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fwcuthis is so late. this is so so soooo late. but I'll make attempts anyway. some of these have been read over a month ago ... so my recollections have had time to marinate and may be hazy. don't know if I've said it, but I stopped reading and instead started watching so ... like not a lot is going to be on this list but as always, I'm consumer of media.
also, as a sidenote: there are going to be a couple links to the new yorker magazine [I am making use of my $12 subscription!] but I hate Conde Nast. all my HOMIES hate conde nast. fuck conde nast. but if any of the articles look interesting but you're out of free articles for the month or something, I'd be willing to share my acc login or somehow grab the article for you!
I'm going to open with the best thing I read.
< The Skeletons at the Lake > Douglas Preston
[cw: mentions of rape] this article has EVERYTHINGGGGGGG. Mystery! Science! Intrigue! History! Mysterious Human Rituals! White on white violence! Racism subplot! it has it ALLLLLL. please please please if you're only going to read one thing ever from this list have it be this. it's soooo crazy and soooo good. seriously the racism subplot, wherein one white dude gets accused of being insensitive and racist by saying there are some links between genomes and race [guy is a geneticist] and then he later accuses another white dude of being racist for believing in colonial lies ... fuuck it was so funny. it was literally so funny. and the dude writing this is all white too. and all Three of Them are focused on India. stop. the hilarity. like really comedic backdrop for an insane mystery that tends to get dark at times. I am first and foremost, also a genetics hater. dna is just Not Interesting. like... it's Whatever. but this article. this article is Good. and the use of genetics in connection with history+anthropology ... dammmmmmnnnnnnnnnn Daaaaaaamnnnnnnnnnnn. the conversations that you end up having about genetics in university, are very focused on the proximate/ultimate causes and not so much on the more interesting side tangents or the more meaningful implications. but there's a sidebar in this article where it talks about how you can use the genome to uncover and prove violent histories. i.e:
and now some other stuff. no particular order.
< Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides > trans. Anne Carson
Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream! — somehow, this line which has plagued me for Years, never made me go look at the original source so when I read this [for...fic reference purposes... Yeah I Know] I was so pleasantly surprised! though like it became clear to me that every person on tumblr who posted quotes from this never read past the first 10 or so pages LOL. I'm on the 3rd play .. I have not yet finished and I don't know what I'll get from it but the way Carson disparages in her introductions is entertaining if nothing else. she's like 'this made me so depressed that the only thing I can say is that it's like this other author that makes me so incredibly depressed' which tells ME that in the 3rd century or whenever euripides was around, depression was the same as it was in the 19th century. the serotonin chemical? been dysfunctional in the same way since. YOU'D THINK! IT'D HAVE FIXED ITSELF OVER THE 2 MILENNIA IT HAD! no no nooo. depression not enough of a problem for the body to deal with.
< The Little Prince > Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
longish shot...but has anyone read Never Saw You Coming by dimpleforyourthoughts? that was my introduction to The Little Prince, TBH that happened backwards, the little prince was supposed to be pre-reading for never saw you coming, but it worked out. maybe I'll do my 3rd(?)/4th(?) reread of never saw you, and Fully Get It. as it stands both are great derivations of the other.
the conversation that led me to reading it was me and my friend afsarah were like ...? looking at stationary stuff and talking about korean cafe vlogs [because you know...the algorithm sees u watch kpop and only recs korean stuff after], and we were like 'Korean people are kind of obsessed with the little prince' and it was an interesting cultural phenomenon because like, growing up in like bangladesh then canada, it was never a children's book that made it onto the radar for either of us. and then I was on vc with lin, who is korean, and I asked her if she liked The Little Prince and she went 'it's my Favourite Book Ever, Niz you Have To Read It' and I was like 'I guess I will', but I didn't like the pdf so I put it on hold at the library.
