#like i get you don’t have a lot of room on the ventral side But Also

[jarengrimoire]

The Sojourn: Brave New Cluster

Chapter 0: Fresh Faces

Part 0: Captain’s Log

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(The recording whirs to life, static giving way to the view of a modest captain’s quarters. Seated before the camera is a man of salt and pepper hair, dressed in military fatigue pants, and a sleeveless white shirt. Calvin Somm is still bursting with life at the age of 55. He is muscular, with a small, pink scar in the right corner of his mouth. The hair on his head is full and thick, slicked back and away from his face. A mustache and short beard cling to his face, well maintained and full. He smiles, piercing grey eyes backlit in the camera’s lens as the recording stabilizes.)

(Beginning Log-)

Captain’s log, 53rd of Solstice, 0302 PCU.

We are currently docked in Cardeus, awaiting refueling after picking up our final crew member. Thank God…

This log will serve as my own personal diary going forward, while I take on the task of leading a daring Privateer crew aboard a brand-new ship... Uh, I guess we’ll begin there.

The Lotus of Ivory is her name. Can’t quite say why just yet because my wife has access to these logs. Yes, Marie, I know you’ve peeked at my old ones… so…anyway. She’s a modified Indria-Class Outrider. My contacts at the Sanjin Wharf and the Dorai shipyards got me a lot of the parts I needed for the modifications. I… well, we traded most of the merchant fleet that we'd built together to get them. The famine’s getting worse, and soon, we won’t be able to pay all the staff who helped us make the company great in the first place. I’d rather send them off with a nice, fat payout to get their feet under them than watch them follow us to ruin… after all we’ve been through before and during the war, I know they’d do it. Too damn loyal. So, I’m taking the choice out of their hands. Whatever’s left we’ll maintain as much as we can, I’ll probably put some of my earnings from this little project into it too. Maybe someday, we can rebuild it for real. I would certainly hope to…

Ah, I’m rambling like an old veteran already. Anyway; The Ivory. Indria-Class, but modified for a much smaller crew. 9 of us in total. I don’t want to admit how much money went into the automation, and even with all that, we’ll probably be spitting blood getting her out and about between each job. Fingers crossed that the pack of Merician boys I picked up can get it done.

I guess we'll start with weapons: What we ended up doing was losing all but one of the torpedo mounts. Kept one, magazine holds around 10. What did we do that for? Well… I thought the Ivory should be a bit more special.

12-inch single barrel Bodkin-Lock gun. Turret mounted, so if someone tries to kick us in the ass, we can put a solid coilgun round right in their face. The auto-loader and magazine take up considerable space, hence the decrease in toroedoes. The gun’s mounted on the ventral hull, so we had to put some rotation locks around the actual turret frame so the barrel isn’t able to clip the engines during use. Salvaged Lindford-Island kit.

Kept all but one of the auto guns, so we still have a loadout of 7. The extra space also means extra ammo for those, so I think we got a good trade. All in all, I think we did good. Still have room for the crew and a modest loading and cargo bay, although I separated one half for a… special project, we’ll call it. More on that later. Wouldn't want to spoil it before it's ready.

On to my wonderful crew…. ah, I couldn’t have gotten a better group of people together. Sarcasm intended; in case you didn’t catch it.

First: As I am the captain of this fine vessel, it only makes sense to have a first mate. Of course, my lovely wife. Marie has been by my side for the better part of three decades, now. She stuck by me even through the most bitter fighting of the war, and she’s helped me pick up the pieces in the years after. I’m lucky to have her. Don’t take that to mean she’s easy, though. My wife is a warrior of a woman. She has standards and she sticks to them. And if you fall outside of those standards in the wrong direction… well, let’s hope none of my crew do that. She’s also our pilot.

Second: Hassan Joaquin. Centran man, mid-thirties, good head on his shoulders. That’s… well that’s actually almost it. He did some time with the CDF but was forced out due to injury before the war. He’d gone to work for a Merician security firm before they shut down and got some experience fighting pirates between Mericia and Union space. He’s a bear of a man, taller than me by a head and broad like you wouldn’t believe. He takes the copilot seat beside Marie, and helps run maintenance with the next three oafs on my list, but besides that; he’s a pretty damn good cook. Better than me and Marie, anyway.

Third, fourth and fifth belong to the brothers three, Jonah, Jaime and Jasper Lockwood. Merician boys, Towershield-born. Maintenance and repair wizards, the lot of them. If it weren’t for these three, we’d never get the Ivory out of the dockyard. Easy going for the most part, good work ethic. I know I can trust them to keep us flying.

Lucia Belnades is our sixth. Youngest member of the crew by far, and unfortunately, served in the same unit as myself up until the fourth battle of Axius. We both lost a lot, that day. I can tell that she’s got some healing to do, like a lot of us former Militia. I’m hoping that keeping her in the gunner’s seat will prove a good choice. She’s trying and, at least for now failing to teach Jonah to speak Teldrani, although admittedly, that may not be as much her failure as it is his…

Eulia Locke takes the seventh bunk. Centran, not very experienced given she spent her entire career with the CDF floating above Centrum, but despite that she’s surprisingly good behind the co-gunner seat. Experience is a great teacher, so I imagine she’ll get even better as we take on work. Real book-smart. If anything happens to my next entry, she’ll serve as backup navigator.

