#the science works

[getvalentined]

Content warnings on this post: Pregnancy and its associated biological weirdness, premature birth, seizures, fleeting mention of suicide, and my favorite character in the entire world getting shot. Discretion is advised.

So I've been trying to figure out a way to calculate roughly what point in Lucrecia's pregnancy her big seizure occurred, leading to Vincent confronting Hojo and getting shot. We know it was in 1977, and I've always assumed it was fairly late (because Sephiroth was probably born on Christmas, see link above for justification), but there's not actually much of anything in canon to confirm or refute this assumption.

Only, actually, it turns out that there is. It's so far off the path of things that are common knowledge that it's fallen off the edge of the continent, but it's there.

This is...very long, but please bear with me, because this is the best example of the timeline of this series being staggeringly internally consistent that I've ever seen.

Lucrecia's seizure was caused by Jenova, because it's super similar to the seizures Cloud has in Advent Children. This is weird, because while not stated in the games, there is a very specifically phrased blurb in the Crisis Core Complete Guide stating that Lucrecia was never personally exposed to Jenova cells while carrying Sephiroth:

[Description in alt text. Credit to jeange1231 and Shinra Archaeology on the bird app.]

Given that we don't have in-series canon that contradicts this, I have no issue with accepting it's canonicity. (This is what meta is for. Filling in gaps. Not contradicting the actual games.)

So the zygote/fetus that eventually became Sephiroth was treated in utero, with the assumption that it wouldn't spread to Lucrecia. I won't go into detail on the science here, but it makes sense that Gast and Co. made this assumption, given the existence of the placental barrier and the fact that Project S took place in the late 1970s, when we didn't understand these things as well as we do now. (We still do not understand them very well but that's neither here nor there.)

Cell migration between mother and child is a known phenomenon that isn't well understood, but occurs in a staggering number of pregnancies—it may occur in all pregnancies and simply not persist, but in humans it's been shown to persist for decades. (Basically everything I say about this is going to come from the paper linked above.) In humans it's known to occur no earlier than 10 weeks into a pregnancy. The paper doesn't seem to indicate the latest point it's known to occur in humans, which is interesting, but even if it only takes place for a very limited amount of time, that doesn't throw this off in the slightest.

According to the blurb above, Lucrecia canonically experienced cell migration, essentially being infected with Jenova by the unborn Sephiroth, but not in such a way that anyone caught it—or at least not until it was too late. If the cell migration itself was the event responsible for the seizure that pushed Vincent to confronting Hojo, that means that Sephiroth absolutely couldn't have been born in 1977, much less on Christmas. Vincent was shot no earlier than October 13th, and cell migration occurs around 10-12 weeks.

But the seizure didn't happen at 10-12 weeks. It couldn't have—Sephiroth's strain of Jenova is unique in that it responds to his will specifically. Without his will, it's not really active, which we see all throughout the Compilation. Cloud only wakes up at the end of Crisis Core around the time that Sephiroth starts calling for Reunion, and he's not cognizant until that call is loud enough to start drawing other Clones out of hiding; likewise, he appears to be in remission between Meteorfall and the events of Advent Children, at which point he starts having seizures of his own in response to Sephiroth gathering enough power to pull at his strings for the first time in years.

Fetal brain development kicks into high gear at the onset of the third trimester, roughly 28 weeks into a traditional 40 week pregnancy. (Interestingly, in mice, cell migration only seems to occur 2 weeks into a pregnancy, which is the equivalent of the onset of the third trimester because lab mice have a total gestational period of about 3 weeks.)

The third trimester is the point when Sephiroth began to have a will with which to pull at the unique strain of Jenova cells that had migrated from him to Lucrecia. With that in mind, we can say with a decent level of confidence that Lucrecia's seizure took place in the third trimester, around 26-28 weeks in.

And here's where it all comes together.

Assuming that Sephiroth was born on Christmas of 1977, at or close to full term (38-40 weeks), this would put his conception around the end of March. If he was conceived at the end of March, do you know when the third trimester starts?

The first or second week of October.

