Most original posts here will be about ecology and science education. Book reviews/recommendations are under the LauranceReadsThings tag.
Detective comics (mostly Martian Manhunter, Batman, Justice League) reblogs and comic reviews will pop up. As of Oct 8, 2025, I’m catching up with the new Black Butler seasons under the “laurance watches black butler 2024” tag. Not planning to make a kuroshitsuji sideblog so it’s here now.
Previous poll remade because I forgot a whole century the first time, this is what I get for doing this on mobile LOL
Think of the oldest song that you know by heart — can sing the melody and any words it has from memory, without looking it up.
Search the name of it in Wikipedia, looking for when it was first documented with both the melody and (if applicable) lyrics you know, together.
When is it ACTUALLY from? (If it’s way newer than you think, you can’t switch to an older song. Answer based on this one you initially THOUGHT was the oldest.)
I am a music historian with a PhD and the point of this poll is that the vast majority of people don’t actually know much music from pre-1500s or so, and most music that people think is ancient or medieval is actually far more recent.
There are no options before the first millennium CE because the Epitaph of Seikilos is the oldest complete work of music found anywhere in the world, and it's around 2000 years old. If you think you know something older than that, either only the text was written down (e.g. Biblical, Vedic and Greco-Roman hymns) or it only exists in fragments (e.g. the Hurrian hymns and Orestes stasimon). Which is to say, it does not count for this.
If it fits into a few of these potential time frames, pick the one that's considered the most likely. If historians genuinely have no fucking clue, THEN you can go back and try with another really old song.
Boost this one please! Now that I've finally got it right and the spread actually makes some sense, I'd like to see what happens when more people take it :)
while reading historical documents you gotta remember that sometimes people were 1) selling things 2) doing a funny joke 3) full of shit bc they don’t know anything or 4) combination of all of those
I think for a lot of white people, when you call them out on their casual racism (microagressions and non-overt things), they see it as a case of hurt feelings from your point of view as opposed to a discussion of harmful practices that aid the vehicle of racism. So in response, they take it as a personal attack, rather than a learning experience, and go on the defensive by bringing up a time that you made them upset as leverage. Or they defend their actions by doubling down on the behavior at hand and dismissing your criticism as over sensitivity and emphasizing their “harmless” intent. And I think that is one of the reasons why it’s so hard to address casual and interpersonal racism with the general white population (and also other poc tbh).
When the topic of racism comes up from racialized people, immediately stop talking and listen.
It’s not about you, white person, it’s about the biases you’re perpetuating. Don’t take it personally. Chill out, thank them for educating you, fix your mistake, and do better next time.
If anyone wants a whole book dedicated to that education, Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad is an excellent read. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
just spinnin a yarn here- someone must’ve looked into the connection between the views of “babies = sweet, adorable; teenagers = frustrating, difficult” and “kittens = good, cute; cats = weird, vicious” surely?
ik armchair analysis often connects cat body language to neurodivergent, particularly autistic people, but I’ve always wondered why kittens are so frequently exempt from that take; what IS it with people and the development of boundaries
I don’t know about anyone else but these sorts of headlines frequently make me highly suspicious so I did some follow up research after reading the article. I am happy to say that Green Sea Turtles no longer being counted as endangered is not due to the IUCN or any government shifting the goalpost for what can be considered an endangered species. The only update is, as the article states, an update in surveyed population numbers. Notably the article itself states that the current Green Sea Turtle numbers are not currently at what they historically were when the species was thriving, but this change in status over a relatively short period should absolutely be considered a significant win for conservation efforts and indicates a larger more grounded hope in our ocean ecosystems ability to heal.
Fighting for a better world is worth it and it is not too late.
god I’ve been to the stores where 僮族 (people from the Zhuang minority) hand make and sell this fabric in bolts, clothing, and crafts- it’s absolutely stunning. wish I’d found it sooner so all of my gifts for people back home could’ve been in brocade
Subject: How quantum particles act/interact, what forces impact them, what matter is, and what we don't know.
I never skimped on physics lessons in school. However, traditional physics education is absolutely nothing compared to quantum. It resides within a world our eyes will never see that obeys logic only applicable to the tiniest of particles, yet allows us use the very screen you’re reading this on. Famously regarded as a difficult field to understand, quantum physics often feels daunting to even those who have considerable experience working with the standard model. Luckily, Brian Cox and Jeff Foreshaw have published a phenomenal work using Feynman’s own methods of instruction.
This is a book to work through in chapters. The first few start off slow and build up your knowledge of basic quantum concepts such as superposition and uncertainty on their way up to the more difficult subjects such as what movement and matter actually are. You will need to reread chapters more than once to understand them, and that is okay. I recommend writing down how your brain wraps its head around these concepts on sticky notes and apply them to the relevant pages, as this method helped me get the hang of difficult-to-visualize concepts like superposition.
It sounds absurd, but you don’t need any background in physics for this book. All you need are patience and determination to understand the concepts laid out front of you. I used a ton of sticky notes and annotated the margins, which I found really sped up my learning process.
To speak personally for a moment, this book is one of the most beloved in my library. I don’t often struggle with grasping concepts, but I had to put in hours and hours of rereading to have a basic understanding of the ones being spoon fed to me in this text; that’s why it holds a special place in my heart.
Authors’ Qualifications: Brian Cox and Jeff Foreshaw are both professors of particle physics at the University of Manchester. Individually, Cox is a well-known science communicator for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Foreshaw specializes in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) research (1, 2).
Other books by Brian Cox and Jeff Foreshaw: WHY DOES E=mc2?, Black Holes
[Photo ID: A photo of the user’s copy of the book The Quantum Universe (any why anything that can happen, does) by Brian Cox and Jeff Foreshaw, who authored the book WHY DOES E=mc squared?, which was an international bestseller. The cover is a bright, almost neon yellow. In the middle, a cat half is poking its front half out of a circle that looks like a purple galaxy, while its tail incongruously pokes out of the bottom right corner. A review from Nature is in small text and reads, “A solid introduction to the ‘inescapable strangeness’ of the subatomic world.” There are scuff marks on the center right part of this paperback copy, a small part of the bottom-right corner is missing and creased twice. The top right corner is similarly creased and many small sticky notes are sticking out of this book. It is clearly well-loved and oft-read. / End ID]
Wanted to use a more personal image this time around, so the one here is one of my own copy.
As you can see, l’ve annotated it heavily and reread it more times than I can count. It holds a place in my heart, as it renewed my confidence in my own ability to understand difficult concepts. If you’re looking for something to sink your teeth into, rattle around in your brain, and thoroughly distract you from all other things, I can’t recommend this book enough.
Next week’s book will be The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black. There’s actually a book with a similar premise that came out recently called The Last Extinction: The Real Science Behind the Death of the Dinosaurs by Gerta Keller so y'all know what I want for my birthday (that I share with this week’s book’s co-author Brian Cox!)
all-0f-the-above
cardassiangoodreads
mens-rights-activia
kozativa
queenofnots
xiaohongshu-for-you-two
rowlfthedog
batfam-belfry
