#I think that’s called methylation

[mylastmoleculeofserotonin]

I honestly have no idea if this was intentional or not, but I love how the writers of the Bad Batch basically confirmed that Omega is canonically trans bc there’s no other simple explanation for her. Like, they said that she’s unaltered, not genetically identical, which means that the Kaminoans didn’t alter her chromosomes (also, what would be the in universe reason for that?), it’s not Force magic bc she’s not Force sensitive, and the Kaminoans’ cloning tech would be designed to prevent random mutations, especially for something as important as their backup copy of Jango’s DNA, the future of clone production for the Republic. The only logical explanation is that she’s trans and this is the hill I will die on.

[aturinfortheworse]

today in Things My Brother And I Stayed Up Late Doing: finding dangerous chemicals in the house in an attempt to understand why most of them DO NOT say "If swallowed, seek medical attention." Not even on the turpentine. Not even on the METHO.

whatever regulatory body is in charge of this appears to believe that if you drink a glass of turpentine, you're good to deal with that on your own. they're not your mum. the poison hotline is there if you want it but honestly you can just chill. its fine.

not oven cleaner though. if you get oven cleaner in your mouth, that's a "seek medical advice" situation.

[appleonjust-ice]

my mother stop having a go at me every time i take something sweet out of the freezer challenge impossible

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Brandt's Bat: researchers once documented a case in which a Brandt's bat had survived in the wild for more than 40 years, making this the longest-living bat species in the world

In 1964, a wild Brandt's bat (Myotis brandtii) was captured, banded, and released by researchers in the Biryusa region of Siberia. The very same bat was eventually recaptured by another team of researchers in 2005; it would have been at least 41 years old by then, making it the oldest bat ever recorded.

The previous record-holder was also a Siberian Brandt's bat (with an estimated age of 38 years).

There are twelve other species within the genus Myotis that have been documented living past the age of 20, but the lifespan of the Brandt's bat is exceptionally long, especially compared to other small mammals.

This species (and the longevity of a few other bat species) defies our conventional understanding of the relationship between an animal's size and its lifespan -- smaller animals normally have a much shorter lifespan compared to large animals, partly due to their higher metabolic demands, but these bats represent a rare exception to that rule. In fact, with an average weight of just 4 to 8 grams (which is roughly the combined weight of 2 or 3 pennies), the Brandt's bat has the longest lifespan of any mammal relative to its size.

Research suggests that its increased lifespan may be at least partially linked to a mutation in two of the genes that are related to growth. This article describes the results of one particular study:

Genes for two proteins involved in growth — called growth hormone receptor (GHR) and insulinlike growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) — showed changes that also appear among other long-lived bat species. Previous studies in mice and other animals suggest genetic changes in GHR and IGF1R are linked with longevity. For instance, mice with mutations in GHR live twice as long as normal mice, said study researcher Vadim Gladyshev, a geneticist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

These same genetic changes also may be responsible for the bats' small size ...

"We think the bat's life span is, in part, an unintended consequence of its small body size."

There are a few other factors that may also play a role:

Brandt's bats also hibernate and roost in caves — behaviors that may help them avoid predators and extreme weather conditions, and contribute to their longer life span, the researchers said. The Brandt's bat also takes a relatively long time to reach maturity, and it does not produce many offspring — two characteristics seen in larger, longer-living mammals.

Note: nearly all of the articles that I came across refer to the 41-year-old bat as a "Brandt's bat," but at least one other source uses the term "Siberian whiskered myotis," instead. That term simply refers to the Siberian variety of the Brandt's bat (subspecies Myotis brandtii sibiricus) in particular.

