What’s it like excavating human remains

• it feels special to hold someone’s skull. It’s the human seat of intelligence and emotion. The completer the skull the happier we are
• It’s easier to work from the head down to the toes because you’ll anatomically know where everything is going to be
• Hands suck because there’s lots of little bones and you never know where they’ve ended up
• Having well preserved hands and feet weirdly makes a lot of us happy. Also I find heel bones hilarious
• Human remains are never where you need them to be and they’re always where they shouldn’t be
• There’s always this piece of animal bone that has no reason to be there
• Your lower jaw can end up anywhere so it seems
• Ribs can be cleaned beautifully for picture taking, but taking them out is a mess. If it breaks in less than three pieces you’ve done something impressive.
• Mass graves are no fun. But they do provide weird conversations, one anecdote from one of my digs: “that’s my left arm! Give it back!”
• Archaeologists love doing skeletons but talking about it is no easy job when you’re in public
• Why does everything always break? Where did the teeth go? Why are there fingers missing? Shoulder blades shattered?
• Your left arm isn’t left on the skeleton. That moment you realize you messed up registration
• Dogs on site. And sure enough one of them finds human bone and you have to pretend you knew it was there
• Sometimes the only way to find a skeleton is by getting your heel stuck in someone’s head. I know… it’s as bad as it sounds

ok so yesterday my coworker/friend went to go mop and she saw some little things moving in the mop bucket (don't ask me why there was still water in there because i don't know lol) she looked closer and saw that they were brine shrimp

which is very silly and odd but not quite unexpected because we are aquarists and we have brine shrimp hatching cones that we raise them in to feed our jellies. and sometimes visitors mess with the knobs on the tank and then end up dumping them out (which fills me with RAGE because you can't accidentally do that. you have to be purposefully reaching around the hatching cone so like why the hell are you messing with our stuff but anyways that's not the point) so then we mop them and yeah ok that's how the eggs got into the bucket. but not only have they hatched, they are thriving adults !!!!! and they are thriving so much that some of them even have EGGS!!!!!

ok now here's the kicker

THEY KEEP DYING IN THEIR HATCHING CONES !!!!! SO OUR BATCHES KEEP FAILING!!!!! EVEN WITH THEIR REQUIRED WATER PARAMETERS THEY ARE FAILING.

SO. WHY. THE. HELL. ARE THEY ALIVE IN A MOP BUCKET OF ALL PLACES

so you're telling me that our brine shrimp (that keep dying) that we are dutifully caring for with specific water parameters for maximized hatching etc etc etc are so happy in a Mop Bucket that they are fucking ????? these little shrimps are porking on company time in company supplies ???????

(update: my other friend @plaguedocboi took them home yayyy)

^ the soggy children

edit to add:

no how else are we supposed to get Mop Bucket Shrimp

During lockdown I worked on two projects: one was a ditch that needed to be cleared out of tules and cattails but turtles lived there. So I’d follow the excavator scooping out the vegetation and make sure no turtles were trapped in it, and if they were, freeing them and putting them in a safe part of the ditch. It’s extremely muddy, sticky work. Hold on, I have a photo of one of the guys:

ALT

No one is having a good time.

The OTHER project was going to destroy rare salamander habitat and so we had to buy some appropriate habitat. But every mitigation bank was sold out. I found a guy selling future mitigation bank credits through the powers of making a lot of phone calls and then, through the power of polite requests, got our Wildlife Agency rep to sign off on this plan. Except. You can’t say “I gave seven figures to a guy who promises to someday make habitat”, that guy could abscond. You also can’t be like “I supes promise to pay for mitigation AFTER the project.” because WE could not pay out. We were, for various reasons, disinclined to delay the project. The Wildlife Agency rep — bless her, she really held my hand through this whole process — was like “how about you put the money in escrow?” Great. A plan.

So I call an escrow company — which was not an organization used to being cold-called, much less by someone standing next to an excavator, covered in mud. I was trying to provide only the information needed to enable success and NOT go on a five-ten minute rant on salamander life cycles. Also I was DEEPLY out of my depth.

“Hi! I was wondering if you could hold money in an escrow account for a longer period?”

“… Well, in some circumstances we can hold it for up to 90 days — but we’d need to know the circumstances.”

“Ah! I need someone to hold it for up to two years? Do you know of any companies who’d be able to help me?”

“What. What is happening with the house that this is necessary?”

“Oh uh. It’s not a house, per se, it’s a rare salamander mitigation bank. It needs to be built.”

“The salamanders need a custom house?”

“No no no no no uh. They need a pond. We’re paying someone to make a pond. But! They need time to make the pond. Hence the escrow account. So. Who could?”

“So like a lizard house?”

“They are amphibians?”

“Let me. Transfer you to my supervisor.”

<after a pause a different person comes on the line but also unfortunately at this moment the excavator operator fishes a turtle out of the ditch.>

“Hi! Sorry one second I need to put down the phone to help a turtle.” <interlude> “Thank you so much for waiting! I’m back! Can you talk to me about escrow options?”

“What was happening with the turtle?”

“Oh it was trapped in some cattails but I got it out. Sorry for putting down the phone — you need both hands to grab them because they bite! I need an escrow account to hold funds for up to two years?”

“For a house for lizards? Are you a zoo?”

“Ah! Salamanders, actually! And a mitigation bank, not a house. I actually work for X organization.”

“What is a mitigation bank?” (The critical question!)

“Oh when you’re building something and need to impact some rare species habitat you can pay someone to make new rare species habitat.”

“Huh.”

“But this habitat is incomplete! It doesn’t have a pond. So my organization won’t pay until AAAAAAAAA excuse me sorry I fell into a ditch. My organization needs there to be a pond there before they pay for the property. So one path forward is an escrow account.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yes absolutely!”

“What’s the cost of this bank?”

“Two million dollars.”

<the tenor of the conversation became markedly warmer at this point.>

“OK if you get my your contact information then I’ll email you some options and then we can discuss — do you have time now?”

“Unfortunately I do not have email access right this second. Also I need to get out of the ditch. Could we put a pin in this conversation and circle back tomorrow?”

“Of course, I look forward to working with your organization?”

“Thank you so much!”

“Good luck with the. Ditch. And turtles?”

“Thank you! Have a great day!”

When you pick up a sword for the first time you will be slow and awkward. This is frustrating, but refuse the temptation to try and become a “faster” fencer. Chasing after speed is like trying to catch smoke. If you try and pursue speed, all you will accomplish is haste. Haste is the enemy of 1st class fencing.

Speed is a lie the untrained mind tells itself when it sees an action it cannot follow. The truth is a combination of timing, control, and fluidity. Fluid motion, even done slowly, will always arrive before a hasty strike. Control will allow you to move without wasteful motion that will slow you down. Timing will eliminate the need to move fast almost entirely. There is no need to get somewhere fast so long as you get there at the right time.  

this is crazyyyyyyy

should be able to leave kudos on scientific studies. i liked your paper dude keep at it

‘beyond the scope of this paper’ is a dear friend to me. I Am Not Fucking Talking About That

So when I was getting dressed today, I very quickly put on a lab coat and some cat ears, not even trying to have something coherent, just wanting to have some kind of costume, and then I used some eyeliner to draw some whiskers on my face, so, yeah, that's my costume, cat in a lab coat, does it make sense? no. who cares. Still wearing the same skirt and striped knee-high socks from yesterday, but that's just my work clothes.

But then when I got to my office in the physics department, one of my colleagues was immediately like, "Oh! Schrödinger's catgirl!"

There are many benefits to being a marine biologist

The strongest motivator to complete household chores, is an academic deadline