Raspberry Mint

Panel 1: Shen is standing in a complicated machine, having seemingly just appeared inside it with sparks of green electricity. His clothes billow as he yells "AAA!! WHERE AM I??" Panel 2: A serious looking, realistically drawn scientist begins to, with furrowed brow and intense shading, seriously explain: "It is the year 2155. We brought someone from the past who has an attention span of more than 6 seconds to" Panel 3: The scientist is suddenly very simply/cutely drawn, now having raised his phone to his face and happily looking at it. Panel 4: Shen raises his hands in a confused gesture and frustratedly says "YOU GUYS BUILT A TIME MACHINE IN 6 SECOND INTERVALS??"

A scampering Mononykus with his tongue out 👅

Bet this guy sucks at rock paper scissors

also, I'm so dreadfully shy to connect with someone and I'm too used to being ignored that it reinforces this feeling

it's hard

had a convo with my uncle and he asked me why I don't connect with the bigger accounts that follow me about opportunities

honestly, I feel like I'm not that valuable enough to warrant that kind of asking. there's not much I CAN do with my current set-up, so I'm really just waiting for a reg job

In hand photo of a Micronesian Starling, a chunky black songbird with a sturdy black beak and bright yellow eyes.

In hand photo of a Micronesian Rufous Fantail, a delicate little songbird with a rich red-orange brow, white throat, spotted black collar, and big black eyes.

Back to setting up a banding crew on Rota, where only perfect birds exist.

Såli (Micronesian Starling) and Na'abak (Micronesian Rufous Fantail), banded and released on site, for @instbirdpop.bsky.social 🪶🧪👩🏼‍⚕️

spider demon and monk with another minor demon

spider demon

spider demon concept

kicking around a goofy story idea about a spider demon and a monk

Questions that plague me in the dead of night:

🐦‍⬛What's the meaning behind dreams of ravens?
🍂Is that noise at the window a skittering autumn leaf?
🐡Why do I have 14,000 more followers than the SciArt Feed?

Pin & Like the SciArt Feed so I may rest:

🩸🦖

Lythro is still my fav vivosaur 💖

If you see this, post an eye

Screenshot of Wikipedia article for Grave robbery. Header reads "China", followed by the text "Grave robbing in China is a practice stretching back to antiquity; the classic Chinese text Lüshi Chunqiu, dating to the 2nd century BCE, advised readers to plan simple burials to discourage looting." This sentence is followed by a citation footnote, [5], indicating that the NYT article "Tomb Robbing, Perilous but Alluring, Makes Comeback in China" by Amy Qin is the source of this information

Screenshot of Wikipedia article for Grave robbery. Header reads "Europe", followed by the text "In parts of Europe, Graves are robbed on an accelerating and alarming scale."

Screenshot of Wikipedia article for Grave robbery. The header is not visible, but the information indicates that it could be North America. Text reads "One notable historical incident occurred during the evening of November 7, 1876, when a group of counterfeiters attempted to steal Abraham Lincoln's body from his grave in Springfield, Illinois, in an attempt to secure the release of their imprisoned leader, counterfeit engraver Benjamin Boyd. However, a Secret Service agent was present and had notified the police beforehand, so the grave robbers only succeeded in dislodging the lid of his coffin. As a consequence, when Lincoln was reburied, additional security measures were implemented to prevent further grave robbery attempts." This is followed by two citation annotations, [17] and [18]. These reference the 2007 book Stealing Lincoln's Body by Thomas Craughwell and the now dead io9 article "The Adventures of Abraham Lincoln's Corpse" by Keith Verinese

I was skimming the "Effects on archeology around the world" section of the Wikipedia article for Grave robbery and some of these phrasings are unintentionally amusing, somehow.

The same goes for us modern people too. People in different countries have the same goals as we do; a normal Libyan or Palestinian wants to make money and play video games and take care of their families and make friends. These are the people who die in these conflicts. We are the ones who die. 2/2

I think a lot about how we other people, even unintentionally. Like, LRP, ancient people are actually just like modern people. They weren't any more stupid or wise, they weren't anymore brutal or kind, anymore funny or serious. There were some things they were desensitized to that we aren't, but 1/2

2. to become gloomy, dejected, de-spondent: zimē nisi ina kuri u ni[ssati] iq-tu-re kima glut-ri] the faces of the people became gloomy, as if by smoke, by troubles and woes Iraq 29 55 ND 5406 i 7 (Asb.); Igigi i-gat-tu-ru dalhis JCS 31 86 il 99; kima saknama illakam tenesetum minsu atta ta-qá-at-tu-ur ana madatim mankind will go on as it has been established for them, why are despondent over so many things! You 46 44 ii 7 (OB lit.), cf. a-gat-tur (in broken context, among laments) Rm. 2,273:13'.

