#microbial patterns

[cryscal]

#amazing. every day i learn about some crazy shit i never even heard of#i thought this was just a one-off thing but you're telling me this is just a thing people have??#theres a whole company with a lineup of diseases for me to buy?!?!?!

bacteriophage plush anon made me think of my own similar yet much worse creature

behold the gonorrhea plush my brother was gifted as a baby. stunning work

very cute! i think someone was trying to hex your brother

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Ecology is one of those disciplines where there is just so, so much we don't understand yet. Yes, we know that the many species within a given ecosystem have a widespread, complex network of interrelationships, but we only have the barest understanding of a fraction of them. It's like having a symphony where you've heard everyone playing, but you only have some notes from some of the musicians' sheet music, and so you can't yet put together how it all works.

In this case, we're seeing just how important northern pocket gophers (Thomomys talpoides) are to their ecosystems. After the devastating eruption of Lawetlat'la/Loowit/Mt. St. Helens in May 1980, the land was left burned and covered in tons of ash and tephra. While some zones further out from the mountain were replanted by timber companies, the area directly around the eruption site has been allowed to recover naturally because this offers North American scientists an unprecedented chance to see how an ecosystem recovers after such a large eruption, at a place that is easily accessible.

When a small number of gophers were returned to an ash-covered area of the mountain for just twenty-four hours in 1982, they kicked off what would be a forty-year study in ecological resilience. In areas with no gophers, there were only a few struggling plants born from seeds transported by birds, while in places where the little mammals were able to burrow and turn over dirt, scientists found 40,000 individual plants. This was due to the fact that the gophers were able to free soil fungi and other microbes beneath the ash and give them a chance to repopulate closer to the surface where they normally would be found. In turn, seeds of plants that had mycorrhizal relationships with the fungi, or which otherwise benefited from the increased microbial biodiversity, flourished.

And forty years later, the pattern still stands, with the gophers' work reverberating to this day. If one small mammal can have such a profound effect in a miniscule amount of time, imagine what happens when we reintroduce extirpated species to other eplaces. The volcanic area may be left to repopulate naturally as scientists continue to study it, but there are countless badly damaged ecosystems in need of restoration. The results of this experiment clearly support the importance of returning as many native species to an ecosystem as possible, because even those that may seem insignificant have invaluable contributions to make to the whole.

[the-most-humble-blog]

🧬👻 “You Think You’re You? That’s Adorable.”

You’re not even fully human. You’re a haunted meat golem with Wi-Fi and anxiety.

ACT I — The Lie You’re Living

Ah, yes. You wake up. Brush your teeth. Sip your coffee. Scroll your phone. You feel like a real person with thoughts, memories, preferences.

Cute.

Because here’s the punchline, sweet summer child:

You’re not even 100% human.

ACT II — What You Really Are

You’re a walking, talking orgy of multiple species. Part human. Part bacteria. Part fungus. Part virus. Part ancient ape. And 100% confused spaghetti code pretending to have a soul.

The human body? A biological group project between evolution, gut microbes, parasitic DNA hitchhikers, and ancient mitochondria that used to be their own species.

Your body contains:

More non-human cells than human ones.

Bacteria that outnumber your own cells 10 to 1.

DNA from viruses, ancient fungi, and unclassifiable “dark genome” segments that we literally do not understand.

You are not a person. You’re a biofilm with opinions.

ACT III — You’re a Colony. Not an Individual.

Think about this:

Your thoughts can be influenced by the bacteria in your gut.

Your moods are affected by your microbiome.

Your decisions can shift depending on what fungus you inhaled that day.

Your attraction to people? Might be chemical signals from your skin flora.

You ever get a “gut feeling”?

That might literally be your intestinal bacteria whispering strategy into your brain.

And you thought you were “making a choice.”

ACT IV — Are You Even There?

Let’s go deeper:

You don’t control your heartbeat. You don’t control your dreams. You don’t control what you forget, or when you cry, or what triggers your trauma. You don’t control the timing of your thoughts.

So the question is:

Who the f*ck is actually driving this meat suit?

Because neuroscience doesn’t know. Religion argues. Philosophy hyperventilates. And physics just stares blankly into the void.

ACT V — You Might Be a Ghost. Or Just a Glitch.

You’re either:

A consciousness that’s somehow haunting a nervous system

A chemical puppet with enough complexity to simulate free will

A hallucination of self generated by accidental electro-meat fireworks

Or, worst of all:

A network of sub-selves constantly arguing while pretending they’re one “I.”

Shocking Truth?

Science has no consensus on what consciousness actually is.

Nobody knows if it’s:

An emergent property

A soul

A quantum algorithm

A shared delusion

Or a horrifying accident we’ve decided to romanticize

ACT VI — Logic Tests That Will Wreck You

Ready to lose sleep? Try these reality-breaking diagnostics:

🧠 Logic Trap 1: “When Are You?”

Your brain processes input with a delay. What you’re experiencing right now actually happened a few milliseconds ago. So… if you’re always behind the present… Where is “now”? And who’s watching it?

🧠 Logic Trap 2: “The Ship of Self”

Every 7 years, your cells have completely regenerated. You are literally not made of the same matter you were as a child. If your body changed… and your thoughts changed… What stayed the same? Who’s left?

