#explosives in science

[unrestricted-chaos]

Ekko knew something was amiss when Jinx missed the third shimmer raid that intel had said she would be on security for.

Don't get him wrong, she was his enemy most of the time, but she was also a child of Zuan.

A child he wasn't able to get out from Silco's rule.

It's not hard for him to find her hideouts and bolt holes, and while she had many, he'd calculated she probably only had a handful he didn't know about. That is to say she could very easily know of all the firelights corners and bolts just as easily.

His only hope was that the Sanctuary was still a secret from her.

Once he’s cleaned up and checked in with Scar, Ekko takes off towards the west end and the abandoned warehouse he’s seen her frequent a number of times. It was a good enough place to start his search for the wayward marksman.

When he doesn’t find her there, he starts an outward sweep of her hideaways and places he’s seen her slip through like the ghost many had believed her to be.

He's almost done searching the bricked off cellar that was once an underground bar before the last resistance in the war with Piltover came to a close, when he hears her approach. Glancing around the room at the decaying décor and broken bottles and relics of a time he’s never been, Ekko makes the split decision to take the wall across from the bar, eyes able to see the room and the exit should things get dicey.

Once Jinx is down and secured the entrance, Ekko knows it’s only a few moments away before she knows she’s not alone, and any other day, she’d have sensed him long before trapping them in together. He can see the hitch in her breath , a plastic bag clutched into her hands as she spots him, his back to one of her walls, body relaxed, attempting to show her that he wasn't here to fight.

Her gaze finally breaks from him, lips pursed as she moves further into the decaying room, bag dropped on the last table standing, "Who invited you to my pity party, boy savior?"

Ekko can only shrug eyes still following her. He studies her, certain now he'd made the right choice to come. There was something unsettling about seeing her like this, the bags around her eyes making her gaunt appearance more apparent, it left an uneasy feeling in his gut.

"Well, you can leave." Jinx mutters, "Shut up."

Ekko isn’t startled by the bite, or the command, he simply holds his tongue; this is not the first time she's talked to ghost around him, and it won't be the last he was certain, "You been busy?"

Jinx's eyes return to him, something curious hidden in the depths now, "Were you worried about little old me?" she smirked, "Why how considerate of you."

"If I was?" He challenged, there was little reason to deny her claim after all.

"What did you think someone offed me before you could?" Jinx's smile was cruel, before turning vicious as she spun behind her, words hissed out of clenched teeth to quiet for Ekko to make out.

Ekko turns away, her ghosts weren't his to judge, nor were they there for him to speak with, "That's not it and you know it."

Jinx laughs humorlessly, "Right, boy savior can't kill lil old Jinxy now that he knows the ugly little secret."

"In case you missed it on the bridge, I hadn't been able to do it then either." He hissed back, "Your bomb was the least of the problem."

He's glaring back at her, her shimmer-colored eyes are trained on him once more, ghosts forgotten for the moment "You need to figure it out then." She says, fight leaving her eyes, "Cause otherwise your going to lose all your friends out there. You think they haven't noticed you firelights aren't aiming to kill anymore-- that you aren't. I don't get that luxury. Just like I don't get the luxury of dying in this war."

Ekko swallows thickly, he knows this, he does. Doesn't make it any easier, "That's not a luxury Jinx. They shouldn't be taking away your choices like that. Not to fight, not to kill, not to-- not to die. What they did to you, when they saved you-- against your will, that isn't okay."

Jinx watches him her eyes searching for anything that could be a lie, that he doesn't mean. And Ekko isn't positive he means it all, but he does know that she should have the choice and to have the say what happens to her and what goes into her body.

"I don't want to kill you, but I can't make you live either." Ekko whispers breaking the silence that had descended over them.

"You'd really let me die?"

Ekko can't bring himself to break her gaze this time, it's not an option with how afraid she is. He can't say one way or the other if his next words are the right ones, but he has to hope she understands anyways. "I don't want to see you dead. But I could never force you through the pain of resurrection to live this half-life again either."

