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I wish Mythbusters was still around so we could see them fuck up a Cybertruck

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abadi hair accessory crafted by züchi

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We've all seen this cartoon a thousand times and I'm always struck by how relevant and accurate it is.

Lemme share my own Quartz moment.

My degrees are in organic chemistry. When I was doing my undergraduate research project, my mom asked me what it was about. My mother is a smart woman but has zero science education.

I thought, okay, start simple. So I drew this:

I opened my mouth to start talking about the project and she stopped me and said:

"What do those lines mean?"

I just sat there mute, utterly wrong-footed. This is a totally reasonable question, but to me, it was like I'd written a word and she'd asked me what the letters meant. This notation (standard molecular drawing notation) is so second nature to me that it's every bit as natural as writing English.

I had not fully appreciated how far I'd need to downshift to explain this. A friend of mine on the same project was asked to give a talk to a group of non-science folks about what we were doing and she made slides with overlays to let them know what the notation means.

The above notation is shorthand for this:

The lines are bonds. The single line is a single bond, the double line is a double bond (well...in benzene technically each bond is 1.5 bonds but this is the usual way it's drawn even though it's not really accurate). Each corner is a carbon atom. We don't draw the carbon atoms unless we're calling attention to them, and we leave off the hydrogens entirely unless they're significant for some reason, they're just understood to be there.

None of this would be obvious to someone who's never taken chemistry. But I had to remind myself of this, and my mom's question knocked me for a loop for a second.

We got it sorted out.

This really becomes an issue when there are news events having to do with science. Vaccines come to mind. People have HEARD of DNA, but they've barely heard of RNA, and even if they have, most don't understand it, or what it does or what it means. There was a lot of effort put into making analogies and cartoons and other tools to help explain how an mRNA vaccine works, but too many people still hear it and think SCARY.

And don't get me started on those "if you can't pronounce the ingredients, don't eat it" idiots with their naturalistic fallacies and woo-woo pseudoscientific snake oil bullshit YES I TAKE IT PERSONALLY.

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can i be your fuckable loser

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real life: sorry im just not a social media kind of guy… i wanna live in the moment y’know…. im like really private i like having secrets

on tumblr at 11:41 pm : guess whose period just started while watching fraggle rock season 1 episode 17

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redoing that poll bc you guys are not serious people and i need to know the actual stats here

also disclaimer the options in this poll are dumb as hell and kind of hysterical but we can't be doing this i need to know #thetruth

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artfight attack for @cadaverkeys

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i love sluts i love perverts i love dykes i love faggots i love aromantics i love freaks i love librarians i love ibuprofen

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words can't describe how ridiculous this is to me as someone from the eastern europe ngl

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Can Jordan correctly identify three of their friends' breast milk? Let's find out... 🤔🍼

Watch the full episode on Dropout

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checking in on bluesky

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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

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The inherent conflict of being alive is that your cells just love water. Great stuff for cells. Excellent for transporting things around in, really helps counteract gravity and make that 3rd dimension fully accessible. You as an organism however, want atmosphere. It's got all those awesome gases, like oxygen. Those gases are great! But they're not very good at getting in the water. Lots more of them outside the water.

Now some organisms went ahead and said "well, our cells want to be in the water, we're made of cells, we're staying in the water". And I respect that! Gotta respect that. Lots of 'em stick to the surface, get a little bit of the good gases, but keep themselves nice and watered up (wet) to keep their cells happy. Some make do with whatever cool gases have managed to dissolve into the water, thanks to a process known as "churning that shit up" that happens on the water's surface. Doesn't work out great for them, but you know, they made their decision and they committed to it. You gotta respect that.

Now some organisms, especially a lot of old ones, were afraid of commitment. They hung out at the water's edge, breathing all the gases and shit, but still needed to make sure they could stay wet. Like, their plan was to leave the water, but stay wet. Not a great move, if you ask me. Usually it works, but only until it doesn't. You ever seen dried up moss? Ask it how it's "stay wet but not in water" plan went. It can't answer you. It fucked up. That's what you get for not committing.

Now trees though, trees had the other idea. Trees and some other plants were like, no problem. I'm gonna take my water with me and never ever let it go. They developed specialized cells and shit. They got whole layers dedicated to keeping the water the fuck in. They got other cells dedicated to hunting down any water in a square fuckometer and taking it for themselves. That's hustle. That's a game plan. Some plants got so good at it they saw these dry-ass stretches of land that saw rain less often than you saw your mother smile as a child and were like "okay but is the amount of water not literally zero? Yeah? We're good."

The moving orgisms tried to copy trees, naturally. Making hard outer layers to trap the water in for their cells. But it was pretty weak. They kept going on about needing holes for the moisture to leave, and wet surfaces for their eyeballs. Then some of us got stupid and decided maybe we only needed like a half-decent layer protecting our water. "Semi-permeable" they marketed it as. Oh it's fine they said. We'll live somewhere wet, they said. Yeah how'd that work out for that moss again.

And now I get a headache if I go like 3 hours without drinking a glass of water. I should've been a pine tree.

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(options include all shades of said color)

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can everyone reblog this and tell me who The Character is for you. like the one that you're obsessed with / hyperfixated on. mine is gojo