On to the aforementioned navigator, and my eighth crewperson: Amelia Vallow. Miss Vallow is a Centran veteran of the Frontier War. It wasn’t easy convincing her aboard, but given that the Ivory is the best Privateer vessel in the cluster not flown by a former admiral’s daughter, she came around. I can tell there’s tension between her and Lucia. My wife being from Centrum has eased things between her and myself, but I can see old prejudices swimming around whenever they have to so much as breathe the same air. Doesn’t help that Lucia teases her, but I’m hoping a little shared combat will ease their relationship.

Of course, number nine is myself. Calvin Somm, former Captain aboard the Florencia Outrider Camellia, now Captain of the Lotus of Ivory. It’s… It’s a big step for me, taking on a crew again. At the end of the war, after Atamarra, I questioned my service with the Militia. So much fighting, and for what?

Ah, that’s for another time… in any case, this is the beginning of a new chapter. The Tantalus Cluster is rife with pirates these days, and somebody's got to put them in their place. May as well be us.

This has been Captain Calvin Somm, Privateer Outrider Lotus of Ivory, signing off.

Fair Winds.

(-End of Log)

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The Sojourn: Brave New Cluster is a fanfiction series written by myself, based in the wonderful world of The Sojourn as created by Daniel Orrett and the rest of his team( you might know him and his wonderful comrade Hoojiwana from the Spacedock YouTube channel, where they do great sci-fi ship breakdowns!). If you haven't listened to it yet, it's available on most audiobook platforms, as well as Spotify! The team also just got a deal with Nebula, and The Sojourn is available on there as of very recently. If you like science fiction, great world building, well-written characters and story, as well as absolutely beautiful music, sound design and voice acting, then The Sojourn is for you!!! Give Dan and the team the attention they deserve, I promise you, you'll be blown away!)

#fanfiction #fanfic #scifi #science fiction #the sojourn #spacedock

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 3

Well, I had this halfway done and then TUMBLR ATE IT, so let me start again.  UGH.  

(These posts are collected under the KyidylBones tag. Do with that information what you will, lol.) 

So what are we getting into today? Sex determination! 

Ethical Note: I’m adding this bc not everyone who sees this post saw my post yesterday and this is important info, especially on Tumblr.  Anthropologists of all stripes are well aware that sex and gender are extremely complicated.  Trust me, we know.  But we still do sex determination for a few reasons.  First, because missing persons databases are arranged on a male/female binary, and if we’re comparing a set of remains to that database to identify the remains then we need that info.  Second, demographic info for populations that have disappeared is important, even if those populations are historical.  This might shock you (<--sarcasm), but written records are usually either lacking or inaccurate.  Third, if we know the sex of the skeleton we can compare that to the grave goods and learn some interesting cultural things, including possibly being trans, because none of the signs of being trans survive physically in the skeleton.  So I am going to be using male/female binary language, but it isn’t to exclude the wide variety of sexes and genders that don’t exist on that binary, it’s because it’s what I’ve got to work with.  And if you have questions about this, feel free to ask, but please be respectful.  

Alright, so there are some vocab words for today’s post and I had them all nicely written out in an easy to read paragraph, but it got eaten, so I’m just gonna present them in list fashion this time: 

Characteristic - All physical markers of human variation exist on a spectrum because humans are varied and we invented the categories to begin with.  If something is characteristic of, say, a male? It means that it is very, very distinctly male.  It matches the stereotypical expectation of what you’d see in a male.  It’s a standard for an obvious example of a given thing.  

Landmark - A landmark on your bones is a feature of the bones that is always in the same place.  We use this to help us identify a bone and to help us know what side it is on.  IE, your lesser trochanter is a bump on your femur (thigh bone) that is on the inside towards the back.  It’s always in that spot, so we know which direction it should face and ergo which side it would be on.  Landmarks are unique to the bone in question.  

Foramen - A hole on a bone.  The big one in your skull that your spinal cord goes through is the foramen magnum and it literally means big hole.  But there are a lot of little ones all over your skeleton so your nerves and blood vessels can do to your skeleton what the weirwood did to Bryden Rivers.  I said what I said. ;) 

Bilateral - Both sides.  Humans have bilateral symmetry and so one side is symmetrical (externally and WRT your skeleton, but not always your organs.) to the other.  You can split us down the middle and the two sides are basically the same.  

Ok, so there’s another set of terms that you need to know, but I’m going to be copying and pasting this into every post going forward so I’m making it separate.  Anyone who works with any kind of anatomy uses these terms to be very specific about the location of something on the body.  They are: 

Anterior/Posterior - Front and back respectively.  I remember them because my mom used to say posterior when she didn’t want to say butt, and because A comes before P the way front comes before back.  Sometimes people say dorsal and ventral, and I remember that because a dorsal fin is on a whale’s back.  

Proximal/Distal - Near and far vertically in relationship to the center of your body.  I remember it because one end of the bone is in close proximity to me and the other one is distant.  

Medial/Lateral - Near and far horizontally in relationship to the center of your body.  I remember it because medial is closer to the middle of my body, and lateral isn’t medial.  Also, if you are reading left to right L comes before M and you’d get to a lateral body part before a medial one.  

