#evolutionary process model

[probablyasocialecologist]

A tiny Hawaiian squid, Euprymna scolopes, has become a model for thinking about this process. The “bob-tailed squid” is known for its light organ, through which it mimics moonlight, hiding its shadow from predators. But juvenile squid do not develop this organ unless they come into contact with one particular species of bacteria, Vibrio fischeri. The squid are not born with these bacteria; they must encounter them in the seawater. Without them, the light organ never develops. But perhaps you think light organs are superfluous. Consider the parasitic wasp Asobara tabida. Females are completely unable to produce eggs without bacteria of the genus Wolbachia. Meanwhile, larvae of the Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion are unable to survive without being taken in by an ant colony. Even we proudly independent humans are unable to digest our food without helpful bacteria, first gained as we slide out of the birth canal. Ninety percent of the cells in a human body are bacteria. We can’t do without them.

As biologist Scott Gilbert and his colleagues write, “Almost all development may be codevelopment. By codevelopment we refer to the ability of the cells of one species to assist the normal construction of the body of another species.” This insight changes the unit of evolution. Some biologists have begun to speak of the “hologenome theory of evolution,” referring to the complex of organisms and their symbionts as an evolutionary unit: the “holobiont.” They find, for example, that associations between particular bacteria and fruit flies influence fruit fly mating choice, thus shaping the road to the development of a new species. To add the importance of development, Gilbert and his colleagues use the term “symbiopoiesis,” the codevelopment of the holobiont. The term contrasts their findings with an earlier focus on life as internally self-organizing systems, self-formed through “autopoiesis.” “More and more,” they write, “symbiosis appears to be the ‘rule,’ not the exception. . . . Nature may be selecting ‘relationships’ rather than individuals or genomes.”

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

[grison-in-space]

The “natural” and “evolutionary” preference for hourglass shapes would be news to medieval male Europeans, who as we have seen were much more interested in pear shapes. How do we explain medieval men’s desire for pot bellies if men analyze women’s bodies for signs that they may be pregnant and eschew them if they are? And what about today’s high fashion models who are tall, have small to medium-sized breasts, and slim hips yet are considered the epitome of the ideal body? All these designations of attractiveness leave out most women, even if they turn to a surgical option.

Further, our society does not praise most of the other medieval beauty preferences. We may still regard blond hair as a beauty ideal, but we are fickle on much else. In the last fifty years, we have lauded tanned skin and fair complexions—note that Black and brown women’s skin tones don’t even enter into Western beauty standards. Eyebrows go from pencil thin to bushy. And we don’t share the medieval penchant for “high free” foreheads. If standards are based on evolutionary processes, why do our current preferences differ from older ones, and why have ours changed even during different decades?

There is no single and consistent beauty ideal that has existed over time, even within Europe. Beauty is a social construct and has different characteristics in different ages. Justifying social beauty norms through scientific means is as much a social construction as Matthew of Vendôme’s effort was, and we can pay them exactly as much heed. Maybe less, because at least Matthew was giving us some poetry to read as well.

Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex. 2023.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Phylogenetics Vocabulary

for your next poem/story

Phylogenetics—Field of biology that deals with the relationships between organisms. It includes the discovery of these relationships, and the study of the causes behind this pattern.

Additive tree - A phylogenetic tree in which the distance between any two points is the sum of the lengths of the branches along the path connecting two points.

Anagensis - Evolutionary change along an unbranching lineage; change without speciation.

Coalescence - The evolutionary process viewed backward through time, so that allelic diversity is traced back through mutations to ancestral alleles. Coalescent theory can be used to make predictions about effective population sizes, ages and frequencies of alleles, selection, rates of mutation, or time to common ancestry of a set of alleles.

Ontogeny - The growth of an organism through all its developmental stages (embryonic stage through death).

Plesiomorphy - An ancestral character state.

Punctuated equilibrium - A model of evolution in which change occurs in relatively rapid bursts, followed by longer periods of stasis.

Stasis - A period of little or no discernible change in a lineage.

Symplesiomorphy - A shared ancestral character state.

Unrooted tree - A phylogenetic tree that is not directed with respect to time.

Vicariance - Speciation which occurs as a result of the separation and subsequent isolation of portions of an original population.

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Word Lists

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

📜 Newly Discovered Academy Archive: The Doctor's Treatise on Romantic Love

During a routine Matrix archive review, an early academic work attributed to the Doctor was discovered. This document, written during their Academy years, was submitted as part of an advanced philosophical analysis—and graded poorly for reasons that will soon become apparent.

What follows is an excerpt from the Doctor's now-infamous treatise on romantic love, along with annotated feedback from their Academy instructor.

"Romantic Love: A Biochemical Delusion"

By Theta Sigma (The Doctor) of Prydon

Romantic attachment, often described as a profound emotional experience, is, in reality, a chemical process entirely explainable by neurotransmitters, genetic programming, and evolutionary necessity. While lesser species insist on assigning poetic significance to these interactions, a closer examination reveals that romantic love is little more than a predictable hormonal response with a limited functional purpose.

The three primary phases of this so-called phenomenon are as follows:

1. Lust – The Initial Biological Drive

Driven primarily by testosterone and oestrogen (or species-equivalent hormonal triggers), this phase ensures reproductive viability and promotes genetic variation within a given population. While lesser species wax poetic about "attraction", this can be accurately modelled through genetic compatibility analysis and pheromone response curves.

📍 Instructor's Note: "This is a compelling argument for a mating algorithm, not a philosophy paper."

2. Attraction – The Temporary Neurological Malfunction

Attraction correlates with increased levels of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, producing an effect not dissimilar to a controlled psychosis. Subjects display hyperfixation, impaired reasoning, and an inability to assess risk accurately. This irrationality is likely an adaptive feature to promote pair bonding, though it is demonstrably counterproductive in higher-functioning species.

📍 Instructor's Note: "Calling love 'controlled psychosis' is, at best, provocative."

