I HAVE A PROBLEM

Bodice, 1700s.

The reconstructed face of the “Cheddar Man” (c. 7,000 BCE) compared to his living descendant, Adrian Targett    

The Cheddar Man is a Mesolithic skeleton that was recovered from England’s Cheddar Gorge in 1903. At around 9,000 years old, the Cheddar Man is the oldest complete skeleton ever discovered in the UK, and has long been hailed as the “first Briton.” DNA analysis on the Cheddar man from 2018 indicated that he was lactose intolerant, had light-colored eyes, dark brown or black hair, and had a dark to black skin tone. Although the discovery of the Cheddar Man’s dark skin tone was surprising for both scientists and the public alike, it corresponds with recent research suggesting that genes linked to lighter skin only began to spread about 8,500 years ago - approximately 32,000 years later than what was previously believed.  

In addition to the development on his skin tone, the Cheddar Man surprised scientists in 1997 when DNA analysis revealed that he had a living descendant -  a retired history teacher named Adrian Targett. Targett and the Cheddar man share the same mtDNA, which is passed down from mother to daughter. In other words, they share a common maternal ancestor. What is even more remarkable is that Targett lives in Cheddar, only a half mile away where his 9,000-year-old ancestor was discovered.

Targett was not invited to the initial reveal of his ancestor’s new facial reconstruction, but he has since seen it and has commented on the family resemblance. “I do feel a bit more multicultural now,” he once joked in an interview “And I can definitely see that there is a family resemblance. That nose is similar to mine. And we have both got those blue eyes.”

The development of the Cheddar Man’s skin tone has generated resistance, especially among far-right and white supremacist circles. Targett, however, is unbothered by it, stating that it is “marvelous what scientists can reconstruct once they sequence the DNA.” When asked if he thought whether the findings affected the way people think about race, Targett responded: “Yes, I do think it’s significant. Not many people in Cheddar mind it. But the lesson is that we’re all immigrants, whether you’ve been in a place for 10 minutes or 9,000 years. We’ve all come from somewhere.”

sometimes i marvel at the fact that people actually tell me they’re intimidated by me or scared of me when i am??? the embodiment of this gif???? thats literally all i am

why afraid

I have … a tip.

If you’re writing something that involves an aspect of life that you have not experienced, you obviously have to do research on it. You have to find other examples of it in order to accurately incorporate it into your story realistically.

But don’t just look at professional write ups. Don’t stop at wikepedia or webMD. Look up first person accounts.

I wrote a fic once where a character has frequent seizures. Naturally, I was all over the wikipedia page for seizures, the related pages, other medical websites, etc.

But I also looked at Yahoo asks where people where asking more obscure questions, sometimes asked by people who were experiencing seizures, sometimes answered by people who have had seizures.

I looked to YouTube. Found a few individual videos of people detailing how their seizures usually played out. So found a few channels that were mostly dedicated to displaying the daily habits of someone who was epileptic.

I looked at blogs and articles written by people who have had seizures regularly for as long as they can remember. But I also read the frantic posts from people who were newly diagnosed or had only had one and were worried about another.

When I wrote that fic, I got a comment from someone saying that I had touched upon aspects of movement disorders that they had never seen portrayed in media and that they had found representation in my art that they just never had before. And I think it’s because of the details. The little things.

The wiki page for seizures tells you the technicalities of it all, the terminology. It tells you what can cause them and what the symptoms are. It tells you how to deal with them, how to prevent them.

But it doesn’t tell you how some people with seizures are wary of holding sharp objects or hot liquids. It doesn’t tell you how epileptics feel when they’ve just found out that they’re prone to fits. It doesn’t tell you how their friends and family react to the news.

This applies to any and all writing. And any and all subjects. Disabilities. Sexualities. Ethnicities. Cultures. Professions. Hobbies. Traumas. If you haven’t experienced something first hand, talk to people that have. Listen to people that have. Don’t stop at the scholarly sources. They don’t always have all that you need.

Ha ha HA HA HA

So I might have kinda broken my ankle, lol rip me. I might have also have done so by slipping on the top of the stairs of the bus and fell down the stairs and landed sitting on my ankle. Also, I might have walked around on it all day yesterday not knowing it was more than a sprain, with a forensics meet and everything. So yeah, rip me, lol.

Ice age children frolicked in 'giant sloth puddles' 11,000 years ago, footprints reveal

More than 11,000 years ago, young children trekking with their families through what is now White Sands National Park in New Mexico discovered the stuff of childhood dreams: muddy puddles made from the footprints of a giant ground sloth.

Few things are more enticing to a youngster than a muddy puddle. The children — likely four in all — raced and splashed through the soppy sloth trackway, leaving their own footprints stamped in the playa — a dried up lake bed. Those footprints were preserved over millennia, leaving evidence of this prehistoric caper, new research finds.

The finding shows that children living in North America during the Pleistocene epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) liked a good splash. “All kids like to play with muddy puddles, which is essentially what it is,” Matthew Bennett, a professor of environmental and geographical sciences at Bournemouth University in the U.K. who is studying the trackway, told Live Science. Read more.

Newcomerstown, Ohio.

Built 1874.

4 bed, 3 bath.

$445,9000

Next step, spray paint it black! Wish me luck!

Sufganiyot! Peach and Nutella gluten free ones made in an air fryer!