#space anthropology

[notesbyash]

stumbled on a fascinating look into space exploration and the people who are drawn to and driven by it

[thegeekanthropologist]

SpaceX’s biggest rocket flies for the first time: But Do We Understand What This Actually Means?

By Anna Szolucha We’ve just launched a rocket into orbit so why is the way we think about technology so fundamentally wrong? A historic launch Regardless of what one thinks about Elon Musk’s growing techno-industrial imperium, this week’s orbital launch attempt of the Starship/SuperHeavy system built by SpaceX has already made history. With its 33 Raptor 2 engines that can generate 7,590…

[fox-teeth]

Hundreds of years in the future and thousands of light-years away, Mazu from Three-Hills practices her culture’s ancient art of sculpting spirit guides for the dead. But when technology from beyond the stars encroaches on her people’s lives—and deaths—what will happen to her art?

Read the rest of my new graphic novella "The Maker of Grave-Goods" this October exclusively through ShortBox Comics Fair--the innovative all-digital comics convention! @shortboxcomicsfair

[sociologi]

02.01.2024 | the wheather in denmark right now gives me cozy fall vibes. spent the evening in a busy café writing on my anthropology essays while it was raining ☕️

[geostelar5]

Acclimation is actually an insane thing that our bodies do and its amazing how rapidly we adjust to a new environment.

It's like "Oh you wanna live in a place where the average temperature is literally 10 TIMES hotter than we're used to with almost 100% humidity so sweat isn't as effective? Ok give me a few days to adjust than we're good just some more sweat as we get used to it"

"What the fuck you wanna move to a place that's THOUSANDS OF FEET up in the air? A place without enough OXYGEN for you to function fuck...Ok give me a few days to MAKE MORE BLOOD AND MAKE YOUR HEART BIGGER then you'll be alright."

On a generational basis it's even funnier cause within a few dozen generations we can actually adapt to like any environment. People from Africa and Aboriginals are usually darker because Melanin acts as sunscreen in a place where they get too much sun and during a time where people didn't wear many clothes or have indoor shelters like today.

But as humans migrated north to latitudes where the Sun isn't constantly raining down an endless beam of death and cancer and started to wear more clothes due to it being colder they started lacking in Vitamin D and that leads to a whole HOST of other health issues related to births, cancers and other shit so we started lessening the pigment in our Skin in order to get as much Vitamin D that we can. This happened within a few generations as far as we're aware and like this shit is happening on a SUPER Fast biological scale.

For a kinda poor metaphor, the rate at which humans adapt to massively different environments to best live in is like how Speed runners can complete OOT within like 5 minutes compared to the 27 hours it takes to beat casually Edit:So apparently I am a dumbass when it comes to tempreture as the way we measure tempreture is not in fact liniar and is more logrimtic in nature than I was led to belive by math. There isn't a 10X increase in tempreture. But still you can go from living in Norway in the Winter to the Tropics/Sahara in a short period of time and our bodies adapt concerningly fast

[spyglassrealms]

Thinking about how much of a full circle moment the Blue Marble photograph was/is.

This image was taken in 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17 on their way to the Moon - the last humans to ever visit Luna, to date.

And it just so happens that the approximate center of the image is the southeastern region of Africa, under bright noonday sun.

And it just so happens that the southeastern region of Africa, from the Cape to the Horn, is where our most ancient prehuman ancestors, the australopithecines, originally evolved.

Dinkʼinesh ("Lucy"), the holotype of Australopithecus and the genesis of our modern understanding of our species' origins, was not discovered until two years after this photo was taken. In this image, the bones of our most treasured ancestor still lie beneath the earth of Qadaqar, Ethiopia.

This is not just an image of our home planet. This is an image of our cradle. This is where the humanity was born, four million years ago.

What a marvelous coincidence, no?

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[megamindsupremacy]

Stewjon is Space Scotland: Names and Naming Conventions

For context, I designed an entire naming system for my Stewjon is Space Scotland AU. I'm still trying to work out the cultural logistics of it, but the actual practical logistics I have down.

To break everything down:

Stewjon is a clan-centric society, with clans and clan names having a hugely important role in the culture. I therefore had clan names feature in both the first and last name of Stewjonis.

-The last name (Kenobi) is the family/clan name, and is passed down the family paternally. This is both because I'm from a western culture with a paternal naming tradition, and also because I liked how his parents names sounded when the last names transferred paternally but not maternally. "Ken" would translate to "Clan" (I don't know if this is accurate to Scots English or Scots Gaelic, but I'm working from canon Star Wars names and trying to worldbuild from nothing so work with me here), and then the clan name "Obi" is attached, so "Kenobi" translates to "Clan Obi" or "of Clan Obi"

-The given name (-Wan, but we'll get to "Wan" in a second) is one to two syllables. All of these names are (according to Wikipedia) actual Scottish names, which I picked from the list mostly based on how well they'd sound next to the clan name.