🧠 Logic Trap 3: “The False First Person”

What if every time you go to sleep, the “you” that wakes up is a copy? You remember yesterday… but so does the copy. Are you just a rebooted save file that thinks it’s original?

🧠 Logic Trap 4: “The Brain In The Room”

The only proof you have that anyone else exists is sensory input. You could be a brain in a jar, hallucinating all this. Can you prove you’re not?

FINAL VERDICT — You’re Not “You.” You’re Just a Temporary Pattern.

A mind is not a soul. It’s a self-updating hallucination stabilized by hormones, trauma, diet, genetics, and luck.

And when you die?

That pattern ends. And everything you called “you” dissolves into meat, memory, and microbial decay.

The ghost leaves. The flesh rots. The world keeps spinning. No refunds. No backups. No explanations.

🔁 Reblog if you’ve ever felt like something else is steering. 👁 Comment if you’ve questioned your reality since age 9. 🧬 Follow if you’re ready to peel back your face and find the universe staring back.

⚖️ LEGAL DISCLAIMER:

This post is intended as philosophical commentary, not psychiatric advice. If you’re spiraling, eat something, touch grass, and don’t take your thoughts too literally. If you feel like nothing is real… congrats. You’re officially more qualified than most philosophers.

[vzyee]

wait. lmao. one house still stands draft x, me age 14

aurora leigh book iii, elizabeth barrett browning

[dragonthunders01]

Spectember D29: Speculative Biome

Is not an oddity for geologists to look at some strange landscape formations, many caused by singular events or just by erosion, but the most particularly perplexing ones have been made by what is not considered to be a thing from this world...

North America seems to be dotted with dozens of these structures and the remains of already fallen ones, looking like gigantic towers of more than a kilometer in height, structured like a strange tree shaped form, it rises like a testament of the biggest terrestrial organism known, a monster tree made of stone and shaped by the millions of years of constant growth by part of a singular organism.

In Wyoming there is the most intact and oldest specimen of such beings, bein nicknamed Heaven’s Tower, unique megaorganisms formed by thousands of  individual slime like organisms that behave like a stromatolite as it accumulate over layers over layers of sediment and material it built its structure, the way it do it seems to comprehend a system of vessels that transport the material from the terrain, often hollowing the terrain below forming a large cave chamber system that accumulate water and organic matter, preserve itself from erosion protected by a microbial layer product of the same organism. The tower seems to often renovate itself by the use of a special slime covering every century based on studies of change of texture and viscosity in the tower surface, but from what accounts on different expeditions into the inner cave system denote that the whole Tower formed dozens of millions of years ago, from mining expeditions around the chamber as well drilling in the main structure it was found it preserved a decent amount of data in the form of layers created by the accumulation of minerals by the slime into the main structure like a terrestrial stromatolite, this giving a possible date of the formation of the original tree around the late Eocene or early Oligocene.

As well seems to be every 5 to 10 million years there is a process that allow the introduction of surface fauna that always ends up into the lower chamber, to be eventually isolated which seems to last for few million years until there is a occurring a total extinction of the inner fauna, caused by the replacement and collapse of a old layer as its being replaced by a new one of almost 20 m of thickness, so far from fossil record the last breach occurred around the late Pliocene, isolating the fauna that lived upon that time.

The way one of the Heaven’s Tower specimen grow or originate is pretty much unknown for the very long span of time it takes to even start forming, is believe one of these might find a specific and rich place to feed its structure, more or less an old volcanic region and slowly accumulate to form the megastructure that feed symbiotically by chemosynthesis from the igneous rocks and photosynthesis, as well there has been identified fossil remains of older already fallen Towers that also expose similar patterns of growing. The Heaven’s Tower of Wyoming is the last intact structure as many seems to have been destroyed by the last ice age, and will take millions of years to recover, this itself is a testament of a paradoxical being that is still investigated, as this being for many accounts seems to not share any significant relationship of any living organisms.

[angelacademy]

Clear skin is more than just skincare: Gut Health

(A science based read)

What you eat is shown through your skin and on body. If your constantly shoving junk down your throat, junk is what will be shown on you. Essentially what you eat is what you are.

Eat bad -> bad skin

Eat good -> good skin

If your constantly breaking out and you feel icky. You need to figure out what is up with your gut health.

Research suggests many skin disorders are linked to an altered or unbalanced gut microbiome.

“When the relationship between gut microbiome and the immune system is impaired, subsequent effects can be triggered on the skin, potentially promoting the development of skin diseases.”

“13 Several dermatologic conditions, such as acne, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and rosacea are linked with intestinal dysbiosis. 223 Many studies have associated gastrointestinal health with skin homeostasis and allostasis, and there is evidence of a bidirectional interaction between the gut and the skin.”

Diet, drugs and other consumed substances affect skin through gut microbiome:

“Several studies have related the diversity and pathogenicity of the gut microbiome to skin disorders, which can be significantly altered by long-term dietary patterns. 43,105–107 Diet can affect the skin condition both positively and negatively through alteration of the gut microbiome, indicating that there is a relationship between the skin and the gut. 16 Not only diet, but also many synthetic and natural products consumed by humans as drugs can provide direct and indirect evidence on the connection between gut microbiome and skin.”