this is the fun part and what stands out to me more than the experience of reading it — was that my mom saw it was a children's book, and asked me to give it to her afterwards so she could read — and I mentioned it before, but like my mom''s reading level in english is not as high as her reading level in bangla, but this was finally a book I had that I could share with her and she could read! which was epic TO ME — so I gave it to her, and she didn't finish before she had to leave, but she did come into my room a couple times [and I think also mentioned it to my dad] and state that she was much more like the Prince and not at all like the adults he'd mentioned! that IN FACT! her KIDS were the adults in question and she was a much more free-spirited, childish, open-eyed prince-like figure. what can I say? she's right. she's simply correct.
and then I did some reading about WHALES [at different times, one was not actually reading]
< Language Lessons > Isabel Zapata, trans. Robin Meyers
extremely beautiful and it talks about my favourite animal and the structure is soooooooo epic and ontop of that it's literally just .. *Combination of things that will make me cry because I'm a heartfelt idiot* ... language, animals, forms of communication, the strange innocence of hope, humanity - not in the sense that it's something that is Human in nature, but the idea the Human thing is to reach out, to be friendly, to approach with kindness and positive assumption. it's incredible I think you should read it.
< What Have We Done to the Whale? > Amia Srinivasan
okay, I listened to this I did not read this. honestly, I do prefer to read but like..... tab switching, focus issues, etc. so like, having the article wash over me as I attempt to fall asleep to it was a good alternative. every day we are figuring out how to deal with the attention issues caused by too much time on the internet!
anyway....I do hate ecological horror so much. when I say 'ecological horror' I don't mean in the fictional sense, I mean the mix of environmentalism nihilism any and every environmental issue inspires, and the very real, very horrible impacts of human activity, regardless of original intent or reason. last year, I had a evo. bio course where the first half of the semester focused on ecology and human impacts on the ecosystem and how that in turn affected the evolution of modern organisms. and it was presented with an interesting framework that didn't immediately condemn the things humans did, and this very reasonable, if somewhat placid, open take that humans like other organisms, also were allowed to want Resources and Survive. this is....simply the Most Woke Take ... because usually when you forsake humans for the sake of The Planet you are not forsaking the groups that caused this, but the populations that are as equally negatively affected as The Planet. this isn't about the whales, but of course the whales are not about the whales, because we are humans and to us, like to every individual species to themselves, it's about Us. selfishness, on an individual scale, on a species-wide scale, the scales between that account of families and communities, and etc, is an evolutionarily driven trait. it's the bedrock of what the 'Survival' in 'Survival of the Fittest' means. not that your understanding of the phrase is my understanding of the phrase, but for what it's worth.
so The Whales. this article at points, lulls you into a sense of safety, an innocence that it's just about The Whales and things we know about them, carefully cut so the human horrors aren't mentioned. and then it gets into the human horrors and your gut falls because just a minute ago, the creatures you've reaffirmed are empathetic and soulful, have been bleed alive and cut up on the sides of boats, and abandoned even after once they became dead weight. the callousness of human cruelty never gets easier to swallow. not that it should be, but ... it's hard to reconcile with the Fact that we are capable of being Better and just are not. again this not about the whales. I don't know enough about them! I dream of seeing one one day, and I would love to hear a whale song.
also, worth mentioning, what actually made me click into this article was that I'd read so many articles by like, white people, that I saw the name and was like 'I should pay my Dues. Make an Effort' worth it BTW! sad, but worth it. it was a good article!!
some other animal stuff I read:
< The Rabbit Outbreak > Susan Orlean
listened to this one too. you know how I was like...god there are so many weird subcultures on the internet that are so strange and crazyyy... I COMPLETELY DISCOUNTED THE EXISTENCE OF WEIRD SUBCULTURE GROUPS THAT WERE COMPOSED OF OLDER AGE GROUPS!!!! any youngish person is bound to have some weird fixation on something weird inane thing they got really into and because we were/are weaned on the internet, know how to find like-minded people. so it completely blew past me, that MIDDLE AGED PEOPLE who have PRIZED PETS would have FACEBOOK GROUPS about RABBIT HAIRCARE!!!!!! god that's sooooo crazy, for a minute there I truly lived in a world where people did not have insane hobbies of like, grooming animals to win contests. it's so deeply crazy like in the article ... I'll just c+p
my other favourite part about this article — beyond the existence of a deeply interconnected rabbit-owner society spreading the world about an infectious rabbit disease, among the other crazy deepness of the lengths people go for their rabbits, was the complete like nonmention that rabbits shit so much. like... you mention a million things about them but not that they shit so much and then eat their own shit. which has fair biological reasons or so [disgestive systems ineffective so the meal has to go through twice] but wow... seems kind of like a very big oversight when you're talking about pet rabbitisms. guys I'm honestly still reeling with the discovery that people are so crazy over their pets. like I knew, but like, this article really was a ride. at every turn a new intricate rabbit ritual was reveal.