Sources & More Info:

The Journals of Gerontology: A New Field Record for Bat Longevity

Bat Conservation International: Myotis brandtii

Nature: Genome Analysis Reveals Insights into Physiology and Longevity of the Brandt's Bat, Myotis brandtii

Nature: DNA Methylation Predicts Age and Provides Insight Into Exceptional Longevity of Bats

New Scientist: Gene Clues May Explain Why Brandt's Bat Lives So Long

[im-a-simp898]

eats u

Seriously? You're really serious right now? I cannot tell if I have sensory problems or if I actually just witnessed a statement with such an immense amount of sheer stupidity. You know, I have seen the most bizarre things from some guy in class jerking it to Ronald Reagan tentacle hentai, to people linking Chernobyl to penis-shaped aliens, but your comment is by far the most fucking idiotic thing I have ever had the kind of horrible fucking luck one requires to hear your stupid fucking post. From this point on, when I think of you, I will imagine a diseased turtle taking an enormous dump, with so much unbelievably large amounts of shit that all the protons inside of the methyl sulfide this horrendous crap contains spontaneously fuse into uranium-235 that I can use to shove a nuke up your sub-mental ass. You can write that off as an exaggeration but it is 100% true from the bottom of my already-empty heart. I legitimately think that you lack intelligence. I would say you're mentally unstable but then I couldn't blame the terribly ignorant fucking post on you. I literally cannot comprehend how amazingly dimwitted your dumb ass is. I have trouble understanding the laws of physics, space, and time as if all laws of reality have been devastated and disintegrated due to how dense you are. I could write a damn book on your lack of intelligence that is so long, one could read the entire Series of Unfortunate Events series, watch the entire Godfather trilogy, and invent fucking time travel itself before it could even be published under a first edition. Half-Life 3 would be released centuries before I could finish the first chapter describing your purely pointless state of mind. I honestly cannot tell if you were abused too much or not abused enough, because you clearly did not go to school enough to get a proper fucking education. To quote George Washington, "Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company." In that case, I'm getting as far away from you as possible. Hell, I'm actually unironically considering moving to Macquarie Island just to be isolated from your brain cell-killing words for the rest of my now-miserable life. I would rather go insane from thinking about you to the point where I pull a Cast Away and consider sexual relations with a volleyball than actually spending time anywhere near you. There is honestly no other way of putting it; you're an irritating asshole who contributes absolutely nothing to this already dreadful planet. And that's saying a lot considering the fact that I've heard of carbon dioxide levels reaching 400 parts per million, Donald Trump becoming president, and toxic fucking comment sections that contain your stupid bullshit. And again I go, being confused by whatever quantum physics you are using to defy the laws of physics with your stupidity, to the point where I'm saying you are worse than yourself. I have nothing else that is most definitely as horrible as you to compare to except you yourself. How does that make you feel? Like a turtle taking a nuclear shit? I really don't have a single shit to give anyway, because you are living proof that there is no hope for humanity left. Really went downhill after that whole thing where Rome fell; that made a lot of people pissed off. But not as pissed off as I am after reading your stupid shit. No, buddy, if I should even call you that, I am not pissed off at your comment. I am FURIOUS. I am so furious that I will personally take that radioactive turtle shit myself just so I can rid the world of your baffling levels of unadulterated doltishness. You are more dull than oxygenated magnesium or even a samurai sword that hasn't been sharpened for a thousand years. And you better be glad that the sword is dull, because if it wasn't, it would be shoved up your ass just like the nuclear turtle shit. I am so fucking angry that even watching an Adam Sandler movie will make me happier than I am right now.

[crossstitchbossbitch-blog]

TW: sick fish (at first!)

So, I was helping a family member who has bad eyesight this past week. I was going in to feed their tank whilst they were on holiday, and I noticed this little clown loach struggling to swim and even stay in one place without being blasted about by the current. There's also a red tail shark in that tank, so it wouldn't last long in that state. I don't blame the family member, they genuinely might not have seen it, and it probably isn't something to discuss until they're back from their holiday.

The loach is definitely emaciated, not sure if they have had some injuries or slime coat disruption. Additionally I think they have mouth or barbel rot and were probably due for a nasty, slow passing as they didn't seem able to get much food or exhibit normal behaviour.

I fishnapped it on Saturday, popped it in a free tank at my house and medicated it with methyl blue / anti-ich/fungus treatment. Not holding out too much hope but we might get there...

It's now Tuesday night. This lil guy is far more active and I can see some of the silly clown loach character coming out! I have started calling it Goofus, and here they are with a belly from chowing down on some baby brine shrimp, looking a little coloured up (imo).

