Soot tags gather after fires in areas with low circulation. They are not, as commonly believed, ash covered spider webs.
oh, well then what the FUCK are they???
They’re made of sticky particles from a polymer or petroleum based fire, like burning carpet, drapes, upholstery, and clothes. Due to a static charge, they chain together and naturally gather near ceiling corners because the rising hot air pushes them into the cool spots by convection.
Because they’re formed by static electricity, they can only be removed with professional chemicals and equipment. Attempting to remove them improperly will only break the chain before all the soot can be captured, leaving the remaining soot to spontaneously reform the webs later. Even worse, trying to wipe or wash them away can firmly adhere the soot to your wall or ceiling, which will permanently stain it.
A natural phenomena that only coincidentally resembles the damned webs of transdimensional ghost spiders.
you leave the transdimensional ghost spiders alone, they’re doing a great job
i’ve gotten a few responses here asking for some clarification on this paper and why making essentially squishy plants was important enough to make it into the plant science section of nature, one of the most influential journals in the world, and i’d be happy to oblige and break this down a little!!
so to start off, plants have two kinds of membranes around their cells, while animals only have one. one of these is called the ‘plasma membrane’, which is a soft, squishy kind of membrane that we have as animals that just kind of holds everything in. the other kind that only plants have is called a ‘cell wall’, which in plant cells surrounds the plasma membrane to basically hold everything in even more, and is really rigid and hard instead of squishy. the cell wall is made of a strong substance called ‘cellulose’, which you prob have heard of before, which acts as a really strong support structure to hold up the plant and protect the cells. the cell wall has a lot of different functions, but one of the main ones is structural; the pressure between the cell wall and the water inside the plant’s plasma membrane forming ‘turgor pressure’, which keeps the plant upright (when a plant needs water, it’s turgor pressure goes down, and there isn’t enough water in the cells to push against the cell wall to hold it upright. this is what causes wilting!)
now here’s the problem with cellulose: it’s a BITCH to break down. in settings where people are trying to make biofuels and renewable oils from algae and plant materials (and being successful in limited amounts!!), cellulose is the biggest thing keeping the process from higher efficiency, making it harder for those techniques to keep up with fossil fuels. but removing the cell wall altogether wacks out the plant’s turgor pressure, upon which a TON of natural processes and biological functions in plants are based (turns out that maintaining water pressure is really important when you dont have like, blood to keep stuff going!! or a heart to move shit around!!). so we need some kind of hard thing for the plant cells to push against to keep up hydraulic pressure, but it cellulose is too hard for efficient use in sustainable fuels.
which brings us to this study. im sure u can tell where this is going now. basically, these researchers were like, ‘what if we just added a second plasma membrane?? so its like, thicker, but there’s no cellulose???’.
this worked well. like, really well. i have made an annotated version of some of their results:
so in conclusion: this is a really cool paper, and not only did it show that it could be done, but they actually identified a ton of genes and transcription factors that could be modified to make replacement of a plant cell wall possible by other people.
this is a huge generalization, of course- they have way more data in the paper here if y’all wanna see it for themselves– but overall??? this technology could be really big in increasing the viability and efficiency in biofuels and sustainable biochemicals to be used in stuff like cosmetics, fabrics, plastics, etc.
the botanical society of america’s new database of botany education tools. unfortunately, most of what i’m seeing is still geared towards younger middle/high school students, but there are still some good resources in there if you look. my quest to find easily accessible botany things for teens and adults just wanting to learn and have a good time continues
dwarfs evolved in deep subterranean societies, and it shows. their eyesight is shit; their skin is intensely sensitive to the sun. the first human diplomats to come in contact with them mistakenly labeled the dwarfs a war-like people because they were so seldom seen without layers of protective clothing; it was a while before anyone realized that dwarven skin just burns easily and needs to be kept safe under layers.
due to their tendency to stay covered up when aboveground, it was longer much longer before anyone found out that dwarfs also glow.
they’ve since developed much fancier ways of keeping track of each other down in the tunnels, of course, but there’s this fun little holdover, stripes of faint blue or green (think of the way veins look on pale humans) swirling over their entire bodies, each dwarf boasting a pattern that’s entirely unique.
topside they look like nothing more than interesting or possibly puzzling tattoos – why did you need that stripe crossing right over your eye like that? – but get them down in a cavern, let them shed their protective suits, and marvel. they live and work down in the deepest levels, where humans can’t see their own hands in front of themselves but can sure as hell see the familiar lines of their dwarf buddies, shining to show them the way.
or, okay, if we do want to get into fighty dwarfs
nighttime is fine; as soon as the sun goes down they’re free to remove their heavy protective suits (dwarfs going sleeveless to let their skin glow)
and, thus unencumbered, surround their enemies’ little campsite
and the last thing anyone sees before everything goes to hell are ghostly blue and green swirls floating through the night
jesus crust makenzie this is horrifying and i love it
One of my favourite geology facts is this: These diagrams are a lie.
