is to be created, with billions of stars and galaxies. The data from Euclid is analyzed by the international Euclid consortium, which also includes the research teams of Francine Marleau and Tim Schrabback at the University of Innsbruck.

From 25 Euclid images, astronomer Marleau and her team at the Department of Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck have now discovered a total of 2,674 dwarf galaxies and created a catalogue of dwarf galaxy candidates. Using a semi-automatic method, the scientists have identified candidates and analyzed and described them in detail.

"Of the galaxies identified, 58% are elliptical dwarf galaxies, 42% are irregular galaxies and a few are rich in globular clusters (1%), galactic nuclei (4%) and a noticeable fraction (6.9%) of dwarfs with blue compact centers," say Marlon Fügenschuh and Selin Sprenger from Marleau's team.

Testing cosmological models

The study, posted to the arXiv preprint server, provides insights into the morphology, distance, stellar mass, and environmental context of dwarf galaxies. As part of the Euclid project, Marleau is investigating the formation and development of galaxies, especially dwarf galaxies, the most numerous galaxies in the universe, whose abundance and distribution provide critical tests for cosmological models.

"We took advantage of the unprecedented depth, spatial resolution, and field of view of the Euclid Data. This work highlights Euclid's remarkable ability to detect and characterize dwarf galaxies, enabling a comprehensive view of galaxy formation and evolution across diverse mass scales, distances, and environments", emphasizes Marleau.

Deep look into the universe

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope was launched on 1 July 2023. Scientists hope to learn more about the previously unexplored dark matter and dark energy that make up the universe. The international Euclid consortium analyzes the data. Over the next few years, the 1.2-meter-diameter space telescope will create the largest and most accurate 3D map of the universe and observe billions of galaxies.

Euclid can use this map to reveal how the universe expanded after the Big Bang and how the structures in the universe have developed. This gives scientists more clues to better understand the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

More than 2,000 scientists from about 300 institutes and laboratories are jointly analyzing the mission data, which are also supplemented by ground-based telescopes.

IMAGE: Some of the dwarf galaxies discovered in the Euclid images. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2503.15335

[queering-ecology]

Queer Environments: The Sexual Politics of Natural Spaces

To discuss the politics of natural spaces, we return to the subject of parks (wilderness and urban). Parks are publicly designated ‘nature’ and are more formally regulated than other nature spaces. Parks emerged as public institutions in the same period as the ‘articulation of evolution and degeneracy’ (13), the naturalization of heterosexuality, and the connection drawn between deviant sexuality and environmental contamination, urbanization and industrialization.

“Medical thinkers of the late nineteenth century came to believe that the environmental conditions of large urban centers actually cultivated the homosexuality that people were (they thought, increasingly) seeing (13). So, parks were created and wilderness in general touted as the ‘cure’ for homosexuality and emasculation. When in fact, this was not the case—the western ‘wilderness’ was full of prospectors, cowboys, ranchers, foresters (and natives) and if Alfred Kinsey’s research is correct, there was more same-sex sexual activity among men in the wilderness than there was in the cities (15).

“Many of the city centre parks in North America and Europe […] were redesigned in the late nineteenth century with an emphasis on the public promenade, the male gaze, suppression of public sexual contact, and team sports as a means to lift up working-class morality. Such public parks have usually been programmed for what are sometimes conspicuous displays of heterosexual desire, courtship and conquest.” (1997b, 102) (18).  Examples include two seated benches, open walled gazebos, and wide ‘lover’s lanes’. Another example provided is public campgrounds; especially postwar, there was a new auto recreation culture that reinvented camping as a family activity, and many campgrounds were designed to resemble suburban cul-de-sacs.

In the mid nineteenth century, the Donation Land Act (DLA) “encouraged a heterosexual pattern of colonization” (19). White males, twenty-one or older could receive a 160-acre parcel and an additional 160 acres for his wife. This encouraged heterosexual marriage along the settlement of the west and imposed a monolithic culture of single heterosexual family sized lots on the land that have significantly impacted the region’s economic and environmental history.

With capitalist globalization, new spatial relations between queer and ecology have emerged and are being explored; tourism and the collision with indigenous and other non-western cultures, “the contestation of Western sexual categories by diverse sexual minorities whose lives, bodies, and natures are not nearly captured by even the proliferating initials in the acronym ‘lgbtq’” and the use of postcolonial theory to challenge intersections of sex and nature in imperialist practice among many other investigations (20-21).