Category Archives: Viva!

gallusrostromegalus: the-awkward-turt: cyanocoraxx: with summer coming fast i just wanna share a…

via Sophia, NOT Loren!

gallusrostromegalus:

the-awkward-turt:

cyanocoraxx:

with summer coming fast i just wanna share a psa on wasps and why they’re good too.

– they do serve a purpose in the ecosystem. wasps are vital predators of aphids and blackflies. with no predation,
one cabbage aphid could cover our planet in 822 million tonnes of bugs
because they’re so fertile, as estimated by zoologist mark carwardine.
not only do wasps eat for themselves, but they need to provide for their
grubs too, so that’s even more aphids getting picked off every day. parasitic wasps of the family trichogrammatidae are used in
horticulture for biological control of pests. trichogramma galloi is
used to control sugarcane borers and encarsia formosa is used to control
whitefly, a pest of tomato, cucumber, aubergine and strawberry. on some
farms they even replace chemical pesticides.


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– they are effective pollinators with some species contributing
massively to the maintenance of plant populations.
there are over 800 species of fig tree and each one has its own specific
fig wasp. without one another, neither the fig nor fig wasp can
complete their
life-cycle – a clear example of co-evolution that has been successful
for over 60 million years. Figs are a keystone species in
tropical regions worldwide – their fruit supports the diets of at least
1,274 mammals and birds, meaning that the extinction of fig wasps would
therefore be
catastrophic in tropical ecosystems. furthermore,

at least 100 orchid species rely on european wasps and common wasps for
pollination.

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– paper wasps and potter wasps make amazing artists. they can construct flawless nests made of wood and create stunning miniature pot nests out of nothing but mud and saliva. in one amazing case, a colony of paper wasps constructed a rainbow-coloured nest using coloured sheets of paper as shown on the right. (menchetti 2016)

– wasps are socially intelligent. not only can paper wasps recognise each other by the colour patterns on their faces, but they can still do so after at least one week apart. (sheehan and tibbetts 2008) european wasps can learn to recognise human faces. despite having no evolutionary reason for doing so, they construct holistic representations of complex images to remember a specific human face.  (avarguès-weber et al 2018) sand wasps tend to two or three chambers each day. each chamber is in a
different location and each larva is at a different developmental
stage. it was found that they learn the configuration of landmarks
around each concealed chamber in order to find them. this means that the
wasp learns where the chambers are and which action is needed at each.
(baerends 1939)

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– the world’s smallest known insect is a fairy wasp! at only 139-240 micrometres long, dicopomorpha echmepterygis is smaller than some paramecium and amoeba species. the fairy wasp family also contains the smallest flying insect, kikiki huna. adult lifespans are very short, only lasting for a few days. several species are used as biological pest control agents. some species are even aquatic, using their wings as tiny paddles to swim around.

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– social wasps are frequent models for batesian mimicry and müllerian mimicry. this means that non-stinging insects use wasps as a base to appear threatening to predators. their presence thus changes how other insects evolve. even bees such as the nomad bee have evolved to mimic wasps. (yellowjacket wasp on the left, clearwing moth on the right.)

Thank you thank you thank you!

Wasps are such important regulators of plant pests that some plant species will release a chemical message to summon nearby wasps when they are being heavily eaten by pests.

Wasps are friends just as much as bees!!

Look I got stung in the face yesterday but I ain’t even mad about it because as much as this sucks, having a pest free garden and not having my house doused in chemicals is super rad.

How The Rats Were Fucked And Where It Got Us

via Sophia, NOT Loren!

Russia and their alt-right collaborator Julian Assange worked to suppress the Clinton vote, and there’s some evidence that it was effective:

The Twitter database shows the impact. The tweets sent from Russia, cloaked to look as though they came from Americans, included: “Bernie Sanders looks to black voters to boost his underdog campaign”; “Hillary Clinton’s summer of drama creates openings for Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden”; and “I’m for Bernie all the way!” 

Then, in July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails from the Democratic National Committee that suggested the party machinery was tilted against Sanders. The DNC computers were later revealed to have been hacked by Russia.

The hack prompted Trump to stoke the divide among Democrats. “Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders,” Trump tweeted July 23, 2016. “ . . . On-line from Wikileakes [sic], really vicious. RIGGED.” 

Russian trolls significantly increased their efforts to persuade Sanders supporters to oppose Clinton in the general election. One of their methods was to try to convince African Americans that they couldn’t trust her. 