So, where to begin? How do we know what sex people were assigned at birth from just their skeleton? Let’s start with what everyone is most familiar with: 

The Pelvis

The pelvis of an adult human is a really common thing for an archaeologist to find.  And by the time we find it, it’s usually in three pieces (excluding your tailbone aka last vertebra).  Your left and right hip bones, called the innominates, and your sacrum.  Mind you, the pelvis is made up of a number of bones, but they all fuse in adulthood except these three (fun fact: I’m so used to using the individual names for them that I had to *google* the word innominate.), so this is what we usually find.  If it’s a kid, they still survive well because they’re thick, heavy bones, but they aren’t fused.  Another fun fact, the bumps of bone that you feel under your ass are called your ischium and I’m only telling you that because I think it’s a fun word to say.  Your hop bones, like the actual entirety of the flat bladed part at the top, that’s called the Illium.  I like that word too.  Aaanyway, here’s a human pelvis: 

(Source)

These are actual bone specimens in the top down view, both are women, but they are of different ethnic origin.  

(Source)

This is a cast (IE, plastic), front view of a male pelvis.  

You can see those 3 pieces I’m talking about.  The only joint there that remains unfused is the sacroiliac joint, IE, where the two halves of the pelvis join the sacrum.  However! You sacrum is technically a series of fused vertebrae and your spinal cord runs almost all the way to the very tip.  There are some conditions which cause these not to fuse, or to not fuse properly, or to not properly encase the spinal cord and it causes all KINDS of issues.  But anyway, yeah, your sacrum is a really tough hunk of bone because it carries a lot of weight.  The bit in the front is called the pubic symphysis and, despite what certain tumblr posts would have you believe, having children does NOT leave a notch on the inner side of it from the muscle tearing away tiny chunks of the bone.  In fact, it is hotly debated whether or not pregnancy leaves behind any skeletal evidence at all.  

Alright, so basically speaking, females make da babies and males don’t, so the different equipment is differently shaped......

.....wait, no, that’s not right.  Let’s back up.  Male and female humans are differently proportioned and their center of gravity is, on average, different.  This is the whole thing about men having upper body strength and women having thighs that can crush watermelons.  This is on *average* (I will be saying a lot about averages in these posts.) true.  And so the physics of the forces exerted on your bones is different.  Males are top-heavy, and so their pelvis is shaped in response to their gate and muscle structure because the pelvis supports and distributes the weight of your entire body.  And bipedalism means that the shape of the pelvis is very, very different depending on the weight distribution.  These changes to the pelvis are really obvious, which is why we can tell from just a few bones whether or not a hominin was bipedal.  It changes the *entire* body.  

It is true though that the pelvis of a female is different than a male, because a female pelvis has to be able to support the weight of a developing child while still allowing the individual to walk.  So the interaction of average size, a uterus, and the bipedal gate means that male and female pelvises are a different shape.  

Here is a comparison: 

(Source)

So firstly, that angle is called the sub-public angle, and because a females pelvis is wider and flatter than a male’s (when viewed from the front) it’s wider in the front.  This also gives any babies more room.  Secondly, you can see the difference in the tilt of the sacrum - in the female you can’t see the tailbone.  This, again, is due to the confluence of weight distribution and the necessity of passing a baby’s head through that space.  It would be a lot harder to push it out if you had a tailbone in the way.  Lastly, you can see that the shape of the circle when you look top down and bottom up are different - wider on the woman because of the same reasons I’ve already mentioned.  There is one more major difference between the male and female pelvis, and that’s the sciatic notch: 

(Source)

Characteristic of male on the left, intermediate in the middle, and female on the right (and dang, she was young, too.).  Thinner is male, wider is female.  Usually you can fit your thumb in a female’s notch but barely or not at all in a male.  I personally find the subpubic arch and the sciatic notch the easiest to use because, fun fact #2, those 3 sections are a bitch to hold together with your hands and that makes it hard to see the other shapes.  The amount of sacrums and pelvic bones I’ve accidentally dropped while trying to determine sex....it’s a lot, ok? It’s a lot.  I only have two hands and pelvises are big.  

There are also several less obvious ways of determining sex from a skeleton, so you guys should definitely visit the source for the above image because they go into it deeper and there are several excellent images of public bones.  

So how else do we determine sex? The next easiest way is from the skull, because the features are distinct and skulls survive well.  

The Skull

In my opinion the easiest landmark to use on a skull for sex determination is the jaw.  There are several features of the jaw that can be used here - and, mind you, when determining sex we measure every small and large sex-linked feature according to a scale and then average it all out.  We never look at any single thing (although sometimes the individual has something so characteristic that you can’t help it.  The individual in my position has a brow like a neanderthal, so it was pretty obvious.).  Anyway, there are several features here but the easiest is to look at the shape of the lateral distal posterior portion of the jaw.  It’s called the masseteric tuberosity.  Basically, it’s a little bit of bone that sticks out of the back of your jaw.  It’s one of the attachment points of the masseter aka chewing muscles attach.  Because males have stronger muscles pulling on that part of the jaw and exerting more force, it flares out further for them when you look at it from the front, like this: 

(Source)

It’s that sticky-outy thing thing that I circled in red.  Here is an example of the same thing on females: 

(Source)

Female jaws are rounder, and so that bit is less defined, flares out less, and is not as sharp as it is on males.  And this is a reminder that these measures aren’t absolutes - humans have a lot of variance in them.  The female asian and the male on the right both have somewhat atypical structures, while the female european and the two other males have a very characteristic structure.  