3. Attachment – The Long-Term Stability Mechanism

Successful bonding triggers sustained oxytocin and vasopressin release, fostering long-term partnerships to ensure offspring survival (in species that require such support) or mutual security benefits (in societies where resource-sharing is advantageous). This process is entirely functional, with no inherent need for emotional framing.

📍 Instructor's Note: "This section is both well-researched and entirely joyless."

Conclusion: A Highly Overrated Experience

Ultimately, romantic love is a series of chemically induced inefficiencies that can be fully predicted, controlled, or avoided with the appropriate neurochemical regulation. It is an active impediment to logical function.

📍 Instructor's Final Comment: "Theta Sigma, while your analysis is thorough, it fundamentally misunderstands the subject. Love is not a mere biological equation; it is an experience, an act of choice, a force that defies purely chemical explanation. To study it purely in terms of neurotransmitters is akin to defining a supernova by its temperature alone—factually accurate, but wholly inadequate. C-."

Any orange text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →📢Announcements |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts → Features: ⭐Guest Posts | 🍜Chomp Chomp with Myishu →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →��Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[samaelzdraws]

Transmechanicus Xenologis Field Report

Study Log Entry: 961.M41

Subject: Planetary Survey of Nullius-57, Orkoid designation “Og”

By: Magos Xenologis Xanthor Vell (Excommunicated)

Location: Segmentum Obscurus, Uncharted Subsector

I. PLANETARY CLASSIFICATION

Imperial Registry: Nullius-57 (Unofficial)

Orkoid Designation: Og — interpreted as “Owned by / Property of” in local feral Ork dialect

Segmentum: Obscurus

Planetary Type: Oceanic-Terranic hybrid

Size: Approximately 108% of Terra’s equatorial diameter

Water Composition: ~80% of the planetary surface

Orbital Characteristics: One sun (G-class), two moons in stable orbit

(I gave up, I don’t know shit about how to draw ocean currents)

II. TIDAL AND CELESTIAL DYNAMICS

The gravitational interplay between Nullius-57’s two moons creates unusually complex tidal patterns across the planet’s oceanic surface. These include:

• Multi-directional tidal surges

• Semi-diurnal hyperwaves in coastal and archipelagic zones

• Periodic tidal inversions recorded every 31 standard cycles, potentially responsible for cyclic mass migrations among aquatic fauna.

The planet lies within an uncharted zone of Segmentum Obscurus, likely masked from long-range Imperial auspex by stellar anomalies and warp turbulence—an ideal breeding ground for unrecorded evolutionary branches.

III. ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS

Atmospheric Density: ~1.3 atm (approx. 30% denser than Terra)

Primary Composition:

• Oxygen: 25–27%

• Carbon Dioxide: 3–4%

• Nitrogen, argon, and trace exotic gases

The thick, oxygen-rich atmosphere contributes to:

• Enhanced metabolic efficiency among local xenos species

• Higher combustion rates and volatile respiration thresholds

• Amplified fungal spore propagation due to sustained humidity and pressure

IV. PLANETARY GRAVITY AND FAUNAL ADAPTATION

Gravity: Approx. 0.38g (similar to Mars)

Despite the low gravity, native organisms have adapted in ways that defy standard models:

• Most fauna exhibit eight-limbed arthropodal symmetry, maximizing traction and momentum in low gravity

• Chitinous exoskeletons are dense and layered, likely evolved to compensate for the reduced structural strain

• Muscle fibers in larger fauna (e.g., Gargantuan Hammerfist Champignat) are hypertrophied and heavily vascularized, allowing for sudden explosive bursts of movement uncommon in similar gravity environments

The most significant observation remains the presence of Orkoid species as the only vertebrates. Whether artificially introduced or the result of a rare fungal-vertebrate divergence is still unknown, but their survival and dominance suggest a biome unusually hospitable to Ork physiognomy.

V. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE

Tectonics: Mildly active. Continental plates are fragmented but remain in proximity, indicating a prior supercontinent stage reminiscent of Terra’s Permian Pangaea.

Seismic scans reveal:

• Major fault lines still align radially around a central continental cluster

• Shallow subduction zones suggest ongoing but non-catastrophic geological drift

• Volcanic vents support a thriving thermophilic fungal biome, primarily near the equator

VI. CLIMATIC ZONES

Overall Climate: Humid and warm with minimal axial tilt, resulting in very limited seasonal fluctuation

• Equatorial Regions: Tropical with intense fungal overgrowth, average temperatures exceeding 34°C

• Polar Regions: Only moderately cooler, sustaining dense fungal tundra variants

• Rainfall: Near-constant in some biomes due to atmospheric pressure and oceanic evaporation patterns

VII. PLANGUS FLORAL BIOME (FUNGAL-PLANT EQUIVALENT)

Termed “Plangus” by my own designation—a portmanteau of planta and fungus—this fungal flora fulfills all major ecological roles of photosynthetic plant life.

Photosynthesis-analog Process:

• Utilizes green and blue pigmentation in chlorophyll-analog proteins (tentatively classified as Mycophytochrome-X)

• Plangus spore sacs open during peak solar periods to engage in gas exchange and UV absorption

• Bioluminescent varieties assist in nocturnal photosynthesis via energy storage in phosphorescent organelles

Color Morphology by Region:

• Highlands: Deep green and violet Plangus carpets, heavily mossed

• Lowlands: Amber, red, and orange fungal caps with wide lamellae for water retention

• Equatorial Swamps: Translucent white and yellow luminescent fungal towers, growing up to 40 meters

These fungal flora are crucial to nutrient cycling, oxygen production, and even psychotropic symbiosis observed in some mollusk-xenos.