< In Search of New Jersey's Wild Bears > John McPhee
again I listened to this. both this article, and the one above made me realize how ... casually cruel some of America's statewide animal procedures are. I mean, I think it's the same here too, and in many, many places [Bangladesh, while I don't know if there is actual legaliese about non-endangered animal procedures, the population tends to be very callous about them] ... the incredible non-tolerance of nonhuman entities when they infringe upon human dwellings ... I get it we think we are the kings and rulers of the world and hate all things that are Not Like Us and refuse to admit to the ways they are. etc etc. I get it I truly, truly do. but OMG, have you seen that clip of bears dancing after they wake up from hibernation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CnFo7qinng. cemented in my that bears are so epic and awesome and top best native north american animals. actually, they share top spot with the american pika ... but all that really tells you is that north america does not have the greatest assortment of biodiversity. To Me. not my fault the tropics encourage way more interesting evolution. ANYWAY. the article itself...is ummm not that interesting, but good background noise regardless. some fun facts and anecdotes thrown within. the whole time ... I was plagued with the thought of 'What if this guy is racist?' cuz you just Never Know!!! anyway I just searched him up and he is way more accoladed than orginally expected. and still, and yet, You Never Know.
other general bio stuff:
< CRISPR and the Splice to Survive > Elizabeth Kolbert
listened to this as well. LOL. the problem with this is that it just talked about bio topics I already knew. but it was mixed in with some stuff I didn't know but because I knew most of it I wasn't paying attention very well, and also because like ... I could intuit most of what was coming from what she described it was just not, like an epic enlightening experience. I need to kill the cocky part of my brain that hates rehearing information more than once but ... agggh... if you don't yet know about the ecological horrors in Corporations/Institutions/Industries getting the Genius Idea fighting Nature with Nature well, this will tell you!
I haven't mentioned it but the new yorker article structure is soooo definitive.... very funny.
< The Social Life of Forests > Ferris Jabr
I did not finish reading this [this was because I looked up The Overstory to see if I wanted to read it and then got distracted and never came back to the article. BUT IT IS STILL OPEN IN MY PHONE TABS. SOON.] but. I watched the tedtalk by the original researcher for class in senior year anyway, so I Know. I don't recommend the tedtalk, she's not the best speaker so I think like, because of how interesting this topic actually is, you'd be better engaged with the article. anyway it is SO extremely cool. as no.1 plant bio hater I love ittttt when they [The Plants] give me something to work with. I love the intricacies in how they communicate because they're stationary and we assume that is a sign of inanimatacy [wrong] and thus puts them in a separate category within the domain of Living Things where we end up thinking they're more like a rock than a crab. arguments can be made. anyway.
< Phenotypic Range of Gene Expression: Environmental Influence > Ingrid Lobo, Kenna Shaw
this was for school. but like, I read it. I truly don't think it offers anything of interest but there are some interesting armadillo and rat facts in there. though also phenotype is the worst concept ever. it's like ...... so you know how you have a gene that decides what your traits are? so like, a phenotype...actually Also decides what your traits are. this pissed me off so much in first year you don't even know. I think it's just a flaw in how the concept is taught cuz it makes way more sense in bio220 than it did in bio120.
this is more pseudo-biology/pseudo-psychology.
