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coworker: hey you should come look at the results of a ph test for a customer’s water

me: I’m king of busy rn

coworker: no really just come here

the ph test:

my honest reaction:

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our house... in the middle of our leaves¹

¹This is a humourous riff on the lyrics to the song "Our House" by the English ska-pop band, Madness. "Our House" is considered a working class anthem, which contrasts the bourgeoisie lifestyle of the Navidson family.²

²Alright, while the music stuff is factually correct it's still a huge stretch to connect the song and the family this way. Sometimes a corny joke is just a corny joke.

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'pénétration' by annette messager, 1996 in picturing french style: three hundred years of art + fashion - mobile museum of art (2002)

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Amanda Charchian & Jose Romussi

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New work by artist Dustin Yellin. ‘Melted by harps (Study for Psychogeography), 2024. Glass, epoxy, acrylic paint. 19” x 8” x 6.3”. Get art in your inbox. 🖼️📥❤️

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my jaw hit the floor

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you have to let "dennys parking lot at 3 am" go. you have to think independently. you have to come up with your own strange places, and indeed your own strange times to be there. there's authenticity in that

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*girl on the brink of self destruction* i miss academia

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instagram

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Strange Bird

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Hey, look at ATP synthase with me for a second. It's literally a molecular rotary motor with a crank shaft, embedded in a membrane holding a proton reservoir.

(In eukaryotes like us, that membrane is the inner mitochondrial membrane; in prokaryotes it's usually the inner membrane of the cell. Either way its job is to turn ADP into ATP, which will turn back to ADP after it does work in the cell.)

There are pumps elsewhere on the membrane that force protons (H+) in. When they come out, they come out through the ATP synthase, turning the turny bit. When 10 protons go through, the head makes a complete turn, minting 3 ATP molecules.

This thing is 10-20 nanometers long!

Also neat: it's universally conserved across all life. Not in the exact same form, but recognizably the same thing:

Life began around 3.5 billion years ago. The oldest two domains of life – bacteria and archaea – diverged really early. "Have different cell membrane and cell wall composition" early. So ATP synthase arose around the time life itself did, and has persisted for three quarters of Earth's lifetime.

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made this post transparent

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ceramic tiles decorated with pomegranates.