High and low fat diet:

“In the gut, a diet high in industrial trans-fatty acids increases the number of harmful microbes (such as Desulfovibrionaceae and Proteobacteria) while suppressing populations of advantageous microorganisms (e.g. members of Bacteroidetes, Lachnospiraceae, and Bacteroidales). 121 Refined and hydrogenated oils (e.g., soybean, sunflower, safflower, canola, corn, and vegetable oils) can cause inflammation in the gut, which then manifests on the skin.”

Industrially produced trans fat can be found in margarine, vegetable shortening, Vanaspati ghee, fried foods, and baked goods such as crackers, biscuits and pies. Baked and fried street and restaurant foods often contain industrially produced trans fat.

Prebiotics:

“133,134 Prebiotics, such as fructooligosaccharides, galactooligosaccharides, inulin, polydextrose, lactulose, sorbitol, and xylitol are a promising group of compounds that modulate the gut microbiome and can also provide skin benefits.”

“The effect of prebiotics on the skin condition is also obvious. For example, a Lactobacillus extract helps to reduce the size of acne lesions as well as inflammation by reducing skin erythema, improving skin barrier function and lowering the microbial counts on skin.”

types of prebiotics include:

Chicory root

Garlic

Onion

Dandelion greens

Apples

Bananas

Jerusalem artichoke

Asparagus

Probiotics:

“Probiotics can prevent gut colonization by pathogens and support anti-inflammatory responses by producing metabolites with anti-inflammatory properties. The most common probiotic microbes currently in use belong to the genera Bacillus, Bifidobacterium, Enterococcus, Escherichia, Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, and Streptococcus. 143,144 Several beneficial effects of probiotic consumption have been demonstrated on many dermatological conditions, thus proving the existence of the gut-skin axis.”

Common types of probiotics include:

Lactobacillus: This is a common probiotic found in fermented foods, such as yogurt.

Bifidobacterium: This probiotic is found in some dairy products and helps with the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

Saccharomyces boulardii: This is a type of yeast found in many probiotics. You can find these probiotics and more in supplements and select foods.

Yogurt

Buttermilk

Cottage cheese

Miso soup

Sauerkraut

Kefir

Kimchi

Tempeh

Protein:

“The proteins from animal-based food sources may have better effects on gut microbiota compared to plant-based food sources due to the higher protein digestibility of animal proteins and the fact that the digestion of plant proteins may be limited by the presence of antinutritional factors found in plants [67]. Animal proteins have more balanced essential amino acids than plant proteins [68,69] and are thus considered higher quality protein.”

“Dairy and meat protein intake at a recommended level increased the abundance of the genus Lactobacillus and maintained a more balanced composition of gut microbiota compared to soy protein, which is beneficial to the host [25,26,28].”

“Your body makes lots of different peptides, each of which has a different role. Scientists can also make synthetic peptides in the lab. Companies have been adding peptides to skin care products for decades.”

High protein foods:

Salmon

Chicken breast

Tuna

Red split lentils

Tofu

Greek yogurt

Fibre:

“Dietary fibre is comprised of plant-based carbohydrates that cannot be metabolised by digestive enzymes encoded in the human genome, such as amylase. Instead, fibre can only be metabolized by certain species of gut microbiota through anaerobic fermentation, with the main product of this reaction being SCFAs.”

“Dietary fibre is a carbohydrate in plant foods, such as whole grains, vegetables, fruit, and legumes, which have been dominant in human diets for millions of years. From the Paleolithic era, when the hunter-gatherers mainly ate fruit and wild grains, to the agricultural era, when crops began to be cultivated, the ancients consumed more than 100 g of various digestible and indigestible dietary fibre from plants per day [1,2].”

Fibre rich foods:

Chia seeds

Lentils

Broccoli

Avacado

Carrots

Red kidney beans

Raspberries

XOXO

[darkmaga-returns]

Gut microbiome composition may influence stress resilience. Research shows a connection between the brain-gut microbiome system and mental health, offering new insights into stress management and psychiatric disorders.

A study found that highly resilient people had unique gut bacteria characteristics, including more active bacteria in key areas like environmental adaptation and inflammation reduction, as well as distinct brain structure patterns.

Gut dysbiosis (microbial imbalance) is linked to mental health issues. Reduced levels of butyrate-producing bacteria were found in people with depression, highlighting the gut-brain connection in psychiatric disorders.

Oxygen-intolerant gut bacteria play a crucial role in maintaining gut health by producing beneficial short-chain fatty acids. Disruptions in this balance can lead to increased gut permeability and health issues.

Improving gut health enhances mental wellbeing. Strategies include reducing linoleic acid intake, slowly incorporating complex carbohydrates and consuming fresh fruits to support a healthy gut microbiome.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Signs of Life in Thawing Lake Erie

With its bitter cold snaps and blasts of lake-effect snow, winter 2024-2025 made its presence known in the Great Lakes region. Ice cover on the lakes spiked above average in February. And while levels mostly hovered below average for the rest of the season, they were much closer to normal than the meager freezes of the previous two winters.

On Lake Erie, ice coverage reached its seasonal peak of 95 percent in February 2025, a typical number for the shallowest of the Great Lakes. As spring neared, Erie’s icy lid gradually dissipated to reveal signs of life in its surface waters.

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 acquired this image of the central part of the lake on March 10. Ice cover stood at about 33 percent that day, and the ice-free water displayed swirling bands containing a mix of sediment and phytoplankton.