Next dose of meds will come after a water change tomorrow. Updates to follow (hopefully)!

[ankhmutes]

The weird fandom things I see in everyday life. I see an medical ad. It's called...

Methyl Life.

So naturally my brain skitters to...

Merle + Beth + Daryl.

So I'm thinking of this. This is taking up rent in my head at work today.

Send help. or don't. I'm happy in my pile of trash at the moment. No need for flares.

[an-organized-confusion]

Back to thinking about neurodiversity and food science.

There are so many aromatic compounds out there that can be perceived differently by different people. Either you can’t smell it, you can and it’s pleasant, you can and it’s unpleasant... or you can and it’s a mixture of both. To say nothing about how concentration matters here (skatole in very small amounts is floral. But after a certain point... it smells like actual shit.)

(I think at times it’s an acquired taste and cultural, too.)

And just thinking about Remus liking stuff BECAUSE of the so-called malodorous flavors.

There’s asparagus pee’s sulfurous odor (methanethiol and S-methyl thioesters). Remus thinks that’s hilarious. (Funny since this is a sort of Punnett-style square. There’s people that can smell that pungent note, and those that can’t. There’s people that metabolize asparagus so their urine has the offending chemicals and those that don’t.)

There’s cilantro and that vaguely (or strongly) soap-like aldehyde notes. Remus loves that part. (Low-key I’ve come to love cilantro so much in things like pico de gallo and how it melds so well with tomatoes and onions... despite that aspect.)

There’s the vaguely gasoline-like backdrop in truffle products on top of the intense pungency to them. Part of it’s because if it’s not the real stuff, it’s carried mostly by one of the main chemicals that define truffles - 2,4-dithiapentane. (HF opened my nose to this flavor and oh man... it takes ramen and other things to the NEXT level...)

And there’s something lovely called “boar taint”! /sarcasm

It’s thanks to androstenone - a byproduct of testosterone in pork. People can be noseblind to it, or get a vanilla-like sweetness in it... or get the whiff of sweaty urine. Remus probably likes boar meat from old mating stock - instead of young and early-castrated for the HIGHEST concentration of the stuff. (This is one of those cases where I don’t like it - even if it can be subtly there thanks to butchering practices that minimize it.)

Given the whole Actual!Thomas having a chem background just makes me imagine Logan evaluating Remus’s sensory eccentricities. Granted it was pharmaceuticals, not molecular gastronomy. It’s all organic chem, anyways. :,D

[cephalopadre]

Good clarifications and appreciate the discussion, but I do want to emphasize to those less familiar that the inheritance of stress markers from grandparents does not necessarily extrapolate out to inheriting things from your genetic lineage further in time. From Jin 2011: "DNA methylation is typically removed during zygote formation and re-established during embryo implantation." Breaking that down, DNA methylation is when parts of your DNA have extra chemical groups attached to it (methyl groups) that prevent the DNA from being turned into protein, effectively altering how your DNA is expressed without changing the sequence. This is a large part, though certainly not the only part, of epigenetic control. The "removed" part of that sentence is key. Epigenetic changes are refreshed at the beginning of every generation of human life. That means you will start off with changes from your biological mother because those are the epigenetic changes that get imposed upon your embryo after the refresh, but beyond that? It's hard to say. Humans change in our epigenetic landscape over our lifetimes and may remove and add things as we experience life.

So I'm guessing that is why the cricket researchers imposed stress onto the cricket mother while she was pregnant. That is the key time to make sure you impose epigenetic regulations that have the largest chance of actually getting imprinted onto the embryo.

That said, there are other methods of epigenetic control with different mechanisms, and I am less familiar with those in a human context. I'm a plant researcher, and plants have very different ways they go about things, and this means my understanding of human epigenetics is also weaker than a mammal researcher's would be, so open call for someone else to chime in here and tell me how wrong I am. I also remember reading somewhere that we now have evidence that there are some markers which aren't wiped during this process. This seems plausible as nature is full of exceptions, but I don't have a citation so please take that with a grain of salt.