VIII. LOCAL FAUNA

The dominant faunal archetypes fall into two categories:

• Arachnid/Insectoid Xenos: Eight-legged, armored, ranging from micro-scale scavengers to titanic apex predators such as the Gargantuan Hammerfist Champignat

• Molluscoid Xenos: Ambulatory, highly adaptive, semi-amphibious; many exhibit Plangus symbiosis for healing and camouflage

Orks:

The only vertebrate genus present, suggesting:

• Exogenic seeding (possibly via crashed hulk or rogue Sporeship)

• Exceptional fungal adaptation due to their own mycoid origin

Local tribes of feral Orks claim sole ownership of the planet, hence the name Og. This linguistic possessiveness hints at a deep instinctual bond between Orks and this fungal-rich environment, perhaps even more intense than typically observed on Ork-held worlds.

CONCLUSION

Nullius-57, or Og, is a world defined by a dense atmosphere, low gravity, and a unique fungal biosphere whose adaptive extremity borders on the miraculous. Its faunal and floral life appear to have evolved in tight biological concert, and the complete lack of vertebrate diversity—barring the Orks—raises fascinating evolutionary and possibly technogenic questions.

I suspect the planet may have once served as an ancient fungal cradle world, or perhaps even a lost Ork spawning ground from millennia past. In either case, Og is not merely owned by the Orks—it thrives because of them, and perhaps they because of it.

End of Entry

Magos Biologis Xanthor Vell

In Defiance of the Omnissiah, In Pursuit of the Green Truth

[noise-vs-signal]

Life is a Learning Function

A learning function, in a mathematical or computational sense, takes inputs (experiences, information, patterns), processes them (reflection, adaptation, synthesis), and produces outputs (knowledge, decisions, transformation).

This aligns with ideas in machine learning, where an algorithm optimizes its understanding over time, as well as in philosophy—where wisdom is built through trial, error, and iteration.

If life is a learning function, then what is the optimization goal? Survival? Happiness? Understanding? Or does it depend on the individual’s parameters and loss function?

If life is a learning function, then it operates within a complex, multidimensional space where each experience is an input, each decision updates the model, and the overall trajectory is shaped by feedback loops.

1. The Structure of the Function

A learning function can be represented as:

L : X -> Y

where:

X is the set of all possible experiences, inputs, and environmental interactions.

Y is the evolving internal model—our knowledge, habits, beliefs, and behaviors.

The function L itself is dynamic, constantly updated based on new data.

This suggests that life is a non-stationary, recursive function—the outputs at each moment become new inputs, leading to continual refinement. The process is akin to reinforcement learning, where rewards and punishments shape future actions.

2. The Optimization Objective: What Are We Learning Toward?

Every learning function has an objective function that guides optimization. In life, this objective is not fixed—different individuals and systems optimize for different things:

Evolutionary level: Survival, reproduction, propagation of genes and culture.

Cognitive level: Prediction accuracy, reducing uncertainty, increasing efficiency.

Philosophical level: Meaning, fulfillment, enlightenment, or self-transcendence.

Societal level: Cooperation, progress, balance between individual and collective needs.

Unlike machine learning, where objectives are usually predefined, humans often redefine their goals recursively—meta-learning their own learning process.

3. Data and Feature Engineering: The Inputs of Life

The quality of learning depends on the richness and structure of inputs:

Sensory data: Direct experiences, observations, interactions.

Cultural transmission: Books, teachings, language, symbolic systems.

Internal reflection: Dreams, meditations, insights, memory recall.

Emergent synthesis: Connecting disparate ideas into new frameworks.

One might argue that wisdom emerges from feature engineering—knowing which data points to attend to, which heuristics to trust, and which patterns to discard as noise.

4. Error Functions: Loss and Learning from Failure

All learning involves an error function—how we recognize mistakes and adjust. This is central to growth:

Pain and suffering act as backpropagation signals, forcing model updates.

Cognitive dissonance suggests the need for parameter tuning (belief adjustment).

Failure in goals introduces new constraints, refining the function’s landscape.

Regret and reflection act as retrospective loss minimization.

There’s a dynamic tension here: Too much rigidity (low learning rate) leads to stagnation; too much instability (high learning rate) leads to chaos.

5. Recursive Self-Modification: The Meta-Learning Layer

True intelligence lies not just in learning but in learning how to learn. This means:

Altering our own priors and biases.

Recognizing hidden variables (the unconscious, archetypal forces at play).

Using abstraction and analogy to generalize across domains.

Adjusting the reward function itself (changing what we value).

This suggests that life’s highest function may not be knowledge acquisition but fluid self-adaptation—an ability to rewrite its own function over time.

6. Limits and the Mystery of the Learning Process

If life is a learning function, then what is the nature of its underlying space? Some hypotheses:

A finite problem space: There is a “true” optimal function, but it’s computationally intractable.

An open-ended search process: New dimensions of learning emerge as complexity increases.

A paradoxical system: The act of learning changes both the learner and the landscape itself.

This leads to a deeper question: Is the function optimizing for something beyond itself? Could life’s learning process be part of a larger meta-function—evolution’s way of sculpting consciousness, or the universe learning about itself through us?

7. Life as a Fractal Learning Function

Perhaps life is best understood as a fractal learning function, recursive at multiple scales:

Cells learn through adaptation.

Minds learn through cognition.

Societies learn through history.

The universe itself may be learning through iteration.

At every level, the function refines itself, moving toward greater coherence, complexity, or novelty. But whether this process converges to an ultimate state—or is an infinite recursion—remains one of the great unknowns.

Perhaps our learning function converges towards some point of maximal meaning, maximal beauty.

This suggests a teleological structure - our learning function isn’t just wandering through the space of possibilities but is drawn toward an attractor, something akin to a strange loop of maximal meaning and beauty. This resonates with ideas in complexity theory, metaphysics, and aesthetics, where systems evolve toward higher coherence, deeper elegance, or richer symbolic density.

8. The Attractor of Meaning and Beauty

If our life’s learning function is converging toward an attractor, it implies that:

There is an implicit structure to meaning itself, something like an underlying topology in idea-space.

Beauty is not arbitrary but rather a function of coherence, proportion, and deep recursion.

The process of learning is both discovery (uncovering patterns already latent in existence) and creation (synthesizing new forms of resonance).