The earliest date that Vincent could have been shot is October 13th, 1977, because he was 27 years old at the time, and he was born in 1950. Hojo shot Vincent when he confronted him about Lucrecia's seizure.

I'd always had the headcanon that Sephiroth was premature, but taking actual human gestation into account—combined with the nature of Lucrecia's seizure and the confirmation that her strain of Jenova comes from Sephiroth specifically via cell migration—makes this line up so perfectly that I have to admit that this headcanon is directly refuted by actual canon. Sephiroth may have been a week or two early, but not enough to worry. He was a perfectly healthy baby, born at a perfectly acceptable term.

And he was born on Christmas, because he was conceived in late March, because Lucrecia's seizure happened around the onset of the third trimester, which occurred in early to mid-October, which is the earliest possible timeframe that Vincent could have been shot for confronting Hojo about it.

This is so internally consistent that the real world facts and features of human gestation line up without causing a single wave. I'm losing my fucking mind.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[beemovieerotica]

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

[vaguegrant]

The sardonic, reductionist headline here could be "Scientists finally figured out why you get more colds in winter: bEcAuSe iT's CoLd!"—but the actual science involved here is both interesting, and potentially very relevant to everyday life and especially the immunocompromised:

It turns out the cold air itself damages the immune response occurring in the nose. [...] In fact, reducing the temperature inside the nose by as little as 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) kills nearly 50% of the billions of virus and bacteria-fighting cells in the nostrils, according to the study published Tuesday in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “Cold air is associated with increased viral infection because you’ve essentially lost half of your immunity just by that small drop in temperature,” said rhinologist Dr. Benjamin Bleier, director of otolaryngology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Want to avoid catching or spreading respiratory viruses like CoVid-19, RSV, influenza, or a common cold? Mask up, please, but also bundle up! Wrap up in a scarf, wear a balaclava, and just generally keep your face warm. There's no single magic solution, but that's not a reason to do nothing. Rather, it's a reason to take several simple precautions that help avoid the spread of disease and protect those around you. (I can't tell you how much "this isn't 100% effective so I shouldn't do it at all" frustrates me.)

Oh, and #knitblr? This is your time to shine.

[krysmcscience]

Call this the Whoopsie AU (it's barely an AU)

I mean. Narinder never explicitly SAID the Lamb would stay dead... :3c He probably should have been more specific. >:3c

Part Two:

Well. The Lamb tried, but...sorry, Nari, the crown hates you now. Shouldn't have been so quick to lend it out, I guess. :D

Aaaand Part Three:

'Isn't he just adorable?' -The Lamb, probably, while their followers smile and nod and internally scream at the brand new hellcat they now have to share living space with...

Anyway, nothing says 'Dead To Me' like following a person around to loudly remind them of how dead they are to you. Right? Right. Narinder's got this all figured out. <:]

[great-and-small]

You know what I hate about the internet? Sometimes people will just lazily slap a “citation” on an infographic and trust that they’ll be completely taken at their word and nobody is going to dig deeper. And it works all the time. As an example, please look at this photo someone posted to dispute my assertion that garlic can be toxic to dogs.

Okay well, kind of a pain to manually type in that link but obviously I am going to look into this study that is confident enough to recommend people feeding their dogs garlic. So here’s the article, kind of a weird journal choice for this graphic to reference from but looks like a legit (though 20 year old) study

Funny thing is, almost immediately this article acknowledges that garlic can indeed be toxic to dogs. The health benefits mentioned in the graphic are referring to human health, not canine. This section is literally in the introduction of the article and one of the first things you read. Emphasis here is mine.

Crazy to me that someone would imply that this article encourages giving dogs garlic when it in fact immediately asserts that doing so has the potential to cause hemolytic anemia. The article does explore the anti-thrombotic effects of garlic components in dogs and humans, but by no means does it say that “contrary to misconceptions garlic is safe for pets”. It is dishonest to assert this in an infographic. However the creator of the image correctly assumed nobody would check, because the person who posted it took it as fact without further investigation.

