This Discovery Really Tickles Me. It's Cool For A Lot Of Reasons, But I Also Find Something Deeply, Tragically

This discovery really tickles me. It's cool for a lot of reasons, but I also find something deeply, tragically funny about it. Lemme try to explain.

Our top astrobiologists are going to spend the next decade testing increasingly weird possible abiotic chemical reactions and arguing furiously about the origins of this dimethyl sulfide. If/when they eventually come to the conclusion that the most logical source is in fact alien microorganisms, that will answer one of the most fundamental questions of humankind: is there life elsewhere in the universe? And that would be great!

But then what?

Well friends, I'm sorry to say the answer is fuck-all. This planet, K2-18 b, orbits a star 120 lightyears away from us. For those of you keeping score, that's a little over a quadrillion kilometers. If it is determined there are alien microbes on that planet, then our entire civilization is going to spend the next several hundred years STARING at it through increasingly large telescopes, getting absolutely zero more actionable information because, let's be honest, this information was never actionable to begin with.

It's a quadrillion kilometers away, and the fastest we could possibly send anything in that direction is about one fifth the speed of light, maybe. It would take the proposed Project Starshot fleet about 480 years to reach K2-18 b, and another 120 for the data to reach home. And that would be a flyby mission! 600 years absolute minimum for very little information that we couldn't get from telescopes. Sending a full-on autonomous landing probe? One or two millennia, probably. Forget it.

What we should really be doing is looking very closely at the worlds around our closest stellar neighbors for spectral signatures like this one. If alien life does exist 120 ly away, there's a pretty damn good chance it also exists much closer to home.

BBC News

Tantalising sign of possible life on faraway world

Nasa's James Webb Telescope may have discovered a molecule thought only to be produced by life.

After hundreds of hours of preparation, we finally managed to locate both thousand-year old probes floating serenely in interstellar space. I couldn't help but smile at the primitive devices, snugly secure in our specialised bay. "Seems your voyages are finally over," I murmured.

what the fuck guys

the way tumblr tags trend is so funny, sometimes it seems like if ONE post gets popular the entire tag trends.

I’m gonna do an experiment. let’s use the tag

uhhhhhh

#mole interest

It makes me sad to see how common the hate for zoos is in leftist circles. To me, zoos are so symbolic of the determination and optimism in leftist thought that I often use these facilities as an example to keep me going. So when I hear fellow leftists wanting to abolish zoos it makes breaks my spirit a bit. Especially considering how necessary zoos are in the fight against the current environmental crisis.

I am the first to admit that no zoo is perfect. I have worked at a world class, accredited, non-profit zoo and it was FAR from perfect. The institution treated me and the other workers like shit. Burnout, lean staffing, and poor adherence to safety protocols resulted in poorer animal welfare outcomes for the animals. And this is a world class facility. There are many facilities out there that shouldn't exist at all that are hardly better than the menageries of feudal kings.

BUT

Zoos are vital if we want our ecosystems to survive the current mass extinction event.

No other type of institution on earth has saved as many species as zoos. From tiny snails to 1-ton bison, entire species have been returned to the wild thanks to their preservation in zoos.

There are approximately 40 animal species listed as Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN, most of which ONLY exist in zoos and aquariums. Many of these animals are only able to be taken care of because of the decades of animal husbandry science and institutional knowledge built up by our zoos and aquaria by working with other species.

There are many extinctions I cry for, but the ones that hurt the most are the ones happening in front of our eyes. The Javan rhino is all but gone. It's estimated that there would need to be about 100 rhinos for the species to survive genetically intact. There are now less than that, and none in human care. All it would take is a single tsunami or volcanic eruption and the entire population could be wiped out.

But if there were some in human care, if we had acted sooner and established a breeding population based on the centuries of knowledge we have of caring for their closest relative, the Indian rhino, we could have saved them.

So, when I see leftists talking about how all zoos are inherently destructive, I ask you to think ahead. To when polar bears, chimpanzees, or elephants go extinct in their natural homes, don't you want a place where we can save them? Where experienced animal care professionals can foster a population in human care so that one day these creatures can return to their homes? A global system of world class facilities dedicated to the survival of wildlife? So even more creatures don't end up like the Javan rhino; a species we could've saved if we'd had the will and the space to do so? If there had more zoos instead of less?

I'm not asking you to love zoos, I'm just asking that you recognize the practical necessity of their existence in the modern age. We won't survive the coming crises without other species. And they won't survive without us.

Allright so

I tried STARFIELD, yeah? Didn’t care for it.

Then I thought “Hey, maybe I’ll give NO MAN’S SKY a chance!”

And bruh, it is *hard* to rip myself away from it. It scratches a couple different parts of my brain at once, and I really enjoy it.

they don't call it Pokemon breeding for nothing y'know