#for fun and science

[madamemiz]

i had a lore thought about kerfur the other day and i'm curious what you think as a primary source of kelfur (is that a name?) the kidnapping event, where kerfur disappears in a pool of blood i learned (on the wiki) it cannot happen while Dr. Kel is looking at Kerfur and it's giving me yaoiful thoughts because like, the yellow/orange kerfur that's possessed and tries to kill you kerfur omega, a true AI, CANNOT be possessed by that ?same? entity, only relocated but every single time, kerfur comes back untouched, right next to home and whatever flesh entity is trying to possess and inhabit robotics cannot even ATTEMPT this on kerf if Kel is looking, much less succeed when he isn't and that idea that the connection Kerfur has to Dr. Kel and the base gives them a "soul", or something "more" that makes them incorruptible, the one "pure"/good thing to come out of everything that might've happened in that damn bunker which also has me very, very curious about Skerfuro, seemingly the antithesis to this idea hmmmmm................

(the details are probably gameplay concessions but....................)

ok first of all reading the phrase "yaoiful thoughts" in the year 2k24 is sending me, thank you

second of all OUGHHH yes yes i love interpreting things that are probably meant to be gameplay mechanics or bugs as lore implications. are they supposed to be? no! do i care? also no! kerf cant be taken while kel is watching? power of love babeyyyy. kerf's pathing gets stuck on the hill while going to tango? nah, they're just enjoying the view

fr though, it's very interesting that (so far) it seems that whatever is possessing skerfuro and kerfu can't do the same to kerfur, at least not to the same degree. what's the difference? seems implied that kel's kerfur is an updated model, so it could be as simple as that. maybe stolas outfitted the current model to have wards against posession. wouldn't it be fun if it was something more, though?

maybe kel is kind to his kerfur. there's no real canon indication of it, but i'd like to imagine that's the case. base kerfur doesn't seem to have any thoughts going on in their sweet, empty little head, but perhaps there's something there. a spark, a potential; something to be nurtured by said kindness. once they're upgraded with an ai chip and more mobility, the seeds of that potential grows into something more. idk if kerfur will ever be implied to have true sentience, but i love to think of kerfur omega having an emerging sentience that's spurred on by kel treating them like a person; thanking them for doing their job, giving them praise or pats, affection. just talking to them in general, acknowledging them

skerfuro is fascinating to me, and kinda makes me sad in the way that kerfu does. they're clearly possessed, but how? what happened to them? could have been bad luck, but... maybe their human was not nearly so kind to them. maybe their fledgling ai had nothing to grasp onto, nobody worth surviving for. why fight it?

now, fueled by whatever's possessing them, all they feel is rage and jealousy toward a version of them that has what they never got

[nando161mando]

[protectoursharks]

The shape of a fish's caudal tail can tell you a lot about how fast the fish moves! A rounded tail is the slowest and a lunate tail is the fastest! The lunate tail has the most optimal ratio of high thrust and low draw, making it the fastest.

Ichthyology Notes 2/?

[nasa]

Seeing the Invisible Universe

This computer-simulated image shows a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. The black region in the center represents the black hole’s event horizon, beyond which no light can escape the massive object’s gravitational grip. The black hole’s powerful gravity distorts space around it like a funhouse mirror. Light from background stars is stretched and smeared as it skims by the black hole. You might wonder — if this Tumblr post is about invisible things, what’s with all the pictures? Even though we can’t see these things with our eyes or even our telescopes, we can still learn about them by studying how they affect their surroundings. Then, we can use what we know to make visualizations that represent our understanding.

When you think of the invisible, you might first picture something fantastical like a magic Ring or Wonder Woman’s airplane, but invisible things surround us every day. Read on to learn about seven of our favorite invisible things in the universe!

1. Black Holes

This animation illustrates what happens when an unlucky star strays too close to a monster black hole. Gravitational forces create intense tides that break the star apart into a stream of gas. The trailing part of the stream escapes the system, while the leading part swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. A powerful jet can also form. This cataclysmic phenomenon is called a tidal disruption event.

You know ‘em, and we love ‘em. Black holes are balls of matter packed so tight that their gravity allows nothing — not even light — to escape. Most black holes form when heavy stars collapse under their own weight, crushing their mass to a theoretical singular point of infinite density.

Although they don’t reflect or emit light, we know black holes exist because they influence the environment around them — like tugging on star orbits. Black holes distort space-time, warping the path light travels through, so scientists can also identify black holes by noticing tiny changes in star brightness or position.

