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Everything is probably fine. Just go about your normal life.

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moss mfriday #3: Glacier Mice

[image credit]

That's right - it's glacier mice. One of my favorite things maybe on the entire planet. Let's talk about these freaky fuzzy little rats!!

Glacier mice are balls of moss that live in large herds like this in a few select glaciers. They are moss all the way through, with a center consisting of dead moss matter, implying that they begin as small growths of moss and simply accumulate over time, like snowballs. However, their outside surface is alive and well on all sides. Glacier mice have been observed, through tagging and tracking, to roll across the glacier like a majestic herd of wildebeest, exposing all of their sides to the sunlight. They trundle along at a pace of about 2.5 cm per day. That's 30 feet in a year! They're really schmovin'! Certainly further than most mosses can claim to travel.

What's really exciting, though, is that they all move in the same direction, and we're not sure why or how. Scientists experimented to try and attribute their coordinated behavior to wind, sunlight, and the direction that their grazing ground slopes, but to no avail. They speed up, slow down, and change direction in unison, based on some mysterious moss code that we haven't cracked yet.

Cross-section of a glacier mouse. Note the dead moss matter inside, and the short gametophytes on the outside, adapted to harsh winds and sunlight. [image credit]

We have figured out how they roll, though - while the moss ball sits on the ice, it insulates the ice directly underneath it, protecting it from melting. This forms a little pillar of ice that the moss eventually rolls off of. The insulating power of glacier mice also gives it the wonderful ability to host all kinds of microorganisms that otherwise wouldn't survive the glacier's harsh conditions, and their ability to move makes it possible for microorganisms to spread from one habitable spot to another. They're like a bunch of little tardigrade passenger ships, braving the dangerous glacier to go where no water bear has gone before!!

Glacier mice have been found to consist of several moss species, most of which must reproduce asexually in order to survive in the dry climate. They've been observed to live for at least six years, but are projected to live much, much longer. I love them. So much. I hope they know that I love them!! I LOVE THEM!!!!

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"There's no hope for the future." And that's how they felt during the Atomic Age, during the World Wars, during the Enlightenment Revolutions, during thr plagues, during the Viking raids, during the fall of Rome.

Yet, we persisted.

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btw i think that conceptualizing angels as tools rather than servants makes a lot more sense because while a servant has a certain degree of independence and purpose outside of servitude; a personhood, and the free will and complex inner psyche that comes with that, angels... don't? at least not traditionally? additionally, when angels defect from their intended purpose and show free will and independence and personal desire beyond that which they were created to fulfil, they become fallen, and are cast out, like an object that no longer works anymore and cannot be fixed, rather than a person who can be reasoned with, understood, and forgiven.

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Hey if you own a business I need you to repeat after me:

I will not let my web developer manage my domain registration.

My domains are my responsibility and they cannot be handed to a contractor.

If I do not control my domains, I do not control my website.

If my domain is paid for on somebody else's credit card, it isn't really mine.

I will read every contract carefully and abide by its terms.

If the terms of a contract are not agreeable to me, I will amend them until the contractor and I both agree to and are aware of the terms.

I will pay my contractors in a timely fashion.

I will not burn bridges with my contractors.

I will pay for domain registration myself, and will never grant anyone else complete control over my domain.

I will not let my web developer manage my domain registration.

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You have got to be FUCKING kidding me!! Holyshit bro... these motherfuckers are too comfortable with price increases...

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Why would anyone trust First Felon?

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Horror Musical Instrument

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I don't think low birth rates are concerning regardless because I like immigration, but with the rate of development of artificial intelligence why are you concerned by low birth rates even if you don't like immigration? It seems like there's about to be an unprecedented wave of automation which will make issues about an inverted population pyramid quite mild- whereas concerns about government interventions into whether people have children should be quite severe.

A lot of potential immigration source countries actually have falling fertility rates or are even below replacement already.

If industrialization is incompatible with long-term human survival, then industrialization will go away. Afghanistan, with its ~$500 GDP per capita, and rule by the Taliban, is above replacement.

AI is also the wrong class of technology. If using robots to take care of the elderly doesn't raise fertility, then the societies which created the robots will still vanish from the Earth.

In theory, they could act as a permanent population sink... but this would mean that every advanced industrial civilization would need to be paired with a matching pre-industrial or early industrial civilization. That would be a strange outcome and worth studying.

Also, if you dislike people being extremely religious, the idea that every advanced industrial civilization would probably need a highly religious source population at a lower material standard of living sounds pretty uncomfortable.

Technologies that could raise fertility include more advanced reproductive technologies that allow having children at later ages (such as 50), which could lead to a "gap" generation (an undesirable outcome, but survivable), or technologies that increase healthspan (for example, if humans reliably lived to 150), reducing the % lifespan spent raising children.

I agree that it's a subject that needs to be handled carefully.

This is why I expressed my concerns over the crude financial methods that are likely to be implemented - and later, regretted - if alternatives are not found.

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HE BROKE THE RECORD

Senator Cory Booker just broke the all-time record for the longest Senate floor speech, speaking for over 24 hours without a pause (no food, no bathroom breaks, only water to drink) as a protest against Trump and Musk and what they're doing.

The previous record was set in 1957, when Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes protesting the Civil Rights Act.

Senator Booker has blown past that record, currently at 25 hours and still speaking as of 8 pm local time. Respect.

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