cheminscifi

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Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #47 (2019)

written by Ryan North art by Derek Charm & Rico Renzi

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Miles Morales: Spider-Man #5 (2019)

written by Saladin Ahmed art by Javier Garron & David Curiel

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Indestructible Hulk Special #1 - “For a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph” (2013)

written by Mike Costa art by Jake Wyatt & Jordie Bellaire

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Multiple Man #1 (2018)

written by Matt Rosenberg art by Andy MacDonald & Tamra Bonvillain

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Flashpoint: Reverse Flash #1 - “My Revenge” (2011)

written by Scott Kolins art by Joel Gomez & Brian Buccellato

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Batman finally achieves his life long dream

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Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #25 - “Lois Lane and Superman, Newlyweds!” (1961)

written by Jerry Siegel art by Kurt Schaffenberger

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I think my biggest fake science pet peeve is when tv/movies/fiction etc. uses the speed with which one got a PhD and the number of PhDs one holds as a signifier of genius, because like, science takes time, and even the smartest people take four to five years to do a (STEM) PhD, because your experiments aren’t gonna go any faster just because you have a high IQ.

And like, no one does multiple PhDs because the whole point is to train you in how to think, and how to independently become proficient in a field, so like, you could completely switch fields as a postdoc but no one’s gonna give you another degree. and doing a second phd is a waste of literally everyone’s time and money. 

So like sorry every tv show ever, no one has three PhDs by the time their 23. because no one does that. we all have one by the time we’re 27 if we’re lucky and damn productive. Please stop. 

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if life was like comic books i’d have three phds and super powers by now, and my cardio would be way better than it is  

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Amazing Spider-Man #1 (1963)

written by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko art by Steve Ditko

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right so this post went round a bit ago about how Pokemon Go is basically a huuuuuge capture-tag-release wildlife research program for Willow’s lab

consider the following: Candela, Blanche, and Spark are his grad student advisees/assistants.

(incidentally we are the undergrads who will do a bunch of random shit for candy in this scenario.)

anyway

Blanche wrote the better part of the code that records and calculates all their statistics and occasionally winds up in a corner, morphed into a malevolent pile of scarves glaring out at the world through a choking haze of MATLAB, trying to fix some shit in the model while the other two occasionally scoot a cup of tea over to them

Candela and Spark take turns wrangling the undergrads and other randos who contribute to the program (large parts of Team Valor and Team Instinct are just the undergrads who particularly liked either of them and will get into arguments over which is better)

Spark does the most field research of the three and at one point wound up flat on his back in the middle of a field with a mob of Pidgey attacking his pockets because he forgot he had sandwich crusts in there

Spark occasionally has an really out-of-left-field hypothesis and the other two are simultaneously amazed and infuriated at how frequently his weird ideas are right (instinct yo)

Candela occasionally just slams a couple of energy drinks and pulls an HONOR AND GLORY enthusiastic all-nighter and the other two come round in the morning to throw a blanket over her because they know she’s just gonna wind up passed out on the desk eventually

the three of them haggle over who gets to play music and have worked out a rota, or at least they did until Willow confiscated their speakers because they were tagging batches of Jigglypuff at the time and the jigglypuff were picking up their musical tastes so there was one day of Dragonforce Jigglypuff (Candela duh), one day of J-Pop Jigglypuff (that was Blanche surprisingly enough), and one day of super-soporific Jigglypuff because Spark had the bright idea to play them some Pachelbel

Candela orders hot peppers on the pizza, Blanche has a knife and fork in their bookbag and eats pizza with utensils (plastic utensils really aren’t enough), Spark will stack one piece of pizza on top of another and eat both simultaneously

Spark once took a photo of Candela tackling a Snorlax that didn’t want to be tagged while Blanche and Willow looked on in horror

Candela in general handles the big Pokemon where a bold approach works best

Blanche handles the tiny ones that need a lot of precision

Spark handles the shy ones that need an understanding approach

or at least that’s what they would each specialize in if they weren’t all fuck deep in Pidgey and Rattata all the time

Spark has a handful of Rattata that might not have made it back in the wild and he’s named them all and taught them all ridiculous tricks. His Pikachu acts as their leader