The two other easiest to identify are the shape of the brown line and the shape of the chin (the mental protuberance).  Here is an image of the comparison: 

(Source: Pinterest, but this images are from the Human Bone Manual text that I use and I used this image so I wouldn’t have to make my own. :P) 

You can see in the profile that the female skull has a higher, more vertical forehead with less pronounced brow ridges.  If you look, you can also see that her chin protrudes less in profile, and is softer and less pronounced in the frontal view.  The angle under her teeth is less severe.  

So these three things, the chin, the brow, and the jaw, are the easiest to identify the most likely to be characteristic of the sex of the individual.  But, if you compare the images I’ve used here you’ll also notice that there are other differences in the skull.  Females have more of a slope to the bottom of their jaw, the bump on the back of their heads (the occipital protuberance) tends to be far less pronounced; and this is the case for all muscle attachments generally speaking.  On average, males are more easily able to build muscle mass and are larger, and so their muscles pull harder on their skeletons and create larger muscle attachments.  The round, blunt thing to the right of the back of the jaw that sticks out from the skull (the mastoid process), is also at a different angle and is larger in males.  This is another case of the muscles being bigger and stronger - the mastoid process is where several of your jaw and neck muscles attach.  

There you have it, then.  The easiest ways to tell the sex of a skeleton.  :) 

This post has been approved by Gage the science doggo: 

#science #anthropology #skeletons #human remains #human skeletons #education #KyidylBones #archaeology #bioarchaeology #humans #bones #human bones

[natysadventureblog]

Day Seventeen [Internship at Mingan Island Cetacean study]

22-Aug-2017

A very early day! And I was so anxious about it that I woke up 5 times or so in the middle of the night, thinking it was time to get up (the first one was before 1h, I think! Haha)!!

One of the interns is leaving, and she's taking the bus (which is what I'm gonna have to do when I leave), so I wanted to go with her to see where it was, and how it worked. But the only bus leaves very early, so I woke up at 5h20, and we left just before 5h30.

The bus stop is in front of the market, so it's a 5-minute-walk… it's pretty close, but it's not easy when you have a lot/heavy luggage, or it's raining.

The sun had risen 15 minutes earlier, so it still looked very nice, especially with the fog… oh, yeah… there was fog… I was pretty sure I would go back to sleep, at 6h.

She thought the bus was at 5h50, but it turned out it was at 5h55, and it was about 5 minutes late, but I could only wait with her until 5h55, because I had to be back at the motel at 6h, to radio the house to confirm that we were not going out because of the fog.

Oh!! I found a dead frog in the middle of the street!! I hadn't seen or heard any amphibians here… too bad it was dead (and pretty squooshed)!

When I got back, the other intern had already radioed them (because she was supposed to go on the boat I went last time) and, as expected, they said it was too foggy, but for us to call again at 8h15.

So yeah, back to bed until 7h30. Then I got up, got dressed, checked out what the girl had left behind in her room (I took the table lamp she had taken from the other room, because, since there are no windows, it's pitch black when you turn off the light). When I went up to the kitchen, I could see the beach, which meant that the fog was gone, so I was optimistic! By the time I finished breakfast, we called them again, and they told us they weren't sure yet, because there was still some fog, but for us to try and go to the house around 9h.

I had prepped most of my stuff last night, so I just made myself a sandwich to go, took a banana and a granola bar, finished getting ready and we left around 8h50.

At the house, no one was in a hurry because they weren't really hopeful… but we were gonna try. I mean the other boat should be fine, because it stays by the shore, and they wouldn't be looking for whales anyways. Our boat was taking a session, so if we couldn't go where we were meant to go, we would try and go around the islands. Plan B sounded pretty good to me as well, since I haven't been to the islands and I REALLY wanted to see puffins (they don't come to the continent and they are leaving for Newfoundland)!!

As I was looking out the window, waiting for them, I finally saw the fog they were talking about… because I could see the sea, and it was cloudy, it looked like it was just water and sky… but then I realized that the island in front of us was pretty much gone!

We left for Mingan at 9h30, and then left the harbor just after 10h. The sea was very calm at first, but in about 10 minutes it was already very different! It wasn't bad; it was what we consider “sea state 2”, but considering that “1” is very flat, when you're on a speeding zodiac, you can definitely feel the difference!

Once again I forgot to put my gloves on, so my fingers were freezing, but I was gonna wait until we stopped to go to my backpack and get them.

I saw a few puffins!!! But it was all too fast, and the lighting was bad, so they looked almost all black, even though I was seeing their ventral side… but I could see their shape, as they quickly flew away from the boat… I need to photograph a puffin!!

The sea had calmed down again just before 11h, but less than half an hour later, it was at 3!! You can definitely feel that!! I hit my knee so many times that I was sure I would have some bruises!!

And then… we finally spotted a spout!! It was a fin whale!! My first fin whale!! The second largest animal that has ever lived!! Just… wow!! Because you only see a very small portion of them, it's hard to imagine their actual size… but it was amazing!! But the lighting was too bad for photos, so we left…

I was the one who saw the next one!! Another spout… this time from a humpback whale!! My first humpback whale!! They were able to ID him while we were taking photos, and his name is Adiego.