Resuspended sediment often produces colorful patterns in Lake Erie’s surface waters, especially in spring. Strong winds and the currents they generate can stir up material from the shallow lakebed. The lake bottom is rich in quartz sand and silt, as well as calcium carbonate from limestone. A lot of resuspension was occurring at the time of this image, said Michael McKay, director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor, accounting for some of the color.

At the same time, McKay added, elevated levels of a type of phytoplankton called diatoms were present. Communities of these microscopic organisms, which have silica shells and plenty of chlorophyll, may have contributed to the color of surface waters. Although Lake Erie, specifically its western basin, is a hotspot for harmful algal blooms in the summer, different phytoplankton groups can thrive in the lake other times of year.

Samples collected by a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker on March 10 contained elevated chlorophyll concentrations indicative of a spring bloom and showed that diatoms made up 80 to 90 percent of the phytoplankton present, said McKay. The samples came from locations near the ice edge and extending west approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles), and the measurements corroborated those from samples collected by a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker in Lake Erie’s central basin three days earlier.

Scientists discovered in the early 2000s that diatoms could live within and just below Lake Erie’s ice. As the main components of winter-spring blooms, these microbes play important roles in the lake ecosystem, including cleaning pollutants from water and forming the base of the aquatic food web.

Subsequent work has revealed their clever strategy for surviving harsh winter conditions. The diatoms have a symbiotic relationship with a type of bacteria that can form ice crystals. That relationship enables diatoms to attach to the underside of lake ice and access the light needed to perform photosynthesis. Sparser ice cover during some winters has resulted in lower abundance of some diatom species, researchers found, with implications for the lake ecosystem that are not yet fully understood.

“We spent decades ignoring this time of year,” said Steven Wilhelm, director of the Aquatic Microbial Ecology Research Group at the University of Tennessee. “[McKay and I] were lucky to be part of a team that had a chance to start reinvestigating Lake Erie in the winter about 18 years ago.” Many questions around relationships between the seasons—how diatom blooms might shape the onset and severity of summertime blooms, for example—remain ripe for more investigation, he said. “Clearly the lake is active and alive year-round.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[jomindraws]

Next up, our lovely lovely corals ! Well, they aren't corals, but they are functionally similar and have similar niches, so they might as well be ! Xenocorals !!!

(AN1 C1-b) Clade: Corodalia

A clade of Rigidae that is immobile during adulthood and only mobile for the first embryonic stage of its life cycle.

PHYLUM TIDOCORODALIA

Phylum that contain an internal tube for the growth and development of offspring from sexual reproduction, containing mobile external proboscises. 

(AN1 C1-bi) Clade: Flowcorodalia

A clade of tidocorodalia that only exist in saltwater tidal zones and respirate in open air.

Class Gurgocoroda

Class of xenocoral that grow in often bowl-shaped ways and contain a folding and refolding mesoglea matrix that retracts and re-extends depending on the tide.

(AN1 C1-bii) Clade: Crysocoroda

A clade of tidocorodalia that only exist in freshwater environments.

Class Crystallid Coral

Class of xenocoral that grow in ambiguous and geometric columnal patterns and consume microbial phototrophs.

(AN1 C1-biii) Clade: Edioanthozomae

A clade of tidocorodalia that function in sunlight-rich consistently warm saltwater.

Class Reef Shelves

Class of xenocoral that grow in horizontally circular patterns and consume detritus matter or phytoplankton.

Class Reef Brachi

Class of xenocoral that grow in vertical fractal patterns and consume zooplankton or other microfauna.

PHYLUM TUBOCORODALIA

Phylum containing external fans for the production of spores and budding pods, absorbing nutrients strictly from a non-mobile porous membrane.

Class Xenotalic Undertubing

Class of xenocoral that grow in venous seafloor-bound horizontally fractal patterns and exist in open sea benthic environments and consume detritus floral and fungal matter.

Class Ediacaran Tubing

Class of xenocoral that grow in a variety of tube-shaped vertical patterns and consume a variety of plankton within reef and seaforest environments.

Class Venting Tubes

Class of xenocoral that exist on seamounts and hydrothermal vent-rich regions that typically consume extremophile autotrophs.

[togglesbloggle]

I was tagged by @wellmetmat in @perdvivly's ask meme that's going around- thanks for the interest! A few questions, they shall be answered. I won't tag anyone else for now, but anyone who sees this should absolutely respond if they're so inclined.

1. What virtue do you most often see in other people that you feel comparatively deficient in?

Easy one for me: diligence. Consistency, commitment, patient sustained focus on moderate challenges. Being there not on day 1 but on day 1000.

It's a skill I greatly admire in others, and I'm often drawn to those who can practice it successfully and consistently. The virtue of diligence has a way of making the world around oneself a dramatically better place, so being attracted to such people really works out well for me in the long run. Good parenting is perhaps one of the ur-examples here; the stakes of consistency get about as high as they reasonably can, and the rewards are just as clear. I've heard parents say that it's a time of very long days and very short years, and I often strive to give my days and my years the same quality- with not as much success as I'd like.