I don't want to downplay the seriousness of inherited biological stress because we certainly do have proof it happens, but as with most things, it's complicated. I would gently steer anyone thinking about inheritance over many many generations towards learned behavior and knowledge. That we can definitely prove is passed down over long generations and is worth considering alongside your epigenetics.

scientist voice: today i will be a dick to this cricket 

[meditating-dog-lover]

Health update

I am feeling much better and my skin is clearing up

I took a shower this morning and my face didn't turn tomato red. It did itch a bit but nothing that was too bad.

I have a new concerning rash on the back of my neck and my derm said to put steroid cream and antifungal on it for 2 weeks. It should disappear.

My hand was still infected as well, so I'm on oral antibiotics again and that should take care of the issue hopefully. I was also advised to apply antibiotic and steroid creams on my hands for 2 weeks. My hands are much better, and they are less inflamed. But I'm concerned about some infection and some areas that are still inflamed. So the antibiotic and steroid mix can help here.

My face, neck, and ears are much better.

I think my skin got better after my phone call this week as well as my official psych evaluations. It makes me realize that this all happened due to chronic stress.

I think my stress is a big thing that I need to work on because it's making me sick. I will get the support I need, but it will take time. I am still working on my diet and fasting and am doing great. I am working now on hormone balance and liver detoxification. I don't have any major hormone issues besides some minor estrogen dominance. I can manage that by taking DIM. I do want to eat well and drink filtered reverse osmosis water. Minimizing plastic usage and using natural self care and cleaning products helps too (which I already kind of do, I might look into kitchen and laundry and soap options). Also it is impossible to avoid "toxins" 100%, so it helps to do the best you can and to regularly "detox". When I say that I mean to support your key detox organs like the gut, liver, lymphatic system, lungs, skin, and kidneys. I'm not talking about weird and dangerous enemas and teas.

I've been taking a DIM detox supplement for liver support. I think the key ingredient it has that really helps is NAC/glutathione. I might look into that in the future when I finish my supplement bottle. Methylated B vitamins, sulfur, amino acids like taurine, glutamine, cysteine, glycine, NAC/glutathione, magnesium, flavenoids, and antioxidants. I don't know how much of these I'm receiving from diet and supplementation (excluding the DIM Detox supplement I just started) alone, but NAC/glutathione is very important for liver health in general. If I can get that, then that would be great.

Drinking enough water and eating enough fiber helps a lot here. Eating foods rich in sulfur like cruciferous veggies helps too. Dandelion root tea is excellent for liver and kidney health, which in turn helps with detoxification. I actually got some the other day and I like the taste. But I just had 1 cup which isn't going to make a notable difference. I want to drink that combined with an anti-inflammatory diet rich in fiber and drinking 2 L minimum of filtered/reverse osmosis water.

Also there is a key process within phase 2 liver detoxification known as methylation. Some people have a genetic mutation in the MTHFR gene where they are unable to do this efficiently. That's why doctors recommend a methylated B complex. So vitamin B9 (folate) and B12 should be in methylated forms. NAC/glutathione also help here. I've never been tested for this, though. But I do take a multivitamin that has B vitamins.

I'll figure this out as more time passes. At least I'm taking a supplement that helps with both hormone balance and liver detoxification, and I liked the dandelion tea. I'm also drinking aloe juice daily. I need to work on healing psychologically, though.

[wildfiercefree]

LIFE ISN’T WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.

and maybe that’s for the best? I don’t know yet. The pain of it all would be bearable if I knew that it meant something. But that comes in retrospect I suppose. Knowing why it happened. Why it had to be like that. The poetry only becomes evident when you recount it to a face or a page. For now we carry on. Do the best that we can and act like we’re not making it up. Not to fool others but to pull one over on the man in the mirror. It’s almost 2 in the morning and all of this sounds like a try-hard spoken word. Which would be fine if I was that guy. I’m not. I just write songs. Not everything has to be clever. It just has to get the point across. This gets the point across. I’m tired. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I don’t know if I’m doing enough. A year ago I never would’ve guessed I would be a contractor and now I’ve spent my summer building condo decks 400 miles away from home. It sucks. But I asked for this. Being away from home. This crushing of my soul. So that I might be strengthened and reformed into something more akin to my Savior. It’s been boring and dreary. It’s the same crap day in and day out. But that’s life right? That’s the battle I prepare for. The 9-5 grind… wasn’t I made for more? It’s not how I wanted it. But someone told me, about two weeks ago back home, that ‘experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want’ and experience cultivates wisdom. And wisdom, appreciation.