2. Dark Matter

A simulation of dark matter forming large-scale structure due to gravity.

What do you call something that doesn’t interact with light, has a gravitational pull, and outnumbers all the visible stuff in the universe by five times? Scientists went with “dark matter,” and they think it's the backbone of our universe’s large-scale structure. We don’t know what dark matter is — we just know it's nothing we already understand.

We know about dark matter because of its gravitational effects on galaxies and galaxy clusters — observations of how they move tell us there must be something there that we can’t see. Like black holes, we can also see light bend as dark matter’s mass warps space-time.

3. Dark Energy

Animation showing a graph of the universe’s expansion over time. While cosmic expansion slowed following the end of inflation, it began picking up the pace around 5 billion years ago. Scientists still aren’t sure why.

No one knows what dark energy is either — just that it’s pushing our universe to expand faster and faster. Some potential theories include an ever-present energy, a defect in the universe’s fabric, or a flaw in our understanding of gravity.

Scientists previously thought that all the universe’s mass would gravitationally attract, slowing its expansion over time. But when they noticed distant galaxies moving away from us faster than expected, researchers knew something was beating gravity on cosmic scales. After further investigation, scientists found traces of dark energy’s influence everywhere — from large-scale structure to the background radiation that permeates the universe.

4. Gravitational Waves

Two black holes orbit each other and generate space-time ripples called gravitational waves in this animation.

Like the ripples in a pond, the most extreme events in the universe — such as black hole mergers — send waves through the fabric of space-time. All moving masses can create gravitational waves, but they are usually so small and weak that we can only detect those caused by massive collisions.  Even then they only cause infinitesimal changes in space-time by the time they reach us. Scientists use lasers, like the ground-based LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) to detect this precise change. They also watch pulsar timing, like cosmic clocks, to catch tiny timing differences caused by gravitational waves.

This animation shows gamma rays (magenta), the most energetic form of light, and elusive particles called neutrinos (gray) formed in the jet of an active galaxy far, far away. The emission traveled for about 4 billion years before reaching Earth. On Sept. 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detected the arrival of a single high-energy neutrino. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope showed that the source was a black-hole-powered galaxy named TXS 0506+056, which at the time of the detection was producing the strongest gamma-ray activity Fermi had seen from it in a decade of observations.

5. Neutrinos

This animation shows gamma rays (magenta), the most energetic form of light, and elusive particles called neutrinos (gray) formed in the jet of an active galaxy far, far away. The emission traveled for about 4 billion years before reaching Earth. On Sept. 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detected the arrival of a single high-energy neutrino. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope showed that the source was a black-hole-powered galaxy named TXS 0506+056, which at the time of the detection was producing the strongest gamma-ray activity Fermi had seen from it in a decade of observations.

Because only gravity and the weak force affect neutrinos, they don’t easily interact with other matter — hundreds of trillions of these tiny, uncharged particles pass through you every second! Neutrinos come from unstable atom decay all around us, from nuclear reactions in the Sun to exploding stars, black holes, and even bananas.

Scientists theoretically predicted neutrinos, but we know they actually exist because, like black holes, they sometimes influence their surroundings. The National Science Foundation’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory detects when neutrinos interact with other subatomic particles in ice via the weak force.

6. Cosmic Rays

This animation illustrates cosmic ray particles striking Earth's atmosphere and creating showers of particles.

Every day, trillions of cosmic rays pelt Earth’s atmosphere, careening in at nearly light-speed — mostly from outside our solar system. Magnetic fields knock these tiny charged particles around space until we can hardly tell where they came from, but we think high energy events like supernovae can accelerate them. Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect us from cosmic rays, meaning few actually make it to the ground.

Though we don’t see the cosmic rays that make it to the ground, they tamper with equipment, showing up as radiation or as “bright” dots that come and go between pictures on some digital cameras. Cosmic rays can harm astronauts in space, so there are plenty of precautions to protect and monitor them.

7. (Most) Electromagnetic Radiation

The electromagnetic spectrum is the name we use when we talk about different types of light as a group. The parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, arranged from highest to lowest energy are: gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared light, microwaves, and radio waves. All the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are the same thing — radiation. Radiation is made up of a stream of photons — particles without mass that move in a wave pattern all at the same speed, the speed of light. Each photon contains a certain amount of energy.

The light that we see is a small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, which spans many wavelengths. We frequently use different wavelengths of light — from radios to airport security scanners and telescopes.

