#longitudinally

[justinempire]

Longitudinally

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I just wanted to drop a note to thank everyone who has supported the Patreon over the years, or signs up for things like my (free) Substack. It really means a lot.

I update both of those platforms infrequently. I’ve tried to build better habits about that over the years and continually run into the same problem: I don’t want to post anything about what I’m working on unless I’m 110% sure my opinions is informed as possible and I am not sharing anything erroneous. There is so much misinformation out there regarding animals in general and zoos and exotic animal politics especially that I absolutely do not want to add to it.

What that means in practice is that topics often take months to years to research, and big projects need multiple years to end up with something I’m comfortable publishing. (That accreditation reporting writeup was an idea I chewed over for easily two years prior to starting work; then it took spent six months to researching write it up). I have one project in the wings where I can’t even start a major part until Feb 2024, because data collection has to happen after the implementation of a new set of federal regulations. These things are great for creating quality work, but less good for providing people who are supporting your work with something tangible on a reasonably frequent basis.

Also, at this point? Most of my current big projects are so complex - and such novel things to study about the zoo industry - that I’m taking the extra time to really cross every t and dot every i with the research, and then get them peer-reviewed through credible academic journals. I think there’s four or five different projects that will be papers I’m working on simultaneously (and sporadically) right now. And as many of you know, this is a hobby, not a paying profession.

So. Thank you for sticking around through the long silences and the intermittent publications. I have so much I want to talk about, but it has to wait until I can do it right. I have so many cool things planned (like, multiple interactive websites) for once everything is finished and published. Whether or not you’re on the Patreon or just awaiting infrequent Substack updates, I really appreciate all of it.

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Jade: *cocks gun*

Jade: any last worms?

[andhumanslovedstories]

When I was little, a dog knocked me down and bit my face. It was my brother’s friend’s dog. It’d escaped a few days ago and I’d found it when I was walking around. Thought I could lure it back home, except the dog was not interested and walked off, so I followed it. I followed it for a while, and at some point it turned around to bark at me, and I was like “uh oh! maybe this dog is pissed!” but I kept following because humans are pursuit predators I guess and got close enough to grab the collar, and can you guess what happened? Anyway, as that dog—I think her name was Chikorita—was snarling over me, her teeth lightly clenching my chin as she shook my head, I remember thinking, “oh. this is how people get phobias of dogs.”

(Potentially important context—I was like six? maybe seven? and had just recently learned what phobias were, and was obsessed with learning about them, and was trying to figure out my own phobias with the same fervor I dedicated to figuring out what type of Pokémon I would be.)

And then Chikorita ran off, and I was lying on the sidewalk a little shook up but basically fine, and after a bit I got up and walked home to tell my brother to tell his friend I’d seen his dog. And I remember on that walk trying to figure out if I could know whether I had a phobia about dogs without actually seeing a dog again, which I didn’t want to do on the off chance I was in fact now phobic. Unfortunately just thinking about dogs wasn’t enough to tell me anything, so I figured I’d just wait until the next time I saw a dog and try to remember to see if I was scared or not.

Saw a dog at some point later, looked at it, and thought, “no, I’m not scared of this dog and perhaps not scared of dogs altogether. But I better keep gathering data to make sure.” So for a while I’d look at dogs and be like “no phobia, no phobia, hey remember that thing with the other dog who looked like this dog? still no phobia? alright, no phobia.” And then I sorta forgot about it for a while until I’d see some German Sheppard and would instantly think “it’s so interesting that I’m not afraid of that dog,” and it was true! I wasn’t afraid of dogs. Just for a while I had to manually confirm that lack of fear each time I saw them.

And every now and then, I check in with that memory just to make sure that it doesn’t right now trigger a late reaction cynophobia, and it doesn’t, we’re good, and I think to myself “it’s really nice that event had absolutely no effect on me at all,” and I was lying here tonight thinking that when it occurred to me for the first time that there’s a chance this event maybe did at least a little effect me.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hey sorry, what was that in the tags about humans having two brains?? I haven’t read any of the Visser books…

So in Visser, Edriss describes her first experience in the human brain as:

Then I discovered something strange and disturbing. A huge, deep chasm. It seemed to separate the human brain into two halves. And between the halves was only a nerve bundle not much thicker than my own true body... This second half of the brain was an almost mirror image, but not. It could have functioned all on its own, if necessary, and yet it was in some ways radically different in its memories, its sensory interpretation, even its will. Two almost entirely functional brains in one skull, communicating across a channel of nerves. Not a fully redundant system, almost a second, different brain! ...This brain worked by dialectic. Each half of the brain saw and heard and smelled and touched a slightly different world. Each tended toward specialization, but not a hard, fast split. The left half had more language, but not all the language. The right side had more spatial perception, but not all of the spatial perception... This brain contained its own traitor!

And that's a pretty accurate description of how human brains work, and how they differ from those of non-mammals. It's not about individuals being "right brain" or "left brain" (that's nonsensical; anyone who says differently is selling something). It's talking about the fact that the two halves of the brain are partially but not fully redundant, meaning they work as a team. That way there's backup for the super-important functions like breathing, but not for the nifty-not-necessary ones like language.