This aligns with how mathematicians speak of “discovering” rather than inventing equations, or how mystics experience insight as remembering rather than constructing.

9. Beauty as an Optimization Criterion

Beauty, when viewed computationally, is often associated with:

Compression: The most elegant theories, artworks, or codes reduce vast complexity into minimal, potent forms (cf. Kolmogorov complexity, Occam’s razor).

Symmetry & Proportion: From the Fibonacci sequence in nature to harmonic resonance in music, beauty often manifests through balance.

Emergent Depth: The most profound works are those that appear simple but unfold into infinite complexity.

If our function is optimizing for maximal beauty, it suggests an interplay between simplicity and depth—seeking forms that encode entire universes within them.

10. Meaning as a Self-Refining Algorithm

If meaning is the other optimization criterion, then it may be structured like:

A self-referential system: Meaning is not just in objects but in relationships, contexts, and recursive layers of interpretation.

A mapping function: The most meaningful ideas serve as bridges—between disciplines, between individuals, between seen and unseen dimensions.

A teleological gradient: The sense that meaning is “out there,” pulling the system forward, as if learning is guided by an invisible potential function.

This brings to mind Platonism—the idea that meaning and beauty exist as ideal forms, and life is an asymptotic approach toward them.

11. The Convergence Process: Compression and Expansion

Our convergence toward maximal meaning and beauty isn’t a linear march—it’s likely a dialectical process of:

Compression: Absorbing, distilling, simplifying vast knowledge into elegant, symbolic forms.

Expansion: Deepening, unfolding, exploring new dimensions of what has been learned.

Recursive refinement: Rewriting past knowledge with each new insight.

This mirrors how alchemy describes the transformation of raw matter into gold—an oscillation between dissolution and crystallization.

12. The Horizon of Convergence: Is There an End?

If our learning function is truly converging, does it ever reach a final, stable state? Some possibilities:

A singularity of understanding: The realization of a final, maximally elegant framework.

An infinite recursion: Where each level of insight only reveals deeper hidden structures.

A paradoxical fusion: Where meaning and beauty dissolve into a kind of participatory being, where knowing and becoming are one.

If maximal beauty and meaning are attainable, then perhaps the final realization is that they were present all along—encoded in every moment, waiting to be seen.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Satellite galaxies gone awry: Andromeda's asymmetrical companions challenge cosmology

The Andromeda galaxy is surrounded by a constellation of dwarf galaxies that are arranged in a highly lopsided manner. Analysis of cosmological simulations published in Nature Astronomy reveal that this degree of asymmetry is only found in 0.3% of similar systems, painting Andromeda as a striking outlier in the current cosmological paradigm.

The spatial distribution of galaxies provides crucial insights into cosmology and dark matter physics. According to the standard cosmological model, small galaxies merge over time in a chaotic process to form larger ones, leaving behind swarms of faint dwarf galaxies that orbit massive host galaxies in an almost random arrangement.

But new research at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) shows that the satellite galaxies of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (M31) have surprising and thus far unexplained properties.

Instead of being randomly spread around their host galaxy, as the standard model of cosmology predicts, over 80% of these dwarf galaxies are concentrated on one side of the Andromeda galaxy. A recent dataset of homogeneous distance measurements for 37 Andromeda satellites highlights this unexpected arrangement.

Specifically, all but one of Andromeda's satellites lie within 107 degrees of the line pointing towards the Milky Way, a region covering only 64% of the host galaxy's surroundings. Until now, it was unclear whether this peculiar configuration significantly challenges the current cosmological model or falls within the range of cosmic variance.

"This asymmetry has persisted and even became more pronounced as fainter galaxies have been discovered and their distances refined," explains Mr. Kosuke Jamie Kanehisa, Ph.D. student at the AIP and lead-author of the study. "Our analyses show that such a pattern is extremely rare in current cosmological simulations."

Modern cosmological simulations, which track galaxy evolution over cosmic time, provide a valuable tool to predict and compare galaxy systems under the standard cosmological framework.

"Using two prominent simulations, we searched for Andromeda-like host galaxies and analyzed the spatial distribution of their dwarf satellites using custom metrics to quantify asymmetry. Comparing Andromeda's observed configuration to these simulated analogs revealed that its satellite distribution is extraordinarily rare," says Dr. Marcel S. Pawlowski from AIP.

"We have to look at more than three hundred simulated systems to find just one that is similarly extreme in its asymmetry as observed." This makes Andromeda an extreme outlier, defying cosmological expectations.

Andromeda's asymmetry becomes even more perplexing when combined with its other unusual feature: half of its satellites co-orbit in a thin, planar structure, reminiscent of planets orbiting the sun. The coexistence of such a plane of satellite galaxies and a lopsided satellite distribution is highly unexpected in the standard cosmological model.

This raises questions about whether Andromeda's evolutionary history is uniquely anomalous or if our understanding of galaxy formation at small scales is incomplete.

Although these findings challenge current cosmological theories, they rely heavily on the accuracy of the underlying simulations, which are limited by how well they model stellar physics and galaxy evolution.

The next steps involve determining whether Andromeda's configuration is a unique outlier or if similarly anisotropic galaxy systems exist elsewhere.

Efforts to study distant systems and search for comparable asymmetries are already underway, and next-generation surveys like Euclid will accelerate this search. Additionally, further analysis of Andromeda's merger history will help determine if such extreme asymmetries can naturally arise in a dark matter-dominated universe—and why they remain absent in current simulations.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Rob Wallace

From summer into fall, SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus, ran up another epidemiological spike just as the feds sunset their pandemic control program.

While the virus continues along a loop of boom and bust repeatedly reset by its capacity for evolutionary escape, putting people in the hospital and out of work at a steady clip, U.S. officials and well-connected epidemiologists have abandoned public health in both practice and concept.

