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You know what's really sexy? Basic empathy

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NO im NOT mad that my powers haven't activated AT ALL yet *my telekinesis throws nothing across the room*

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"Hey, what do you want for Ch-"

I don't know, as soon as you started the question, I somehow momentarily was struck with such a lack of desire for any material goods that there's now a school of thought in Buddhism who reveres my ADHD riddled brain as a potential speedrun to enlightment.

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just remembered i forgot to draw An Experience I Had yesterday hold on

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Source: merletails

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and on the pedestal, these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias--hope you're enjoying my kickass sculpture of two vast and trunkless legs of stone and a shattered visage! I built it in this desert to prove an important point about Society

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"Once thought to be extinct, black-footed ferrets are the only ferret native to North America, and are making a comeback, thanks to the tireless efforts of conservationists.

Captive breeding, habitat restoration, and wildlife reintegration have all played a major role in bringing populations into the hundreds after near total extinction.

But one other key development has been genetic cloning.

In April [2024], the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced the cloning of two black-footed ferrets from preserved tissue samples, the second and third ferret clones in history, following the birth of the first clone in December 2020. 

Cloning is a tactic to preserve the health of species, as all living black-footed ferrets come from just seven wild-caught descendants.  This means their genetic diversity is extremely limited and opens them up to greater risks of disease and genetic abnormalities. 

Now, a new breakthrough has been made.

Antonia, a black-footed ferret cloned from the DNA of a ferret that lived in the 1980s has successfully birthed two healthy kits of her own: Sibert and Red Cloud.

These babies mark the first successful live births from a cloned endangered species — and is a milestone for the country’s ferret recovery program.

The kits are now three months old, and mother Antonia is helping to raise them — and expand their gene pool.

In fact, Antonia’s offspring have three times the genetic diversity of any other living ferrets that have come from the original seven ancestors.

Researchers believe that expanded genetic diversity could help grow the ferrets’ population and help prime them to recover from ongoing diseases that have been massively detrimental to the species, including sylvatic plague and canine distemper. 

“The successful breeding and subsequent birth of Antonia's kits marks a major milestone in endangered species conservation,” said Paul Marinari, senior curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. 

“The many partners in the Black-footed Ferret Recovery Program continue their innovative and inspirational efforts to save this species and be a model for other conservation programs across the globe.”

Antonia actually gave birth to three kits, after mating with Urchin, a 3-year-old male ferret. One of the three kits passed away shortly after birth, but one male and one female are in good health and meeting developmental milestones, according to the Smithsonian.

Mom and babies will remain at the facility for further research, with no plans to release them into the wild.

According to the Colorado Sun, another cloned ferret, Noreen, is also a potential mom in the cloning-breeding program. The original cloned ferret, Elizabeth Ann, is doing well at the recovery program in Colorado, but does not have the capabilities to breed. 

Antonia, who was cloned using the DNA of a black-footed ferret named Willa, has now solidified Willa’s place as the eighth founding ancestor of all current living ferrets.

“By doing this, we’ve actually added an eighth founder,” said Tina Jackson, black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in an interview with the Colorado Sun. 

“And in some ways that may not sound like a lot, but in this genetic world, that is huge.”

Along with the USFWS and Smithsonian, conservation organization Revive & Restore has also enabled the use of biotechnologies in conservation practice. Co-founder and executive director Ryan Phelan is thrilled to welcome these two new kits to the black-footed ferret family.

“For the first time, we can definitively say that cloning contributed meaningful genetic variation back into a breeding population,” he said in a statement.

“As these kits move forward in the breeding program, the impact of this work will multiply, building a more robust and resilient population over time.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, November 4, 2024

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we could go back to telegraphs instead of social media. send your mutuals unspeakable strings of morse code at 4:30am

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Much love to everyone in a similar situation as me. We'll get through this <3

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I was surprised no one was talking about Rook trying to say Lucanis that they love him before the battle against Ghilan'nain, and Lucanis not allowing it, just for Rook to be lock up in the Fade for weeks. The angst, the regrets Lucanis should have felt.

Then I realized that it might not be as obvious in English. In the second wheel of that conversation, if you choose "I'm here to help you" Rook starts a sentence with "Lucanis, I...", before Lucanis makes them stop. There are a lot of things they could have said with that "I", but in the Spanish subtitles, Rook doesn't say "I...", they say "Te...".

There are a handful of sentences you can say, but there are far less possibilities than in English. One of them, the one that makes more senses in the context, is "Te quiero". I love you. Lucanis knows what they are going to say and he doesn't want to hear it, because when you put your businesses in order, you're preparing for the end. He said that much during a banter, but sadly I can't remember why or with whom.

Anyway, Rook complains after that conversation.

In English it would be: "Right, business as usual. Definately not thinking about that all day" They've been waiting the whole day to say that. They've been preparing themself to say "I love you" to Lucanis, and Lucanis didn't let them.

Then he lost Rook. Rook tried to say I love you, and now Lucanis would never hear that, he could never say it back. They lost their only chance and it was his fault.

Or so he thought, because Rook comes back.

That's why there is no more hesitation after. That's why Lucanis is the one that says 'I love you' before the final confrontation. Because he made that mistake once, and he's not making it ever again.

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hell yea he got the moves

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Sleeping Demon

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Veiltober - day 12, Varric

Bioware really made Varric come back all sexy for the 3rd time around just to NOT let me romance him AGAIN!! This is unfair and I seek legal compensation.

Going forward, I'll be trying to make compositions a little simpler for the sake of time and to not expend myself too much. It's still a long way to DATV and I wanna have some energy to actually play the game XD

Ty to @lynnerdo for the prompts !!

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You got games on your phone?

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the drowning will never not be funny. to me

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The Veilguard

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my friend who is training to be a 911 operator just told me that they are having to restrain themself whenever responding to training calls from saying “that’s illegal people can’t do that” and I find that so fucking funny