The whales have a breathing pattern; when they come up to breathe, they surface a few times before actually diving. During those, we get to take photos of their dorsal fins, or the chevron, in the fin whale's case (those are markings on the right anterior side, which we can use to differentiate them); then, as they dive, we can take photos of the peduncle and the fluke, in the humpback's case. That means that we can stay with the same whale for quite some time, because after it dives, it takes a good 10 minutes or so to surface again, and by then, it's somewhere else, so we need to wait to hear/see the spout again, and approach them again.

Oh! We had a few porpoises swimming around the boat on one of those moments when we weren't moving!! They're too fast though, so I still don't have a good photo of them!

We found a couple more fin whales, then stopped for lunch at 13h. But then we saw a humpback, and started recording again… and it turns out that this is one I recognize! It's a new one, that it's not in the catalog yet, so the girls hadn't been able to match it last week, and I was able to match, and then I saw that it was the same whale… it's a pretty small animal… It must be a young one!

And then one of the fin whales decided to join us, and it was awesome to have lunch with them around!!

Oh, something I never thought I would do was pee out of a boat, but days at sea are very long, so it's really hard to hold it in… and once we stopped for lunch, we all took turns going to the back of the boat to pee… and it was actually not nearly as bad as I thought it would be (at least on this boat), cause there's a perfect place for you to sit and hold on to, so you won't fall in the water.

We then saw other 2 humpbacks with the one I know, but when they surfaced again, after diving, it was just the 2 new ones.

Half an hour later we found 2 more, and once again I was able to recognize one! Another one that has no match, but has a very distinctive fluke, completely black, but with many white scars, and a rounded edge… and we needed to take a biopsy from it!!

The arrows have modified tips with a foam to make them not go deeper than 3 cm, which is enough to get both skin and blubber sample. The skin is used for DNA test, so we can tell the sex, and who is related to; the blubber is used to measure hormones (so it's possible to tell if a female is pregnant) and contaminants, which get accumulated in the fat.

It took 3 attempts to actually hit the whale and get the samples, and during those, I was responsible for taking photos (so we can see where the arrow hit). The camera is very big, and heavy, so that weight around my neck, plus looking through the camera and such, made me sea sick. But I wasn't feeling it in my stomach, but in my head, so I didn't need to throw up, I was just feeling blah.

We found another humpback, then the same fin whale from before, but I wasn't turning my head too much; just taking the notes… then, as moved for a while, I started feeling better, and the sea went back to “1”, so my head finally went back to normal, after almost two hours.

We found another fin whale and decided to call it a day, because it was already 17h30 and the lighting was bad, and there was fog on one side… but then, 10 minutes later, we found 3 new humpbacks, one of them being a calf!! Unfortunately, the calf never fluked though.

By then, the sea looked just like a lake! There was total silence, and we could clearly hear the blows! At one point, there were those 3 whales, 2 more on the other side, then one more, and another one… mostly humpbacks, but also that same fin whale from before; others we weren't able to get to, and there were porpoises and a seal… and we had just seen a minke!! It was fantastic!!

We approached the 2 humpbacks, took photos, then went back to the 3, to try and get better shots. We then went back to the 2, because one of them needed to be biopsied. Thankfully we got that sample on the first attempt!

We went back to the 3 whales for the last time, then called it day, once again, at 18h30.

We arrived in Mingan at a quarter to 20h, and the captain took the session back, so she could have dinner, while we unloaded and refueled the boat. It was already 20h30 when we finally left.

I helped them unload everything at the house and got to the motel around 21h. I met the new intern (a girl from Belgium), had dinner, took a shower, and was barely able to do anything else!!

I'm dead tired!! It was a veeeery long day!! But definitely worth it!! =)

#biologist #internship #conservation #marine biology #Canada #MICS

[cosleia]

Faith

...y’all, I was trying to write a spooky mystery story, but this came out instead. I have no control over my writing, apparently.

1680 words. kylux, preslash. No content warnings, but there’s a lot of weird Force and kyber crystal discussion. Also on AO3 here.

One of the many things Hux and Ren disagreed on was the proper use for kyber crystals.

The stones were scarce. Apart from the occasional fluke discovery of a vein of kyberite somewhere---the sort of rare event that put Hux in mind of the Spice Rush from his Academy history lessons---they were not easy to come by. Ilum’s kyber reserves had been thoroughly indexed when the Order first set out to convert the former Jedi holy planet to a superweapon, and that and the secret Imperial stores recovered from Coruscant were likely the most kyber the First Order would ever possess at one time.

Ren wanted to hoard it. Of course, kyber was necessary in the construction of lightsabers, but Ren wouldn’t need much of the First Order’s supply for that. No, Ren claimed kyber had other properties that made it useful, even to non-Force users, and he therefore wished to maintain a stockpile.

Hux only cared about the property that made kyber suitable for focusing beam weapons---the property that had brought down the treacherous planet Alderaan and would someday bring down the sham Republic itself. And Leader Snoke was on his side in this debate. The First Order’s side. It was only natural; Starkiller had been in the planning stages before the First Order even existed. It would be the greatest legacy of the Empire. Hux himself would see to that.