Blanche has a Lapras they hatched from an egg and they ride it, among other things, across the aquarium tank that houses the big water pokemon that need examination and tagging

Spark wants to help with the aquatic pokemon and will attempt valiantly if allowed but he can’t swim for shit so he’s banned, Blanche and their pokemon had to keep rescuing him (Candela was taking pictures)

Candela has a Growlithe that follows her everywhere with no Poke ball or leash, including to lectures and office hours

OH SHIT TEACHING PROFESSORS the team leaders are Willow’s teaching assistants too, Blanche is the most meticulous grader but also is the most sought after at office hours because they’re very knowledgeable and good at explaining, Candela is beloved for her personality and occasional Adventure Tangents and Spark straight up puts stickers on papers he grades

Spark will eat obscene amounts of instant noodles because lol grad student budget, Blanche makes instant noodles too but you don’t realize it because they put in egg and vegetables and somehow make it very edible

this isn’t as #overlyhonestmethods as I wanted it to be so go ahead add more ideas on if you want

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i’m crying 

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Everyone is saying that the professor is grinding the Pokémon into candy, but consider the following:

• The professor frantically running around with assistants, inspecting hundreds of thousands of pidgeys a day, getting bitten and screeched at while they try to figure out if this pidgey has been tagged yet so they release them back to track their migration

• Panicked interns trying to scoop the ekanses back into their tank because theyre freaking out the rattatas

• Three caterpies climbed into a vent and evolved into metapods that are too far in to reach so six underpaid college students are trying to dismantle ductwork

• Theres a big door marked “KEEP OUT” because a dozen oddish evolved into a squad of Vileplumes and until they stop releasing stun spores the entire room is just off limits

• Hundreds of researchers running on red bull and determination trying to tag and examine all the Pokemon but having to turn off the machine every once in a while to the discontent of trainers who are all getting a “Sorry, the servers are currently down” message at LEAST twice a day

• “GPS not found” flashes while returning a big group and suddenly Florida has been gifted 6,000 mankeys right in the middle of Epcot

• Someone in the back room up to their waist in stale dog treats with a bunch of little stamps. They sigh deeply at how gullible Pokemon trainers are that they think these things actually do anything other than excite the Pokemon so much they evolve

• Actual science professor surrounded by chaos and interns and a budget just too small

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Honestly my problem with the supernatural, like conceptually, is that if it existed it would, by definition, be natural, which means it would be as deeply mundane as all other parts of the natural world 

Like magic would be about as awesome as astronomy - really pretty to look at but involving way more math than most people want to deal with

Imagine having to take several years worth of theory before you can actually do anything interesting? Or like finally being able to cast spells but learning the depressing truth that there’s a ton of annoying, repetitive work that goes into the flashy enchantments that people like to demo? You’re into crytozoology? Cool, now spend six weeks in the woods collecting sasquatch shit so you can analyze the effects of increasing acidity in the atmosphere on their diet and overall health.

Magic loses it’s charm (heh) real fast when you have to keep detailed notes on all the variables you tested is all I’m saying

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Science

Science has been severely misrepresented by authors. If you want to write about scientific worldviews accurately, here are some tips.

If the scientific community saw something supernatural and could be assured it existed, they wouldn’t scream “that’s impossible!” or try to destroy it because it doesn’t fit their worldview. They would be more likely to say “How interesting. I wonder how this will change my theories. I’d better incorporate it into my worldview.”

Scientists have morals just like the rest of us. In fact, many people become scientists because they want to help humanity. How is that so hard to understand?

A whole lot of scientists love nature and want to preserve it.

Scientists who have helped to create deadly weapons almost always regret it. Politicians who order those weapons to be used don’t.

Science in general would be attracted to magic, not repulsed by it. A new thing to study with possible new applications to help mankind? How wonderful!

How well a scientist understands people and gets along socially is up to the individual. They’re not an entire profession of evil, cold robots.

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All new episode this week! (unless you were into that lame leak biz)

BARN MATES written & storyboarded by Lauren and me! Please check it out this Thursday at 7:00pm on Cartoon Network.

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars (S03E05), “Corruption”