2. Show us an object in your daily life that you have an emotional attachment to - tell us a little bit about it if you want! (a favourite mug perhaps? socks with a cute pattern? dealers choice)

I actually live more-or-less surrounded by little curios that meet this description, so I had a lot to choose from. It's a lifestyle, or at least a method of interior decorating, that makes me really happy. I grabbed these three more or less at random. From left to right:

Every geologist has a collection of boring-looking rocks with cool science attached; this is the star of my collection. It's a microbialite, meaning roughly that it's a 'fossil' of an ancient microbial mat. This one is from the Buck Reef Chert in South Africa, basically a piece of flint. It's 3.42 billion years old, from the Paleoarchean. It's nearly seven times older than multicellular life, and even predates oxygenic photosynthesis (which is the pattern where plants or green algae uptake CO2 and release oxygen); the organisms that created this fossil breathed iron instead. So it's the sort of organism that was common in the shallower waters of Earth's oceans back in the most primordial ecosystems we have a record of. A relic from an alien world, older than a full third of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. I find it very beautiful to be biologically related to it, and to be part of the same uninterrupted organic chemical reaction.

In the middle is my orchestrator badge for a university class which conducts an elaborate simulation of the papal election of 1492 and its aftermath, run by a professor in the history department- this is last year's. You may recognize 1492 in the Italian peninsula as 'interesting times'. It's taken for class credit, but the heart of it is a LARP that plays out over the course of about two and a half weeks, with full costuming and set-dressing. Every student is assigned a particular period character; most are voting cardinals, some are monarchs ruling over France or Spain and trying to get a favorable pope for themselves, a few are invented minor roles like vote counters that wouldn't have been recorded by history (so that clever cardinals can bribe them, among other things; we have rules for how much the vote-takers can cheat). After suitable prep, we let them loose, and watch the poor bastards chase incentive gradients far enough to burn Europe to the ground. I myself pretend to be a mere orchestrator for the first three days of the simulation, and act mostly as a custodian for the monarchs, but then I dramatically reveal myself to actually be Sultan Bayezid II, of the Ottoman Empire, and then proceed to menace Europe with my impossible wealth, vast armies, and advanced technologies. It is, without fail, a delight.

The right is a watch given to me as a birthday gift some years ago by my dear sister, one of the marvelous transparent ones where you can see finely made gears and springs all working. It's effective for being taken seriously in Europe; combined with brown leather shoes and a thoughtful choice of shirt, it's enough to elevate you above the 'slobby American tourist' first impressions. The watch's finest hour was when I wore it to the front row of the Penn and Teller production of Shakespeare's Tempest. The show was full of stage magic to supplement the play itself, because of course it was, and this watch was irresistible to them during the audience-participation bits. Ariel the wind spirit made a great show of stealing it off my wrist, and of disappearing it and so on multiple times.

3. If you could choose, what level of fame would you want? How many people would you want to recognise you?

There's a level of demifame that I think is just right: enough respect within a widely-spread subculture to earn a comfortable income from fans, and relative anonymity outside it. Jo Walton is at about that sweet spot, for a concrete example. In practice, I think this translates to a few tens of thousands of people around the world that would recognize you, but the key is that they're not randomly selected: they're the people that you share that subculture with, so there's a baseline of mutual regard and shared values even when you're greeted out of nowhere by a stranger in a strange city.

4. Where do you feel language is least adequate to capture, communicate, or express your experience?

What a mean question to ask by text! Ha.

There's a set of experiences you can reach, which I happened to find both through scientific literacy and mindfulness meditation, involving the conditionality and contingencies of personal identity. You may have felt it a little bit when I was talking about my favorite rock, just now; you might not have. I have a powerful and sustained sense of myself as an expression of natural processes, or perhaps of the role of consciousness in illuminating the full depth of that process. It's quite comforting, I suppose, though even that's not a particularly apt description really. I think I called it being 'deep okay' a while back, though I don't recall where; I don’t think I came up with that label myself though. It was here!

5. If you had to come up with a question with the following criteria:

a) it should disuade knee-jerk reaction answers (i.e. it shouldn't be something people are likely to have spent a lot of time considering before)

b) it shouldn't be too specialised (the audience should be general, don't ask about people's top 3 byzantine spice merchants opperating between 754AD-816AD)

c) it shouldn't be needlessly emotionally charged or divisive

d) it should be a question you expect people to have lots of varied opinions about

What would your question be?

What are the kinds of magic you most wish for, or the laws of reality that you most wish could be overcome? What would this allow you to become?

---

Actually I lied I'm tagging @ritterum @femmenietzsche @eka-mark if they haven't been already.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

In sketching the patterns of infectious disease that took shape in the Atlantic world, this chapter calls attention to the complex interrelationships between agrarian systems, demographic dynamics, social structures, and microbial ecologies.⁸

8. Settler mortality rates are such a powerful indicator of institutional choice that [they have been used] as the best instrumental variable to measure institutional differences in the deep past. Notably, much of the debate has focused not on whether the disease burden shaped long-run development, but rather how – that is, the relative weight to assign various channels (i.e., institutional choices made by imperial powers, or the burden of disease more directly). (...) In my view, one thing that has been missing from some of this discussion is the role of mortality in early public investments in, for example, education. By 1775, Massachusetts had perhaps the highest rate of literacy in the world, whereas observers decried the lack of similar investments in the British West Indies.

"Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History" - Kyle Harper

[covid-safer-hotties]

Why the next pandemic could come from the Arctic — and what to do about it - Published Sept 4, 2024

By: Christian Sonne

Only a unified approach across disciplines can reduce the underappreciated threat of emerging diseases arising in the north.