[…]

In an effort to demonstrate how inaccurate information makes its way into the mainstream, the survey asked respondents about three demonstrably false articles that had been widely distributed. A quarter of respondents believed the false story that Clinton was in “very poor health,” 10 percent believed that Trump had been endorsed by the pope, and 35 percent (including 20 percent of Obama supporters) believed that Clinton had approved weapons sales to Islamic militants, “including ISIS.” 

The Ohio State team concluded in its soon-to-be-published final report that “belief in these fake news stories is very strongly linked to defection from the Democratic ticket by 2012 Obama voters.” Obama voters who recognized all three stories as false voted for Clinton at a rate of 89 percent, while 61 percent who believed one of the false stories voted for her, and 17 percent of those who believed two of the false stories supported Clinton. 

The good news is that they have every incentive to do it again. It would help if our ostensibly liberal media doesn’t contribute dumber versions of the material generated by ratfuckers to the same extent this cycle.

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Why I stand with Planned Parenthood

via Sophia, NOT Loren!

carafem:

sweaterkittensahoy:

Multiple gynos refused me an IUD because  “oh, it hurts so much to put in when you’ve had kids! We don’t want to put you in pain!!”

I was at a 7-9 on the pain scale regularly for my periods, and the docs were determined to make me run the gauntlet.

“But what about the pill?”

“Symptom-swap.”

“Have you thought about depo?”

“Mood drop.”

“And the patch?”

“Family history of breaking out in rashes.”

“Well, what about the nuva ring?”

“How will that NOT give me the same symptom-swap issues?”

“…”

“Look, I’m in pain so bad I wake up in the middle of the night. I’m in pain so bad I didn’t know I had appendecitis. I need SOMETHING.”

“Have you tried an ibuprofen protocol?”

“YES.”

“There are yoga poses that help with cramping.”

“I can’t uncurl from the ball of pain I’m in. How the hell am I supposed to hold position?”

“Well, how much caffeine do you drink? That could be a factor.”

“I have three cups of coffee a day and drink lots of water.”

And so on.

Then, one day, I made an appointment and went to Planned Parenthood.

“Yeah. Hi. I have incredibly painful periods that are fucking crippling me, and I need an IUD.”

“Okay. Do you have a chart of your periods I can look at?”

“Yup.”

“Okay. Looks like you have regular, heavy periods where the pain is worsening. Is that right?”

“Yup. And the fatigue. And the mood swings. And all of it.”

“Fatigue and mood swings, too?”

“Yup.”

“…is there any history of endometriosis in your family?”

“Yup. I’ve never been diagnosed, though. They say it takes a biopsy.”

“The biopsy can confirm tissue, but if you don’t have excess tissue, it doesn’t really help. You can have endo without excess tissue.”

“Okay. So, what are my options?”

“I suggest Mirena. Paraguard can make period symptoms worse even though it’s got no hormones while Mirena has a low-dose hormone that should help with all your pain and other issues. Here’s all the info on both of them. Here are models of both of them. Why don’t you take everything with you, read through it, then call if you have any questions? We can go ahead and schedule for insertion before you leave, and you can just call and say which type you want after you’ve read up. Is that okay?”

“…Yeah. That’s. That’s fine.”

“Do you have any questions right now?”

“Um, I got told a bunch I shouldn’t get an IUD because the insertion will hurt too much because I haven’t had kids.”

“Looking at the pain you’re usually in, I think you can handle it. It will definitely hurt, but it should only last about twenty seconds.”

“Twenty seconds?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been refused the best option for dealing with my symptoms because of TWENTY SECONDS?!”

“Sadly, we hear that a lot.”

Planned Parenthood treated me like a PERSON who was in pain, not a walking uterus bitching and moaning about womanly things. Planned Parenthood showed me respect and kindness and respected the knowledge I brought of my own medical history to the conversation. Planned Parenthood respected my autonomy where other doctors rarely had and paid attention when I explained why I felt the IUD was the best choice. Planned Parenthood showed me I mattered, and I want to show how much they matter to me.

^ the difference between a person’s symptoms being diminished versus believed.

Microsoft announces it will shut down ebook program and confiscate its customers’ libraries

via Sophia, NOT Loren!

unlimited-shitpost-works:

winneganfake:

greenycrimson:

mostlysignssomeportents:

tumblr_inline_ppcdv9lCWb1rkw4x1_540.jpg

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money,
so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of
its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media
into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years,
thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long
gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from
long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own
those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing
the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t
get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash
refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through
Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or
publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon
is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books
matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books
shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be
closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some
kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I
can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy
any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary
works, they could not have done a better job.