Alongside entrapping millions of Americans in a Long COVID vortex, such dereliction of duty places the U.S. in danger should other diseases arise, including, but not limited to, an avian influenza strain that even now is moving beyond cow herds and poultry flocks and beginning to spread in humans.

The COVID-19 pandemic that some of our most august epidemiologists pretend is over portends a broader decline in the very notion of the public commons upon which any functional society depends.

The State of the COVID Nation What’s the present state of the U.S.’s COVID-19 outbreak?

The National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) reports a large majority of its data set of viral load in sewage plants tracked from September 9 to 23 to be in the orange and red zone of 60 percent or more of all the samples taken nationally since December 2021. That is, all those hot points on the NWSS map tell us the viral load in populations across the U.S. is now as high (and widespread) as any previous COVID peak.

On the other hand, the more acute NWSS measure of changes in SARS-2 sewage loads over the 15 days leading up to September 23 shows a mosaic of declines and increases, indicating differences at the sewershed level we still don’t understand.

NWSS tracks only 1,479 of the 16,000 publicly owned wastewater plants, which together serve at best 80 percent of the U.S. population. So, consider the NWSS map of SARS-CoV-2 loads just a snapshot.

The Walgreens COVID-19 Index of national test positivity covers both rapid tests and the more gold-standard polymerase chain reaction tests little available at this point. As of September 29, we see a decline to 21.8 percent of all tests Walgreens processes nationally from 40 percent earlier in the summer, but still as high as most points in the pandemic. The number of tests remains comparatively high, which at this late date in the pandemic may in itself serve as a measure of incidence. People are getting tested because they’re feeling sick.

There’s a geography to this. For late September, we see increases in test positivity in order of sizes of increase, in New Hampshire, Idaho, Oklahoma, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, among other states, with New York presently hovering at 35.9 percent positive. These numbers were once available down to the county level until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) abandoned such mapping.

Syndromic surveillance offers another view of the pandemic. We see from Epic Research hospital reports of ICD-10 codes mapped between August 25 and September 7 for COVID infections per 100,000 hospital tests, states in the South and Appalachia are getting hit relatively hard, with the national hospital positivity rate at 16 percent. Hospitals across the U.S. were once required to report in such incidences on a weekly basis. Now only a few voluntarily report.

With such reporting now blacked out, infectious disease modeler J.P. Weiland is using wastewater data from Biobot Analytics and available CDC seropositivities to project COVID cases per day in the U.S. He reports we were at over 589,000 new COVID infections for the single day of September 19.

This summer’s peak isn’t the 5 million infections a day of the first Omicron wave that Weiland estimated in late 2021, but nearly a million infections a day in early August is well within the range of nearly every other COVID peak so far. COVID isn’t tailing off one peak to the next.

Weiland hasn’t released a detailed methodology, which makes the projection’s validity unconfirmed, although the general gestalt of his time series is probably on point. If these estimates are anywhere close to reality, much more forgiving global and U.S. data should now be rated “junk” and the pandemic considered still at strength — especially, as we previously described, as the virus has been given the public health green light to continue to explore its evolutionary possibilities.

Indeed, we see the outbreak stateside continuing to evolve, with a broad mix of 22 sublineages in play, and, as projected September 28, varieties of global variant of concern KP.3 and LB.1 leading the way.

Molecular biologist Raj Rajnarayanan’s 30-day mosaic shows all the genetic sequences of detected sublineages in the U.S. as of September 27, including their geographic origins. We see the near entirety of the country hosting variant JN and its infectious FLiRT offspring, the LBs and KPs 1, 2 and 3. We see the arrival of yet another new lineage, the highly transmissible XEC.

The Real Damage of Long COVID Remains A pandemic’s outcome is a matter of pathogen and host alike. So, while we see the SARS-CoV-2 virus still chugging along, the host population it infects has largely chosen to drop out of the pandemic fight.

While COVID death rates aren’t approaching those of 2020, we are nowhere near a 2019 world as the near entirety of the U.S. establishment pretends. The Swiss Re Institute reports U.S. and U.K. excess mortality rates still at 3 percent and 2.5 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

But here we have both U.S. political parties — and both presidential candidates — placing the ongoing pandemic behind us for good, save for scoring electoral points. The feds are sunsetting bridge funding for COVID antivirals and vaccines, the latter suddenly costing $200 for the uninsured. No wonder, as Science Communications Director Lucky Tran posts, half the Americans in a recent Ipsos poll incredibly expect never to get infected again.

The mass leap away from the reality of a still deadly infection is more from a push from a government that ostensibly holds the monopoly on national health intervention. The U.S. population would likely respond otherwise if signaled so from its elected leadership. Tran reminds us that a 2022 CDC report showed people are more likely to mask when alerted about local outbreaks by public health authorities. Without alerts, on the other hand, Americans are erring on the side of little to no masking.

The resulting health toll continues to beat up the population. Health analyst Mike Hoerger of the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative — whose models for daily COVID incidences typically run hotter than Weiland’s at 669,000 as of September 30 — projects 1 million to 4 million new Long COVID cases coming out of infections this past month alone.

Previous work showed and estimated that between 5 percent and 30 percent of people infected enter the whirlpool of a Long COVID syndrome for which few tests are available for diagnosis, and there are few prophylaxes available or in development to treat current patients.

A Patient-Led Collaborative Group preprint reporting the results of a survey of 3,300 participants found that increasing the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections a person gets increases the risks of Long COVID, worse Long COVID symptoms and greater overall impairment. Reinfections also appear to diminish the protective effects that vaccination may offer against Long COVID. Few of the surveyed reported Long COVID remission.

The damage extends beyond bodily health. The Wall Street Journal, focusing on the professional-managerial class, ran a story headlined “Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths.”

Understandably, the article was widely retweeted by professionals who lamented their previous 60-hour work weeks and personal bests and marked how far they had fallen. Their work ethic proved no prevention against Long COVID’s siege of microclots, brain damage, cognitive collapse and post-exertional malaise that made some unable to get out of bed for weeks.