I think the stuff about the two halves talking to each other from slightly different worlds refers to split brain research. Split brain patients are those who've had that "nerve bundle not much thicker than [a yeerk]" severed in order to prevent seizures. These individuals tend to have normal quality of life (improved after the surgery)... unless you cut off their ability to use sensory information to compensate for the lack of brain-to-brain information. This interview with one such woman says:

neuroscientists now know that the healthy brain can look like two markedly different machines, cabled together and exchanging a torrent of data. But when the primary cable is severed, information — a word, an object, a picture — presented to one hemisphere goes unnoticed in the other.

If you shut a split-brain individual's right eye, then show their left eye the word "baseball", then they can grab a baseball out of a box by touch — but only if they use their left hand. When asked out loud "What did you grab?", they'll answer "I don't know" because they don't — the right hemisphere which controls the left half of the body has almost no language comprehension. If you show the right eye only the words "stand up", most patients will stand, but when asked why, will say things like "I guess I wanted a bathroom break" or "I must be getting restless" because they have no conscious awareness of being told to stand.

Anyway, this system is pretty great, since it means humans can have pretty good quality of life with huge chunks of their brains missing. And it's kinda baffling, because there have also been people who had all quality of life destroyed by minuscule localized damage. Our brains really are their own traitors. Le sigh.

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Honda Rafaga 2.0 CS, 1995. Sold through Honda's Verno dealerships exclusively for the Japanese market the Rafaga had a longitudinally mounted 5 cylinder engine. It only survived for one generation

[deathbars]

I love Wikipedia i would've never known about this what the fuck

[amrv-5]

seeing all this fellow travelers content… feeling Intrigued… Looking Respectfully……. can i ask what it is & would you recommend?

HELLO!!!!! Okay yes I would recommend, I thought it was a great watch, I enjoyed myself! I have more thoughts on it but I'll save 'em cause spoilers--generally: It follows a number of queer relationships / characters over the course of the Lavender Scare through the 1980s. Its primary focus is the relationship between Hawkins, a WWII vet and midlevel govt. bureaucrat; and Tim, a congressional staffer fresh out of college. They meet during the height of the Lavender Scare and begin a fraught romance as they struggle with their own careers in DC, political complicity, and identities personal and public. The show covers about 30 years of their lives together (and apart). Go into it expecting solid performances (incredible Jonathan Bailey vehicle, at the very least) and (imo) fun if slightly uneven structuring, but also know (I don't want to sell it as Fun Gay Love Story!) by virtue of time period and what it's most interested in, story spends most of its runtime trying to show how national attitudes and even seemingly very localized political machinations impacted the lives of queer and especially queer Black people.

[columboscreens]

[kirby-the-gorb]

[switchcase]

hey, do you know anything about why trauma survivors seem so much more likely to have comorbid physical disorders (like chronic pain &/or fatigue, fibro, neurological disorders etc)? some make sense (like TBIs) but others aren't as easily explainable. (I'm especially interested in chronic fatigue!) Thanks!

Prolonged trauma affects your nervous system, stress hormone fucks your body to hell when it's high level for an elongated period of time. Your nervous system is how you tell whether you are in pain or not. One idea of how fibromyalgia works is that your nerves were so overexposed to physical pain that it now misinterprets other sensations as pain because of the nerves getting sensitized to it.

There is also that certain socioeconomic backgrounds have higher prevalences of trauma, and socioeconomic factors have a play in the development of chronic pain conditions (ie, malnutrition can be a contributor to poor bone/joint health, those working hard labor are generally more prone to chronic pain, long hours on your feet, stress from poverty).

There is also the approach that many of these conditions have a genetic component, and trauma is merely one sort of stressor that can cause the condition to become expressed rather than simply being carried.

As far as neurological disorders, it sort of depends? There are some where like you said it is caused by trauma directly. There are others where having a preexisting neurological condition puts you at higher risk for experiencing trauma.

Also as mentioned briefly, high cortisol is very very bad for your body when it's prolonged. That by itself puts you at higher risk for developing certain conditions without even touching anything else. There is also that certain types of trauma that you might not necessarily expect cause chronic pain, do, very very directly. Like C/SA can cause chronic pelvic pain.

There's lots of factors basically, some of it genetic, some of it direct physical damage from physical trauma, some of it being physical damage you sustain from prolonged traumatic reactions, some of it has to do more with things that tend to coincide with trauma and chronic conditions like poverty, some of it tends to be the chronic condition existed first and by virtue of having a condition it puts you at higher risk for experiencing trauma. The factors also depend largely on the specific condition--for example EDS is Definitely genetic but trauma can play a role.

[sukimas]

the pbs nova to quantum physics pipeline

[chaotic-neutral-medstudent]

Someone’s sodium was 128 and nobody even mentioned it. On medicine someone would have pulled out a whole-ass flow chart and gone to through every possible cause.

[leon-on-the-froggy-chair]

I will never forgive my friends for saying Luis looks like my dad

[landinrris]

Let me also put on the tinfoil hat. I actually had the same thoughts about Norrix timeline actually. After listening to real love especially I have been having thoughts… and you (and let’s be honest Norrix themselves) having feeding that fire!! Everything you said to that anon, i 100 % agree!

Ooh love that there are others who share similar timeline thoughts. It just seems like such a flash point. You best believe that when I rediscovered the other day that Lloyiso included a video of him, Lando, and Martin in his release announcement for "Real Love," girls and I were not okay

[madcatlon]

would I get in trouble if I posted Girls' Frontline music here?