#science!

[universejunction]

In studying the test mice who were sent into space for 37 days, the research team found that most of their bone loss occurred in their femurs, the part of their skeleton that bears the brunt of their weight. They also noted that denser bone that formed the hip joint, above the femur, experienced very little bone loss, strongly suggesting that the bone loss in the femur was most likely due to the sudden change in gravitational pull.

Honestly this is just confirmation that bone loss in space is due to gravity and not radiation.

this headline feels like something someone would post on this website completely devoid of context and get 5000 notes for

[kedreeva]

In case you haven't heard yet, Colossal, the biotech company that earlier this year showed off their "woolly mouse," has announced that they de-extincted "dire wolves." I put this in quotes, because just like with the mice, they didn't truly bring them back (nothing can actually do that, yet) or even really make them.

What they actually did was kind of neat; they copied genes sequenced from dire wolf DNA and inserted them into the grey wolf genome (replacing grey wolf DNA, as they said gray wolves shared a significant percentage of their genome (which isn't saying a TON considering how much the human and chimp genome have in common without being nearly the same animals, but it's better than taking, say, a turtle's genome or something else super unrelated), to create a wolf with genes that dire wolves had.

And while that's not really the same thing as building a dire wolf completely from scratch, so to speak, and it's not really "cloning" them either, it's still pretty cool science, and just like with the woolly mouse, the work (ie, altering/editing multiple genes at once from sequenced DNA of deceased individuals) COULD apply to conservation of actual species (for example, having the ability to widen the genome of remaining breeding individuals of an endangered species, with DNA from deceased individuals). I'm not sure if it IS applying to other species right now (at least not through this company, despite their stated claims to want to), but it is one of their stated goals and it would work.

Also, they're pretty cute

As they were born in October 2024, they now have their own 2,000 acre reserve where Colossal is monitoring them closely. There are two males and one female, but as they've stated they do not have plans to breed them, I'm not sure where the female is being kept in relation to the males, but I suspect she's the solo-wolf pictured, vs the pics of the pair.

Anyway, that's all happening.

[bobcatmoran]

Holy crap, possibly the first ever live recording of a meteorite strike?

Debris samples were sent to the University of Alberta, which verified that it was a chondrite meteorite.

[qwantzfeed]

as a kid this was my favourite fantasy, way better than winning the lottery because the odds against it happening were SO much higher.  if it happened people would be like "damn, that person really beat the odds incredibly well.  not in a good way but still: objectively impressive."

[m0ose-idiot]

Ever wondered whether Yonderland or Ghosts is the sauciest show? WONDER NO MORE, let this Very Important ScienceTM put your mind at ease

[jokingluna]

[theroguescientist]

Trans people on hormones provide some interesting insight, because they can tell you what changed when they started transitioning. But the doorframe thing is probably mostly about height, and gender (or sex, or testosterone) plays a much smaller role.

As an above average height cis woman, I usually feel like slapping the doorframe if it's low enough to reach without jumping, but not low enough to bump my head. Men might be more likely to jump to reach a higher frame, but most people who are confused about why anyone would do that are just short.

I understand more and more things about cisgender men the longer I’m on testosterone. I know why teenage boys use so much axe now. I understand the crying thing. I know why they accidentally break things. I know why they wear shorts in the snow. I know why so many of them don’t use washcloths. I see everything.

[sephirthoughts]

Vincent’s lingering obsession with Lucrecia is excellent drama, but their story is not a doomed romance.

This is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think Lucrecia deserves nearly as much pity and excusing of her actions as she gets. This is not character-hate post, it's an analysis of a character I think gets short shrift as a Mother-Mary in a bell jar, and deserves better.

Lucrecia is morally grey. Charcoal grey. I love complex, morally grey characters, particularly when they're women, since usually women are relegated to roles that infantilize and objectify them, particularly in video games, which have historically been a very backward, androcentric medium. I strongly dislike brainless victims, subject to the whims of the male characters, without much agency, and Lucrecia was not such a character.

Lucrecia was an adult with agency and brains. She was a grown ass adult. She was a brilliant scientist. She made decisions with her eyes open, and even sacrificed her unborn child to her work. She is a very interesting character. The fact that she didn't idolize motherhood as the end-all of female existence, and that her obsession with her work was stronger than her desire to be a 'good mother' makes her far more interesting than otherwise. The fact that she regretted it later and wanted him back doesn’t magically make her a good person, or change the choices she made. It demonstrates guilt and remorse, which are part of character development. The bottom line is that she committed atrocities in the name of science, then felt guilty about it later, once she realized how devastating the consequences were to her personally. To say she didn’t know what she was doing or Hojo manipulated or controlled her is to infantilize and disrespect her character. She’s not some sacrificial angel who was a victim of circumstances; she was a willing participant in her own downfall.