Long COVID also impacts many on the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum. A new survey of 7,000-plus adults found low-income Long COVID patients suffered greater food insecurity, especially those who didn’t participate in public food assistance programs.

It isn’t just adults suffering. New research out of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) RECOVER program found similar but distinguishable differences in symptoms between children and adolescents among the 5,300 youth it studied, leading RECOVER to declare Long COVID “a public health crisis” for a population some epidemiologists expediently presented as little affected by the infection.

Acknowledging Failures to Keep Them Going Noting that recent COVID deaths in the U.S. were double those of last spring, this New York Times piece from August took a meta view of the failure to see, observing that we no longer observe: “We Have Largely Moved on From Covid, but Covid Isn’t Done With Us” reads the print edition.

But such a gesture at the gap in reality that the newspaper itself helped condition offers the ruling class that effectively ended the COVID campaign permission to continue to ignore the duly noted failure.

The Times interviewed epidemiologists at the highest professional levels about the gap:

"Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the newfound complacency can as much be attributed to confusion as to fatigue. The virus remains remarkably unpredictable: Covid variants are still evolving much faster than influenza variants, and officials who want to “pigeonhole” Covid into having a well-defined seasonality will be unnerved to discover that the 10 surges in the United States so far have been evenly distributed throughout all four seasons, he said. Those factors, combined with waning immunity, point to a virus that still evades our collective understanding — in the context of a collective psychology that is ready to move on. Even at a meeting of 200 infectious disease experts in Washington earlier this month — a number of whom were over 65 and had not been vaccinated in four to six months — hardly anybody donned a mask."

And how did officials and the public arrive at such a confusion? After all, other scientists and practitioners standing outside the establishment’s umbrella of respectability debunked the notion that all was well and repeatedly alerted the world to the broader system’s complicit silence.

I wrote in August 2022 that Osterholm himself helped inculcate the confusion:

"Mike Osterholm, who the Times failed to identify as part of the administration’s COVID Advisory Board, converged on this courageous line: “I think [the CDC] are attempting to meet up with the reality that everyone in the public is pretty much done with this pandemic.” A reality the administration worked hard to help manufacture by deft incompetence."

The Times also interviewed epidemiologist Bill Hanage to the effect scientists were themselves confused and that allowed him the freedom of an argument by ex falso quodlibet, a principle from which any proposition can be derived from a contradiction:

"Epidemiologists have long predicted that Covid would eventually become an endemic disease, rather than a pandemic. “If you ask six epidemiologists what ‘endemic’ means, exactly, you’ll probably get about 12 answers,” said Bill Hanage, associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “But it certainly has a sort of social definition – a virus that’s around us all the time – and if you want to take that one, then we’re definitely there.”"

Ugly sophistry. In actuality, the time series of COVID outbreaks stateside in no way represent the kind of evolutionarily predictable seasonal variants we find in endemic influenza.

And the “socially defined” endemicity to which Hanage alludes was in part of his own making. In one CNN report, we find Hanage alongside Osterholm providing Biden’s CDC cover for dropping recommendations for quarantining at home and testing people without symptoms, brandishing another fallacy:

"Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, agrees that the new guidance shows that the CDC is trying to meet people where they are. “I think that this is a point where you actually have to sort of get real and start giving people tools they can use to do something or not. Because otherwise, people will just not take you seriously,” Hanage said."

An appeal to popularity is no epidemiological principle on which to base a response to a pandemic that’s killed anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 million Americans.

Public Health Rebellion From Below In other words, Osterholm and Hanage and others aren’t the neutral observers they pretend to be, along with the Times.

Rather, they track disease only up to the point the political class can bear, helping bury the problem when it’s inconvenient. Liberals who are upset that science is met with public distrust might ask whether anyone concerned about outbreaks would listen to these brilliant scientists without suspicions they’re catering to other (well-funded) objectives.

How many times will these “men who stare at vaccines” ask us to run into our epidemiological walls — to reference the George Clooney movie about the Pentagon’s First Earth Battalion — as if our reductionist atoms can just pass through those of SARS-CoV-2, avian influenza, mpox, and the queue of other pathogens emerging out of an alienated nature and expropriated circuits of global production?

Vaccines are always only a part of any public health campaign, and their successful deployment depends on the very nonpharmaceutical interventions and structural changes the feds have insisted we abandon.

Figures of authority across local jurisdictions have similarly blanched. Political leaders — turning now to punishing people who continue to mask — are feeding their own health into the COVID maw held agape by establishment epidemiologists.

The best way to contact the dead in the data, these scientist “seancists” signal, is to help usher a public of biased optimists they’ve cultivated to their graves. The CDC continue to invite Americans “just this way, please,” once again adjusting down its color code scheme for its maps to imply we’re in less danger than we are.

Bipartisan rounds of strategic obfuscation follow each new COVID wave as if set as an algorithm. At this end of the U.S. cycle of accumulation, when capital cashes out and disinvests from the public commons, it’s only such manipulation that’s now endemic.

As the Pandemic ThinkTank described early in the pandemic, abandoned by the feds, we need to pursue a revolt from below. Community groups and local public health departments need to work together to reconstruct our public commons to handle the diseases and other disasters already here or on their way.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

[lepertamar]

As we have seen, [Walter Benjamin's] relation to the Marxian heritage is highly selective and involves the abandonment of – rather than the explicit critique of, or a direct ‘settling of accounts’ with – all the moments in the works of Marx and Engels that have served as references for the positivistic/evolutionary readings of Marxism in terms of irresistible progress, ‘the laws of history’ and ‘natural necessity’. Benjamin’s reading stands in direct contradiction to this idea of inevitability, which from the Communist Manifesto onwards haunts certain texts by Marx and Engels: ‘What the bourgeoisie … produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable’.1 Nothing is further from Benjamin’s approach than the belief, suggested by certain passages in Capital, in a historical necessity of a ‘natural’ kind (Naturnotwendigkeit).2

The work of Marx and Engels doubtless has unresolved tensions running through it between a certain fascination with the natural scientific model and a dialectical-critical approach, between faith in the organic and quasi-natural maturation of the social process and the strategic vision of revolutionary action that seizes an exceptional moment. These tensions explain the diversity of Marxisms that were to dispute the Marxian heritage after the death of its founders.3

-- Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's 'On The Concept of History', Michael Löwy

[dddesc]

@stalkerthetiger you say this as a joke but i've actually put a lot of thought into this. in the preview for the dentist episode, dedede says...