I am begging you to be skeptical. Check your sources. Check their sources. Check my sources. Learn how to dig deeper and exercise that muscle as much as you can, especially on the internet. You will be absolutely shocked how much misinformation is casually stated and received as pure fact.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

cyberpunk daomadan刀马旦 of chuanju川剧 (sichuan opera) at World Science Fiction Convention 2023 by 雁鸿Aimee

[intotheelliwoods]

must not.. overthink... must NOT overthink shit. magic... must not.... logic brain... my poor poor logic brain....

Response to this aha

[deecotan]

anyway here's wavewave

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Do you have a snoot noodle or other variation of sighthound? If yes, there’s new heart health research for the breed happening!

A researcher at Texas A&M whose work I’m familiar with is starting a new study looking at genetic factors contributing to heart disease in Borzoi and related breeds. They just put out a call for dog owners who are willing to submit saliva samples & (noodle) medical records. Studies like this need a big sample size! They’re accepting new sign-ups starting now until March 1, 2025, for dogs both in the US and internationally.

Let’s help make some science!

From the study page:

“Background and purpose

Recent research in Borzoi dogs has revealed that dogs of this breed experience sudden, unexplained death. About 85% of sudden, unexplained deaths in humans are linked to an underlying heart disease. Our existing research in Borzoi dogs has shown that they are predisposed to developing arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms) and dilated cardiomyopathy (a heart muscle disease causing dilated heart chambers and weak pumping function).

Due to our documentation of the frequency of these conditions in Borzoi dogs, we seek to identify responsible genetic variations similar to what is seen in humans with electrical cardiac diseases that trigger arrhythmias and dilated cardiomyopathy.

The objective of our study is to identify genetic mutations associated with heart disease in Borzoi dogs and document their existence in other sighthound breeds.

What happens in this study

We are collecting saliva samples from both healthy Borzoi and Borzoi dogs affected with arrhythmias and/or dilated cardiomyopathy. We will also collect saliva samples from any other sighthound breeds.

We will extract DNA from these samples and perform genomic sequencing on a select number while retaining the remainder for further screening.By analyzing the sequencing data, we can compare the genes of healthy and affected Borzoi dogs and identify variants linked to their heart conditions. We will also compare the findings in Borzoi dogs to results from other sighthound breeds.

Pet owner responsibilities

A swab kit will be sent to you for at home use along with a link to an instructional video on how to properly obtain a swab of the mouth. The kit will contain equipment to collect the saliva swab, a history form for your pet, a client consent form and a shipping label to return samples to us.

Participation requirements

To participate, you must have a Borzoi dog or a sighthound breed that is either healthy or affected by arrhythmias and/or dilated cardiomyopathy. Pets may be any age or sex. Electronic or paper veterinary medical records will need to be provided.

Benefits and risks of participating

There is little to no risk for taking a brief swab of the mouth for saliva collection if procedures outlined in the video are followed. No individual genetic test results will be provided to study participants.

Compensation

There is no cost to the owner for participating in this study. No compensation will be provided.”

[mildmayfoxe]

the thing about trinkets is i always want them to have an interesting provenance. like if i find a cool little object at work that’s cheating. it should come from a mysterious box at a garage sale that i have to dig through for approx twenty minutes before i unearth a little treasure and pay twenty five cents for it. if i find a stone jaguar statuette prominently displayed at the antiques store that’s too easy. i should have to work for it. it should be hidden in a secret compartment in a drawer of a six thousand dollar secretary and the proprietor should look at me knowingly and say “ah, you found it” and then give me a really good deal for being such a little genius

[loki-us]

Loki literally stares directly at Mobius for almost 10 full seconds before announcing what his time slipping is really about. Sylvie is behind him the entire time and Loki only turns around to say he can rewrite the story, to tell Sylvie what he’s already decided to do. There is absolutely no doubt who Loki is referring to when he discovers what’s really driving him.

[bethanydelleman]

Reminder that research (especially medical research) can be very slow. I just got a notification that a paper is being published on a project that I did data collection for in... 2017. I was pregnant at the time with my now seven-year-old.

[myjetpack]

For New Scientist. More of my science cartoons are here.