Jinx doesn't say anything for a while, and Ekko, Ekko has to be content to wait here. He came to check on her this time, not to fight about it all.

"They're going to use me against you." She whispers.

"I know."

Jinx whisper turns hysteric, "I'm going to let them."

"I know." Ekko says, a little more certain, and a lot more determined to give her peace, this isn’t his enemy, he isn’t sure that she ever has been one to begin with, not truly.

"Ekko--" Jinx’s voice cracks, pained and desperate.

"I know Jinx, okay, I do. That doesn't mean I didn't come here to make sure you were okay and to see if you needed anything. Pity party aside, just talk to me here, please."

Jinx nods slowly before dropping down onto the ratty couch, all the tension in her frame draining away for the moment. Though Ekko doesn't leave his wall, only slides down to sit on the dusty ground, unwilling to break the peace this time.

"Have you studied particle theory of displacement and distribution before?"

Ekko is a little surprised this is what she decided to talk about, though he hadn't been very specific when he was all but begging her a bit ago to talk to him. "Can't say that I have."

Jinx stares dead ahead, eyes glazed over, "You should think about it. What with your obsession with time and all. Time is a flowing construct that moves unobstructed to the naked eye, the particles of the universe and the fabric of reality interact, and change based on the atomic level structure of an object. Things like mass, velocity, kinetic energy, the thermals of the situation all play a part. Taking into account particle theory..."

Ekko let himself sink further into his own mind, it had been a long time since he had buried his best friend, and far less time since he found her still alive within his enemy. But today, today he gets to hear her as she theorizes time, and he wonders if she missed him just as much as he did her.

"How does one see particle theory in demonstration?"

"Depends on I guess; I always just use explosives. How else can you understand the displacement and redistribution of particles on a visual scale that doesn't take expensive tools or incredible patience?"

Ekko can't stop himself from laughing there, "Alright, alright, tell me more, I think I got a few things on time elements that might disrupt your theory though."

It didn't have to make sense to them. But right then, it was like the world hadn't changed, and innocence hadn't been lost all those years ago as they talked for hours about things most would claim as impossible or unobtainable.

Just two kids on opposite sides of a war, that neither wanted to keep fighting that night.

“Who invited you to my pity party?” 

[scipunk]

The Creator (2023)

[botaniqueer]

27 new, exciting, and blobby species discovered in the Peruvian rainforest

BY LAURA BAISAS

POSTED ON DEC 20, 2024

A rainfrog, an amphibious mouse, and a “blob-headed” fish are only some of the 27 new species discovered deep Peru’s Amazon rainforest. During a survey in 2022, a team from Conservation International recorded 2,046 total species living in this lush and heavily forested landscape, many of whom are endangered.

The creatures were all found in the Alto Mayo Landscape which spans the Andes mountains to the Amazon River and includes the Alto Mayo Protected Forest. Instead of being one static environment, the Alto Mayo Landscape is a complex mix of different ecosystems and communities, including Indigenous territories, cities, and towns. (Continue reading)

[biologist4ever]

Colored petals and explosive blooms (Echinopsis cacti)

[alphynix]

The tuzoiids were an enigmatic group of Cambrian invertebrates known mostly just from their spiny bivalved carapaces. Although hundreds of fossils of these arthropods were discovered over the last century or so, only vague fragments of the rest of their bodies have been found even in sites usually known for preserving soft tissue impressions.

…Until late 2022, when several new specimens from the Canadian Burgess Shale deposits (~508 million years ago) were described showing tuzoiid anatomy in exceptional detail, finally giving us an idea of what they looked like and where they fit into the early arthropod evolutionary tree.

Tuzoiids like Tuzoia burgessensis here would have grown up to about 23cm long (~9"). They had large eyes on short stalks, a pair of simple antennae, a horizontal fluke-like tail fan, and twelve pairs of appendages along their body – with the front two pairs at the head end being significantly spinier, and most (or all) of these limbs also bearing paddle-like exopods.