The kyber, then, would be directed toward the noble and vital purpose of focusing and intensifying the power of First Order weaponry, from the ventral cannons on Hux’s flagship to Starkiller itself.

“It grows,” Ren had argued, disagreeing with Hux in the presence of Leader Snoke like the child he was, “but it doesn’t replenish itself fast enough to use it in the way you’re proposing. You’ll use it up.”

“We’ll restore the Empire before we get through our kyber stores,” Hux had fired back. “Once that happens, the weapons will serve as deterrents; we won’t need as much kyber, and that will give it time to replenish.”

Ren had looked as though he wanted to say something else; his unmasked face could be startlingly emotive. But he remained silent, and Supreme Leader Snoke had spoken, and at the words of his master Ren had backed down.

Now, though, they were not in audience with Leader Snoke. They stood outside the control center on Ilum---Starkiller---and watched as technicians and construction droids continued their work on the cavernous cylinder leading to the heart of the planet, where the energy of a star would be stored. The focusing crystals lay there too, ready to ignite the beam. They were some of the largest kyber crystals known to ever exist, carefully faceted for optimal intensity. (Ren had also done something to them on Leader Snoke’s command, something about their “lattices,” but Hux still wasn’t sure what purpose that served. Tests indicated that nothing about their potential yield had changed. Ren claimed Hux and his team didn’t know what to test for, and maddeningly, if predictably, he did not see fit to advise.)

Ren huffed a sigh through his mask, and Hux glanced sideways at him. He wasn’t even sure why the Force-user was here. Ren didn’t usually attend inspections or observe the crew. Hux wondered if there was even a point in asking.

“Something will happen,” Ren said, “and I need to be here to fix it.”

Now Hux turned fully, hands going to his hips. “What are you implying?”

Ren shook his head. “No treachery. No malice. No carelessness, for that matter. Just something unexpected.”

“If you know that much, can’t you stop whatever it is before it happens?”

“That would be unwise. It would change events enough that I wouldn’t see what new problems might arise in time to stop them.”

Hux stared at him a moment, then let his hands fall back to his sides. “I see. Any danger to the schedule?”

“Not if I stop it fast enough.”

Hux cocked his head to one side. “Any danger to my people?”

Ren turned his helmeted head to face him. “Yes.”

Hux felt his cheek twitch. “I’ll thank you to keep casualties to a minimum.”

“You should have more faith in me.”

A low rumbling interrupted whatever Hux might have said in response. Then the ground was shaking beneath their feet.

“It’s begun,” Ren said, and with that he took off across the snowy plain at a run. Hux watched, mesmerized, as the dark blotch that was Ren practically flew over the shimmering white field. Ren didn’t slow when he reached the barrel. Instead he leapt forward and dove straight into it.

Hux blinked.

After a moment, his comlink buzzed. “Sir?” asked the lead technician. “Should we cease activity until Ren is...finished?”

The shaking was intensifying; Hux heard a large clump of snow shake loose from the roof of the command center and fall heavily to the ground. “Suspend operations until this groundquake is over,” he replied. “And take proper cover.”

Hux stumbled into the command center and went straight to the control room for a status update. Lt. Rodinon turned at his approach. “Sir, it’s the veins of kyberite descending to the planetary core. They’re...shifting.”

“Ah,” Hux said. “Did something happen to them?”

“It looks like there was a small vein we didn’t expect in this area,” Rodinon said, pulling up a holodisplay and gesturing toward a spot deep underground, close to the barrel of the weapon. “A pair of technicians accidentally drilled into it during the reinforcement process.”

“Status of the technicians?”

“Uninjured, sir. Kylo Ren is with them.”

“What’s Ren doing now?”

Rodinon spoke briefly into his comm, and the technician’s response came back in an electronic squawk: “He’s taken off a glove and is touching the kyberite with his bare hand. He’s just standing there.”

“Sir,” Rodinon added, looking at his console, “the kyberite veins seem to be settling. Slowing down.”

Indeed, the shaking was starting to subside; Hux no longer needed to subtly brace himself against computer equipment to avoid falling into the operator trench. In moments even the low rumble was gone.

“It’s done, General,” Ren’s voice crackled over Rodinon’s comm. “It shouldn’t happen again, now that your people know where not to drill.”

“What’s done?” Hux asked, but he knew it was futile. And, sure enough:

“He’s gone,” the technician said. “He just...jumped. Up. And kicked off the far side of the barrel, and jumped up again. He’s just…”

“That’ll be all, petty officer,” Hux said. He imagined Ren rebounding his way up the barrel of the weapon, robes flowing behind him. The man must look like some sort of dark creature. A predator. Which he was, Hux supposed.

Hux wondered what Ren would do, now that he’d “fixed” the problem he’d foreseen. Go back to training, perhaps. Or meditation. Whatever he did when he wasn’t on mission. He wondered what Ren had done to the kyberite. He wondered why the kyberite had reacted so violently to being drilled into---surely it wasn’t damaged; kyber was astonishingly strong.

There was too much Hux didn’t know, but he did know one thing: Ren certainly wasn’t going to answer his questions.

Sighing, Hux handed off command to Colonel Datoo and headed back outside, wishing that more Imperial records had survived the war.

