TIME TO RANDOMIZE YOUR GENITALS

The sole purpose of DOGE is misinformation and disinformation.

YouGov did a whole official poll on Americans' views of the middle ages and I’m obsessed

“the arts and sciences are completely separate fields that should be pitted against each other” the overlap of the arts and sciences make up our entire perceivable reality they r fucking on the couch

saw a tiktok of a mother taking her very tiny daughter to an art museum and she’s just walking around going “whoooa” “woooaah” to everything but then they got to a marble statue of a nude woman lying on her back and the girl points and goes “mommy🫵” and i just immediately welled up with tears and all the comments are just laughing about it and of course it’s funny but how are you not insanely moved by the way art connects everyone on earth from a centuries-old sculptor to a toddler in 2023

the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself

It's so cool how current research into mycorrhizal networks talks about plants and fungi communicating, making decisions and engaging in "dialogue" because there is really no other way to describe it

They each have so many, like potentially hundreds, of different chemicals produced as signals to their symbionts

what really fucks me up though is the paper i read this morning talking about plants' decision making in balancing their immune response against pathogens vs. their need to form symbiosis with beneficial organisms. Basically plants have to distinguish between helpful symbionts and parasites and they have to actively initiate symbiosis with one while producing an immune response against the other. The paper was saying that this decision making process would have to be like a series of logic gates. excuse me are you saying that PLANT is COMPUTER.

via @swatercolor [insta]

We need to bring back the athletics body type post

Australian here, this is really common to see 30-40 minutes away from any major city, and especially at our National Parks/State Reserves or campgrounds.

Nothing to fear here, just need to keep your head on a swivel for wildlife (wallabies, possums, rabbits, cats, deer, foxes etc.)

As long as you drive carefully with your high beams on, you're totally safe. And yes, the people are also generally safe - sometimes friendly even! We just try to mind our own business unless someone obviously needs help, which isn't uncommon. You can usually tell if someone's got it sorted or not, but the bush brings out camraderie in funny ways.

Anyway, happy driving!

Your parents can love you and still be shitty abusive parents. They can mean well and still fuck up. They might fuck up without even knowing it's abuse.

Sometimes I think about how, when I was 5, my dad would make grilled cheese sandwiches and cut them into dinosaur shapes for me. Other times when I was hungry, he would refuse to feed me at all, because he decided that 5 was old enough for me to cook for myself when he didn't feel like doing it.

I think about how he taught me to swim, and fish, and (yes) throw a ball. In the summer, at night, he would wrap me in a huge comforter and carry me around outside to show me the constellations. But I hated being left alone with him because he was often bad tempered, mean to me for no reason, and I couldn't count on him for basic things like food.

Sometimes I think about how my mom raised hell in my high school principal's office in front of multiple faculty members because they weren't complying with my IEP (disability required accommodations). She always saw red if someone else laid a finger on me, even figuratively. When we were at home she screamed at me for things I had no control over and said I was using my illness to get my way.

I think about how she bought me art supplies and paid for lessons for all of my hobbies. She attended every single concert, performance, and game. I don't think I went a day without being told she loved me while growing up, and she constantly told me how proud she was. But I could never trust her mood and she could go from loving mother to terrorizing me before I knew what was happening.

My parents love me but I still flinch if someone in my vicinity washes a dish a little too aggressively. My parents never intentionally traumatized me, but my nervous system never knew the difference. Neither of my parents saw anything they did as abuse; they believed they were good parents. It wasn't until my mom was in her mid 60s that she grasped that her own childhood had been abusive, too.

They're not bad, irredeemable people. They're complex people with a lot of their own trauma who lacked many skills necessary for good parenting. I could hate them for it, but I don't. I'm not obligated to forgive them, and I don't think I have, and I don't know whether I ever really will. My parents damaged me a lot in ways that have affected my whole life, and I still have good memories with them.