y'all following me here, it turns out the adhd was too powerful to make sideblogs happen. if you want anything else from over here I encourage you to go follow @grison-in-space, which is my main.
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y'all following me here, it turns out the adhd was too powerful to make sideblogs happen. if you want anything else from over here I encourage you to go follow @grison-in-space, which is my main.

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do you guys wanna see how bs âââbmiâââ is?
letâs start with a few pictures of my body shall we
(please ignore messy room iâm in the process of packing)
okay so thatâs the body of someone that eats healthy, literally my fave food is broccoli, and i work out 5 days a week, youâd think iâm at âââhealthy weightââââ right?????
BITCH NOPE
that bitch telling me to eat 1500 - 1900 calories a day are you fucking joking??? thatâs fucking starving myself and iâm not doing that. fuck you.
Bmi was never meant to be used for individuals; itâs only useful for talking in generalised terms about a large population and as a potential guide.
thank you for your input, not many people know that. but still, an official site such as the fucking nhs recommending a full grown woman to eat under 2,000 a day is not okay!!! (Especially considering the fact that it took into account my regular activity)
calories are bullshit too
a calorie is the amount of energy released in laboratory conditions to heat water when itâs burned
so in the lab you have an instrument to burn the food and you measure how much of it it takes to heat water a set amount,
this does not in any way reflect how the body works
your body breaks down foods in different ways, for example monosaturated fats break down very slowly but processed sugars break down very fast
so by that logic something that is almost pure carbohydrate would be much worse than something that is almost pure monosaturated fat
not necessarily
oats, for example, are something like 95% fibre, meaning although they are pure sugar the body decides itâs not worth the bother of breaking them down so you get a small fraction of the sugar in the oat
so just going by carbohydrate [aka sugar] content doesnât work properly either
a stick of butter has WAY more calories than a boiled potato but the stick of butter breaks down over several hours and keeps you satiated longer than that boiled potato that immediately floods your system with sugar, that triggers the response of too much store that for later, which causes a lack in your body which triggers the iâm hungry response
or the peanuts being high protein high fat are the reason why a snickers fills you up longer than a mars bar even though it might have a higher calorie count - because youâre full longer you eat less calories because you donât go iâm hungry and eat another mars barÂ
and thatâs all assuming that every body processes food the exact same way
tl:dr the human body is a very complicated machine and using a very simple method of measuring energy intake is complete nonsense
i always knew the BMI was bullshit but having solid proof is reassuring and will def help with my recovery!!!
BMI is bullshit and Iâm so mad the medical community is still using it
Iâm a varsity athlete (rugby, so letâs keep in mind i throw myself at other human beings who are often bigger than me) and my BMI is always âoverweightâ except for the brief period last summer in which i was eating about 1300 calories a day to make myself hot (12/10 would not recommend).  right now my butt looks great, and Iâm probably in the best shape ive ever been in.  muscle weighs more than fat.  BMI does not factor in body composition, which is a much better indication f health.  also beauty standards at totally unattainable so.  Iâm 5â˛2âł and weigh more than most 6ft models because of the amount of muscle mass i carry and sure Iâm a little squishy round the edges but Iâm healthy. so BMI can kiss my ass
This post is so good, so pure, so important
Adding on to all of this up here, hormones play a significant role in fat storage. âEat less and exercise moreâ is a fad diet. Losing fat, gaining fat, and maintaining weight has far more to do with hormonal composition in your body than anything. Change your hormonal composition, and your bodyâs fat distribution is subject to change. This is why dfab people often gain weight when undergoing menopause or after having a hysterectomy (gender confirmation surgeries typically excluded as the subjects are often on testosterone). This is why endocrine disorders are often associated with significant weight loss or weight gain.
Another example of the BMI being bullshit: many professional athletes have very low percentages of body fat while also having a high BMI.
Joe Rogan is considered obese by the BMI, regardless of his low body fat percentage.
Some more examples of actual Olympians:
The BMI is bullshit
Quetelet, the guy who invented the bmi, literally influenced the eugenics and phenology movements. He developed this thing in a quest to quantify the perfect human (coincidentally white northern European and relatively slim, by his preference) by the numbers, labeling outliers as deviant - sound familiar? He wasnât even a doctor, he was an astronomer and mathematician.
The bmi isnât bullshit because itâs inaccurate, itâs bullshit because itâs built on fatmisia
Please watch this playlist on YouTube from @ok2befat (sources are listed for each video)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzCJI_hV11iFYHnjOPGyVwXaFEo2eEc9S
Also this post: http://riotsnotdiets.com/post/73994844498/the-tyranny-of-the-normal-why-the-bmi-has
I remember learning about the BMI as a kid and being like okay
1) how can it be based on just height? shouldnât the ratio involve total volume? since some people are wider than others in the skeleton and stuff? except
2) no that would come out wonky too because muscle is heavier than fat so the math factoring mass/volume/height together would have to be sooooo complicated to get numbers that meant anything that why bother????
