this spell ruined my life my wizard friend keeps making fun of me calling me a dirt eating wench just on account of the dirt in my stomach

It only eats androgens it just destroys estrogens for love of the game. it is masculinizing its metabolism

the world has gone to hell in a handbasket since they stopped teaching kids wind magic in school...

thank you!

I know a few bacterial pathogens can get through mucus at the very least, and those all have some fun ways of doing so. i know one that chemically alters the mucus around it to be less goopey. heliobacter pylori I believe but this is off the cuff

mucus is stuffed full of commensal bacteria though, and thwy provide quite a barrier to most pathogens. on top of mucus being turbo viscous. its sort of like a peace offering of "here you go microbes, go live here and not on my tissues pleas". many microbes can actually eat mucin so theres a minor arms race between the commensal guys and pathogenic bacteria in that regard

so your mucus is this living microbiome! i say commensal but some evidence points to borderline mutualistic symbioses, too! theres some bacteria in there which seem to have really positive health effects. i love mucus i love microbiota i love bacteria

made more today, it'll arrive momentarily

forgot i shouldn't make the broth spicy when I have a sore throat but regardless, enjoy!

that genuinely sucks :(

my last day was the 20th but that's because I've been a full-time temp for like, a year, and it was mandatory to put me on break without pay for a month

on the bright side, no work for now + got taken on semi-permanently (grant funded research lol)

I am a plant woman and I fried this rice. I am made of tubers, gourds, etc. Even a fruit or two. But we do not speak of this. Only vegetable.

Rest in peace bagpipe fella, that's a real shame :(

I usually find somewhere to cry-sing Last Song by Jason Webley as the year turns. Just my little ward against despair.

My stepdad always makes black-eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread. I am not southern, so it's never really something I've done, but those foods are all great. Maybe I should.

Much obliged! Blood falls is one of my favorite natural phenomena and I love spreading the word about its Weird Microbes whenever possible

Basically, they go something like SO42– → SO32– →S2O32–, which is broadly endergonic, but there's a ton of different electron acceptors in the vicinity which can essentially create the free energy, and also cycle the sulfur between these different forms. it doesn't get eaten up, just kinda tossed around.

It's not fully worked out the exact specifics of the metabolism, but it's some really weird anoxic stuff! the carbon deprivation is another big thing I don't even fully understand - apparently small amounts of carbon 14 are found in samples but it seems much of that is just because the samples are taken from surface outflow (same with how theres a bit of oxygen there, but almost no actual dissolved oxygen in the deep glacial reservoir)

Surface area is one of those recurring themes I had in every single biology class I took! I genuinely can't think of a single exception, from my first college level intro bio class to my more specialized biochemistry and molecular bio courses, again and again it boils down to surface area!

I am feeling much better now, thank you :) Just last night my partner and I went to a lantern festival and the night before I went to a weird art market where they gave discounts if you wore a weird costume. I dressed up like some kind of 1800s zombie nurse.

I hope you too are doing well! The world is so full of delights.

Thank you so much! I am so glad you found something worthwhile here :)

I will post forever and ever and ever. I will Just Post, for I Must Post

oh! thank you, what an excellent idea! the humble spinach... a plant which I am growing as we speak... hmmmmmmmmm much to ponder

thank you for your wise dialogue, speaker-upon-the-agora!

thank you postfriend!!

i am considering the venerable pecan pie! i do love molasses (my pumpkin pie trick is to add em)

and i do yearn for a magical mouth meal! thank you for this topic of contemplation, you are very wise

Thank you! I feel better today thankfully :) I just had a weird morning yesterday it seems!

yup! it's hard to know the extent of it since ancient microbial fossils and fieldsigns are harder to work with (but do exist!) but it probably took out like. the majority of life at the time. utterly remade the world. really wild stuff

absolutely wonderful, especially on a cold day like today :)

That sucks! Genuinely evil. Can't believe they'd do that to the jazz station

One of the first stations I randomly hit was some christofash talk show. The connection was really bad. They were doing a hymn but it was veiled in static. Hell of an audio experience. Sounded like a broadcast at the end of the world. And then they just started talking. Sad!