A man I haven’t made up my mind about told me “it’s more about learning to be content”

I haven’t made up my mind about that.

I’m terribly discontent and frustrated with the way my life is and has been. I keep expecting something to change. To finally come to a place where I can be who I know I am deep down. Where I don’t feel crushed by the weight of existence when I wake up every morning. And that’s partly a separate issue pertaining to the chemicals in my brain (L-Methyl Folate has helped with that).

The old man has proven to be a soul placed in my life for a reason. Full of unbelievable and never ending stories and knowledge if the things he said were coming from any one else’s mouth I would call bs.

Perhaps I need more preparation than I anticipated. That is to say life is going the direction I think it will.

But I reiterate.

LIFE ISN’T WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.

[luenkel]

The molecule on the left is actually just a tautomer of testosterone! Tautomers are isomers with low energetical barriers so that one constantly turns into the other and vice versa. In particular what we have here is keto-enol tautomerism. You'll notice that they didn't just swap out the ketone group with an alcohol but also included that extra double bond between C2 and C3. That makes it an enol, which is a tautomer of the ketone form you're familiar with. The equilibrium is pretty far on the side of the ketone but a small amount of testosterone will always be in the enol form you can see here. And each individual molecule is switching between both all the time.

The reason it's shown in the enol form here is to highlight that the the stuff shown in red is pretty much everything the aromatase enzyme has to do! As soon as you get rid of that methyl group and install the C1-C10 double bond, the tautomerization of the ketone to the enol-like state suddenly becomes extremely favourable as you form a full aromatic system (which is why I called it "enol-like", it's more of a phenol), which is incredibly stable! You wouldn't have to touch the ketone group directly as the equilibrium of the tautomerization is shifted very strongly to the other side. I think the enzyme actually kind of does it in reverse, where it catalyzes the enolization first and this then makes the elimination step that creates the double bond extremely favourable, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

fuck this one carbon atom tbh

[daily-coloring]

Best of 2022 - Albums

What a boring year it was. No big surprises, nothing out of the blue, only a few perfect records. 

01. Rosalia - Motomami - “The Spanish singer’s third album delivers gem after gem, as flamenco rhythms rub shoulders with sassy party flexes.” The Observer

02. Tove Lo - Dirt Femme

03. The Smile - A Light of Attracting Attention

04. Walt Disco - Unlearning - Definitely not for everyone. “Flamboyant goth-glam that doesn’t care what the boomers think.” NME

05. Tamino - Sahar

06. Marian Hill - Why Can’t Be Just Pretend?

07. Marlon Williams - My Boy

08. The Wombats - Fix Yourself, Not The World

09. Joywave - Cleanse

10. Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul - Topical Dancer

11. Nilüfer Yanya - Painless

12. The Fear Ratio - Slinky

13. Wojciech Rusin - Syphon

14. Lyndsey Lawlor - Dearest Philistine

15. Honey Dijon - Black Girl Magic

16. Moin - Paste - “Moin’s approach on Paste is barebones, but discerning – taking a craft knife to 80s and 90s indie music and using it to fashion their most fleshed-out release yet. “ The Guardian

17. Belle and Sebastian - A Bit of Previous

18. Florence + The Machines - Dance Fever

19. Moderat - More D4ta

20. Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia

21. Jockstrap - I Love You, Jennifer B

22. MO - Motordrome

23. Virgil Enzinger + Submerge - At The End

24. Ange Halliwell - Lullaby For The Dead

25. Everything Everything - Raw Data Feel

26. Röyksopp - Profound Mysteries - All versions are the same. Mostly great songs + few you can easily skip. Would be a great record if they could release the strongest songs on one record. 