The Arctic is under stress, that much is known. Between 1979 and 2021, the region warmed four times faster than the global average, with effects — as yet poorly understood — on its ecology and ability to store carbon, on global sea levels and on wider ocean-circulation and weather patterns.

Add in the effects of biodiversity loss and pollution, and people often refer to a triple planetary crisis. I think we should actually be talking about a quadruple crisis. Since starting research in the Arctic in 1997, I have spent nearly all of my summers there, monitoring changes in pollution levels, habitats and food webs using a ‘One Health’ approach that integrates effects on wildlife, humans and ecosystems. And it’s becoming clear that, as the Arctic warms, its environment degrades and human activities increase, new health threats are emerging. In particular, the Arctic is likely to become a hotbed for zoonotic diseases that spill over into humans from other animals. That threat was brought home to all of us by the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to take seriously the possibility that the next pandemic could come from the north.

Some 60% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. Their emergence and spillover is in general highly interlinked with habitat degradation, biodiversity loss and food-web changes — all of which are present in the Arctic. But a warming Arctic harbours other risks. As sea ice thaws, ‘forever chemicals’ are increasingly being transported into Arctic environments. These include mercury, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and polychlorinated biphenyls, all known to modulate human and animal immune systems and increase vulnerability to respiratory infections. Invasive fish and whale species are also bringing in industrial chemicals and their own diseases.

The pathogens enter an environment in which some native species, such as polar bears (Ursus maritimus), have not been exposed to them, and so are at increased risk. The release of ancient microorganisms long frozen in ice and sediments as the landscape thaws adds to this danger: humans and other wildlife are likely to lack any immune defences against them.

These risk factors are set to increase. The first ice-free Arctic summers could come as early as the 2030s. The Arctic Ocean has huge potential for energy, fishery and tourism sectors, and is not subject to any global treaty regulating its exploitation. Further wildlife disturbance, pollution, overfishing and jurisdictional conflicts are the likely result.

The current perception is that the Arctic possesses relatively low microbial activity. Compared with temperate and tropical latitudes, many fewer resources are devoted to studying zoonoses in the Arctic, with sparse surveillance for emerging threats in most areas. This needs to change — taking account of human, animal and wider environmental perspectives.

When it comes to logistics, low-tech is high-tech in the Arctic. On the human side, Canadian researchers have already started taking samples from sewage and other sources that can easily be analysed for the presence of viral pathogens. This kind of approach should be combined with better access to community health care, clinical inspections and consultations with local doctors. A particular flash point is the handling and consumption of raw or dried animal meat in subsistence-hunting communities. Hygiene courses, meat inspection and better disease surveillance developed in partnership with those communities can help to both sustain food security and prevent spillover events.

On the wildlife side, long-term finance is needed for yearly and seasonal surveillance programmes. These schemes should collaborate with local communities using existing techniques that don’t rely on technologies such as cryogenics and so are easy to use in situ. Such activities could be embedded into the ongoing Arctic Council monitoring and assessment programmes on pollution, biodiversity and climate change, as laid out in the council’s ‘One Arctic, One Health’ project.

On the broader environmental front, efforts to reduce pollution, safeguard biodiversity and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through international agreements play their part. Efforts spearheaded by various Arctic Council working groups, and other initiatives such as the ongoing negotiations for a United Nations-backed treaty on plastic pollution, show how intergovernmental and interdisciplinary collaboration across public health, biodiversity conservation, pollution and food security can help with achieving sustainability.

To make a true difference, there is need for a broader Arctic monitoring and assessment plan, underpinned by treaty, that combines surveillance of pollution and of disease. This is currently difficult to achieve through the Arctic Council, given the absence of Russia and Russian data since the country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A better opportunity to establish a holistic understanding and action plan might be afforded by the proposed pandemic-preparedness treaty, currently under negotiation at the World Health Organization. This could build on the efforts of almost 200 globally recognized One Health Networks, including those in the Arctic.

Action must be taken now. If it isn’t, it will become more difficult to mitigate wildlife interactions and diagnose, treat and isolate people with an infection — and the risk of a future pandemic with an Arctic ground zero will only increase.

Nature 633, 10 (2024)

doi: doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02830-7

[thethresholdprotocol]

PRAVDA — YOUNG PIONEERS PAGE

Issue No. 17 | February 17th, 19■■

“WHAT’S UNDER THE ICE?” — A Special Report for Curious Comrades

By Lidiya Arkhipova, Special Correspondent for Youth Science

[The following has been translated from the original Slavic text.]

The Soviet Union is the largest and most scientifically advanced nation on Earth—and that includes the coldest parts of it!

Far below the glittering frost and howling winds of Antarctica, a whole new world waits to be understood. Our scientists call it the subglacial zone, and it may be one of the last great frontiers of discovery. It’s like a time capsule from the planet’s youth—quiet, untouched, and perfectly preserved for people like you to explore one day!

Did you know? Some of the ice in Antarctica is more than one million years old!

The Soviet Union operates many proud research stations across the Antarctic continent. Our brave geologists, meteorologists, and glaciologists spend months in the cold to learn what lies beneath—ice cores, ancient sediments, trapped gases, and even microbial life that may have lived before the first fish ever swam.

But sometimes, they find more than they expected.

“There are places the ice moves differently,” says Dr. Myrovsky, senior glaciologist at Komsomol-21 Station. “Places that breathe. Places that dream. We must not be afraid of the Earth remembering us.”