< The great forgetting > Kristin Ohlson
again neuroscience is so insubstantial and conclusivity is non-existent you knowwww. like things just go into the brain and no one can figure out What The Hell Is Happening. the reading experience of this compared to all the other articles I've linked is very different. in that it's like very glancing on the science. again it's because there are like No Particular Answers but it's a little frustrating. it touches upon early childhood psychology which is actually one of the most interesting subjects in the field and very well researched, and those parts are always Eye-opening.
god omg, tangent but: saw the funniest takes that the reason psychology is taken less seriously now is because more women do it. some of us actually don't respect psychology because it is not worth respecting. not when freud and all the other men did it, and not now either! like it's not wrong it's just anything related to neuroscience is too ... the way it is, the subjects that have more credibility have that due to the groundwork [i.e mathematical theory for math, physics, engineering, cs / the tech available for biology/chemistry allowing it to be like Verifiable] and the problem with psychology, which is the problem with neuroscience, is that we don't yet have the technology to tease it all apart. anthropology/sociology/history/literature/etc all suffer from post-modernism diseases and human bias. which is not exempt in STEM, but because STEM is based around concrete results that are decided by nonhuman processes, the hard fact then is just, hard fact. humanities does not have 'Hard Fact'. anyway, I'm simplifying a lot but let's leave it here for now.
also, as a sidenote: there are going to be a couple links to the new yorker magazine [I am making use of my $12 subscription!] but I hate Conde Nast. all my HOMIES hate conde nast. fuck conde nast. but if any of the articles look interesting but you're out of free articles for the month or something, I'd be willing to share my acc login or somehow grab the article for you!
I'm going to open with the best thing I read.
< The Skeletons at the Lake > Douglas Preston
[cw: mentions of rape] this article has EVERYTHINGGGGGGG. Mystery! Science! Intrigue! History! Mysterious Human Rituals! White on white violence! Racism subplot! it has it ALLLLLL. please please please if you're only going to read one thing ever from this list have it be this. it's soooo crazy and soooo good. seriously the racism subplot, wherein one white dude gets accused of being insensitive and racist by saying there are some links between genomes and race [guy is a geneticist] and then he later accuses another white dude of being racist for believing in colonial lies ... fuuck it was so funny. it was literally so funny. and the dude writing this is all white too. and all Three of Them are focused on India. stop. the hilarity. like really comedic backdrop for an insane mystery that tends to get dark at times. I am first and foremost, also a genetics hater. dna is just Not Interesting. like... it's Whatever. but this article. this article is Good. and the use of genetics in connection with history+anthropology ... dammmmmmnnnnnnnnnn Daaaaaaamnnnnnnnnnnn. the conversations that you end up having about genetics in university, are very focused on the proximate/ultimate causes and not so much on the more interesting side tangents or the more meaningful implications. but there's a sidebar in this article where it talks about how you can use the genome to uncover and prove violent histories. i.e:
The same Y-chromosome turnover is also found in Americans of African descent. On average, a Black person in America has an ancestry that is around eighty per cent African and twenty per cent European. But about eighty per cent of that European ancestry is inherited from white males—genetic testimony to the widespread rape and sexual coercion of female slaves by slaveowners.yeah. I think there's a lot of power in genetics that isn't just regulated to the medical applications of it, and this article does a really good job of highlighting that. seriously it's an insanely good read just outside of the science stuff. like .... Aren't you interested in how the hell a large grave ended up in a remote part of the Himalayas? [spoiler warning] there actually isn't a conclusive answer but to supplement the loss of that, there's a lot of interesting possibilities of what could've been. lastly, back to the genetics and racism note ... god it's so funny that the article pointed out the countries with the highest research into population genetics data are America and India, but I guess because the author's white he never made a connection between the history+societies of the two and Why This Would Be So. but when I read I was immediately like Oh it's because India has a caste system and america is Incredibly Racist, history of slavery, eugenics, et all. which again goes to prove science is not free of bias and racism and all, but that usually lies in the intent rather than the result, and then in the proceeding framing of the results. I'm kind of working under the assumption that empiric data can't be flawed but to my knowledge...genome sequencing is not the same as facial recognition technology... and a lot of the racial problems that lie in the tech methods/methods we have are due to an oversight and misrepresentation in the libraries of knowledge that we draw from. ANYWAYYY. *breathes out* I'm biologyluvr I have to Believe in the Sciences they are so many things to me. please read this article it is really epic.
and now some other stuff. no particular order.
< Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides > trans. Anne Carson
Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream! — somehow, this line which has plagued me for Years, never made me go look at the original source so when I read this [for...fic reference purposes... Yeah I Know] I was so pleasantly surprised! though like it became clear to me that every person on tumblr who posted quotes from this never read past the first 10 or so pages LOL. I'm on the 3rd play .. I have not yet finished and I don't know what I'll get from it but the way Carson disparages in her introductions is entertaining if nothing else. she's like 'this made me so depressed that the only thing I can say is that it's like this other author that makes me so incredibly depressed' which tells ME that in the 3rd century or whenever euripides was around, depression was the same as it was in the 19th century. the serotonin chemical? been dysfunctional in the same way since. YOU'D THINK! IT'D HAVE FIXED ITSELF OVER THE 2 MILENNIA IT HAD! no no nooo. depression not enough of a problem for the body to deal with.
< The Little Prince > Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
longish shot...but has anyone read Never Saw You Coming by dimpleforyourthoughts? that was my introduction to The Little Prince, TBH that happened backwards, the little prince was supposed to be pre-reading for never saw you coming, but it worked out. maybe I'll do my 3rd(?)/4th(?) reread of never saw you, and Fully Get It. as it stands both are great derivations of the other.
the conversation that led me to reading it was me and my friend afsarah were like ...? looking at stationary stuff and talking about korean cafe vlogs [because you know...the algorithm sees u watch kpop and only recs korean stuff after], and we were like 'Korean people are kind of obsessed with the little prince' and it was an interesting cultural phenomenon because like, growing up in like bangladesh then canada, it was never a children's book that made it onto the radar for either of us. and then I was on vc with lin, who is korean, and I asked her if she liked The Little Prince and she went 'it's my Favourite Book Ever, Niz you Have To Read It' and I was like 'I guess I will', but I didn't like the pdf so I put it on hold at the library.
this is the fun part and what stands out to me more than the experience of reading it — was that my mom saw it was a children's book, and asked me to give it to her afterwards so she could read — and I mentioned it before, but like my mom''s reading level in english is not as high as her reading level in bangla, but this was finally a book I had that I could share with her and she could read! which was epic TO ME — so I gave it to her, and she didn't finish before she had to leave, but she did come into my room a couple times [and I think also mentioned it to my dad] and state that she was much more like the Prince and not at all like the adults he'd mentioned! that IN FACT! her KIDS were the adults in question and she was a much more free-spirited, childish, open-eyed prince-like figure. what can I say? she's right. she's simply correct.
and then I did some reading about WHALES [at different times, one was not actually reading]
< Language Lessons > Isabel Zapata, trans. Robin Meyers
extremely beautiful and it talks about my favourite animal and the structure is soooooooo epic and ontop of that it's literally just .. *Combination of things that will make me cry because I'm a heartfelt idiot* ... language, animals, forms of communication, the strange innocence of hope, humanity - not in the sense that it's something that is Human in nature, but the idea the Human thing is to reach out, to be friendly, to approach with kindness and positive assumption. it's incredible I think you should read it.
< What Have We Done to the Whale? > Amia Srinivasan
okay, I listened to this I did not read this. honestly, I do prefer to read but like..... tab switching, focus issues, etc. so like, having the article wash over me as I attempt to fall asleep to it was a good alternative. every day we are figuring out how to deal with the attention issues caused by too much time on the internet!
anyway....I do hate ecological horror so much. when I say 'ecological horror' I don't mean in the fictional sense, I mean the mix of environmentalism nihilism any and every environmental issue inspires, and the very real, very horrible impacts of human activity, regardless of original intent or reason. last year, I had a evo. bio course where the first half of the semester focused on ecology and human impacts on the ecosystem and how that in turn affected the evolution of modern organisms. and it was presented with an interesting framework that didn't immediately condemn the things humans did, and this very reasonable, if somewhat placid, open take that humans like other organisms, also were allowed to want Resources and Survive. this is....simply the Most Woke Take ... because usually when you forsake humans for the sake of The Planet you are not forsaking the groups that caused this, but the populations that are as equally negatively affected as The Planet. this isn't about the whales, but of course the whales are not about the whales, because we are humans and to us, like to every individual species to themselves, it's about Us. selfishness, on an individual scale, on a species-wide scale, the scales between that account of families and communities, and etc, is an evolutionarily driven trait. it's the bedrock of what the 'Survival' in 'Survival of the Fittest' means. not that your understanding of the phrase is my understanding of the phrase, but for what it's worth.