Sources

The fragmentary dialogue: www.ebl.lmu.de/library/BM.9...

The Ashurbanipal inscription: oracc.museum.upenn.edu//rinap/rinap...

Screenshot of relevant translation of qatāru for those interested (from Chicago Assyrian Dictionary)

What I gather from this ancient Babylonian dialogue (and others) is that we have grappled with injustice for millennia. We've talked about it with our friends, and we've felt understandably depressed. How can we not?

But we will keep fighting, and the smoke will clear one day...

Although the rest of this part is broken, I like to think that his friend reassured him that it's not everyone. There were and are still people who choose justice and truth.

Sometimes, when I watch the news right now, I feel the same frustration and horror I feel when watching a film where the bad guys are winning.

Is this is what the character in this cuneiform dialogue felt? Why does it feel like everything is just bad, and everyone is just bad?

Photo of a cuneiform tablet fragment shaped like an irregular diamond preserving about 20 lines of broken text

"Why is not one, at his god,
speaking justice;
being a supporter of truth;
(but) is settled just like a wicked person?"

In this ancient Babylonian dialogue, this is the friend's answer to why he feels gloomy. He answers with a question. Why, he asks, is not even a single person being good?

Photo of three cuneiform tablet fragments shown side by side

An ancient account of King Ashurbanipal, who ruled in the 600s BCE, boasts of his enemies' suffering. It does not sound too far removed from some of the boasts we hear today.

"They became like corpses. The faces of the people became gloomy like smoke (iqturū kīma qutri) with depression and grief."

A cuneiform tablet drawing of a fragment shaped like an irregular diamond with two lines of text enclosed in a red box to draw attention to it.

In this ancient Babylonian dialogue, one friend asks, "Why are you so gloomy about many things?"

Let's do some dead languages together for a sec. The word translated here as "be/become gloomy" (qatāru) can also mean "to billow with smoke".

How might we get from smokey to gloomy?

Photo of a cuneiform tablet fragment shaped a bit like an irregular diamond. It preserves nearly 20 incomplete lines of text separated by a horizontal ruling

There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends.

It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.

"– Why are you so gloomy about many things?

– Why is not one, at his god, speaking justice; being a supporter of truth; but is settled just like a wicked person?"

Extremely apt post. If you feel like the second person in that dialogue, you're not alone, and haven't been for millennia

Headlines are systematically dehumanizing the Lebanese people who are being killed, injured, and displaced. But these are the types of people that Israel is killing with its escalation in Lebanon-- a priest serving his parishioners to his dying breath on the land he calls home.

In animals with large genomes, finding cis-regulatory elements can be very challenging. Enhancers can be located tens/hundreds of kb away from their target promoters. We face this challenge in Parhyale, with >3 Gbp genome.
We just published a preprint describing how we are tackling this problem. /1

QTP with women ❤️‍🔥
Happy Women's Day!! ⚔️💫

Seelys as a godly figure stands atop a pile or rocks just clothed in a thin transparent veil, holding a spear. Behind her a stormy sky looks like wings of fire

avatar #art #ocsky

There are no distractions.
Fascism multitasks.

I say this a lot, because many people think they've "figured out" the strategy.

He's stealing your lunch money, punching your face, starting rumours about you, AND pulling the fire alarm. He's doing all of it. No distractions.

This is a path that cannot be retraced
... I wouldn't have it any other way

The encounter between Varka and The Captain is so thrilling just to think about! What are your thoughts?

Thanks to @BUM_HICO for the fantastic artwork!

#GenshinImpact #Genshinfanart #Varka #VarkaTheLegend #IlCapitano

A Shadow The Hedgehog promotional image with the caption 'SORRY I FORGOT ABOUT INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY. I SIMPLY DIDN'T REALISE THAT IT WASN'T ALL YEAR.'

i still think it's really funny that some people think i have "yap" in my username because i talk in my videos sometimes. no that's my name. i'm just chinese