Visible light makes it possible for many of us to perceive the universe every day, but this range of light is just 0.0035 percent of the entire spectrum. With this in mind, it seems that we live in a universe that’s more invisible than not! NASA missions like NASA's Fermi, James Webb, and Nancy Grace Roman  space telescopes will continue to uncloak the cosmos and answer some of science’s most mysterious questions.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[amnhnyc]

Imagine a pinecone as heavy as a bowling ball and the size of a chihuahua. Believe it or not, such pinecones exist—and they belong to the coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), a conifer that can be found in parts of North America including California and Mexico. Infamous among loggers and foresters, this tree is nicknamed "the widowmaker" because of the unlucky individuals who met their fate as a result of its falling pinecones. This species produces some of the largest pinecones on the planet, weighing up to 11 lbs (5 kg).

Photo: damontighe, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

[pickerwheelpolls]

You are forced to live in only one type of biome for the rest of your life, how do you react? You can leave and visit other countries or places, but only if they are in the same biome:

Spin the wheel to find out your biome.

[geek-22]

I cannot for the life of me find the OG post, if anyone knows what these accounts are called now I will cry (positive)

[beroebluejeans]

Whenever I am thinking very hard about The Locked Tomb, I find it important to remind myself Tamsyn Muir did compare the series to the KFC Double Down.

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/muir_interview/

[alithographica]

Museum SOS

I just saw the news that the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY is facing foreclosure after a group of donors failed to produce about $30 million USD that they had promised.

The museum is run by the Paleontological Research Institution, whose collection has about 7 million fossil specimens—one of the largest in the US—and is one of only a few natural history museums in upstate NY. PRI runs both the Museum and the Cayuga Nature Center, which is also dealing with the budget shortfall.

The organization is working on restructuring (namely downsizing) to improve their financial sustainability but they still need funds, and one thing they've said could help is if people shop at their store!

The foreclosure news broke like two days ago and their shop is already selling fast (testament to how many people want them to survive!) but there are a few items left in stock, including some prehistoric plushies. If you want to make a purchase to help maybe keep them afloat, their online gift shop is here and is honestly extremely reasonably priced.

so how about a FOOT LONG TULLY MONSTER

OR A DUNKLEOSTEUS

OR SOME

TRILOBITE SLIPPERS

They've also got some books, shirts, toys, etc. and I'm sure those sales numbers will help the authors/artists as well.

(Regular donations are also welcomed)

[datcravat]

SCIENCE BEGETS TRUTH✨

[ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral]

Me: Ugh, why is dating so difficult? I guess the dating pool where I live is bad :(

Also me, attempting to flirt: How's your day been? :) Did you know that trees pump nutrients into nearby stumps in an effort to keep them alive, resulting in stumps that survive for years entirely on the support of the tree community around them? I like how the trees can sense through their shared root system that their neighbor has been felled, and instead of taking advantage of the new lack of competition, they use their own nutrients to support their now-cut brethren. It's an act of innate, selfless community love from an organism that you'd think is incapable of such a thing, and, in a sense, it's a form of grief, because those surrounding trees won't be able to keep the stump alive forever, and yet they try to keep it alive for as long as possible anyways. It's both touching and a bit disturbing, the sense that trees are trying to hold off the death in their community for as long as possible, almost like they're unable to come to terms with it initially. It seems as though the themes of loss and grief transcend even animal life and have a presence in everything in the world around us. What're your thoughts on that? :D

(As it turns out, turning cool science facts into an analysis of literary themes doesn't make for a good pickup line. Who would've thought?)

[feelingautistic]

Exciting news for the cute shark lovers of the world! We finally have a recorded sighting of a baby great white shark, likely only a few hours old.

The question of where great white sharks give birth still remains a mystery to this day but this footage may suggest the coasts of California, where the footage was taken, are a site where these sharks give birth.

[protectoursharks]

There are four types of fish scales!

Cycloid scales are thin, overlap, and flexible. They're found on primitive teleosts (like minnows and carp).

Ctenoid scales have small, backwards pointed scales (known as cterns) make the fish more hydrodynamic and faster. They're found on Advanced Ctenoids (like perch and sunfish).

Ganoid scales are thick, diamond-shaped, and mostly non-overlapping. They're found on Chondrostei (like sturgeons and paddlefish).

Placoid scales are spikey and tooth-like with nerves. These are found on Chondrichthyes (like sharks and rays).

Ichthyology Notes 3/?

[such-a-daydreamer]

Rip the streak... 😔