so The Whales. this article at points, lulls you into a sense of safety, an innocence that it's just about The Whales and things we know about them, carefully cut so the human horrors aren't mentioned. and then it gets into the human horrors and your gut falls because just a minute ago, the creatures you've reaffirmed are empathetic and soulful, have been bleed alive and cut up on the sides of boats, and abandoned even after once they became dead weight. the callousness of human cruelty never gets easier to swallow. not that it should be, but ... it's hard to reconcile with the Fact that we are capable of being Better and just are not. again this not about the whales. I don't know enough about them! I dream of seeing one one day, and I would love to hear a whale song.
also, worth mentioning, what actually made me click into this article was that I'd read so many articles by like, white people, that I saw the name and was like 'I should pay my Dues. Make an Effort' worth it BTW! sad, but worth it. it was a good article!!
some other animal stuff I read:
< The Rabbit Outbreak > Susan Orlean
listened to this one too. you know how I was like...god there are so many weird subcultures on the internet that are so strange and crazyyy... I COMPLETELY DISCOUNTED THE EXISTENCE OF WEIRD SUBCULTURE GROUPS THAT WERE COMPOSED OF OLDER AGE GROUPS!!!! any youngish person is bound to have some weird fixation on something weird inane thing they got really into and because we were/are weaned on the internet, know how to find like-minded people. so it completely blew past me, that MIDDLE AGED PEOPLE who have PRIZED PETS would have FACEBOOK GROUPS about RABBIT HAIRCARE!!!!!! god that's sooooo crazy, for a minute there I truly lived in a world where people did not have insane hobbies of like, grooming animals to win contests. it's so deeply crazy like in the article ... I'll just c+p
A few years ago, a lawyer named Natalie Reeves, who volunteers at a rabbit shelter and has lectured on rabbit law at the New York City Bar Association, was having trouble untangling the hair of her pet long-haired rabbit, Mopsy McGillicuddy. She found an Internet group for long-haired-rabbit owners, and posted about Mopsy’s hair troubles, expecting tips on conditioners and brushes. On the site, she noticed that a common response to similar problems was to kill the rabbit and start fresh with another.to be honest with u there is just so much insanity packed into this one paragraph. RABBIT LAW? lawyer naming her rabbit MOPSY. looking for conditioner recommendations and finding the answer IMMEDIATELY KILL and DISCARD. gebrihpdfnjkxgb hvdfjkc there is sooooo much .. the fact that op even cared about how tangled her rabbit's hair was. the implication you can get RABBIT HAIR CONDITIONER.
my other favourite part about this article — beyond the existence of a deeply interconnected rabbit-owner society spreading the world about an infectious rabbit disease, among the other crazy deepness of the lengths people go for their rabbits, was the complete like nonmention that rabbits shit so much. like... you mention a million things about them but not that they shit so much and then eat their own shit. which has fair biological reasons or so [disgestive systems ineffective so the meal has to go through twice] but wow... seems kind of like a very big oversight when you're talking about pet rabbitisms. guys I'm honestly still reeling with the discovery that people are so crazy over their pets. like I knew, but like, this article really was a ride. at every turn a new intricate rabbit ritual was reveal.
