In a monumental discovery for paleontology and the first of its kind "Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia"

Abstract The frozen mummy of the large felid cub was found in the Upper Pleistocene permafrost on the Badyarikha River (Indigirka River basin) in the northeast of Yakutia, Russia. The study of the specimen appearance showed its significant differences from a modern lion cub of similar age (three weeks) in the unusual shape of the muzzle with a large mouth opening and small ears, the very massive neck region, the elongated forelimbs, and the dark coat color. Tomographic analysis of the mummy skull revealed the features characteristic of Machairodontinae and of the genus Homotherium. For the first time in the history of paleontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna has been studied. For more read here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1

I always knew it was possible, but I never dared to hope.

OK Tumblr Geriatric Ward, let’s talk about your posture-

there are things you should be doing now to prevent yourself from starting to look like 🥀

Why does it matter? Future you would like to avoid the pain, limited motion, and fall risk that goes along with worsening posture.

What’s the focus?

1. Keep the flexibility in your spine

2. Stretch the muscles in the front

3. Strengthen the muscle in the back

Here are some simple things you can do daily while sitting and when you get up to go into the bathroom or the kitchen

Keep the flexibility by doing these repeated movements: 10 repetitions several times a day

The goal is to give yourself a double or triple chin. Keep your nose pointing forward, don’t let it tip up or down

Thoracic extension- use a chair with a seat back that comes up to the level of your shoulder blades. Try to bend back over the top of the chair without arching away from the seat back and without extending your neck. If the pressure from the top of the chair is uncomfortable you can place a towel there

Stretch the muscles in the front by using a door frame. This one will feel good afterwards

If this isn’t enough of a stretch you can do one side at a time. If you have the right arm up step forward with the right foot and turn slightly to the left. Then do it on the other side.

Strengthen the muscles in the back by squeezing your shoulder blades together for a count of 10 and then repeating 10 times. You can do this several times a day Hint: Don’t lift your shoulder blades up

There are lots more exercises for strengthening your back muscles but this is a good starting point and easy to do. I like doing it while driving

NOTE: I can do most of these with the cerebral palsy. In fact, a lot of these little exercises are automatically part of my physical therapy. My problem is I already have hyperlordosis, spine arthritis, and cervicogenic headache. These have helped me at least try to have a posture.

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW GOOD THIS ADVICE IS

every time

New zine that's free for anyone to print and distribute! Read the whole thing at newlevant.com/COVIDzine or in the rest of this post.

UPDATE 4/11/2023:

I swapped out the colloidal silver nasal spray info for xylitol nasal spray info. I originally included colloidal silver spray because of the linked study and recommendation from RTHM, but I don't want to be pointing people toward something with notable health risks. Xylitol spray (Xlear) is also cheaper and more widely available!

One of the stranger things about training brand new nurses is explaining how to min max small talk. It feels very weird to coach people on how to chat.

if I make and post an insanely detailed powerpoint on the twenty different equations I run mentally during casual conversation to make it flow better, everyone has to say that it's sexy and cool and not weird at all

remember, everyone promised to be cool! also disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer assume I said all the things you'd say to be like "i know human interaction is complicated, i know some of what i listed here would be very annoying to some people," and all that

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

This post feels like watching an iceberg go by in clear water. The amount of stuff going on beneath the surface of AO3 just astonishes.

(ID in alt)

Approximately one THOUSAND felonies

where's that masterpost of quotes that have no right going as hard as they do. I'd like to submit "Protagonism is best left to teens and the insane"

fiber crafts is like oh you think you know how to count? think again. also count again.

reasons.

This is a water-seal stoneware crock. The design is ancient.

It is, essentially, a large ceramic vessel that you put vegetables and sometimes brine into. To prevent spoilage, you place those ceramic weights on top of whatever food is in the crock, and that keeps them weighted down, below the level of the water. Because fermentation creates gases, most crocks have a "water groove" in them. The lid sits in the groove, which allows air to escape but not come in. Because fermentation creates gas, the interior of the crock is positive-pressure, and because the gas created is almost entirely carbon dioxide, it's a low-oxygen environment that additionally helps prevent spoilage.

And all this would be pointless without lactobacillus, the bacteria that chomp down on the vegetables you put into the crock. They're anaerobic, which means totally fine without oxygen, and they produce an environment that's inhospitable to most other organisms. The main things they produce are CO2, which means no oxygen for other bacteria, and lactic acid, which makes the fermented thing sour and also decreases the pH low enough that many other bacteria cannot survive. They tolerate high levels of salt, which kill yet more competitor bacteria. It ends up being a really really good way to keep food from going off.

Our ancestors figured this out thousands of years ago without knowing what bacteria were. This general ceramic design has been in use around the world in virtually every place that had ceramics, salt, and too much cabbage or cucumbers that was going to rot if they didn't do something about it. It's thousands of years old, so old that it gets hard to interpret the evidence of the ceramics.

And I have crocks like this in my kitchen, where I make my own ferments, and I always think about how beautiful and elegant it all is, and how this was probably invented hundreds of times as people converged on something that Just Works.

(I do have pH testing strips though.)

So many of the critters that take up residence in human homes are simply species that are cave-adapted. Spiders. Crickets. Millipedes. Isopods. Bats. Your house is a cave to them and they think you are also a cave-adapted organism.

Maybe they're in your house because they miss you. Did you ever think of that.

So sick of dog motif what about cat motif.

I love you but we don't love the same. I can't be near you when you want me to be. Your love is smothering and your need to keep me safe is trapping me. I'm my own person but I don't know how to show you that. I lash out and hurt you even though I don't mean to. I need you to move slowly around me or I'll bolt. I love you, even though I don't say it. If you stay still I'll sit next to you, and even though we don't understand each other we can be together like that.

@aspengrown this is the rawest possible addition to this post thank you

and also:

cat love as in I am small and scared and all of my instincts and my experience and your vast power say you're a threat but I am choosing to trust in your kindness despite my fear. you could kill me with one hand but I know you won't.

cat love as in I can tell you are upset and I don't understand why so I will sit stiffly beside you and awkwardly provide the only reassurance I know how to give. I am uncomfortable with every single moment of this but it is what you would do for me.

cat love as in I am small and powerless but I will curl up back to back with you and stand guard while you sleep and I will mean it with every fiber of my being.

my cat Nepenthe was a former stray behavior case at risk of euthanasia because she kept mauling potential adopters. on her second week in my apartment--having already attacked me multiple times without provocation, I will add, I wasn't special, she needed genuine help--she slinked out of the bedroom yowling at me. when I went to check on her she kept walking back and forth until I followed her, where she insistently paced between my feet and her hidey-hole in the back of my dresser, increasingly distressed. about three seconds after she gave up and hid, an absolutely torrential rain front hit. she didn't understand yet that we couldn't get wet inside. she'd been trying to warn me.

she didn't know me yet, but she knew I hadn't yelled at her when she hurt me. she knew I hadn't tried to hurt her back. she didn't understand why she was attacking me; those episodes probably scared her more than me. she knew I "shared" food with her, and that I asked before touching her. and she went out of her way to bring me into her safe space, to protect her friend.

cat love as stiff hesitant uncertain acts of service that are devastating in their sincerity, as well.

I'm sorry, I had a response to add on, but now I'm crying over your cat. Oh my god.

He had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved and is forced to improvise.

Isabel Allende, from The House of The Spirits

cannot stop thinking about this tweet… AUGH 😭

Cookies n cream bambi

(via)

Hat tip @daftari! I adore this

ideologically i disagree with outside cats but i cannot deny the allure of being able to just meet a little guy anytime anywhere