27. Caterina Barbieri - Spirit Exit -  “For music that evokes empty clubs and shuttered churches, built on patterns dictated by a “mechanical fortune teller,” its humanity is its most haunting quality.” Pitchfork

28. Badawi - The Book of Jinn + The War of Art

29. Mykki Blanco - Stay Close to Music

30. Rival Consoles - El Caso Figo

31. Archive - Call to Arms and Angels - “What is so impressive about these songs – all of them, not just the lengthy ones – is the daring and almost fearless way with which they progress. Archive aren’t afraid to have hugely infectious would-be mainstream hits such as ‘Freedom’ collapse inward on themselves. They’re also not shy about dangling the carrot in front of their crescendo-expectant audience only to have things fade out to the gorgeous trickle of a classical piano. In the same token, there are moments when you think you’ve floated into a quiet pasture for respite when Archive will suddenly whip out the electric guitars and flood that space with noise. The transitions can be jarring but tend not to be, as Call To Arms & Angels feels less like a puzzle held together by separate pieces and more like a painting in which the different colors bleed together to form a beautiful image. It all feels interrelated, the product of a bold, creative, and eclectic vision that’s been executed to perfection.” Sputnik Music

32. Bodi Bill - I Love You, I Do

33. Get Well Soon - Amen

34. Methyl Ethel - Are You Haunted?

35. Working Men’s Club - Fear Fear - “The album tells its own superbly structured story, bathing in synthesis and heavily grounded in the contexts of lockdown, while allowing these very contexts to steer the process beyond angst and towards a utopian catharsis.” Clash

36. Stabbing Westward - Chasing Ghosts - “Stabbing Westward fans will get everything they love about the band and fair weathered fans might just be won over with this album. An absolute must buy for your industrial rock collection.” Spill Magazine

37. Hot Chip - Freakout/Release

38. Daniel Avery - Ultra Truth

39. Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa

40. Benjamin Clementine - And I Have Been

41. Purity Ring - Graves

42. Ben Shemie - Desiderata - “Shemie has described Desiderata as "a soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist." While this statement rings true (opener "The Departure" could have fit nicely on the score to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey), it's also a bit of a disservice to the album.” Exclaim!

43. Local Suicide - Eros Anikate 

44. Deliluh - Fault Lines

45. u-Ziq - Magic Pony Ride

46. Ovend - Rush

47. Maggie Koerner - The Bartholomew Songs

48. FKA twigs - Caprisongs - “In a discography filled with experimental pop played at an overwhelming intensity, Caprisongs offers both a feeling of playfulness and self-assurance.” The Young Folks

49. Beyonce - Renaissance

50. Subjective - The Start of No Regret - “Goldie takes a breezy trip through various avenues of electronic music with this real goodie bag of an album that’s focused, well-produced, and great fun.” Music OHM

[saetoshis]

aa omg u already know my selfship is w dottore >_<

love watching him work on things and making breakthroughs for the most diabolical things ever in existence AOCNWOFKW i will never understand what he says BUT i am obsessed w him and he’s the same w me! overall best couple we r canon fr😻😻. holding hands while burning down a damn forest *wink wonk* and sometimes he names a few new creations of his after me <3 ^_<

BRUHH i can picture him in my head holding up a fkn test tube and bein like "cadie what do u think this is?" and ur like "uh its green" and hes like "its actually (6aR,9R)- N,N- diethyl- 7-methyl- 4,6,6a,7,8,9- hexahydroindolo- [4,3-fg] quinoline- 9-carboxamide, or lysergic acid diethylamide" LIKE LMFAOOADSDNAJD he'll joke about making u taste it when in reality it will fr kill u 😋😋

but no there's no way he'd let his precious little human experiment get to the chemicals so he keeps them on the tippy top shelf so u can't reach 😁 TBH I HC HIM TO BE A SHOW OFF ABT HIS CHEM KNOWLEDGE ALSO???">? like calling everyone stupid if they can't tell 2 elements on the periodic table apart LMFAOOA but not you ofc he coddles u and loves that u have no idea what hes talking about 😻