Honestly most of the stations here are still christian music or talk radio. Its amazing how many one area can sustain.

Where but for the grace of college students broadcasting weird music go I. They're playing hurdy gurdy instrumental music rn.

You must make soup

for there is a beast of goop

that haunts those who cannot scoop

a nice sip of soup

That would be really fun! They're not too well studied since theres not much money in it sadly. But we can dream!

I don't teach, but I did volunteer as a tutor throughout college! I also got chosen to take part in a science writing fellowship which was focused on helping teach students science writing, reading the literature, etc. I also minored in science communications so there's that!

I'm so glad you find it engaging!!! Bacteria and archaea are my special interest so its easy to talk at length. Proper SciComm intimidates me a bit, but Just Posting about them is lower pressure. I just want to spread my love for these beings so often written off as pathogenic vermin.

I've been thinking about making a video where I talk through a bacteriology "iceberg" image I found online, but I worry about accuracy since I lack advanced degrees in the field.

hummus started tasting off so I'm only eating the pita chips now :(

prudent course of action! best of luck!

i am a saag paneer woman at heart but they only have paneer tikka masala where I get it on tuesdays. real good though!

I've definitely been in positions like that. When I was young I clung to weird conservative beliefs/catholicism in the hope it'd ingratiate me to my extremely far right family despite my being queer (I was very worried I'd be found out and disowned or something). It was something I just needed time on really. Seeing the grotesque nature of it all is in and of itself extremely convincing. Mostly it was an emotional change rather than anything super logical. Just a point when you see reactionaries as so awful you'd rather be on your own. For me this naturally happened by being a queer woman.

I think in most of these cases it's really a community based thing, I think. There's a feeling of psychological safety entailed by "membership" in reactionary groups/politics as there is any other community. But I agree wholeheartedly with the approach of being patient, giving gentle nudges, etc. Altering the concentration gradient enough that they naturally just slip out of solution.

I've been talking with my mom for years being gentle and compassionate and only pushing where it "feels" right. The rest of my family are traditionalist catholics, Q conspiracists, and at best a neocon or two. That's most of her social circle at this point. So for me a lot of it has both been gently bringing up counterarguments or validating her feelings but not her rationale. Over time she's started bringing a lot of science related questions to me to get a perspective that isn't incredibly far right. I've been able to debunk conspiracies while being like "ok yeah but the material conditions that cause these beliefs are very real; here's alternate ways to think about them" and such.

I think a big thing too has been pushing her to engage in more social groups. Getting her back into her video gaming groups and going outside to talk with friends, joining local groups and stuff. Alternate communities and support networks disentangled from reaction.

She told me she just couldn't vote for Trump in the last USAmerican election because of me. It's a small thing but to pull someone back from wholehearted commitment to reaction over time is nice. She was talking to me yesterday about how she doesn't think socialism could work in the USA specifically but 'she doesn't know enough about it.'" lol.

There's plenty she, and any reactionary say that's just infuriating. I need to vent to my friends about it sometimes. But I try to keep my frustrations to those sorts of environments. I think positive individual experiences tend to soften people's hearts, but I don't blame anyone for being unable to tolerate it. I certainly don't go trying to convince my tradcath relatives of anything. I'm not convincing my "vatican II was too woke" grandfather of anything.

There's a trap in this approach, of course. Most of the time you're going to get labelled as an exception. "One of the good ones." Not like those other feminists/commies/queers. This is one of the most frustrating things to hear. But in my experience it still helps pull them back from the most virulent stages of reactionary radicalization. I dunno. Maybe I am being too optimistic and saccharine about it.

But I always just kinda go back to how we are all alienated and suffering under this system. People say and do awful shit, but so often it's because they can't see the faces they're shooting at. Most of us have similar material interests, and are caused similar angsts by them. Speaking to those angsts is often quite doable, and I think it's a good place to meet those reactionaries that can yet be convinced. Just planting seeds of "society is evil and it sucks. maybe its for reasons that aren't WOMEN." can help. Or maybe not. It's all gooey and vague.

Get yourself a sandwich my friend, you must be nourished to withstand the winter to come.