< In Search of New Jersey's Wild Bears > John McPhee
again I listened to this. both this article, and the one above made me realize how ... casually cruel some of America's statewide animal procedures are. I mean, I think it's the same here too, and in many, many places [Bangladesh, while I don't know if there is actual legaliese about non-endangered animal procedures, the population tends to be very callous about them] ... the incredible non-tolerance of nonhuman entities when they infringe upon human dwellings ... I get it we think we are the kings and rulers of the world and hate all things that are Not Like Us and refuse to admit to the ways they are. etc etc. I get it I truly, truly do. but OMG, have you seen that clip of bears dancing after they wake up from hibernation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CnFo7qinng. cemented in my that bears are so epic and awesome and top best native north american animals. actually, they share top spot with the american pika ... but all that really tells you is that north america does not have the greatest assortment of biodiversity. To Me. not my fault the tropics encourage way more interesting evolution. ANYWAY. the article itself...is ummm not that interesting, but good background noise regardless. some fun facts and anecdotes thrown within. the whole time ... I was plagued with the thought of 'What if this guy is racist?' cuz you just Never Know!!! anyway I just searched him up and he is way more accoladed than orginally expected. and still, and yet, You Never Know.
other general bio stuff:
< CRISPR and the Splice to Survive > Elizabeth Kolbert
listened to this as well. LOL. the problem with this is that it just talked about bio topics I already knew. but it was mixed in with some stuff I didn't know but because I knew most of it I wasn't paying attention very well, and also because like ... I could intuit most of what was coming from what she described it was just not, like an epic enlightening experience. I need to kill the cocky part of my brain that hates rehearing information more than once but ... agggh... if you don't yet know about the ecological horrors in Corporations/Institutions/Industries getting the Genius Idea fighting Nature with Nature well, this will tell you!
I haven't mentioned it but the new yorker article structure is soooo definitive.... very funny.
< The Social Life of Forests > Ferris Jabr
I did not finish reading this [this was because I looked up The Overstory to see if I wanted to read it and then got distracted and never came back to the article. BUT IT IS STILL OPEN IN MY PHONE TABS. SOON.] but. I watched the tedtalk by the original researcher for class in senior year anyway, so I Know. I don't recommend the tedtalk, she's not the best speaker so I think like, because of how interesting this topic actually is, you'd be better engaged with the article. anyway it is SO extremely cool. as no.1 plant bio hater I love ittttt when they [The Plants] give me something to work with. I love the intricacies in how they communicate because they're stationary and we assume that is a sign of inanimatacy [wrong] and thus puts them in a separate category within the domain of Living Things where we end up thinking they're more like a rock than a crab. arguments can be made. anyway.
< Phenotypic Range of Gene Expression: Environmental Influence > Ingrid Lobo, Kenna Shaw
this was for school. but like, I read it. I truly don't think it offers anything of interest but there are some interesting armadillo and rat facts in there. though also phenotype is the worst concept ever. it's like ...... so you know how you have a gene that decides what your traits are? so like, a phenotype...actually Also decides what your traits are. this pissed me off so much in first year you don't even know. I think it's just a flaw in how the concept is taught cuz it makes way more sense in bio220 than it did in bio120.
this is more pseudo-biology/pseudo-psychology.
< The great forgetting > Kristin Ohlson
again neuroscience is so insubstantial and conclusivity is non-existent you knowwww. like things just go into the brain and no one can figure out What The Hell Is Happening. the reading experience of this compared to all the other articles I've linked is very different. in that it's like very glancing on the science. again it's because there are like No Particular Answers but it's a little frustrating. it touches upon early childhood psychology which is actually one of the most interesting subjects in the field and very well researched, and those parts are always Eye-opening.
god omg, tangent but: saw the funniest takes that the reason psychology is taken less seriously now is because more women do it. some of us actually don't respect psychology because it is not worth respecting. not when freud and all the other men did it, and not now either! like it's not wrong it's just anything related to neuroscience is too ... the way it is, the subjects that have more credibility have that due to the groundwork [i.e mathematical theory for math, physics, engineering, cs / the tech available for biology/chemistry allowing it to be like Verifiable] and the problem with psychology, which is the problem with neuroscience, is that we don't yet have the technology to tease it all apart. anthropology/sociology/history/literature/etc all suffer from post-modernism diseases and human bias. which is not exempt in STEM, but because STEM is based around concrete results that are decided by nonhuman processes, the hard fact then is just, hard fact. humanities does not have 'Hard Fact'. anyway, I'm simplifying a lot but let's leave it here for now.
