who was the fool who was tasked with naming the galaxy and the only adjective they could think of was ‘mmmmmmmmmmmmilky…’
scientist: (gazing up at space) scientist: ……….. it sure is a milky boy
NO
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
ASTRONOMERS ARE THE SHITTIEST EVER AT NAMING THINGS I KID YOU NOT.
When it came time to name the two theoretical particle types that might be dark matter THEY INTENTIONALLY CHOSE THE NAMES SO THAT THE ACRONYMS WOULD SPELL “WIMPS” AND “MACHOS” I SHIT YOU NOT
THEY ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT NAMING ANYTHING
I just listened to a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself LAST NIGHT and he went on about this more than once.
“I’m walking down the street and I’m like ‘ooh pretty rock…’ and some Geologist is like ‘actually, that’s anorthosite feldspar’ and I’m like ‘Nevermind, I don’t want it anymore.’ Any biologists in the audience? [some clapping] Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The most important molecule in the human body, what did you name it? It has NINE SYLLABLES and it’s so long that even YOU GUYS abbreviate it as ‘DNA’!
But astrophysicists and astronomers? No, man, we call it like we see it. Star made of neutrons? NEUTRON STAR. Small white star? WHITE DWARF. You know that big red spot on Jupiter? Know what we called it? JUPITER’S RED SPOT.”
okay i’m glad you mentioned the biologist nonsense bc their naming methods are the bane of my existence
I see your astrophysicists-are-shit-at-names and raise you Marine-Biologists-Are-Fucking-Maniacs.
See this beautiful creature?
It’s a carnivorous deep-sea sponge that lives off of Easter Island and never sees the light of day, as it’s about 9000 feet down. Those delicate-looking orbs are covered in millions of tiny hooked spines, which latch onto anything unfortunate enough to bump into it, and hold it in place as it is digested alive by the sponge’s skin. Amazing, beautiful and profoundly creepy. They could have given it so many cool names. Could have drawn on mythology (I think Scylla would have been an appropriate reference), the region it was found in, the textured skin, PHAGOCYTOSIS, anything!
Scientific fact, actually. Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarbrough found that White people’s neuron system fired less when viewing people of color performing actions, which indicates that they have an emotional disconnect when thinking about people of color; in essence they really don’t connect with us on a basic level of human empathy. (Source) The same people tested scored higher on a subtle racism test, as well.
Jesus
Reason why I don’t trust or fuck with white people proven by science.
There was actually a study done (if better science Tumblr wanna link the source that would be awesome) where they showed a Black person’s hand being tortured and a purple hand being tortured and measured the empathetic response and ppl actually had more empathy and a higher emotional response for a purple ass alien hand being tortured than a Black person’s hand smh
Neuroscience student here. While all of the above statements are true in context, the whole point of the purple hand study is to show that racism based on differences in skin color is not an inherent biological trait in the brain. (There’s hope for humanity!) Quick summary:
When racist white people watch someone who isn’t white experience pain, their brains activate less in areas associated with feeling empathy. The less racist you are (as measured by tests of racial bias), the more these areas activate, while the more racist you are, the less these areas activate. In other words, science confirms the obvious: racism makes you less empathetic to people who aren’t white.
But here’s the super important thing! When the same person watches someone with bright purple skin experience pain, these areas activate as strongly as they do when they’re watching another white person. This shows that the lack of empathy that racist white people feel for people of different skin color is learned, rather than an intrinsic biological trait. If a white person’s ability to feel empathy were intrinsically limited to people with the same skin color, these people wouldn’t feel empathy for a purple hand.
The fact that racist white people still feel empathy for a purple hand shows that this brain activity is the result of cultural learning, rather than differences in skin color blocking our ability to feel empathy. As the authors write, “… Cultural conditioning (e.g., racial stereotyping), rather than biological or structural factors (e.g., somatic similarity), may shape embodied resonance with others.” Again, this is the whole point of the study, and it’s the only reason they included a purple hand.
In summary: humanity isn’t biologically doomed to feel less empathy for people with different skin color. If we can feel empathy for someone whose skin is bright purple, it’s not the difference in skin color itself that’s blocking empathy. What we’re seeing is the product of culture: many white people grow up in a culture that teaches them to see those with more melanin as being “Different”, “Other”, or members of an out-group. Since this in-group/out-group effect is where the lack of empathy comes from, we can prevent these changes in the brain just by teaching little kids to include everyone in their in-group, whether or not their skin color is the same.
Also, as a side note, the concept of race is scientifically controversial. Quote from a paper: “The use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research […] is problematic at best and harmful at worst. … Racial classifications do not make sense in terms of genetics.” Even without getting into details, on average there’s more genetic variation between two random members of the same “race” than between two different “races” as a whole. (Obviously race is real in its consequences, but it’s still a social construct).
