#science and lit

[art-of-mathematics]

A silly "Elfchen" in German.

Quantenschaum

und Quantenwitz;

Darin liegt Bizarres,

das nie ein Mensch

begriff.

... roughly translates to

"Quantum foam and quantum wit; In it lies the bizarre - what no human has ever fathomed."

[tehstripe]

this sequence of pages in act 5 is so striking to me.

in acts 1-4, jade is a mysterious, all-knowing figure who knows about sburb and how it needs to go, and shes very systematic about logging and remembering important things through the little bands on her fingers. even though shes just some goofy little girl, shes smart!! she knows whats going on and knows what she has to do, and shes been studying the clouds to make sure that she and her friends are ready. because honestly, what else is she going to do with her time? she's alone on the island, and this is her destiny. she's going to make sure it happens.

here, we're finally seeing a bit of her friendly and put together self image start to fall apart as she just gives up on keeping track of things. she's grieving the loss of prospit, shes just had her first ever nightmare, AND she had to deal with an obnoxious teenage boy (karkat), and she's reached her breaking point. and she just. gives up. forget the reminders, forget the systems, they aren't serving her right now, so off they go.

plus, we get this tidbit a few pages later:

jade always knew she was going to die. she had seen herself, stuffed and perfectly preserved as a thirteen-year-old. she must have known that it was coming soon, but that didn't stop her from going through the plan to play the game with her friends. personally i think she thought it was worth it if she could at least see her friends, hopefully keep them safe, and have some fun times with them right before she had to die.

i wonder if theres a part of her unsettled by the fact that she's finally faced something she didn't already know was going to happen. she no longer has the comforting clouds of skaia to tell her what's going to happen - she's as clueless as everyone else. probably MORE clueless than some characters, like the trolls, who have a window into her future that she can't see.

jade's realized that she doesn't know all of the beats of this story anymore. she might just grow up now, and that means she has to go forth into the unknown.

[torpublishinggroup]

Devilman Crybaby meets Marvel’s Venom in Exordia, the science fiction debut of Seth Dickinson, author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant. 

Ssrin Character Illustration by Julie Dillon

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Meet Anna Sinjari, a refugee and disaffected office worker eking an existence in New York City. Her life is about to be upended by Ssrin, an alien with eight serpent heads, no qualms with cold-blooded murder, and an appetite for turtles (yum).

The universe is governed by seven passions, seven patterns which appear again and again, across species and across time. Anna and Ssrin are bound by the last and the greatest. The cosmos itself ships their very souls. Specifically for them, that means they’ll have to outmaneuver spies, armies, and government agencies to save humanity from a diabolical alien entity, hellbent on pinioning the souls of every creature on earth.

Exordia is expansive adventure science fiction that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, but steeped in the irony, humor, and pain of the Internet age. An alien-human epic for those who've always rooted for the monster.

[quotespile]

I don't miss him anymore. Most of the time, anyway. I want to. I wish I could but unfortunately, it's true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. If you're not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have ever lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience. Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language. The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance called memory and in the mechanism something will be lost and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncategorized, preprocessed state. It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.

Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

[disacurveball]

god the mad scientist trope is so trans. the lone figure- partaking in the act of creation, the innovation of body and flesh, seen as monstrous and unnatural by wider society. rejecting societal rules and embracing radical science- the creation becoming the creator. transforming what once was to something so other, and it is magnificent. it is so horrible, it is so beautiful, it is me.

[soracities]

J. Estanislao Lopez, from "Alternate Ending: The Invention of Science", We Borrowed Gentleness

[prettyinaccurate]

hes doing SCIENCE

[thehauntedrocket]

Metropolis

Art by Michael Kaluta

[jackxo]

ℌ𝔬𝔴 ℑ 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱 𝔱𝔬 𝔟𝔢 🏛️

[lets-get-lit]

It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. 

- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

[tygerland]

Christmas with Lovecraft and Friends. 2010, by Nelson Evergreen.

[labcoated-lunacy]

"this edible ain't shit LMAO"

*ten minutes later, trembling feverishly" "devil! do you dare approach me?? and do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head??? begone, vile insect!! or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! and oh! that i could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!!"

the yellow-eyed daemon i have cobbled together from flesh and alchemical genius: "I expected this reception. all men hate the wretched; how, then, must i be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us-"

[torpublishinggroup]

Devilman Crybaby meets Marvel’s Venom in Exordia, the science fiction debut of Seth Dickinson, author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant. 

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Meet Anna Sinjari, a refugee and disaffected office worker eking an existence in New York City. Her life is about to be upended by Ssrin, an alien with eight serpent heads, no qualms with cold-blooded murder, and an appetite for turtles (yum).

The universe is governed by seven passions, seven patterns which appear again and again, across species and across time. Anna and Ssrin are bound by the last and the greatest. The cosmos itself ships their very souls. Specifically for them, that means they’ll have to outmaneuver spies, armies, and government agencies to save humanity from a diabolical alien entity, hellbent on pinioning the souls of every creature on earth.

Exordia is expansive adventure science fiction that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, but steeped in the irony, humor, and pain of the Internet age. An alien-human epic for those who've always rooted for the monster.

[bigskyandthecoldgun]

imagine eddie’s out of work because reefer rick got put away for good, and rick kept such a tight lid on his own supplier that eddie has no clue where to buy from now. he’s applied to a couple of jobs, but nobody’s gotten back to him yet. thankfully, his saving grace comes in the form of a flyer for someone seeking a babysitter.

enter single dad steve, who just needs someone to watch his five kids (and occasionally the miracle baby hopper-byers twins from nextdoor, because they’re best friends with his kids and refuse to be separated from them for longer than twelve hours) for a couple hours while he takes a much-needed nap every few days. he can’t keep asking their auntie robin and auntie vickie, after all. even if they’re more than willing to watch them, steve feels like it’s too big of an ask without payment, which they refuse to accept. and if the babysitter that responds to his flyer just so happens to be a very attractive guy whose guitar-playing and d&d skills are enough to captivate said children’s collective attention for those hours, well…that’s just an added bonus.

[themedicalstate]

Neurons that are covered with myelin propagate signals faster

Source: Slava Bobrov

[neat-deadandlive-things]

What is a favorite fact that you like but feel like you never have a chance to share? More than one favorite is also totally acceptable.

This is a tough one because as soon as I learn a new fact I tell everyone around me that fact repeatedly. Some of my favs:

Our fuel doesn't come from dinosaurs as the internet likes to say but actually mostly fossilized algae and plant matter!

Barnacles may have the largest penis to body size ratio of any animal.

Our mitochondria was actually it's own little organism before "we" (the single celled ancestor of all eukaryotes) swallowed it up and instead of digesting it, put it to use. That's why mitochondria have their own set of DNA. All human mitochondria can in theory be traced back to a "mitochondrial Eve" because we inherited 100% of our mitochondrial DNA from our mother and there is very little recombination compared to the rest of out DNA. There is also a y-chromosome Adam but that's only traceable in much more recent history because of more recombination and mutation, and also because only half the population have y-chromosomes.

Antlers are actually technically a type of cancer! In a simplified way, antlered animals have evolved to use these cancer cells and not be killed by them!

Soap is made from fats! Therefore bodies decomposing in specific cold low oxygen environments actually "turn into" soap in a process called saponification!