[aseplant]

hmm quick recap of what we know from canon, since i was rereading hand jumper tonight:

ep4: there are 8 types of essence, each with their own properties; normal people's essence is colorless.

ep18: think this is the one you were referencing, where sayeon says that there's such a wide variety of gifts that it's uncommon to run into someone with your exact one. it doesn't seem to suggest gifts are totally random, though, and sayeon's sister definitely also has some kind of time-related gift (and taeho & his dad have matching gifts too), so gifts are probably at least partially hereditary.

ep26: samin refers to the godling as aberrants' common ancestor

ep32: we are told the colors are, in order: orange (intangible, affects objects), yellow (intangible, affects essence), blue (tangible, creates objects), green (tangible, augments body), red (intangible, enhances body), violet (intangible, affects perception), and teal (intangible). godlings have white essence. ((an aside, but this is such a random order??? iseul might have been listing them based on how common they are!))

ep42: colors are confirmed to be hereditary.

ep50: we learn that aberrants are humans with very diluted godling blood.

and then some thoughts on the gene aspect of it under the cut since this is getting long:

(do take this all with a grain of salt bc i have not had a bio class in years and i capped out at a high school level)

essence being affected by mental state - there's this thing called epigenetics, which is a change in the way that genes express themselves even though the underlying DNA hasn't changed at all. iirc the mechanism usually has to do with the way DNA is methylated after being transcribed (?), so it's easily reversed. (these changes are inheritable, btw, and I think can be seen in the way that people whose parents experienced famine are also primed to survive famine).

that said, essence seems to react to the user's emotional state in general, so it's most likely totally unrelated lol. i think most likely genetics controls what kind of gift/essence you get, and mental state would affect your ability to use or control that gift. it is possible this relates to how clans get so strong, though--the ways in which people use and grow their own gifts may, in small ways, get passed on to their kids.

color inheritance - i was wondering if cmyk/rgb color models might apply here, but given that (colorless aside) we're looking at what seems to be seven discrete colors + white (all colors combined), i think it's just meant to be some kind of rainbow-variant and not necessarily reflective of any kind of color mixing. i don't think we have enough information to really guess at anything here, but! a couple of theories:

if every color has its own respective allele, we'd be looking at a total of 8 alleles! dominance is used to describe the relationship between any two alleles, so mapping this out would require more information and also be super complicated, but if we use this model then i wouldn't be surprised if teal was dominant to everything else, even though it's rare. if something wiped out most people with a teal allele (disease, targeted efforts, etc.) it would be super rare now, because it'd be simply just. gone from the gene pool. (though it still could very well be recessive. if their mom is teal & their dad is heterozygous for yellow, they each have a 50% chance to inherit teal, so it's actually 1 in 4 that samin & sayeon would both come out teal. these aren't terrible odds. more so if color is in any way sex-linked, too.) i think this is probably the most likely answer.

more typical 7-color rainbow schematics use blue/indigo or cyan/blue, not teal/blue. also, if you squint the colors all kind of relate to their complements--red & green for affecting the user, blue & orange for objects, yellow & violet for other people. teal... does not match that. at all. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet may be more "normal" essence colors that follow more normal methods of inheritance--maybe there are 3 alleles for red, yellow, blue? and it can combine to make the other colors in a form of incomplete dominance? (but this is unlikely since the gyeon family is all oranges, and if it's incomplete dominance they'd only have a 50% chance of having orange offspring, if even that, giving you a 12.5% chance of having all three kids come out orange). and teal and white would be... off doing their own thing, i guess. i forgot where i was going with this.

everyone's tripping and essence cannot be neatly sorted into categories at all. minguk gyeon's orange essence in ep46 is much redder than taeho's from ep32 & 62, which is redder than the orange essence black uses in ep26. (taeho's essence is noticably consistent in the eps he appears in, though!) given such a wide range of phenotypes, essence color would probably be determined by a lot of genes and be very complicated (something like hair color inheritance, as a real world comparison). a mutation in certain genes would lead to teal being a rare color (kind of like red being a rare hair color). but i don't see how everyone would be so confident that essences can be categorized neatly if they exist on such a spectrum. so. who knows?

aberrant genetics is such a fun thought experiment... i do hope it gets touched upon in canon at some point.