In other words, being white does not make you racist. Learning and retaining a chosen lack of empathy from other racists and societal bias makes you racist. Racism is learned, and once learned, becomes a choice. A committed choice.
so uhhhhhh i know this is a plant blog but realtalk lads im a little freaked out by that wild ass new organ discovered in our bodies according to a paper published literally yesterday am i right my lads, my bois, lmao hhaha
(as of 3/28/2018, paper was published in the reputable international research journal “Nature” on 3/27/2018, publication here, study was started in 2013) ok so like uhhh this is my rough translation of the paper they published using my current level of biological knowledge, if anyone else has a more in depth understanding with human anatomy things and would like to add on with anything i might have missed feel free to add but this is my takeaway:
-scientists were looking at some stuff in the inside of a bile duct they were studying in a live patient (this will be important later) using a laser that lets them see the cells in real time. they injected some stuff into the duct and saw the spaces inbetween the cells fill up with fluid in strange, tube-like structures that didn’t correspond with what they expected to be there, so they sectioned and froze them to study them closer; they realized that upon closer inspection, the fluid-filled places were VERY small collagen tubes forming a complex matrix of bundles surrounded by a weird cell covering that seemed to connect them to one another. they called this the Interstitium.
-they sectioned some more places where squeezy things might happen, like the inner linings of the bladder, lungs, lymph nodes, and the soft tissue enclosing our muscles, filled them with the same indicator, and hyper froze them like they did to the first sample and found the same weird matrix of fluid-filled tubing:
they concluded from what they found from this that:
1. our previous thought of the space inbetween the cells in these parts of the body, which we thought were just kinda like, there or whatever doing nothing (a series of spaces that were already called the Interstitium that were largely ignored), are actually full of complex tubing running through a ton of very important parts of your body
2. when the structures they’re chilling around (like your bladder and bowel) contract, the fluid moves around all weird
3. the reason this wasn’t discovered before is because when the tubes are squished too hard- like when scientists are cutting into them- they have a tendency to collapse really easily,especially when being treated with chemicals for microscope use, giving the impression of the kind of tissues that we’ve traditionally seen in specimens and thought of being in these sensitive areas (closely compact and dense cell mats). it turns out that in living people, these tubes run between the cells carrying fluid; the scientists were able to see this initially in live patients using the above mentioned laser technology, and then took live biopsies by quickly freezing the cells in place before removal to prevent their collapse.
4. yes, these can move cancer cells around, which is HUGE seeing as they seem to enclose a LOT of important and delicate muscles in our bodies in one giant, complex system. when they looked at it in cancer patients, the tumors they found seemed to kind of be….leaking….into them…..because the tumors were putting pressure on the fluid tubes….which easily collapse…..and move things that fall into the fluid around….
5. the scientists also explored things like hernias and colon damage in relation to these, but unfortunately this is where my translation powers run out as non-plant-related terminology starts being used lmao im so sorry im like this
tl;dr: the membranes that surround some really important parts of squishy things like our stomach, bowels, colon, lungs, muscles, etc are full of very delicate and complex tubing that runs in a weirdly complex system to other important squishy things throughout our bodies and looks like a weird organ that we didn’t know was there before (or like, we knew about it, we just didn’t know it was so…connected and uh…organy). also it seems to have an impact on the spread of cancer throughout these regions
Graduate of Biomedical Science here; this paper is pretty much understandable to me.
You’ve picked out the main stuff, but here’s some things I think is very interesting:
The discovery of these spaces dramatically expands the lymphatic system. Basically, this is how the lymph nodes are connected to the rest of the body. Before it was kinda like ‘yeah here are the lymph nodes, and the lymph fluid kinda goes to the somehow? idk’. But now we have a whole system. It’s like discovering the entire circulatory system when before you only had the heart to work with.
This is super important for cancers and detecting when a cancer has spread (metastasised, in the lingo). They talk about the spread of cancers into the deeper tissues (such as stomach cancers invading their submucosal tissue and skin cancers pentrating deeper into the dermis layers), but what is most important is that they detected the cancers spreading into the interstitial spaces before there was anything to detect within the lymph nodes. This is super important, as usually lymph node biopsies are done to detect if a cancer is spreading; this is before that very stage. This is literally catching cancers in the act of spreading before they’ve hit another organ this is fucking incredible.
It’s providing an explanation for oedema (or edema, for my US followers), which is the build-up of fluid in certain areas of the body (usually the lower limbs, but it can be anywhere). For so long it’s been like ‘I guess there’s something wrong with your blood vessels??’ but like the lymphatic system, we’ve now got another explanation. ‘Ah, okay, there’s something going down in your interstitial fluid!’ A more effective diagnosis and treatment could be made, Bam! Enrich more people’s lives.
They may play a role in how scar formation works. Some scar tissue can get a bit crazy and grow too much, meaning it needs to be cut away as it hinders movement or it just fucking painful. Perhaps the interstitial tubing/fluid plays a role in this, considering collagen is used in scar tissue, and these spaces are full of it.
There’s clearly communication between these spaces and the digestive system, as they found tattoo pigment from the intestines in these spaces. Tattooing in the intestine is done to mark lesions for removal or observation later on, so the fact this pigment is actively moving out of the digestive system and else means it could play a role in disease we don’t know much about, like inflammatory bowel conditions.
Basically, THIS IS FUCKING HUGE AND COULD POTENTIALLY CHANGE THE GAME IN A BIG WAY.