The mantle isn’t yellow. Nor is it orange, or red, or brown, or gray, or black.
The earth’s mantle is made up largely of peridotite.
The earth’s mantle is lime green.
Here’s where it gets even more counterintuitive. It’s not molten!
Just going based on temperature, the mantle SHOULD by rights be molten. It’s hot enough to melt the rock. But because it’s so deep, there’s enough pressure to push it down into a solid!
Water is strange in that its solid form takes up more space than its liquid form. You know this, even if you don’t think you do – it’s why ice floats. This also means that when you put pressure on ice, it turns into water to try and become smaller. That’s why ice is slippery.
Pretty much every other material is the opposite of that – the solid form takes up less space than the liquid. So, even at a temperature where it should be a liquid, enough pressure can make it become as small as possible – and that requires it becoming a solid.
It still “wants” to melt, though. In areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, the mantle is exposed, which decreases the pressure on it dramatically. As it comes to the surface it actually cools slightly, but despite this, the drop in pressure is enough to make it turn into a liquid!
So, no, there isn’t magma under you (unless you happen to live on a volcano). There is liquid, though, but way deeper down – the outer core of the earth is made of liquid iron.
Silver does this also, which was probably handy for silverware before antibacterial dish soap was invented.
That’s mentioned in the article as well. They also stated that a copper or silver container can disinfect a pot of water in a few hours. im gonna add a copper vessel to my emergency provisions now. @yourunclejingo you may find this stuff interesting too.
Its almost like our ancestors did shit that made sense even if they didn’t always fully understand why.
Today in chemistry we did a lab where we burned different chemical compounds to see what color flame would be produced and my group mixed all of the compounds together, and this was result
fire is gay culture confirmed
I was looking for a different gif but this will do.
Day 14 of living with my friends: We put orbeez in grape juice
From left to right: orbeez grown in grape juice only, orbeez moved from grape juice to water once we noticed they weren’t going to get any bigger, and orbeez grown in water (control group)
Results: obviously the grape juice ones absorbed the color and didn’t grow to full size, but the half-and-half ones grew bigger than I’ve ever seen orbeez grow. They’re also a little duller in color than normal orbeez
Additional results: they smell like musty grape juice and taste super sour and gross, according to @deathbygummybears. She also says the regular orbeez just “kinda taste like I just put plastic in my mouth, cause I did.”
New challenger approaches
The milk orbeez (morbeez) are the brightest orbeez we’ve seen yet. They’re bigger than grape juice orbeez but still smaller than normal ones. They’re also very soft for their size.
According to Lena (braver than ANY us marine) they taste pretty much the same as normal orbeez.
Final conclusion: 2% milk has a higher water content than 100% grape juice.
God: Okay, here’s the Earth, have fun in the trees.
Some monkey like six million years ago: Hey guys check out this bipedalism mod.
God: Oh, I guess you guys can keep looking for berries and stuff on the ground now.
Some pre-human smashing two rocks together: Listen up everybody, I have the cheat codes for a new item to access more food for your inventory.
God: Oh, you guys sure are doing a lot. Too bad there’s not a way to organize yourselves.
Some hominin guy: Install hyoid_morphology.exe and you can access chat from within the game.
God: But don’t you have to watch out for those bigger animals I put down there?
Some early human, looking at a mammoth: bro, you can win the boss battle if you just combine your wood-type weapon with your stone-type weapon and avoid a critical hit.
God: Okay you guys, you’re breeding pretty fast, and the Earth can only provide for about 10m of you, so save space!
Some Neolithic Dude: Lmao Earth HACKED – guys just empty your inventory of a bunch of plants right by your spawn point and then you have to use way less energy to collect the items.
DarkestElemental616 