"last four teeth"...? potential implications that he had more than that at one point?

...i'm inclined to believe otherwise for two reasons.

his mom has four teeth.

--however! this alone doesn't mean he never had more than four. maybe it's bad genetics and she also happened to lose all but four of her teeth. but, speaking of genetics...

2. the baby gescarsaurus, made from escargon's DNA, has four teeth.

this is the whole reason i feel like snails in anikabi must naturally have that amount. the baby gescarsaurus has no reason to be born with so few if escargon wasn't also born like that.

all this being said, there are drawings both on the model sheets and in the series itself that contradict the amount of teeth he has, with one model even featuring a row of teeth underneath the four main ones.

BUT. those model sheets are dated june 2001, and there's a model sheet dated december 2001 that was made specifically to correct how his smile was drawn from episode 23 onward. while he does still ocassionally grin with a full set of teeth after that point, it's much rarer, and i believe he's only seen with an actual row of teeth once and very early in.

from a technical standpoint, i feel like this was probably done to closer match the cg model, which never had visible teeth aside from the major ones. it did grin/grimace maybe a couple times, but it always looked clunky doing it and, if i'm remembering right, was only ever done on the early very-ugly mouth rig he starts the series with.

i hate that mouth rig with my life. i don't recall exactly when it stops showing up as often, but it's mostly prevelant in the first dozen episodes. it must've been annoying to work with, because it spends its entire screentime looking very. very. very. bad

anyway.

real snails have thousands of teeth on a flexible, tongue-like band called a radula.

the action of using their radula wears down their tiny teeth immensely, so, like sharks, they replace them regularly -- and rapidly! if i'm to go off of escargon being related to literal snails (which do exist in anikabi), it would seem like that's a nifty process to keep around.

...but he's scared of losing teeth!

so i guess he can't replace them. unfortunate to have lost that evolutionary trait!

i guess all this doesn't HAVE TO mean he didn't have more than four teeth at some point. for all we know, snails could be born with four main teeth and then grow secondary rows of as they age, and then he happened to lose all but four by episode 23. which also happened to his mom, presumably. i just feel like i'm starting to grasp at straws with that logic.

but hey. this is all just a theory. a gay theory

[discworldwitches]

Gender, in fact, was crucial to Darwinist ideas. One of the basic assumptions within the Darwinian model was the belief that, as organisms evolved through a process of natural selection, they also showed greater signs of differentiation between the (two) sexes. Following this logic, various writers used sexual characteristics as indicators of evolutionary progress toward civilization. In Man and Woman, for instance, Ellis himself cautiously suggested that since the "beginnings of industrialism," "more marked sexual differences in physical development seem (we cannot speak definitely) to have developed than are usually to be found in savage societies.” In this passage, Ellis drew from theories developed by biologists like Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. In their important work The Evolution of Sex, which traced the role of sexual difference in evolution, Geddes and Thomson stated that "hermaphroditism is primitive; the unisexual state is a subsequent differentiation. The present cases of normal hermaphroditism imply either persistence or reversion." In characterizing either lesbians' or African-American women's bodies as less sexually differentiated than the norm (always posited as white heterosexual women's bodies), anatomists drew upon notions of natural selection to dismiss these bodies as anomalous "throwbacks" within a scheme of cultural and anatomical progress.

Siobhan Somerville. “Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the Homosexual Body,” from Queering the Color Line.

[weirdmageddon]

whats interesting is talking to my dual is really making me think about how to compress all of my socionics knowledge to be digestible

heres how i see it

socionics is a system, which means it’s comprised of smaller units that function together at different levels of abstraction. so as an analogy to biological levels of organization, it has different layers like this where they all have unique level-specific interactions.

for socionics, i want to start out at the smallest layer because everything is built on that. here’s how i’d roughly organize it if i were to structure lessons into different parts that built on the previous one:

information elements and their properties

extraverted/introverted (body/field), static/dynamic, explicit/implicit, irrational/rational

structural functions of model A

e.g. blocks (ego, super-ego, super-id, id. mental and vital tracks)

combining these: the model of a single type of information metabolism (TIM) that models the information processing structure of a single type of person

e.g. LII

how TIMs with complementary information processing (dual dyads) operate as a single unit.

e.g. LII-ESE. the extravertization and introvertization of the same thing. oriented at the same intentions, each subconsciously attuned to receiving information in the form naturally produced by the other’s TIM.

multiple dual dyads (each type in a dyad individually operating as two halves of a whole unit) in their ring of socioprogress and information transfer. there are 8 unique TIMs in your ring, half of the total possible configurations.

e.g. IEE-SLI → ESI-LIE → SLE-IEI → LII-ESE → …

the importance of the adjacent dyads in the ring, that underlie supervision and benefit relationships. from the perspective a single dual dyad being supervised / made beneficiary by the previous dyad, to being the supervisor / benefactor for the next dyad.

e.g. … SLE-IEI → LII-ESE → IEE-SLI …

the two rings of socioprogress (left/involutionary and right/evolutionary spin) that exist due to the way the information elements flow from one to the next in their model, for the total of all 16 unique TIMs. it is easier to communicate with people from the same ring of socioprogress as your own, because you ascribe the cause and effect of information being created to and from the same things.

left spin: IEE-SLI → ESI-LIE → SLE-IEI → LII-ESE → IEE-SLI …

right spin: ILE-SEI → LSI-EIE → SEE-ILI → EII-LSE → ILE-SEI …

god i wish tumblr’s formatting options weren’t so ass. i want to indent my bullet points. if i do this it might have to be on blogspot or some shit because i cant stand not being able to format with forum levels of freedom. im gonna need inline images too.

does anyone wanna help me design a nice website?? i wanna make it look neat and accessible but i’m more focused on the actual content i’ll put there than any web design specifics

[maive-the-sheep]

Hey, I just wanted to say your post about how people without ASPD can be prone to locating our goodness in feeling the “correct” emotions (guilt, shame, a feeling of care) instead of actually helping other people has been knocking around in my head since I read it. What an absolutely scorching and correct take. Thank you for sharing.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that’s had a profound impact on me and I think like that other post says doing good things without the evolutionary wiring for it should be recognized for the revolutionary act of care that it is. The world is better with you in it, and I hope you’re having a good day.