The West may fear the deep unknown. But the Soviet scientist does not. We are explorers of the natural order, not invaders. With discipline, courage, and rational thought, even the longest-frozen mysteries can be understood.

We do not run from the dark. We bring the light of knowledge to it.

So next time you see frost on your window, imagine what lies far below—whispers in the oldest ice, waiting for someone brave enough to listen.

FACT CORNER — For Young Comrades!

◇ Ice in the interior of Antarctica can be over 4,000 meters thick!

◇ Some research stations are built directly into the glacier itself.

◇ Soviet scientists are the first to reach Sublevel Stratum 9—where unique magnetic patterns have been observed!

◇ A full team of geologists and support personnel will be returning this spring from a months-long expedition near the Myrovsky Glaciotectonic Shelf! Stay tuned for updates!

[jackwhiteprophetic]

Interesting notes I found on bees if anyone is curious or wants to write Buck's Wikipedia spiral:

Found in all continents except Antarctica

Five eyes (two compound, three for light intensity- ocelli)

Females from fertilised eggs, males unfertilised.

They used to be confused about bee flight mechanics- not explained by fixed wing flight.

Bees can navigate with spatial memory, using the sun, the polarisation pattern of the blue sky and magnetic fields.

Nocturnal bees exist, with enlarged ocelli.

Evidence to suggest bees have a symbiotic relationship with mycelium, bees feed on mushrooms to boost their microbial immunity and mycelium can germinate inside of and kill varroa mites which threaten bee hives. These fungi also give them steroids which they can't make on their own, boosting survival rate of bees.

Bees in rock paintings in Spain date back to 15000BC

And I also saw this which is cool

[dadbodsandbots]

all of the lore questions for the spidersona. do it.

LORD HELP ME IT'S FINALLY DONE so read my Spectacular Spider-Lore, boy

1. What are the basics of your self insert? name, date of birth, height, etc.?

Cat [REDACTED], aka "Kat Karpenter," aka Wolf Spider/Wild Spider/Fighting Spider ("it's promotion dependent!" aka, still workshopping the name)

2. When in canon does your self insert come in? do you have a scene in mind for your entrance?

According to Catverse canon, I enjoy a career roughly the same as 616 P.eter with some minor deviations until my G.reen G.oblin (Harry this time, not Norman) causes a dimensional collapse that I'm unable to prevent, flinging us into the multiverse while everything else in our reality ceases to be.

I get tossed out at a N.exus of Reality in the Florida Everglades where I first encounter M.an-Thing and we have our own little side adventure while I get oriented, then I light off to NYC to find someone who can temporally stabilize me before I glitch into oblivion.

3. How do the other characters generally feel about your self insert?

"Great power and great responsibility are words ingrained in nearly every Spiderperson, but what does any of that mean without a purpose? It's scary to think about how much guilt can break someone - and that's coming from me - but I feel like she can still drag herself out of that void once she realizes she can honor those who didn't survive by protecting the ones who are here. At least, I hope she can." - YFNSM

"Words are incapable of accurately expressing how much of a headache she's created for the S.pider S.ociety and reality in general." - M. O.

"We can't do anything with her, for her, or to her until we differentiate who was the Anchor Being: her or that Goblin." Mr. P, T.V.A

"Cringe as fuck, but still somehow smart enough not to date D.aredevil." - L. P.

"I have a blank check to anyone who can dump her on the other side of Eternity and keep her there." - N. O.

4. Would you be considered a main character, side character, villain, or something else?

In Catverse, I'm was as just much as the posterchild for the superhero community as 616 S.pidey, while in 616...not so much. I tank my reputation early enough by working for O.scorp right when the D.ark A.vengers kick off that it takes a long, long time and Peter advocating for my improval before anyone's ready to enlist me for anything more dire than grocery shopping.

Not a hero, not a villain, but a secret third thing (overpowered failgirl comic relief)

5. Does your self insert have any special powers or abilities?

Proportionate strength, speed, and reflexes of a Carolina wolf spider (Hogna carolinensis). What I lack in web-slinging, I make up for in exceptional eyesight and paralytic (yet anti-microbial) lycotoxins in my saliva. S.pidey s.ense is less reliable until my anxiety is properly medicated and I learn to trust myself again

According to T.askmaster, I could technically outclass most - not all, but most - A.vengers-level A-listers if I applied my combined skills and experience into anything beyond meta-class pro-wrestling gigs.

Lucky for y'all, I don't feel like it! ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

7. Would any other characters (besides your f/o) have a crush on your self insert?

In Catverse, T.hor and I had a cute fling for a bit, fem!Kraven was hot until she attempted to skin me, L.ogan and I were an item but The Issues™ caused us to split, then reality fell apart and what a coincidence: so did I! 🎉

My 616 crashout slut phase included whatever the hell that was with M.oon K.night, Tasky (who dipped b/c he can't and won't fuck with anyone crazy enough to fuck MK), L.ogan again (😬), S.piral when I got dragged into the MWM (Mojo's Wrestling Multiverse, don't worry about it).

Bob tells everyone and himself that we're just friends, and that he and Lindy are working on it (what "it" is remains unsaid). This pattern of denial, much like the others, continues until the day he dies, then persists between each subsequent resurrection and death. Bob's bone-deep regrets burst the moment he does under K.null's claws at the edge of the Earth's upper atmosphere: lying to everyone, lying to himself, not telling Norman "enough," failing L.indy, not letting her go, letting me go - the list goes on ad infinitum.