3) maybe if your weight was too low for your volume that would mean you were too fat? did anybody measure that?????? (no. they did not.)
The BMI is literally just a measure of how dense you are. Ironically, in animals, the relevant measure (residual body mass, or RBM) is usually used as a proxy for overall energy levels, with animals that are more dense being viewed as âbetterâ than animals that are less dense, regardless of what the overall composition of their bodies is.Â
(That number, it turns out, doesnât really explain the variance in the amount of body fat animals have. See for example Schulte-Hostedd 2001. But I digress.)
Also, it turns out that body fat is important to have in specific locations for particular types of organ function. For example, in rodents, testicles are usually wrapped in a bit of fat called the epididymal fat pad. If you remove this pad entirely, it will not grow back⌠and, while it is gone, that testicle wonât produce sperm anymore. That holds true even if you move the fat somewhere else in the body. Fat pads are organs, and they act in concert with other endocrine organs in the body in order to help coordinate aspects of your metabolism and your energy balance, and theyâre fucking important too, not passive sacks of glorp.Â
Fat is an organ. It has uses. Itâs not just for storage; fat is active and it does things, just like your adrenal glands. (Having dissected a lot of fat and adrenal glands, frankly, theyâre not as different in the way they look as youâd like.) There is nothing in your body that is junk. There is nothing that is wasted. Everything in your body exists in an effort to help you negotiate the world you live in, as best it can, imperfectly attempting to keep you alive to think another day.
I am, with my collaborators, currently in the middle of putting together a poster for a very large conference on same-sex sexual behavior in animals. I am trying to create a collage of sorts in the center of the poster with a QR code on which people can see the species, a description of the behavior, a photo attribution, and a citation for the behavior having been observed in context. T scolded me for not including more mammals on it, and so I went hunting for loosely related mammals to include.
Thereâs a bat paper that pops up immediately on first view, with a totally unimpeachable sourcing. And itâs a flying foxâeven better!
Hooray, I think! This will be perfect. Bats are cute, and everyone likes cute things. I just need a photo to put on the poster.
This is literally the only photo I can find of this species a) alive, b) clearly visible as a bat, and c) with an attributable source.
god help me.
Is it me or are they⌠clearly visible as male bats?
IT IS NOT YOU
in fact the photo is from Homosexual Fellatio: Erect Penis Licking between Male Bonin Flying Foxes Pteropus pselaphon, my putative source, which also helpfully includes video
âŚwell you couldnât hope for anything more illustrative!
I think I found a slightly less legally impeachable but vastly more G-rated image from the Nature Library, which I think I will use instead.Â
Goodness. Usually iNaturalist will come in for me, but not this timeâŚ
Thatâs a whole new dimension to ânot suitable for workâ
MY COLLABORATORS SAY GO FOR IT, SO I GUESS BAT FELLATIO IS A GO
BIOLOGY IS AMAZING
J requested the bats be âfront and center,â so they will now be taking the coveted image spot of âcenter of the top rowâ so everyone sees their glory
yo, in case those of you who follow here want to know what I'm up to on main
Hey if youâre an Albertan like me and youâre angry and scared after tonight. Remember. You can resist. Organize. Get involved. Make the next four years of Jason Kennyâs life Hell. He canât be allowed to so much as sneeze and get away with it.
All those things we said weâd do if we were in Trumpâs America? Start doing it. Put your money where your mouth is. Donât lay down and take it. Get angry and get motivated.Â
Texas is cheering for you! If we can hold the line to minimize the effects of a horrific election, so can Alberta.
i have no words to say anything about this pic
@why-animals-do-the-thing this looks potentially dangerous for that cat. Is this okay, or an example of poor animal care?
This is absolutely unsafe for that cat. Even if the tigers canât get a whole paw through the fence, they could still fatally injure the cat with just one of two claws connecting.
Iâm not going to say itâs a bad example of animal care because the fence is adequate for the tigers (itâs primary containment, which simply keeps them in - itâs the secondary fencing that keeps people safe), and we have no way to know if that domestic cat is a pet or a stray. I certainly hope whomever took the photo immediately chased it off - that sort of situation often doesnât end well for the smaller animals.
Not to mention the very real possibility that the tigers might grab the catâs paw and pull inward. This once happened to me when a friend whose dog we did not trust with cats came by to visit with her dog, and we shut the cats up in a room with the door closed while we spent some time with our own dog and hers in the main area of the apartment. One of the cats wanted to know what that strange creature outside the door was and kept waving her paw under the door, which we ignored because it was a closed bedroom door--sheâd stop doing it if she didnât feel safe, right? Our friendâs dog was understandably fascinated by her foot, and we didnât really think about keeping an eye on him while he watched the door.Â
Cue a bloodcurdling scream, which startled all of us and had us wheeling to the corner with the bedroom door, where the dog was wailing and distressed in front of the closed door. The cat was on the other end of the room, her foreleg wet to the elbow with saliva from the dog. Weâre still not sure who screamed, but the dog definitely tried to grab her paw, and probably got scratched on his tongue.
Everyone was fine in the end, just scared, but I would not say that this house cat is safe from those tigers while heâs reaching paws into their enclosure. Itâs too easy for one of them to decide to drag him into their cage, and if he screams and panics, the house cat will immediately turn into prey in the tigersâ mind.Â

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But theyâre brother and sister...
@fallowsthorn said to @ask-drferox: Why donât animals âknowâ not to breed with their siblings/parents? Is there no animal version of the Westermarck effect?
I canât speak for primates or clever clogs like elephants but no, there does not appear to be any sort of Westermarck effect with domestic animals, where being raised together as juveniles reduces their sexual attraction as adults.
Partly, the Westermarck effect is contested as to whether itâs a real thing or not, but our domestic species do not form the same sort of social hierarchies and complexity that humans do. We take a pair of puppies or kittens away from their mother at 8 weeks of age when theyâre still very young, and bring them into a household where they may be the only two members of their species. Thereâs no context, thereâs no cultural queues, what was anybody expecting to happen? A male and a female alone in the world without guidance and no other options?
Humans can learn that such a pairing would be wrong, both culturally, psychologically, and reduce the genetic health of future offspring, but our animals donât have that.
The Westermarck effect does exist in some species--iirc, it was first noted in quail?--but in most species, at least one sex of offspring disperse before breeding. If youâre far away from all of the individuals who are both reproductively compatible with you and also closely related, breeding with close relatives is unlikely. If your movements are being controlled by humans, though, thatâs... not going to kick in.Â
That dispersal thing is probably underlying the Westermarck effect in humans, too--you go out and you find a sexual partner who isnât from your natal group, because theyâre less likely to be closely related to you.Â
they donât even look disappointed that he was the only one in the litter.
Lions are altricial-theyâre born more or less helpless, just like us. Simbaâs eyes and ears are open, so heâs been alive for a while. Probably about a week.Â
Lions are also just like pocket sized kitties-one litter may have multiple fathers.Â
Male lions kill the cubs of other males, sometimes for funsies, sometimes in hope of bringing the lioness back into heat.Â
We donât know that Simba didnât have litttermates, just that he doesnât have any by this point. Â
I mean, yes, but male lions usually operate in coalitions--anywhere from two to four males is common--of brothers or cousins. Scar and Mufasa in this context are pretty standard. (Although the darker the mane, the more circulating T in the male/the more attractive or threatening the male is. Given the gender politics of The Lion King, it deeply amuses me that dark, campy Scar would probably be the dominant male in his coalition in the real world.)
Generally, lions kill cubs that were sired before their coalition takes over a pride, in order to bring the lionesses back into heat. While it's common for all or some males within a coalition to mate with any given lioness in the pride they are occupying, meaning that a litter often does have multiple fathers, generally males won't kill cubs that have been sired since their coalition assumed power.
... This also, fwiw, makes the fact that Simba returns to occupy his natal pride and definitely reproduces with at least one lioness who was a cub from the same pride at the same time... interesting. At best, Nala is at least a cousin (assuming she's the daughter of Scar and an unnamed lioness who is almost certainly a close relative of Sarabi along the female line, but who might have a father from a different, unrelated coalition). At worst, she might be a half sister along her father's side and a close cousin on her mother's, and it's pure luck she isn't a full sister.
This is why real lions leave their natal prides.
Hello! I was just wondering if you could answer this for me? My cat is 14, very old but very healthy, and I seem to be her favorite person. I spoil her with tons of treats and toys and let her into my room with me, which my family doesn't like to do. She gets excited and starts purring just from seeing me in the same room. My folks say she only acts that way b/c she always thinks I'm gonna give her something. But there are times she'll just climb in my lap and sleep. Is she really being loving?
Iâd be inclined to think so. We know cats are social creatures, and we know that they bond with people. Youâve got a cat who seeks you out, displays behavioral indicators of excitement, and starts purring in a situation in which stress- or pain-purring isnât relevant. It sounds to me like itâs pretty obvious thereâs something she finds enjoyable or reinforcing about being near you.Â
You may be interested in this very elegant study assaying preferences among both owned and shelter cats for food, play, and human attention. (No, really--as a theoretical rather than applied animal behavior person, I think the methodology is golden, and as a bonus itâs real cheap and can be repeated on any cat with things you probably have lying around anyway.)Â
What they did was take 25 cats who had stable human homes and 25 shelter cats and put them through the following test:
1) cats were given access to a familiar human who would talk to the cat for 1 minute, move to a different location, offer to pet the cat for 1 min, move to a different location, and offer to play with a wand toy for 1 min. (The preference was to compare cats to all stimuli simultaneously, but because they wanted to have the human be the same throughout the whole assay, they had to have the human change activities.)
2) cats were given access to 3 kinds of yummy cat food simultaneously: chicken, tuna, and âchicken flavored soft cat treat.â Each food was presented in 3 levels of accessibility: easy, medium difficulty, and âunsolvableâ to prevent cats from actually getting at the food. Cats solved the unsolvable puzzle, so they had to make it harder! That meant that they could see how motivated cats were to consume each food in turn, and any hog cats who ate all the accessible food could still be assayed for choice by how much they hung around the food they liked best. Cats could access all three options for 3 minutes.
3) cats were given access to 3 kinds of biologically relevant kitty sniffs: a square cotton cloth that had been impregnated with the scents of gerbil, catnip, or an unfamiliar cat, and again cats had 3 minutes to investigate all the sniffs.
4) Cats had access to 3 kinds of toys: a movement toy being erratically moved by an experimenter who could not be seen or accessed by the cat, a mouse toy, and a feather toy. Cats also got 3 minutes to investigate the toy.
5) In the final phase of the experiment, cats were able to access all four of the types of stimuli, using whatever individual component each cat had liked best in the four earlier trials. Each was placed in a different quadrant of the room, so the cat couldnât interact with all four at once.Â
There were no difference between shelter and pet cats, as it turned out. you know what else the study found among the cats?
the most popular option among the four was the attention of a human. Yes, more popular than food, which came in second (admittedly, not significantly differently--19 to 14 cats--but hey, small sample size).Â
Most interestingly to me, cats prefer to play with an unpredictable wand toy that has a known human on the other end to an unpredictable wand toy without a human operator.Â
None of this can tell you what your specific cat is thinking or feeling, but it is a pretty interesting finding and heavily suggests that cats are not purely utilitarian creatures with no inherent affection for the humans in their lives.Â
Dream: sitting at a table with my advisors and another student, talking about my thesis and the other student is like âthis is⌠nonsense, really.â Realizing my advisor agrees. Trying and failing to explain what Iâm trying to say.
Cut to the asshole ex boyfriend giving me a Look and saying âYou left me for this. Do you really think it was worth it?â
So. Thatâs a fun way to wake up.
Wow. That wasnât even SUBTLE of your subconscious. 2/10, go sit in the corner subconscious.
RIGHT?!
could you maybe at least TRY?
for fucks sake
Oof. I am sorry, that sounds fuck-off awful and then awfully irritating to boot.
a thing about the anthropomorphization of animals
âIt is bad,â says the scientist!
âIt is maybe not so bad,â says me, who is not a scientist.
I donât think it is so bad to make yourself equivalent to an animal. Not because you can expect human reasoning from a cat: how silly! But because I can look at a dog, perhaps my dog, and say, âHe is just making the growly noise because he wants the toy!â or âhe wants the snack!â or âyouâre invading his Safety Zone!!!âÂ
He is not opening the gate into the living room because he wants to spite my mom! He loves my mom and wants to sit on the couch with her and maybe eat her salad with her!! He is not opening the kitchen drawers and taking out her kitchen utensils because it gives him joy to make her mad! He is bored and requires toys!!
He is not a bad dog!! He is doing his very best with what his doggo brain is telling him to do to survive and be comfortable!
And then I can look back at myself and goâŚÂ âhuh.â
Apollo the dogâs cheeks have gotten thinner in the past several months, and the leading theory is that itâs because heâs less hypervigilantâso his face is relaxed instead of his jaw being tense all the time.
Heâs learning to trust his People! His actual physical body is learning to be calm!
âŚ.huh
Hereâs the thing: at this point we almost need a way to differentiate what we mean when we say anthropomorphization in the sense of âhumans are also animals, all animals have behavioural and emotional and psychological reactions to their environments and other animals based on a complex interaction of base neurological wiring and the effects of experience on that wiring, and this is crucial to keep in mindâ ⌠.
⌠vs what we think when we say anthropomorphization and mean âI will view animal needs, behaviours and contexts through my projection that this dog is a small human-as-I-understand-humans and wants exactly those things.âÂ
The latter is shit, will lead you to wrong conclusions, and probably lead you to inadvertant animal abuse, and should be avoided.Â
The former is just observable reality.Â
But right now weâre using the same mouth-sounds/visual letter combinations for both meanings, and thatâs very confusing and definitely suboptimal.Â
Um, as an animal behavior PhD: hot damn yes. May come back to this later with more professional enthusiastic babbling when I have a keyboard.

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idk can we stopâŚtreating a.ce disc.ourse like itâs some haha funney cringe compilation or whatever the fuck because it fucking destroyed the entire ace and aro communities. there is no solid aspec community on tumblr anymore (which was by far the biggest number of aspec ppl). exclusionists took our community and fucking smashed it to pieces and y'all treat it as this fucking stupid joke when they traumatized, gaslit, and abused an entire group of queer people back into the closet. fuck every single person who doesnât take that seriously.
My personal experience is just that, but itâs really indicative that I have watched almost every single ace and aro person I know, irl and online, actively recloset themselves as a direct result of the consequences of The Disc Horseâ˘
I watched irl queer groups disintegrate bc a few ppl who got into leadership positions used that to make the space hostile towards ace ppl (among others as well), saw friends go from being loud and proud aces n aros to actively avoiding any mention of it and letting ppl assume their sexuality. I myself, having been IDing as ace for 10 years at least, have in the past couple since this whole â"discourseââ came into being, actively and intentionally stopped telling anyone at all that Iâm ace. To put that in some kind of perspective, I am incredibly out as trans and will actively out myself pretty constantly except to total strangers I will never see again. I feel safer telling ppl Iâm trans than ace. Especially in queer spaces. Itâs fucked me up so much I didnât even quite grasp how much but today my therapist asked me for the first time about like romantic relationships and I physically could not say I am aro and ace. Completely incapable, utterly frozen, and I just kinda let her believe what she will. Ironically the fact that Iâve gone from being willing and ready to tell ppl Iâm ace as just another facet of myself to entirely unable and unsolicited to tell anyone, is probably a thing one might want to talk w oneâs therapist about.
This has really fucked not just the community at large but fucked up individual ace ppl in so many ways. Itâs not something âfunnyâ or remotely harmless, itâs absolutely devastated us.
I reblogged this only a couple of days ago when this hand only 2k-ish notes.Now this has 10k notes FULL of ace , aro and aroace people talking about how much the âace discourseâ emotionally and mentally traumatized them and how so many of them stopped coming out as ace even among their most lgbtqa friendly peers and groups and its just SO SO heartbreaking to read.
The ace discourse has been going on here for around 3 years now with no signs of stopping considering of how many excusionist and aphobic ace discourse keep popping up here and 99% of them are just really horrible people who keep bullying,harassing and mocking ace people as a form of âdiscourseâ
Ace discourse hasnt made ANYONE feel safe in the lgbtqa community except people who are as much of a bully towards ace people as aphobes are and has just created a huge divide among the community bc many lgbtqa ACE people too feel like they cant trust other lgbtqa people non ace people since they might turn out to be aphobic.
I hope anyone who has EVER contributed to this disgusting agenda against the existence of ace people reads this and realizes how they have only played the part of the bullies and bigots they hated in schools and societies, towards ace people and have contributed to the unsafeness and self hatred ace people feel for being ace.
No matter how many âhot takesâ people write with as many leftist buzzwords or masterpost aphobes make ,ace people arent EVER going to stop existing.Its their LIVES and not some internet identity they make up so all this harassment of ace people is only EVER going to make ace people hide themselves not erase themselves.
Three years? Oh you sweet summer child, it's been going on Tumblr without pause since 2011. I have the trauma and the burnout to match.
I mean, I mostly took my organizing and community building offline, but like. Tumblr has been notably toxic for ace people for a long, long time.
a Gentle Note
I have a dreamwidth already
you can find it here
I also have a pillowfort somewhere but I havenât checked to see if the site is up yet so
Doot doot doot doot doot doot doot- doot doot doot- dooooo
(10:00)
In the hall of the mountain king
the floofiest munchkin
why would anyone think its ok to breed a cat to look like this?
munchkin cats are a result of a naturally occurring genetic mutation, itâs not a result of cats having their legs bred down for their short size as is the case for daschunds. munchkin cats experience no physical deformities or abnormalities in their legs or as a result of their legs
I absolutely refused to believe that comment and went to look for myself. Turns out itâs true, munchkins are extremely healthy breeds. The mutation only affects health in the fetal stage, which means unhealthy kittens donât survive to be born at all and never suffer. Rarely they experience a curvature of the spine called lordosis, and cats with this condition are very short-lived, but this isnât unique to munchkins and can affect cats of all sizes.
So Iâve been railing against the breeding of munchkin cats for years for no reason, apparently. Sorry, cats.
Justice for munchkin owners
Best cat breed
I want two. @0maziqueen0
Itâs always good to do your research.
Letâs take Shetland ponies as another example. True Shetland ponies (Not American Shetlands, which are basically itty bitty carriage horses) are a dwarf breed.
Except, generally dwarf horses are horribly unhealthy. The dwarfism found in miniature horses results in a shortened lifespan, pituitary and thyroid gland problems, breathing problems, deformities of the mouth and chronic soundness issues.
Another form, notable in Friesians, comes with hyperflexion of the fetlocks, deformed hooves, and tendon and ligament laxity. Itâs believed it may be a side effect of breeding for their specific gait.
But Shetland ponies? Those things are ridiculously healthy! They have the longest average lifespan of any horse breed, as long as you donât let them get fat. They can pull up to twice their weight, more than any other breed, and can carry a small adult. They can live on next to nothing. Although they do sometimes produce bracycephalic foals, itâs pretty rare. Whateverâs going on with them is perfectly fine.
Compare the munchkin cat above with this:
Thatâs a show quality Shetland - note the slight pot belly and short legs, but also the small head. (The extremely thick, arched neck is a secondary sexual characteristic that tells a horse person this is a mature stallionâŚShetlands do have thick necks to start with, making it exaggerated). Heâs in good weight. But there maaaay just be a similarity here.
That being said, itâs also true that some dwarf breeds in certain species are unhealthy--and here I define âdwarfâ as achrondroplastic dwarfism, which is the form of dwarfism that results in cute little short legs and a relatively normal-sized body. Shetlands actually do not exhibit this form of dwarfism, because they donât have a particularly different length-to-height ratio from other horse breeds and ponies, including full-size horses--I have seen that length of body on a number of quarter horses, for example--and drafts, such as this Suffolk Punch.Â
Horses are a tricky case because there is no case Iâm aware of in which this form of dwarfism has been selected for. It is very common in dogs (breeds that require it include the Pembroke and Cardigan Welsh Corgis, Basset Hounds, Dachshunds, and the Swedish Vallhund), and in their cases there honestly are some forms of health risks in these dogs despite many of them also being old breeds--but these risks (vertebral disc slippage, arthritis) are especially pronounced in more extreme versions of the dwarf breeds with the shortest legs in relation to their torsos, which is generally not the historical shape of the breed.Â
By contrast, longer-legged dwarf breeds like Russell Terriers (below), Petit Bassett Griffon Vendeen, and Swedish Vallhunds are not nearly as prone to arthritis, disc disease, and the other issues associated with more extreme dwarfism as, say, Dachshunds (bottom) or Pembroke Welsh Corgis. Note how the Russell Terrierâs legs are proportionately about two to three times the length of the Dachshundâs here. (Vallhunds and Corgis also make a good comparison.) In dogs, at least, the less severe the dwarfism, the easier it is on the animal.Â
So how do Munchkin cats stack up? Itâs worth pointing out that those floppy-eared dogs are perfectly healthy and that floppy ears on dogs donât particularly put them at any health risks, but the same is not true of cats--the Scottish Fold, for example, gets its trademark ears from a general cartilage disorder that affects not only the ears but also the cartilage of the whole cat, meaning that the floppy ears that come with that breed are inextricably paired by that mutation with a congenital condition that results in chronic pain and arthritis. We can have floppy-eared dogs without the chronic pain because the specific mutation that causes floppy ears in dogs is almost certainly one in or interacting with an enhancer specific to either the ear or a particular timing of development. That just isnât the case for any known floppy-ear mutation in cats.
Coming back to the Munchkin, species does seem to protect the Munchkin cats from intervertebral disc disease, which is easily the biggest risk to dogs of these types of structures. In 1995, a number of Munchkin breeders apparently tested their oldest cats for intervertebral disc disease; however, I canât find good sourcing for the details of the study. I also donât see any good evidence that refutes it, however, and most criticism of the Munchkin focuses on the arthritis issue. Particularly in the forelimbs, does the pattern of use and extra weight the cats bear on the front paws (their fronts typically being shorter than their hind legs) predispose their joints to more wear and tear than on a longer-legged cat?Â
There is no good evidence right now of the question of arthritis, however, particularly over the course of the catsâ lives. There is a research project at the University of Missouri trying to find out, though! I hope they successfully enroll enough cats to be able to confirm whether or not Munchkins are at heightened risk of arthritis so that we can work out whether or not the mutation is detrimental to the catsâ quality of life.Â
(For what itâs worth, I do own a (non-intentionally bred, ex-hoarder-situation) cat with some form of dwarfism. Sheâs brachycephalic, not to the level of an exotic Persian, but to the level of a doll-faced Persian, maybe. She also has a couple of other issues--weird legs, a partial bobtail and a lazy eye--and is generally a lovely little cat, albeit one that I wish had a better quality of life than the sneeziness. She is particularly adorable, but I donât think we should deliberately create cats like her--for one, we are effectively waiting on her to develop arthritis as she ages because her joints donât look right. If she doesnât do so, I will certainly be pleased.)Â
If I wanted a Munchkin--well, I donât think they are as inherently unethical as Scottish Folds until we find out what the arthritis situation is, but I would deliberately look for a leggier example. I would want to see a cat with reasonable length of leg--not the maximum shortness--and I would want to see straight legs, ideally equally long in the front as the back, and not twisted in front. Thatâs the type of cat I think is most likely to avoid arthritis, and thatâs not what I see being selected for by Munchkin breeders and derivatives.Â
This is probally outside your expertise but Ive been having trouble finding an answer. What is the evolutionary advantage of 'male' and 'female'? (sperm/ equivalent distributor and egg bearer or whatever the definition is) Why is hermaphroditism not the norm cus wouldnt it be more optimal if you can breed with any mature member of your species instead of just (at best) half? Esp for loner animals that rarely meet. Most of all itd double the offspring if both parties fertilize each other
Itâs not exactly my expertise, but it is the sort of thing the LSB and I might discuss as pillow talk. We were bio nerds. Technically still are, I guess.
The facts are that nobody probably knows for certain, but having two sexes (dioecy) predominates in the animal kingdom. Itâs not the case in plants, fungi, or single celled organisms. Also once Dioecy has evolved, or hermaphrodititsm has been lost, in an evolutionary history, itâs difficult for a population to go back.
It should also go without saying, but I wills say it anyway because this is Tumblr, that when discussing hermaphrodites in this context itâs not about humans or intersex individuals, but rather about species in general.
We can assume based on the scientific knowledge already available, that the first cells werenât divided into male and female, they were just single cells, doing their thing. And at some point they evolved into multi-cellular organisms to better gather nutrients and avoid becoming dead. Not all the cells within a multi-cellular organism reproduce, only a few go on to become what we know as gametes (the sex cells) and zygotes (the combination of two compatible sex cells).
Different species may also have different shapes and strategies for those gametes, too, not everything looks like a sperm, but a large, stationary, nutrient rich one (receiver) and a highly mobile one (donor) is a common and effective strategy, but itâs not the only one. You can get isogamous fungi species (only one type of gamete, and itâs all the same).
So if weâre talking about organisms, and you can assume Iâm talking about animals from this point on as plants are not really my thing,
So if we have male and female gametes and their associated support systems, seems like a reasonable default to have both systems in an individual. And embryology of mammals suggests this, sometimes you get remnant cysts. There are duct systems for both male and female reproductive tracts in embryos, Wolffian and Mullerian, but one typically regresses during development. So that implies that at least mammal species (I just donât know enough embryology for other groups) have hermaphroditism in their evolutionary history. So why lose it?
Hermaphroditism is an advantage for species which donât encounter each other with much frequency, either because they donât move very far or very much, and donât put a lot of energy into raising their young. So for some species, like snails and earthworms, thereâs an advantage. But it comes with disadvantages too.
It takes extra energy to maintain two reproductive tracts and you need to stop self-fertilization or youâre going to end up with marked inbreeding and a loss of genetic diversity fairly quickly. Some fish solve this with sequential hermaphroditism, where they are both male and female, but not at the same time. Others are just one or the other.
Now letâs say, hypothetically, you have a hermaphrodite species and one individual has a mutation which renders the female tract non-functional. It can now spend that energy it would have spent on the female reproductive tract on other ways, and if itâs something that permits it to encounter more mates (mobility, increased lifespan, better immune system, etc) then it will potentially be at a reproductive advantage and that mutation will propagate through the population.
And when you have a population that consists of hermaphrodites and males, there is now an advantage to having only a functional female reproductive tract, as you have plenty of mates around, but it is more difficult to compete with males for other mating opportunities. So it may be more efficient to have organisms that are either male or female as far as reproductive strategies go. This also allows more room for evolution of diverse form and function, and behavior.
So itâs about competing with members of the same species, and this strategy becomes more viable with a larger population, and even more with increased energy investments in offspring. Basically, if you want to think of it this way, something âcheatedâ the hermaphrodite system and became male, and them female developed as a response to that âcheatingâ.
Itâs a kind of game theory. New strategies develop to adapt to the dominant strategy in play. If everyoneâs putting dragonites in Pokemon Go gyms, you level up your ice types to take them down.
Though my interest in evolution is more âcasually enthused scientistâ these days rather than professional, an actual evolutionary biologist or embryologist might have more to say.
Putting a pin in this for later, when my energy levels are higher.
Stories
Hey, this is a great resource if youâre like me and feel isolated and alone in stem/your field bc of being queer. I am incredibly lucky to have worked in places with other lgbt people in the past, but right now itâs become apparent that thereâs not really a lot of lgbt people in my current department.Â
Oooh yes this is good. Iâll have to do one of these. Might be time to take another absolutely ridiculous selfie. Oh hey, four day weekend?!
doooo it
I got to hang out with the founder last year at a conference! A+ would hang out again.

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Industrial Workers of the World
Easier said than done
You got eleven dollars? Itâs as easy as eleven dollars.
https://iww.org/
If you ainât got eleven dollars, talk to your local and they should be able to work something out.Â
You can join the IWW even if youâre unemployed, and even if your labor is exploited in prison. When they say one big union for everyone, they really mean it
Subminimum dues for the Wobs are six bucks
Seriously, join the fucking IWW. Message your local on Facebook if you donât know who to turn to. Theyâd love to have you and theyâll meet with you in person to talk about it and sign you up if you want. It can and will only lead to good things for you.
For real guys, I canât recommend this enough. Join your local union.
I worked at a union job years ago. Best job I ever had. Fair payâtheyâd negotiated us danger pay from minimum wage; full benefits (Canadian so we had health care anyways but they covered most of our prescriptions, and glasses, and dental work); got paid holidays starting at two weeks when you started (I think the first year was just the two weeks off, but after that it was paid, and increased regularly with seniority); regular pay bumps to keep up with inflation; sick days; PLUS when management were dicks theyâd sort them out.
Like this one time, I had a machine that was cleaning some extremely dirty grain (our wheat was full of peas, which we didnât handle, so our machines just dumped it as oversized garbage along with pieces of stalks etc), and had this really heavy sack (because it was a regular burlap sack but now it was full of fucking peas) that the peas were going into that usually would be emptied maybe twice a shift or so, and we had so many peas coming out that it was needing to be emptied like every ten minutes. And by the time you lugged this like eighty-pound bag of peas to the other side of the floor to dump, and then cleaned up the mess the machine dumped on the floor while you were doing that, it was damned near time to dump the peas again.
So itâs getting time for my lunch break (mandatory half hour, plus two coffee breaks, also mandatory), and there is no way in hell I can leave it; the peas will pile up high enough that there will be a fire risk from them rubbing against the machine.
So I call my supervisor and tell him my lunch is almost due, and he should either get someone to spell me off or else shut the machine down so I can have my break (which I desperately needed at that point, as you can imagine).
Well, they had a shitload of wheat to clean all the peas out of, and didnât want to shut the machine down. So first he told me to let the machine just overflow and clean it up after; and when I told him that would likely start a fire with how many peas were coming out, he told me to âjust take my break between emptying the sack.â Which, like, does not actually count as taking a fucking break from it.
So I called down to my union rep and told him what was up, he talked to the supervisor, and then him and the supervisor came and had a look at how many peas were coming out (so many that we were joking that the peas were contaminated with wheat), and then grabbed a couple of guys off sweeping to empty the bag while I ate.
And then put a second body on the floor to help handle all those peas because omfg.
Unions are the best. Remember that in the mid-Eighties, almost half of all jobs were unionized. It was Reagan catering to corporations that got all the workersâ rights that people quite literally had fought and died for almost a hundred years previously rolled right back.
Bring back the unions!!
What if your job is under the table? Can you still join a union?
Yes! The IWW is an explicitly anticapitalist union and recognizes *all* labor as worthy of respect and representation. They collect minimal data on individual members and prefer to collect dues in cash and in person for exactly those reasons. All you really need is a local officer to jaw at, a name (doesnât have to be real), and eleven dollars.
I forget the number, but thereâs even a sex workersâ industrial.
The thing that always worries me when I look at joining the IWWW is the âno-bossesâ clause. I occasionally supervise undergrads--do I count? If I stay in my career past the next few years, I will be a supervisor. I will still have bosses, of course, and I want to support as many workers as I can, but... I think I still donât count. Which is sad. I love the Wobblies.Â
Oh, well, Iâll just pitch them some money when I actually have some money and lie in wait for the day when I can overturn the law that bars my profession from collectively bargaining in the state of Texas.Â
Small US politics note: Trump got rid of Jeff Sessions on November 7, 2018 and will replace him with someone who gets to yank oversight of the Mueller investigation from Rod Rosenstein (dece guy) and totally derail the Russia probe. Sessionsâ current replacement has publicly discussed viable ways to spike Muellerâs investigation.
Trump thinks he can get away with it because Jeff Sessions is a goddamn shitbag asshole so heâs counting on people going âoh phew that bastardâs goneâ and not thinking about who will REPLACE him.
One thing thatâs worked so far is massive nationwide protest. The Mueller Protection Rapid Response Team has a directory of USA and international protest sites that have been organized and waiting to go for months.
They are calling out the Rapid Response for THURSDAY NOVEMBER 8 2018 at 5pm local time.
If you CAN turn out, PLEASE DO.
I will be out protesting in Austin tonight at City Hall, armed with a Cap shield, my portable Bluetooth speaker, and the playlist for protests I made a few years back for the Women's March. Featuring songs which are a) well known by a lot of people, b) easy to sing along to, and c) enforce and reaffirm democracy, solidarity, anger, and public compassion.
It's a public Spotify playlist and you can check it out here. I do prune it periodically to focus on songs that seem to go over well, but if you think of another song that meets those criteria, please let me know.
I don't necessarily know if we'll need it, but it's a pretty good way to distract a crowd that's assembled and gotten bored and frustrated and antsy. Who doesn't like a sing-along?