-The prefix clan name (Obi-) is the interesting part. All children are given the father's clan name as both their first and last clan name. Therefore, Obi-Wan Kenobi, son of Ito-Benneit Kenobi, has "Obi" in both his first and last name. However, upon marriage, the couple swaps their prefix clan names to signify the tie between their clans. Therefore his mother Ito-Ceit Kenito and his father Obi-Benneit Kenobi became Obi-Ceit Kenito and Ito-Benneit Kenobi upon their marriage.

-Originally I was going to do something with the fact that "Obi" means belt in Japanese, such as making the clan names signify professions in the same way "Miller" or "Smith" would in English surnames, but I gave up because Japanese is so different of a language from what I understand that I would have just made myself very confused and everyone who understands Japanese language and culture very mad. So I just went with a vowel-consonant-vowel pattern for all the clan names and called it a day.

-Remember how I said we would come back to "Wan"? Obi-Wan wasn't born Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was born Obi-Owen (Owen is a whole 'nother thing and I decided to just give myself a freebie on it), and his name was anglicized (basic-icized?) upon being brought to the Jedi temple. Not on purpose, but it did happen. So technically the chart above should have him listed as Obi-Owen Kenobi, but I already took the screenshot so this is what we're working with.

-Culturally, it's respectful to refer to someone by their full name (Obi-Owen Kenobi). The full name stands until two people are fairly close to each other, platonically or romantically. The informal, friendly version would be their full first name (Obi-Owen). So you wouldn't call your new friend "Obi-Owen" until you're quite close, even if you're social equals. Technically you could refer to someone by their given name only (Owen), but it's awkward and Stewjonis don't really see a reason for it. All of this highlights the cultural emphasis placed on clans and clan ties in Stewjoni society.

The Family Tree

THE KIDS

Starting from the bottom, we have the four Kenobi siblings. Obi-Conn is the oldest, and he marries Yana-Eóin Kenyana, becoming Yana-Conn Kenobi. None of this happens in the story but I wrote it in the chart anyways. Obi-Eóin is nonbinary, which is why their square is white instead of blue or pink.

Obi-Mór and Obi-Pál are twins and approximately four years younger than Yana-Conn. Obi-Mór is ambiguously disabled (she has some form of muscular disability, but the specifics weren't relevant to the story). Obi-Pál is just some guy and I love him for that.

Obi-Owen is the baby of the family. He's twelve years younger than the twins (16 years younger than Yana-Conn) and was definitely an oopsie-baby. I don't need to say anything else because he is also one of the major characters of the Star Wars franchise. You know him.

THE PARENTS

Obi-Ceit Kenito and Ito-Benneit Kenobi are the Kenobi siblings' parents. I don't have much to say here other than that Ito-Benneit shortens his name to Ito-Ben, to avoid the repeated "eet" sound in his full first name. I'm sure that doesn't affect Obi-Owen's future nicknames in any way!

It is Ito-Benneit fault, by the way, that I made clan prefixes instead of surnames to be switched upon marriage. Culturally, it would have made more sense for the more commonly used first name to hold your birth clan and your less commonly used surname to indicate your linked-by-marriage clan, but I needed Obi-Benneit to marry into the name Ito-Benneit so that I could shorten it to Ben. Goddammit.

THE GRANDPARENTS

Ito-Ben's parents are entirely irrelevant so they don't exist. Sad!

Technically I didn't have to name Ito-Lili Kenuna, but I felt bad having her up there as an unnamed person. Una-Owen Kenito, as you may suspect, is where Obi-Wan's name comes from. I really wanted to highlight his Stewjoni heritage in this fic, so giving him family ties through his whole name was important to me. Obi-Ceit names Obi-Owen for her father because Una-Owen was a strong fighter, and she wants to pass that resilience to her son. Which, uh. Well he sure is resilient to things trying to kill him!

Feel free to come yell at me in the askbox about Stewjon's worldbuilding!

[beauty-funny-trippy]

Update to the Original Post re: Two Mexican Mummies Alleged to be Alien Beings

The Mexican Navy's Scientific Institute has just released the results of several laboratory tests (CT scans & X-rays) that were designed to check the skeletal structure of the bodies. Their findings dispute previous claims that the bodies were "recently manufactured" (assembled from various human and animal bones).

This new examination showed that the bodies have a "single skeleton that has not been joined to other pieces", and each was a "complete organic being"…"There is no evidence of any assembly, or manipulation of the skulls." They also found what they believe to be eggs in the pelvic area.

The director of the Mexican Navy's Scientific Institute said, "we are determining that it is an organism that was alive, was intact, was biological and was in gestation."