8. What is your self insert’s orientation?

bi disaster with dubious rizz hot for blonds

9. Who are your self insert’s closest friends?

In Catverse, it was B.en G.rim and J.ohnny S.torm. The uncle + annoying brother combo. J.ohnny helped me not take things too seriously while B.en personally trained little babby hero Cat polish in wrestling as a way to moderate my excessive strength with proper technique. Plus, he had a soft spot for scrappy underdogs.

Catverse Reese was already friends with H.arry and introduced us after a rocky start, and the rest - as P.eter is well aware - is history.

In 616, I'm still friends with Reese :) but I have a wider circle of friends in the more (Hulk) or less (Lester) heroic community. D.ennis D.unphy and I became friends after he quite literally pulled me out of the gutter to recover after I fell apart when Bob was killed. We still check on each other and I volunteer at his LGBT+ community center for metahumans, so when I say he quite literally saved me from myself, I mean it. We also sometimes make appearances at indie wrestling gigs for charity :)

Norman and I have the weirdest rapport through our mutual grief through what happened with our respective Harrys. Sure, he detests my lack of ambition, exorbitant wage theft, and goober behavior (especially when enabling Reese), but it's not often he meets someone from across the aisle who understands the path he's gone down and the cost of great power.

10. How do the other characters feel about your self insert and f/o’s relationship?

oh man everyone thinks Bob and I are having an affair through the events of D.ark A.vengers all the way up to S.iege lmao

I mean, it ends up being kind of an emotional affair 😬 we initially bond over comic books, dogs and bad puns, which eases us into a deeply personal connection that only two temporally impossible people can share

Most people (validly) assume that I had something to do with L.indy until Bob comes to my defense, and it takes time for most to warm up to us as a couple. R.eed and S.ue take the most time because they cherished the good times that their family shared with Bob and L.indy, although Sue sees the positive changes in our demeanors before R.eed comes to terms with it. At the end of the day, R.eed is happy that Bob is genuinely happy, stable, and honest with his sharing his problems instead of letting them fester. We fought our respective demons and we survived, battered and bruised, but together, so he can forget the odds and welcome his best friend's new lease on life.

11. What kind of outfit(s) does your self insert wear?

Second-hand wrestling gear that I tailored to my personal taste! Norman gets me a new suit because there's no way he's letting my raggedy ass work for him without an upgrade. There are some minor enchancements between the two, but key features include: • Warm earthy browns, woodsy greys, yellow highlights: rural environs, hunting camo, working class, H. carolinensis coloration

• Oversized thrifted leather jacket with arm fringe braided into eight strands resembling legs, hand-sewn radial linear design resembling female wolf spider thoratic patterns* (*arachnophobia warning)

• Black singlet; dark, distressed denim shorts over leggings

• Scuffed kneepads over lace-up wrestling boots

• Brown hair in frazzled, choppy shoulder-length waves

I'm still on the fence about a mask. My spidersona hasn't worn it in since the dimensional collapse (lost? thrown away? it's a mystery 👻), and has yet to get a new one although it would be lucha libre inspired. I'm not worried about compromising my identity anyway since I don't even technically exist in 616.

12. How would the fandom view your character?

fat problematic bisexual homewrecking mary sue lbrh

13. Does your self insert have any information about their family?

"Who the fuck is Aunt May? RIP to Ben, but my uncle shot the guy who tried to rob him."

Reasonably comfortable childhood with parents with a heavy intolerace for cape shit (mutant? mutate? same difference) until the Bite occured, lived in the Spidey Closet until I was old enough to take a degree-to-job offer up north, graciously extended by Reese and their mutual friend H.arry's pleading my case to N.orman. They weren't happy about it, especially when I struck out on my own. Unfortunately, we were barely on speaking terms when my dimension collapsed, something that still haunts me. As a side note, after some kooky genealogy research unearthed 10th century divinity claims on my dad's side, I came up with a throwaway bit that I'm a very, very distant descendant of H.ercules, therefore making me a great grand-niece of A.res. He is conflicted about this revelation, but is satisfied that I like him better than his half-brother and that it drives N.orman to drink (more than usual). Becomes even more conflicted once he becomes in-laws to the guy to who - quite literally - tore him a new one.

14. What hobbies does your self insert have?

Bumming, squatting, layaboutism

I enjoy rooftop gardening and exploring NYC :) It's impossible for me not to look like a tourist, even if I've lived in the city for years. It's such a different environment to what I'm used to! Everything is so big and loud and different no matter where you look, and I take a new route every time I go outside just to encounter something or someone new!

15. How does your self insert play a role in the plot of the story? do they help directly defeat the villain, support the heroes, etc.?

LORD HELP ME I'M GOONING 😫💦

so yeah, Norman puts me to work as a beleagured O.scorp admin assistant by day, then the grind continues as the Spectacular Spider-Goon™! It ain't honest work, but it's much. I do try to get back into street-level hero work, but quickly spiral again until D.ennis catches me circling the drain and helps redirect my energy into community volunteerism. Heroism happens every day!

16. Freebie! name a fact about your self insert you want everyone to know.

I never travel to 616 SC because I don't know what scares me more: that everything will be different enough to be unsettling or that it will look exactly the same, my family will still be alive, and that I will never have a place there again.