The large carapace enclosed most of the body, and was ornamented with protective spines and a net-like surface pattern that probably increased the strength of the relatively thin chitinous structure.

Together all these anatomical features now indicate that tuzoiids were early mandibulates (part of the lineage including modern myriapods, crustaceans, and insects), and were probably very closely related to the hymenocarines.

Tuzoiids seem to have been active swimmers that probably cruised around just above the seafloor, with their stout legs suggesting they could also walk around if they flexed their valves open. The arrangement of their spiny front limbs wasn't suited to grabbing at fast-swimming prey, but instead may have been used to capture slower seafloor animals or to scavenge from carcasses.

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[dearladynightmare]

Entrapdak Positivity Month Day 5: Destruction

Comiiiiiic:3

Not only failure, but also lab accidents are a vital part of scientific endeavor.

The most important part of it, is to have a reliable lab partner at your side who is ready to extinguish you at any time.♥️🧯

Btw… I love how done she looks here…. #thisisfine

[gifmovie]

[sincericida]

Andrew your saucy, I want to see the pics of your dick. For science.

[oviraptoridae]

deep in the frigid ammonia oceans somewhere else, proteins are self-assembling into a rapidly diversifying ecosystem of lifeforms. (id in alt)

[sesamestreep]

sexy himbo jock interpretations of James Tiberius Kirk are silly and do a disservice to the character for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that it fundamentally ignores all the times in canon when Kirk is faced with a scientific discovery or oddity and you can see the effort it takes for him not to clap and skip with excitement. like in ‘the devil in the dark’ when Spock posits that they might be dealing with a silicon based life form and McCoy’s like “but that’s impossible!” and Kirk literally crosses the room to flirt talk excitedly with Spock about the prospect and how it could work! and what it would mean!

What I’m saying is, Kirk’s gotta be smart and a huge dork because how else could he pull a bad autistic bitch like Spock?

[theofficialastronomy101]

The small flash was an explosion caused by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter. The explosion had the force of 5 billion atomic bombs and twice the size of Earth

[sysig]

Okay but TSP/Portal crossover AU is such a cool concept, how have I never thought about that before?? I'd like to request Narra and GLaD hanging out watching their respective little guys go through tests like 'can you believe them they're so dumb <3'

Day 30 - They're absolute hellions

Bonus:

Noooo, my bucket!!

[scipunk]

The Creator (2023)

[lady3pod]

Tiktaalik, my beloved

[biologist4ever]

[alphynix]

Soft-bodied annelid worms only very rarely fossilize, so the group's origins during the Cambrian Period are still rather poorly understood. So far about thirteen different species have been found in sites of exceptional preservation, showing that even very early on in their evolution these worms had already diversified into a wide range of ecologies including bottom-feeders, carnivores, swimmers, tube-builders, and even symbiotes sharing living space with early acorn worms.

Ursactis comosa here adds a fourteenth species to the list. Found in a newly-discovered outcrop of the 508-million-year-old Burgess Shale fossil deposits in western Canada, it's known from nearly 600 specimens clustered together in several large groups, making it the current best-known and most numerous of all Cambrian annelids.

Up to about 1.5cm long (~0.6"), it was a polychaete-like worm bearing bundles of long bristles. There was a pair of large sensory palps on its head, and its body was made up of an unusually small number of segments – just 10, with larger individuals just increasing the size of their segments instead of adding on additional ones like most modern annelids.

Unlike other Cambrian annelids it also shows some evidence of basic tagmatization, differentiating some of the rear segments of its body with much longer bristles.

The large numbers of Ursactis found preserved in one place suggests these worms were exhibiting some sort of swarming behavior. Since ages from juveniles to fully-grown adults are represented together, and their anatomy indicates they were crawling detritivores, they were probably all taking advantage of a particularly nutrient-rich patch of seafloor at the time they were abruptly buried in a mudslide.

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