Genetics in the Hand Jumper Universe

my class is learning about genetics and how traits are passed and I couldn't help but wonder how abberancy is passed down. Seeing that Jaeil turned out to be an aberrant, and not his father nor mother, but great grandfather who turned out to be an aberrant, we can determine that aberrancy is recessive, meaning that his parents were heterozygous. I also wonder about how mutations of DNA/protein production affect aberrancy. There's a theory some abberants are vessels of godling essence. Is this considered a mutation? How do proteins and essence interact?

Ryujin talks of how Sayeon "leaks bad vibes"-- how it is portrayed as seemingly correlated to essence and mental state. If the mental state of an aberrant affects their essence, how do their genes effect their essence and gift? In the Gyeon family, they all seem to be characterized by orange essence, and marry other bloodlines and give birth to more powerful kids, leading to clans.

In terms of how essence is passed on, what essences do you think would be considered dominant over others? I would think that common ones are more dominant, as, well, they are more common. However, Sayeon and Samin have teal essence, even though their father had yellow essence. Teal essence is the rarest one, so do you guys just think that they happened to be lucky?

Somewhere in the comic, it explains that their genetics do not influence their gift, but people can run into others with the same gift. How do you think aberrancy and genetics interact?

[kate2kat]

I’ve been making my fic and friends’ fic into Tiny Books since about 2016, and just recently stumbled on @renegadepublishing . How great that there are others doing the same thing, to learn from and share with: successes, fails, ideas, resources.

Above are the books of my own fic I’ve made (name blurred on the ones I’ve put my real name on). Far left is the most recent book and the one I’m happiest with.

Sewn, cloth-bound, ribbon marker, hand stitched head and tail bands.

I design in InDesign. I really like the book creation tools: tables of contents, page numbering, setting up master templates. I really don’t like the price, so I’m looking out for another tool. Trying Scribus. I use BookletCreator to create signatures, and set the printer (Canon Pixma) to print 4 pages to a side, portrait mode, I hand feed the reverse sides of each page. The disadvantage to printing like this is that the paper grain is wrong. But I prefer the Tiny Book size (15cm x 11cm/6,5 inches x 5,25inches). It does involve quite a bit of trimming from the top and bottom of each page and then the fore-edge of the signatures. I use a guillotine for that. I print on cream/ivory 80gsm A4 printer paper. It looks more similar to a commercially printed book than white paper, I think.

I really enjoy the process of designing a book: the typography, the way the chapter openings look (drop captitals etc), the endpapers, which i often print to suit the story — one book is a tailorshop AU, and I used a photograph of wool suiting, another has a character who is a builder, which has brickwork as its endpapers, two have appropriate maps. The dust jackets are another fun challenge. Where I have been lucky enough to have art created for the story, or in the case of two of the books, written the story based on art in a Reverse Bang challenge, I of course use that art. In other cases I hunt for stock images that suit the stories, or use images taken from screen shots from the media itself. If I add pictures inside the book, I lay these out so they can be printed along with the text, rather than gluing in later. The book above is set in 1815, and I enjoyed finding a suitable font. There’s a lot wrong with the book itself though, and I think I will make a new version.

I haven’t made a book in a while, not since i found DAS Bookbinding’s videos. One thing I will definitely use from him is his punching guides with the hook at the top, to align the stitching holes more accurately. And I want to try making better book cloth with a methyl cellulose solution. At the moment I use the Sea Lemon method (iron-on interfacing and tissue paper). I have not found a source in my country for book cloth, so I use what i can get. I stitch with a red thread, and so I call my “imprint” Red Stitch Books.

Aside from myself, I’ve made books for fandom friends, and put books up as prizes in writing contests, or fandom auctions.

I look forward to seeing more adventures in book making from the @renegadepublishing crew.