When he returned to the viewing platform he was surprised to find Ren there. The man wasn’t even breathing hard. “Are you really human?” Hux asked, though of course he knew he was.

Ren was standing with his arms crossed, surveying the worksite as if he were commanding it. He didn’t bother to turn his head. “Yes.”

Hux huffed out a laugh. “I don’t suppose you’ll enlighten me about what you did down there,” he said.

“The drilling knocked part of the lattice out of night alignment,” Ren said. “This started to spread to the rest of the kyberite. If it had all managed to shift back to day alignment, things would have been much worse.”

“That procedure you did in the beginning,” Hux said. “Why would it be affected by drilling?”

Ren turned his masked face toward Hux. “It wants to be in day alignment. That’s its natural state. The vibration of the drill shook it enough to let it force the lattice back.”

Hux blinked at him. “You’re speaking as though it’s alive.”

“It is.”

“As though it’s sentient.”

“It is.”

Hux blinked again. “You can’t be serious.”

Ren turned away. “I’m not sure why you even bother to ask, General, when you never seem to like the answer.”

At that, Hux made a noncommittal noise. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Ren’s answers so much as Ren’s answers were never satisfactory. They were esoteric and vague and tended to be completely useless from a practical standpoint. What could Hux possibly do with the knowledge that kyber could think and that Ren could apparently brainwash it using the Force? The Force itself made no sense; if it had ever been quantifiable, measurable, useful, those records had been lost, and now it was a religion, a matter of faith.

Hux didn’t have faith. Not blind faith, anyway. Certainly not in cryptic aphorisms spouted by unthinking acolytes.

He regarded Ren. The Force may not be usable for Hux---yet, perhaps one day he would connect these seemingly random dots---but it certainly existed, and Ren was capable of using it. And Hux knew Ren---knew where he came from, what he was, what he could do, why he was here. Ren’s purpose was noble. He’d inherited a powerful legacy from the Empire, just as the First Order had inherited Starkiller.

Ren had never yet failed in a mission. With his abilities, he would help Hux prove the might of the First Order. They may never understand each other’s methods, and they would certainly continue to disagree, but ultimately, together Ren and Hux would destroy the Resistance, and the Republic.

Hux smiled thinly and turned his attention back to the construction of the grand cannon. Perhaps he had some measure of faith after all.

#star wars #kylux #preslash #my writing #kyber crystals #I don't even know #faith

[ramen-y-cajal]

Vision in the brain!

Continuation of this post

So there’s this vague... misunderstanding that what you see in your left eye is processed on the right side of the brain and vice versa... which is... incorrect. Essentially, both eyes are processed with both sides. But the RIGHT side of both eyes goes RIGHT, and the LEFT side of both eyes go LEFT. The optic chiasm is where these paths cross

There are lots of areas in the brain involved with vision, but it seems the one that constitutes the vision in the most conscious sense is the Primary Visual Cortex (V1) located in the backity back of the occipital lobe. Not only is this where vision occurs, but it’s also where dreams and imagination occurs (oooooo), literally. If you are told to imagine something (um? a dog?), your visual cortex will do the same thing as if you were looking at the actual dog! So it seems to be responsible for the conscious experience of “seeing”. It’s also important for  static and moving objects, edge detection, and pattern recognition

Damage to this area not only makes you blind, but you can no longer have visual dreams, hallucinations, or imagine images. It takes away all possible senses of vision in the most broad sense of the term. The weird thing is, your eyes aren’t done doing their jobs. If you tell someone with V1 blindness to point to something, they do it with a surprising amount of accuracy for someone who is blind. They can predict the color, movement, and shape of objects as well. It’s difficult to determine if this is the result of incomplete damage to V1 or if the eyes are communicating with other areas...

Identification of images seems to take 2 streams from the V1 area, the ventral and the dorsal stream, also known as the what and where pathways. The ventral stream travels through the temporal lobe, which has areas of identification (some are vague like... “oh it’s kinda round and fluffy?”, some are “this is a motherfucking face”-fusiform gyrus). The Dorsal stream travels up through the parietal lobe, which deciphers basically... where the image is coming from

Also can we talk about my professor’s “helpful study tip” for this? because it’s fucking adorable

Damage to the inferior temporal lobe may result in visual agnosia. Y’all heard that pretentious “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” or whatever... It’s (not based on but eerily similar to) this, and it’s meant to call out the concept of perception. They handed a pipe to a guy with visual agnosia and he was like “umm??? it’s? it gets longer... it starts out thin, seems to curve into a rounded, hollow end? But I for the life of me don’t know what this is!” and the doctor was like “it’s a pipe” and the guy was like “huh. I suppose it is...” Then the doctor said “what if I told you it wasn’t a pipe?” and the guy was like “well then I’d have to believe you.” so he sees the image clearly and can identify its features, but he can’t... identify it.

(for the record, ceci n’est pas une pipe means that a painting of a pipe is technically not a pipe... I like the neuroscience version better)

Also worth noting is the V4 region, which is important for color perception. If you see something that’s green in a room with red lighting, you can still figure out that it’s green, even though it looks different from what green looks like in other contexts. That’s because of your V4 region keeping its shit together.