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/02/burning-libraries.html

If you’ve got an ereader and want to actually own your books, I heartily recommend using cailbre to scrape the DRM off and so you can backup the files.

Cailbre d/l:

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

How to use cailbre to remove DRM:

http://www.geoffstratton.com/remove-drm-amazon-kindle-books

Seconding calibre as a brilliant tool for ebook management in general. 

calibre is good

and it’s free and open source software!

Julian Assange’s case makes it clear women’s rights are still secondary to political games | Jess Phillips

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It was shocking that neither main party pointed out he’d evaded facing sexual charges

Women’s issues are always the political side salad, never the main event. We are always told we have to wait until everything else is perfect and then we can focus on the fact that women are being sexually abused in their workplaces, beaten in their homes and sexually assaulted in their personal lives.

For example, in recent months I and others have been pushing the government to make it a legal duty on all employers to protect their staff from sexual abuse and harassment at work, just as they have to make sure their employees’ fingers don’t get chopped off or that staff aren’t doused in bleach.

Continue reading…

As Ebola kills in Africa, in the west lies over vaccines beguile the complacent | Mark Honigsbaum

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The epidemic in the DRC has been impossible to contain because of the spread of anti-vax myths

With the possible exception of quinine, for centuries the only treatment for malaria, and antibiotics, vaccines have saved more lives than any other intervention in medical history. Yet, from New York’s Brooklyn to Camden in north London to Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, vaccines are in retreat, shunned by populations who seemingly have little sense of the risks they are running with their own or other people’s lives.

Why this should be so is one of the conundrums of our age. Is it all the fault of social media and anti-vax propaganda that has taken root on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? Or has society grown complacent about the risks that infectious diseases posed to previous generations, when it was common for children to be paralysed by polio or rendered deaf or brain-damaged by measles?

Continue reading…

Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie review – how Britain fell for a delusion

Substitute Putin for Hitler and Trump for Chamberlin – then…

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A gripping account of the nation’s greatest mistake is timely and relevant

In November 1937, Viscount Halifax, the British foreign secretary, had an audience with Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, the Nazi dictator’s lair in the Bavarian Alps. Halifax thought it a success. He wrote to his fellow appeaser and prime minister, Neville Chamberlain: “Unless I am wholly deceived… Hitler was sincere when he said he did not want war.” He was, of course, deceived. Wholly.

This was not really the fault of Hitler who barely concealed the murderous character of his regime and his monstrous ambitions. His spear carriers were called “Legions of Death” and their caps were decorated with skulls. The deception of Halifax, Chamberlain and their many fellow travellers was of the self-induced kind.

Continue reading…

WHO demands protection of health workers, facilities amid Gaza protests

Gaza/PNN/

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for the protection of Palestinian paramedics and medical facilities in the Gaza Strip in the wake of mass protests along the fence separating the besieged coastal enclave and the Israeli-occupied territories.

WHO said on Saturday that it had recorded an unprecedented 446 attacks on health workers in the Gaza Strip ever since anti-occupation protests started in the sliver early last year, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

These attacks had resulted in the deaths of 3 health workers and injured 731 others, it said. A total of 104 ambulances and six other forms of health transport, in addition to five health facilities and one hospital, had been damaged as well, it added.

WHO further noted that health workers faced substantial obstacles to carry out their work as they might get struck or their access to injured protesters was hampered. Additionally, being witness to such events could significantly affect the mental health of health workers and their work, it said.

Palestinians have held weekly rallies along the Gaza border to protest the siege on the enclave and demand the right for refugees to return to their homes they fled during the 1948 creation of Israel.

More than 270 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces ever since anti-occupation protest rallies began in the Gaza Strip on March 30, 2018. Over 16,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

The Gaza clashes reached their peak on May 14, 2018, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), which coincided with a US decision to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

On June 13, 2018, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, sponsored by Turkey and Algeria, which condemned Israel for Palestinian civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution, which had been put forward on behalf of Arab and Muslim countries, garnered a strong majority of 120 votes in the 193-member assembly, with 8 votes against and 45 abstentions.

The resolution called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to make proposals within 60 days “on ways and means for ensuring the safety, protection, and well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under Israeli occupation,” including “recommendations regarding an international protection mechanism.”

It also called for “immediate steps towards ending the closure and the restrictions imposed by Israel on movement and access into and out of the Gaza Strip.”