Most scientists, however, still believe the mummies to be some sort of fabrication. So although this latest evidence pointing to the bodies' authenticity has definitely added fuel to the fiery debate, it hasn't settled anything. The mystery as to any possible alien origin continues...

(source: EuroNews)

[mindblowingscience]

A now-extinct village in northern Syria is likely the earliest example of a community of people who were indirectly hit and destroyed by a large comet that struck Earth roughly 12,800 years ago. The comet strike spurred a dramatic shift in lifestyle from hunting to agriculture and even control of wild animals, according to a new analysis of remains excavated from the region back in the '70s. "Based on current analyses, this would be the earliest example of a human settlement catastrophically affected by a cosmic impact event," researchers write in the new study. The team's new interpretation of excavated material from the prehistoric village Abu Hureyra, which is now submerged beneath the reservoir Lake Assad in northern Syria also points to a drastic change in local climate around the time Earth collided with shards of the 62-mile-wide (100-kilometer-wide) disintegrating icy body called a Centaur. These objects sport a dual nature in that they look like asteroids but leave a tail of gas and dust in their wake like comets.

Continue Reading.

[starswallowingsea]

yes give me the tatsumi rant

god okay so like we know Tatsumi is Christian it's a pretty important part of his character that he is like in his first feature scout story he mentions that he wanted to wear his father's vestments but was scolded for it because they are something that you have to be serious about like this is the most obvious thing anyone would know by looking at Tatsumi.

HOWEVERRRRRR since a lot of Western fans only really think of Christianity as like. Southern Baptist/Mormonism/Jehovah's Witnesses/Extreme Catholicism and like yeahhhhhh those sects are not Great but that's not all there is to Christianity as a religion. I went to an Episcopal service a few weeks ago and it was very fascinating how different it was to the Southern Baptist youth group I attended as a child. But Tatsumi does not follow any sort of American Protestant denomination because he doesn't fucking live here. He's a religious minority in his own country holy fucking shit.

Anyway there is ample evidence within even what has been officially translated that Tatsumi is a chill guy. In the current gacha story Ushimairi pt. 2 we get to see his first interactions with Koga right after moving in and he's literally.

They're chill!!! They're chill and they get along just fine. Koga asks about if Tatsumi thinks dogs are dirty because of his religion right after this and Tatsumi explains that it was because of the historical context and that stray dogs had rabies which is a completely valid reason to not want to like. Interact with dogs, but it's completely fine now because most dogs aren't walking around with rabies!!!

He's also stated that he believes he's going to hell before and that he's accepted that fact but he still believes in God anyway (and he has a conflict of faith later on where he debates if he even still believes or not). He would not be a bigot he wants to accept everyone as they are that's literally why he had the fucking revolution at Reimei over his belief in equality. Goes insane.

Anyway I haven't read most Tatsumi stories I stated in my last post I do not actually care about him all that much because he doesn't appeal to me as a character but mischaracterization on this level drives me up the wall like we are not reading the same stories we are not playing the same game clearly.

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Anthropological Note - art by Albert Nuetzell (1957)

[fox-teeth]

We're almost at the end of @shortboxcomicsfair ! Make sure to check out "The Maker of Grave-Goods" and the rest of the SBCF '24 comics before 8PM GMT on October 31st!

www.shortboxcomicsfair.com

[sociologi]

04.01.2024 | another day, another coffee shop, but same damn essay. the deadline is tomorrow at noon and i’m still only halfway done. remind me not to procrastinate ever again 🙃

[slythdiaries]

03.04.23

Sleep deprived. But maps were fun.

[spyglassrealms]

What is the purpose of the human species?

Think about it: what are the two things that have defined our entire genus for two million years?

Learn everything and care for each other.

It's been twelve thousand years since the beginning of civilization on Earth. In that time, humankind has invented dogs, the wheel, economics, the steam engine, capitalism, and the nuclear bomb. We're as much of a mess as we've always been; probably even more so. It can be kind of hard to see us for what we really are these days. But whenever someone mentions Sputnik, or Vostok 1, or the Apollo program, or the ISS, you know what they say?

"We did that."

That's why space exploration is important. That's why it's important to me. Not just because it instills hope, but… because it's the root of us, all over again.

Cooperation and curiosity are the bedrock of space exploration. You just can't go out there without the intersection of both. And lucky for us, they're the same two traits that got us from flint to fission over the past two million years. Another sophont species of different ancestry would balk at the unbelievable array of challenges inherent in spaceflight and probably decide it's not worthwhile. We do it anyways, because two million years of wanderlust sing in the bones of every one of us from the day we're born to the day we die.

We have to KNOW, you see? We have to KNOW, we have to EXPERIENCE, and we have to do it TOGETHER! When we go, we are becoming ourselves again. We are wandering together. That's what we were made to do.

"Drink this water of the spring, and rest here a while. We have a long way yet to go, and I can't go without you."