Thank you OP for sharing this, I haven’t nerded out and been so fascinated by a study in a long time.
ALSO GOOD ON YOU NATURE FOR MAKING THE FULL ARTICLE FREE. HONOUR ON YOU AND YOUR COWS.
While sitting in his high-chair, your baby drops the spoon. You get up, pick it up from the floor, give it back to Baby – only for him to throw it away on purpose.
If this scene sounds familiar to you, you might wonder why he does that. Is he rebellious and tries to upset you on purpose? Does he have a really silly kind of humor? No and no. In fact, your baby is busy conducting his very first scientific experiments. His brain is starting to understand two important concepts.
The first one is called “Cause and Effect”: When i throw away the spoon, mom picks it up. When i do it again, she does it again. Oh, yay!
The second is called “Object permanence”: When i throw away the spoon, it disappears – No, it doesn’t, mom picks it up! It’s still there, even when i can’t see it!
To fully grasp these concepts, your baby needs to repeat those experiments again and again and again. That’s annoying to you – but try to smile at your little scientist!
Kids really are born scientists. Most things that babies and toddlers do are part of how they discover how the world works.
by the way the funniest thing ive read all week is this post on reddit i think where somebody asked for the pros and cons of different stem majors and so this one girl responded and she said she was a software engineer i believe and then she said “ok pro #1. i never have to wait in line for the bathroom ever again. there are more female restrooms in this building than there are women”
pro #2: growing up i was surrounded by so many saras. just. saras everywhere. which sara do you want? but now, as a software engineer, I am the only sara. the eleven marks weep in jealousy.
the marks smdjdjdjdjd YEAH when i took my first compsci class the lab section had twice as many nicks than there were women
someone was complaining to me about how there are too many ryans on the team, and i said “you wanna know how to fix that? hire more women” and the only other woman sitting nearby spat out her coffee
Not to critique evolution, but I would think orange and black stripes wouldn’t be as good for camouflage in a forest as, say, green and black would.
It turns out a lot of animals can’t see the difference between orange and green! Elephants, for instance, have dichromatic vision (two types of cones, rather than three like most humans.)
Check out this diagram from ResearchGate. It deals with the color vision of horses, who are also generally dichromatic. (I think, though I’m not sure, that zebras would have the same color vision as horses.) See how orange and green look to them?
Not to critique evolution but I think prey animals should be better at telling when their predator is dressed like a traffic cone.
It doesn’t matter what zebras see, because tigers are not native to Africa and do not naturally hunt zebra. Tigers are Asian and mostly hunt animals like deer, elk, and buffalo. These aren’t animals with great color vision. They don’t need to have it because they don’t eat fruit and so don’t need to know when the berry is ripe vs when it’s not. Good color vision is too expensive to have if you don’t need it. Deer put their vision stats in a wide field of vision that is sensitive to motion, low light capabilities, and possibly seeing UV light. They don’t have great color and lack a lot of acuity, but have a great sense of smell and good hearing. That’s way more useful if you’re prey. Deer see well in the blue end of the color spectrum and less well in the red. This makes sense because deer are most active in the dawn and dusk periods, when there is more blue in the light. Tigers are taking advantage of deer eyesight by being orange.
We see tigers are being obviously colored because tigers are fruit colored to our tree ape brains.
I don’t know what the best part of this is: implying that deer chose their attributes on a character sheet, or the fact that we get to see tiger colors because they look like a snack.
Ok but like, I think you underestimate just how well they blend in when actually in the environment. Like, just using tigers as an example.
or how about a leopard?
It’s called ‘disruptive colouration’ because the markings help to break up the animal’s outline against the grasses or rocks. And the rosettes on leopards and jaguars? Sun spots shining through the trees and leaves on the ground.
And this is how hard it is to spot them WITH colour vision. Now imagine the above images but with the limited coloured mentioned above?
I’m sorry but there is not an animal in that first leopard picture
Are you, sure about that?
“Tigers are fruit colored” is my new favorite phrase.
who are you calling terrifying this is clearly a friend of the highest quality
all yall with ur “uwu smol friend” bullshit gonna let us walk right into the fucking robot apocalypse someone could make a metal gear in real life and youd all say its adorable
this is exactly the kind of shit im talking about when i say i have no patience for people who look at robots and immediately start thinking about terminator shit. why is this terrifying? because it looks like a snake? so the fuck what? the reason robots are made to look like existing organisms is because those organisms have a several million year head start on robotics engineers on solving problems like how to move in water while expending minimal energy or how to walk over uneven terrain while carrying a heavy load.
it’s also really telling that people are much more scared of these organic robots that fall into the uncanny valley than they are of drones, which are robots that currently exist and have been killing people for several years. if a “robot apocalypse” does end up happening, it wont be due to organic-looking robots suddenly achieving sentience and deciding to wipe out all life on earth, it’ll be because some rich asshole or a war-hungry country sees new technology with the potential to kill people and harnesses it for that purpose, which has already happened several times over the course of human history.
tl;dr: stop opposing technological advancements with massive potential for good because you watched Terminator once, also this snake is cute and a friend
wupacing 