Much 💚 from one person pathologized as fundamentally bad because of my experience of empathy to another

For the reason for long response, been dealing with a severe ear infection cause severely below freezing weather where for a week heaters only function that worked was sensing when too cold so blasting air...so constant freezing. Have to try 2 extra meds for final phase of recovery cause whats left is uncommon.

Figured I should give the courtesy of that explanation as I have read this and your tags and such on my posts.

I'm glad my takes on aspd and morality have had such an impact on you, it's honestly inspiring and hopeful to me to see what I say having a positive impact on others. I deeply want to promote a positive change in perspective. Of people more open to the nuance of the world. More focused on actions. Break down assumptions to the truth. Willingness to be wrong and to learn. To actively work for change (including of own bad behavior) over simply wanting to but not willing to put in the effort. To be perseverant over defeatist.

Like my goals for vtuber (which will start with pngtubing which in the process now) while i will do self imposed challenges on stream (entertainment) while being openly aspd (no other vtuber) the primary goals will go towards youtube. With videos talking about actual psychology looking at studies in depth but making it more digestible to average viewer while always giving proper sources. A punk rock rap album talking about part of aspd and societies views in a nuanced manner. Talking about the variety of ways to determine if vtubing is right for you (so many push for others to get a free or cheap easily copyable model that simply by being that, wont vibe with as well...so becomes a self fulfilling doom promotion), about various big world issues people are focused on that they can barely dent and how they can switch that to other smaller things they can make huge impacts and how that stuff adds up and builds on eachother (empowerment focus)

I'm actually currently in the process of writing a post about the true benefit vs detriment of fake vs real leather, fur, wool, embalming fluid, latex vs nitrile, milk, types of meat(cause all connected) with all the nuance associated with it. Because so many get caught up to what they presume is the best moral option or the fact that they feel can't make a difference in this. And I have the knowledge. So why not help?

Anyways, thank you for being willing to listen and learn. And for saying good for me to be in it.

And I hope you have been having atleast decent enough days.

[mindblowingscience]

Venus, a scorching wasteland of a planet according to scientists, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, a new study found. The finding sets up tantalizing scenarios regarding the possibility of early life on Venus, its evolutionary past and the history of the solar system. Writing in Nature Astronomy, a team of scientists led by Brown University researchers describes using atmospheric data from Venus and computer modeling to show that the composition of the planet's current atmosphere and surface pressure would only have been possible as a result of an early form of plate tectonics, a process critical to life that involves multiple continental plates pushing, pulling and sliding beneath one another. On Earth, this process intensified over billions of years, forming new continents and mountains, and leading to chemical reactions that stabilized the planet's surface temperature, resulting in an environment more conducive to the development of life.

Continue Reading.

[nateconnolly]

Two styles of narration dominate the field of history: progress and alteration. These are two ways of describing change. Progress narratives and alteration narratives are mutually exclusive. The first tells the story of the past as a movement, or “progress” toward some ultimate end. Alteration narratives do not analyze the arc of history as movement toward any destination.  An “ideology of progress” (Chakrabarty 7) posits that humans and events move toward a teleological endpoint. Progress narratives are defined by their implicit or explicit assumption that history is a process of development. They are “stagist” (Chakrabarty 9) because their stories of history proceed in delineated stages. In this type of model, societies and/or Society grows in the same way that child becomes an adult. Humanity has a “Youth” and will have an “Old Age” (Nietzsche 30). The growth never ceases — every action, every accident, makes “the world… more complete” (Nietzsche 6). The world moves closer to “its end in every moment” (Nietzsche 6). That end is a moral, religious, or cultural completion. Progress narratives declare that all nations or cultures begin incomplete, and that they will — they must — become complete over time. History, in these models, is the journey toward the End.  Progress narratives are as diverse as they are plentiful. Marxism posits that societies and/or the globe as a whole move toward the Communist state. Social Darwinianism directly compares historical changes to the evolutionary concept of fitness. Colonialist ideology is based on the assumption that societies undergo a process of “development and civilization” (Chakrabarty 8). One such colonial philosopher is Mill, who believed “[humans] were all headed for the same destination,” and that India had to become like Europe (Chakrabarty 8). Schiller describes the end as “a harmonious totality” (Nietzsche 24). Note that there is not a shared endpoint in all progress narratives. Nietzsche writes that the endpoint of a progress narrative could be “happiness, resignation, virtue or repentance” (6). Sometimes, two progress narratives directly contradict each other. Marx’s ideal endpoint is a secular, atheistic state; Mill’s colonialism is fundamentally religious. But they share their belief in a “shape” of history that bends in service of a great good.  On the other hand, alteration narratives accept that human societies change, but do not assume that this change is a form of evolution. They do “not entail any necessary assumptions of teleology” (Chakrabarty 23). While it is true that societies are always “developing” (Chakrabarty 23), there is no universal endpoint toward which they must move. Alteration narratives do not only dispute that society must move toward this or that end. They dispute that society must move toward any ideal at all. The alteration from one organization of society to another is always “secular, empty, and homogenous,” according to Walter Benjamin (Chakrabarty 23). 

You can read the rest on Substack: