care for gaza - focuses on providing food and essential supplies. donate here or here.

connecting humanity - securing internet access via donations of virtual sim cards (esims). if you can't afford a whole plan yourself, crips for esims is a communal pool that will use your donation to purchase and maintain esims

gaza soup kitchen - provides food, medical care, and classes for children. also has a gofundme

glia gaza medical support initiative - provides medical care through field clinics and tents at hospitals. donations can also be sent through their website.

ele elna elak - provides clean water, food, clothing, and shelter. they also have a gofundme

life for gaza - raising money for the gaza municipality to repair water and waste management infrastructure

taawon - partners with local civil organizations to provide food, water, medical care, shelter, and basic supplies

the sameer project - running various initiatives providing tents, medical care, and necessities. they have their own encampment project focused on sheltering families with children, sick and disabled members, or members in need of perinatal care

islamic relief worldwide's gaza emergency appeal - provides food, water, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and psychological support

baitulmaal - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies

gaza mutual aid fund - distributes food, hygiene products, water, and other essential supplies, including financial support. run by @/el-shab-hussein's amazing friend Mona. updates can be found on her instagram.

hygiene kits for gaza - provides hygiene supplies including menstrual products, wipes, and toothbrushes/toothpaste

anera - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine, blankets and mattresses, and psychological care

palestine children's relief fund - provides supplies and support with a focus on children. also has an initiative for lebanon

dahnoun mutual aid - provides water, food, tents, baby supplies, financial support, and other necessities. updates can be found through their instagram

Except it’s only ever the ‘I hate apartheid’ line that’s shared, and not the actual quote in its full context. Because here it is:

If we consider what Merton College and what the Oxford School of English owes to the Antipodes, to the Southern Hemisphere, especially to scholars born in Australia and New Zealand, it may well be felt that it is only just that one of them should now ascend an Oxford chair of English. Indeed it may be thought that justice has been delayed since 1925. There are of course other lands under the Southern Cross. I was born in one; though I do not claim to be the most learned of those who have come hither from the far end of the Dark Continent. But I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.

Which is to say. This isn’t exactly the antiracist quote of the century, to say the least. This is a white South Africa born man and a white Australian shaking hands and going ‘omg we relate’ and expressing what is a very, very mild ‘segregation is not great’ opinion in order to convey his thoughts on an academic subject, ie the confluence of language and literature. Using race to make a point about his own subject of interest, in his own interest, which is, amusingly enough, what a lot of ostensibly well meaning progressive seem to be doing.

I also think that some of the general surprise around ‘what do you mean large swathes of the Tolkien fandom are incredibly conservative!?’ in lib/left Tolkien fandom is the result of a tendency in said parts of the fandom to transpose one’s own progressiveness onto Tolkien and turn a blind eye to things like, say, the Shire being a very specifically mid-century British racist construct that is very, very clear in its politics, often going so far as to insist it’s anarchist or an ideal society or whatever the fuck… and then getting really Pikachu-meme ‘but they’re misreading it’ every single time a conservative explains exactly what it is about the legendarium that they really love, and get surprised when someone uses the Shire being a racist construct to do more racism. It is 2026 let us do away with ‘I don’t see colour’ interpretations of media, I beg. Nobody is cancelling you for enjoying a book that is not kind to race. Most of the books I love are not kind to race.

I try not to make sweeping statements but I think there’s a case to be made for bernini as the greater sculptor there’s ever been.

here’s his bust of costanza bonarelli

here’s apollo and daphne from the front, where she’s mostly human

from the back, where she’s mostly tree

and details

Insanely detailed feet with veins from “Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius”

Another foot from the same statue because a) he textured underside of the foot and the folds of skin in the arch and b) can you see the light coming through the thin marble between the toes?

One of the mouths of Cerberus from “The Rape of Prosperina”.

Prosperina/Persephone’s facial expression and HAIR TEXTURE

Hades’ hair as well - this man was entirely too good at making CURLS out of ROCK.

A (poorly lit) close-up on the tree textures from “Apollo and Daphne”.

Hand, sling, and rock from “David” which I think deserves to be at LEAST as well-known as Michelangelo’s. Saw them two days apart and I prefer Bernini, honestly.

Facial expression from “David” - I just love the character in this so much.

Kind of a weird angle but look at the texturing on the sling pouch!!!

We also got to see one of Bernini’s earliest works (possibly his very first) in the Uffizi; it’s not currently on display, unfortunately, but look at this:

Forgive the poor photo quality but. He was 14 when he carved this. FOURTEEN.

Man was a straight-up wizard.

Truncated text of tweet from MrPitBull, Mar 11, 2026:

She kept finding women in laboratory photographs from the 1800s. Then she read the published papers—and every single woman had vanished. Someone had erased them from history.

Yale University, 1969.

Margaret Rossiter was a graduate student studying the history of science. She was one of very few women in her program.

Every Friday afternoon, students and faculty gathered for beers and informal conversation. One week, Margaret asked a simple question: "Were there ever any women scientists?"

The faculty answered firmly: No.

Someone mentioned Marie Curie. The group dismissed it—her husband Pierre really deserved the credit.

Margaret didn't argue. But she also didn't believe them.

So she started looking.

She found a reference book called "American Men of Science"—essentially a Who's Who of scientific achievement. Despite the title, she was shocked to discover it contained entries about women. Botanists trained at Wellesley. Geologists from Vermont.

There were names. There were credentials. There were careers.

The professors had been wrong.

But Margaret's discovery was just the beginning. Because as she dug deeper into archives across the country, she found something far more disturbing.

Photograph after photograph showed women standing at laboratory benches, working with equipment, listed on research teams.

But when she read the published papers, the award citations, the official histories—those same women had disappeared. Their names were missing. Their contributions erased.

It wasn't random. It was systematic.

Women who designed experiments watched male colleagues publish results without giving them credit. Women whose discoveries were assigned to supervisors. Women listed in acknowledgments instead of as authors. Women passed over for awards that went to male collaborators who contributed far less.

Margaret realized she was witnessing a pattern that stretched across centuries.

Women had always been present in science. The record had simply pushed them aside.

She needed a name for what she was documenting.

In the early 1990s, she found it in the work of Matilda Joslyn Gage—a 19th-century suffragist who had written about this exact phenomenon in 1870.

In 1993, Margaret published a paper formally naming it: The Matilda Effect.

The term captured something that had been hidden in plain sight for generations. Once you knew the term, you saw it everywhere.

Her dissertation became a lifelong mission.

For more than 30 years, Margaret researched and wrote her landmark three-volume series: Women Scientists in America. She examined letters, institutional policies, individual careers. She gathered undeniable evidence that women in science had been consistently under-credited and structurally excluded.

Her work faced resistance. Many dismissed women's history as political rather than academic. Others insisted she was exaggerating.

Margaret didn't argue emotionally. She presented data. Documented cases. Patterns repeated across decades and institutions.

Eventually, the evidence became undeniable.

Her research helped restore recognition to scientists who had been erased:

Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray work revealed DNA's structure—credit went to Watson and Crick.

Lise Meitner, who explained nuclear fission—omitted from the Nobel Prize.

Nettie Stevens, who discovered sex chromosomes—received little credit.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered stars are made of hydrogen—initially dismissed.

And countless others whose names had nearly vanished.

Margaret changed the narrative. Science was no longer just the story of solitary male geniuses. It became a story of collaboration that included women who had been written out.

-> Phonics For Adults <-

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"[Union Carbide Corporation] built the plant in Bhopal because of its central location and access to transport infrastructure. The specific site within the city was zoned for light industrial and commercial use, not for hazardous industry."

"[T]he facility [operated] with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in Institute, West Virginia."

"The local government was aware of safety problems but reticent to place heavy industrial safety and pollution burdens on the struggling industry because it feared the economic effects of the loss of such a large employer."

Among a number of other safety issues at play the night of the disaster, "The gas flare safety system was out of action and had been for three months."

"An estimated 3,800 people died immediately, mostly in the poor slum colony adjacent to the UCC plant. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed with the injured, a crisis further compounded by a lack of knowledge of exactly what gas was involved and what its effects were."

"Immediately after the disaster, UCC began attempts to dissociate itself from responsibility for the gas leak. Its principal tactic was to shift culpability to UCIL, stating the plant was wholly built and operated by the Indian subsidiary. It also fabricated scenarios involving sabotage by previously unknown Sikh extremist groups and disgruntled employees but this theory was impugned by numerous independent sources."

"In a settlement mediated by the Indian Supreme Court, UCC accepted moral responsibility and agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government to be distributed to claimants as a full and final settlement. The figure was partly based on the disputed claim that only 3000 people died and 102,000 suffered permanent disabilities. [...] Had compensation in Bhopal been paid at the same rate that asbestosis victims where being awarded in US courts by defendant [sic] including UCC – which mined asbestos from 1963 to 1985 – the liability would have been greater than the $10 billion the company was worth and insured for in 1984."

"At every turn, UCC has attempted to manipulate, obfuscate and withhold scientific data to the detriment of victims. Even to this date [2005], the company has not stated exactly what was in the toxic cloud that enveloped the city on that December night."

"[M]any [victims] responded well to administration of sodium thiosulfate, an effective therapy for cyanide poisoning but not MIC exposure. UCC initially recommended use of sodium thiosulfate but withdrew the statement later prompting suggestions that it attempted to cover up evidence of HCN [hydrogen cyanide] in the gas leak. The presence of HCN was vigorously denied by UCC and was a point of conjecture among researchers."

"UCC discontinued operation at its Bhopal plant following the disaster but failed to clean up the industrial site completely. The plant continues to leak several toxic chemicals and heavy metals that have found their way into local aquifers. Dangerously contaminated water has now been added to the legacy left by the company for the people of Bhopal."

"The events in Bhopal revealed that expanding industrialization in developing countries without concurrent evolution in safety regulations could have catastrophic consequences. The disaster demonstrated that seemingly local problems of industrial hazards and toxic contamination are often tied to global market dynamics."

"UCC has shrunk to one sixth of its size since the Bhopal disaster in an effort to restructure and divest itself. By doing so, the company avoided a hostile takeover, placed a significant portion of UCC's assets out of legal reach of the victims and gave its shareholder and top executives bountiful profits. The company still operates under the ownership of Dow Chemicals and still states on its website that the Bhopal disaster was "cause by deliberate sabotage"."

However angry you are about the Bhopal disaster, you're not angry enough.

This job is so unpredictable I have no idea what I'm going to make when to be able to plan for this

I've also started selling pics and vids plus I have to take pics to advertise so a decent camera quality is absolutely essential. So unfortunately I can't just make do with a cheap burner phone

I don't own a computer, my whole life happens through this phone

$0/$500

There's a book you might like called Venomous by Christie Wilcox. It's amazing.

Basically, venom is insanely complex. It's not just a toxic substance, even the simplest venom has dozens of different components specially adapted to mess with your cells in some way. "Poison" is just something that hurts you, "venom" is a highly sophisticated bioweapon.

The reason for this complexity is evolutionary: it's easy for a species to evolve immunity to just one of the components in venom, so the species has to evolve lots and lots of new components to outpace the evolution of resistance.

You're right on the money with medical applications. Venom is an incredible source of potential drugs because it has so many different components.

I can't recommend that venom straight from the bug be used for medicinal applications, since, as I just said, there are dozens or even hundreds of different components in there that affect you in all different ways, but yes, people have intentionally stung themselves with bees to self-treat chronic pain and stuff.

Venom can also have weird effects on your immune system and your body overall that we don't understand anything about. Lots of anecdotes of people saying they were cured of their this-or-that after being stung by a bunch of bees.

There is probably some truth to it because venom is full of stuff that evolved specifically to affect your cells, and it's not that weird to suppose that occasionally that effect could be a positive one. But it seems equally plausible that other people have gotten mysterious ailments from venom too, for the exact same reasons.

Worth noting that the more bee stings you have in your life, the more likely you are to develop an allergy to bee venom. So watch out!

Yes, when a tick bites you, its saliva gets in your body which is how Alpha-gal happens: with lone star tick there is a component in the saliva which your body can have an immune reaction to, causing you to become allergic (sometimes anaphylactic level allergy) to red meat.

Which is similar to a vaccine, superficially, it's causing your body to recognize something as a threat and have an immune response to it. It's just not beneficial to you and is in fact quite harmful.

Ticks perform the ecosystem service of redistributing nutrients from larger organisms into smaller ones. A tick bites a large animal, takes some of its blood, falls off, and can then be eaten by a smaller animal. It's almost like the food chain moves "backwards", where nutrients flow from larger organisms into smaller ones.

It's actually really cool, how a deer can become food for spiders and ants and wasps and lizards through being bitten by a tick and that tick being eaten by a much smaller creature.

As for the behaviors of wasps and why they might be attracted to the powdery mildew, who knows? Fungi, insects, and plants all communicate with each other in complex ways. Here's a couple papers suggesting that powdery mildew has an effect on wasps, but weirdly, the effect in these papers is opposite: parasitoid wasps are less attracted to plants with powdery mildew, possibly because the powdery mildew affects the plant's ability to release chemicals to attract wasps to parasitize caterpillars eating them.

You could try identifying the wasps, at least on a general level, and investigate further. It's worth keeping a little journal to record your observations of interactions between organisms.

I took a beekeeping class a while back and honeybees are SO well studied, like there are THOUSANDS of papers on them, and yet, there is still SO much we do not know about honeybees. And there are thousands of other social insects that have few or even NO papers on them. The amount we don't know about wasps is probably absolutely mind-boggling.

Fact is, insects that are not "economically important" are barely studied at all, even though many fascinating secrets lie within their biology and ecology.