Lucrecia is a tragic character, but she's not a romantic lead. Except in Vincent's head. After all was said and done, she had one of those too-late changes of heart that make tragedy so emotionally impactful. She had a human reaction to Vincent's death and felt terribly guilty for her role in all of it, as she should. That doesn't mean she loved him, it means she wasn't a monster. She lost her son, and gradually, Hojo's callous inhumanity and her inability to escape the net she wove with her own hands closed in on her. Did she deserve to never hold her baby son and never see him even once? No. But she caused it, with her own actions. That's tragedy. She was miserable, bereft, and riddled with guilt, so she made a last-ditch effort to make something right...by doing more insane science shit that turned Vincent into a monster. Seeing that she'd only made everything worse, she tried to kill herself, but was unable to, and thus ran off to become a crystal statue in a cave (this is a trope that I dislike, but that's the story, so that's what we've got).

Vincent is a bad judge of the circumstances. Vincent persists in seeing her as a lost love, and someone from whom he was unjustly separated by circumstances. The fact that he is so blinded by his feelings for her that he places her on this pedestal and can't blame her for what she did is excellent characterization, and I love it, but it's because he’s wrong. He loved her. She didn’t love him (I think she was in love with his father, but that's just icing on the tragedy cake, at this point). His lingering attachment, not to the real Lucrecia, but to the idealized version of her he has in his mind, is a very sad reality that adds so much delicious pain to his character. In the end, he is unable to blame her, because he loved his image of her (and Hojo is a way easier target for anger, because he's literally the worst), which speaks far more to his personal bias in the situation than to her actual role in it. She’s not moustache-twirlingly evil like Hojo but she’s not Vincent's star cross'd soul mate tragically torn away by cruel fate. Lucrecia was her own person.

In summation. Their story is not a doomed romance, it's a complicated, messy, ugly tangle of thorns, and one of the best written tragedies in a game that literally bleeds tragedy from every orifice. It's got one-sided love, obsession, mad science, betrayal, jealousy, fetal experimentation, murder, corpse reanimation, and a guy who can't die, and is left to deal with the consequences of everyone else's actions by himself forever. No one is innocent and no one comes out unscathed…strike that. Vincent is innocent and Hojo comes out unscathed. But still. Lucrecia is not a holy mother, she's not a brainless victim, and she's not Vincent's lost love. She's a person he loved, and who didn't reciprocate. Most importantly, she's a person. A whole-ass, complex, morally grey, fully developed person, who made terrible choices, then made even worse choices, and in the end, couldn't escape the fate she wove for herself.

And then wound up encased in crystal so she could be a pretty statue forever cause the game devs just couldn't help themselves I guess.

[datasoong47]

Sound on!

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Quotes:

"If you've ever had the chance to try a raw cocoa bean, you will realize that the aroma pretty much doesn't have anything to do with the conventional milk chocolate," Krug says.

That's because chocolate's aroma forms during the fermentation and roasting of the cocoa bean. Krug and her colleagues tried fermenting and roasting more than a hundred other ingredients, including apricot pits*, olive kernels, jackfruit seeds and potato peels, until they finally settled on oats and sunflower seeds.

*Apricot Pits?! I thought they had cyanide in them...

The goal for ChoViva isn't to replace chocolate entirely, says Max Marquart, who runs the business side of Planet A Foods. Instead, he hopes to replace chocolate in applications where it's merely an ingredient in a larger product. He cites candies like M&M's and Snickers bars or even cereal or ice cream with chocolate chunks.

@athelind (and anyone else allergic to chocolate): I hope this becomes a viable and widespread alternative for you.

[grampasoup]

Chicken Science Swednesday: Chicken as a liquid

Many people are unaware that some chickens, when exposed to direct sunlight, become puddles:

There is no reason to be alarmed, as this process is 100% reversible. Indeed, most chickens will return to their solid form within a few minutes of melting, without any external assistance.

Don't worry if you were unaware of this. Even chickens who are not currently puddles are often confused by these encounters:

[bethanydelleman]

Just give me a minute, I started tearing up reading the Wikipedia page for Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie to my son

[kedreeva]

In more good news, the Sir David's long-beaked echidna, made an appearance on an expedition team's trail cams! This species hasn't been documented in over 60 years, and was thought to be extinct. This is also the first time a live specimen has been photographed/recorded, as the species was only identified in 1961 by a single dead specimen.

[m0ose-idiot]

Did you see @bawdiestrhymester doing God's work and quantifying the Captain's bounces?

Hurrah for a fellow data scientist, we hope they don't mind that we couldn't help but graph the important findings 👻❤️