FINALLY there’s the V5 area, also known as the MT area (Middle temporal), which is again, motion oriented. Different areas of the MT area respond selectively to specific speeds and directions. They’re the reason you can tell a man is running in a picture, even when he isn’t moving. Your brain makes assumptions based on context clues. Next to the MT area is the MST area (medial-superior temporal cortex). which kinda... lowkey... helps with depth perception and movement? Part of it is the trick where you see a road getting narrower in an image indicating that it’s getting further away? The MST area is the part that makes that assumption

Citation:

Kalat, J. (2016). Biological Psychology. Australia South-Western. 12E

#vision #neuroscience #biology

[nancygduarteus]

Hot People Are Stressful

In 2010, when I was 24 years old, I endured six straight months of recurring strep-throat infections before I finally got the green light to get my tonsils out. Midway through a round of antibiotics, I hauled myself into my new specialist’s office unshowered and wearing gym clothes I had collected from my floor, sweaty and rapidly losing any remaining will to sit upright. So I was not prepared for when the doctor walked in to the exam room and revealed himself to be tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, and absolutely beautiful.

Embarrassment shot through my body. Why was his unplanned handsomeness allowed to stress out sick people? Why was his face that symmetrical? Why hadn’t the receptionist warned me?

A couple weeks later, the hot doctor cut out my rotting tonsils. When he paid me a surprise visit in the recovery room, I was consumed again by the irrational belief that people at the far end of the physical-beauty bell curve should at least give the rest of us some time to compose ourselves before we have to deal with them. Instead, we’re left to walk up to a store counter, interact with someone we find arrestingly gorgeous, and pretend like nothing has happened.

I’ve chafed under this onerous expectation periodically in the intervening 10 years: There was another hot doctor to whom I had described a rash in detail over the phone, as well as a hot mover, and the occasional hot delivery guy. Every time, it was the same small sense of panic, embarrassment, and indignation. Aren’t people supposed to enjoy beauty? As it turns out, this isn’t just me being a colossal weirdo, at least according to neuroscience. Even if they don’t mean any harm, hot people can be very, very stressful.

The problem starts with brain chemistry. “When you see an attractive person, the left ventral tegmental area of the brain becomes active and will pump out dopamine,” says Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist who studies attraction at The Kinsey Institute. “Dopamine is a stimulant to the brain, so some people might react with surprise or awkwardness.” That feeling is the weak-kneed giddiness that very attractive people can inspire, which can leave you fumbling for words and feeling off-balance, even though a dopamine rush is a fundamentally pleasurable experience.

Based on Fisher’s research, which used fMRI scans to observe the brain lighting up in response to stimuli, the left ventral tegmental area (commonly referred to as the left VTA) is responsible for pleasurable reactions to beauty. Meanwhile, the right VTA provides the dopamine that fuels romantic love; the two responses are similar but neurologically distinct, which means that what people feel when they see a random pretty face isn’t necessarily a desire for romance or even sex. “The same thing probably happens when you look at a good painting,” says Fisher. “It can pump out the dopamine and perhaps make you slightly giddy.”

The left VTA appraises and appreciates what you see, but lighting up that part of the brain doesn’t necessarily make you want to interact with the person whose appearance gives you pleasure, which is why most people don’t try to ask out every hot person they see. The stress I felt wasn’t the same as a fear of rejection; my hot surgeon wasn’t even my type. Instead, I panicked because of a key difference between gazing at a painting and a hottie: A painting doesn’t judge you back.

That’s where a second, potentially more nefarious brain chemical comes in: cortisol. That’s the stress hormone that gets blamed for everything from weight gain to road rage, and Fisher thinks a cortisol spike is probably what I experienced when surprised by my extraordinarily attractive doctor. “Some people may see someone beautiful and feel very inadequate, then cortisol would go up,” she says. A spike in the hormone can trigger a fight-or-flight response, which could be why my brain hurtled toward intense irritation and embarrassment at beautiful strangers in situations where I was at a disadvantage: When I was sick, in the middle of moving, or watching Real Housewives of Atlanta inside my own apartment.

“It’s the context of who you are, how you feel about yourself, if you enjoy surprises—lots of things,” Fisher says. It doesn’t help that American culture tends to code physical beauty as an indicator of overall superiority, which can make the sense of inadequacy in these interactions particularly stressful.

While people’s brains certainly enjoy beauty, our appreciation is often not that straightforward because our perceptions are also influenced by everything else about a particular interaction. Indeed, researchers have found that the adrenaline rush created by fear can make other people seem more attractive in the immediate aftermath. And if you’re already feeling good, Fisher says that suddenly encountering an attractive person can make you feel even better by triggering a dip in cortisol levels. In hindsight, that happens to me even more frequently than the panic I had with my surgeon, but humans tend to have better recall for negative memories than positive ones.

Even if hot people have the element of surprise on their side, that only gets them so far. “Good looks are important in the beginning, because it gets you to look at a person and you might go talk to them,” says Fisher. “It’s a great first signal, but mating has breaking points and escalation points.” She notes that usually, in the long run, being really hot isn’t enough keep people attracted to someone who has a terrible personality or bizarre word view. Whether knowing that pretty people have problems too makes you feel better when you’re wearing a hospital gown and suddenly confronted with a sentient Ken doll is another issue.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/how-attractive-people-affect-your-brain/586870/?utm_source=feed