This is an interesting article about lab meat for pet food. One of our kitties has a food allergy, so I’m interested in seeing where this goes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/we-wont-be-only-ones-eating-lab-grown-meat-our-pets-will-too-180977559/

#LabGrownMeat #PetFood

[quote]

Keith McHenry, the co-founder of the global movement “Food Not Bombs” was arrested and jailed by the Santa Cruz Police Department today for the crime of serving food to the unhoused community members.

[/quote]

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/12/27/18853618.php

#QuoteBoosted for CW and more tags.
#homelessness #police

via @autonomysolidarity

According to Tim Sweeney, the original ZZT source code was lost in the early 90s: "[... If] I had it, I'd release it, but I lost it in a crash a long time ago."

But they were all of them deceived, for another backup was made.

This is an (almost) unaltered copy of the actual ZZT ~3.0 source code - not decompiled, not reverse-engineered, but preserved for its historical value.

You wouldn't believe me if I told you how many years I spent looking for it, after catching wind of where it might be... For three decades, the ZZT community hoped it would turn up. For two, it thought it was impossible. And yet, here we are.

I'm really happy to have been able to contribute to the ZZT community's preservation efforts for all these years. Thank you. This is probably my magnum opus.

https://github.com/asiekierka/almost-of-zzt

I view Kyriarchy as a system for manufacturing consent through assignment. Those with power create assignments and distribute them to those without and the acceptance of an assignment becomes the manufacturing of consent.

Such assignments are backed up by societal narratives. Refusal to accept the assignment will trigger the use of those narratives against the refuser.

This was a big part of accepting my transness: refusal to accept the assignment.

Tahoma (Mt Rainier) casts a shadow across the early morning sky, as seen from Bonney Lake, Washington:

#Photography #MtRainier #WashingtonState

I've had the idea for a weird kind of Twitter client for years. With Mastodon being all open, I've decided to do the experiment:

What if your Timeline looked like iMessage. A normal timeline confuses me to no end because everything is out of context.

My experiment, Ebou, is a Mastodon client that looks like iMessage. Conversations are grouped by friends and sorted by recent postings.

It is super basic right now, but this already feels much more natural to me 😀

As a Black woman in Wales involved in sustainable local food and climate change mitigation, I sometimes feel like a fraud when I drive 25 miles to Cardiff so that I can buy food (all imported) from my culture. But I and many like me don't know how to grow food here. And so a project was born https://foodadventure.co.uk/portfolios/back-to-our-roots/ Registration in link. Open to people who can attend workshops in Cardiff/ Valleys
#growing #collards #okra #Wales#Cardiff #growyourown #gardening #urbangarden

#BrightonAndHove's irreplaceable black bookshop* Afrori is facing a quadrupling of rent, and will be without premises from 1st April.

They need to raise £25k to relocate (including 3 months' rent upfront). This payday, chip in to their crowdfunder here: https://afroribooks.co.uk/products/help-afrori-find-a-new-shop

* So much more than a bookshop: talks and events, kids stuff, meals, community, and a unique focus on black writers marginalised almost everywhere else

#Brighton #books #reading #Sussex @bookstodon

I've got a 337.93 € power bill that obviously I don't have cash for.

(I can't believe it's only January and this is the bill wtf is the next one going to be like.)

146/337.93 so far

#mutualaid

http://paypal.me/ginnymcqueen

http://ko-fi.com/ginnymcqueen

http://patreon.com/ginnymcqueen

💸 http://pay.ginny.today

A very nice popscience article on what causes chronic depression.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cause-of-depression-is-probably-not-what-you-think-20230126/

The predominant theory in neuro-psychiatric diseases/disorders is the "chemical-imbalance" hypothesis. For depression, the culprit is low levels of serotonin which has of course led to blockbuster sales of SSRI drugs. We are now, safe and sad to say, a drug addled society.

However, increasingly, studies are showing that serotonin levels alone can neither be the cause nor sufficient for occurrence for depression.

So, what if any are are the necessary and sufficient conditions to cause chronic depression?

The article goes through a few, none more prominent or critical than the other: different chemical imbalance (old tea in a new pot), genetic predisposition (only possibly accounting for 5% of the etiology), environmental factors like stress and other cues (especially to activate such a genetic predisposition), different and fewer neural connectivity than "normal", chronic inflammation that might lead to such fewer connections, and neuroplasticity changes/malfunction as the reason for inflammation and fewer connections.

Are all of the above factors causes? If so, are we classifying multiple different conditions into a single rubric called depression (which the article terms, "the umbrella theory" with a nod to oncology and cancer classification). Can we classify better? Are we missing other crucial factors?

Was depression, historically, as high as it is today? (I know we don't have much data, but let's overestimate how many were depressed centuries ago, was it as high as it is currently?). What about the ways we have structured our society and political-economy with rabid individualism and alienation at its core? Are they not potential causes of depression?

#neuroscience #depression #serotonin #psychiatry #genetics #neuroplasticity #mentalhealth

Fun story about nature surprising the scientists. I learned this one from an excellent #EMBOPodcast with @CoriBargmann & @cyrilpedia.

https://www.embo.org/podcasts/our-special-feature-as-humans-is-communication/

The era was the human genome project (late 1990s). In question: how many genes do we have? Going in, they knew that a worm (with 302 neurons) had ~13K genes. The presumption was that we, with our billions of neurons (and other complexities), would have a lot more.

GeneSweep was the official betting pool, organized by Cold Spring Harbor. Of the 460 (presumably well informed scientists) who entered the competition, the winner was the one who made the SMALLEST guess (~25K). The mean guess was 62K; someone guessed as high as 200K.

The small number of genes in the human genome (25K) surprised nearly everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeneSweep

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/23/science/scientists-cast-bets-on-human-genes-a-winner-will-be-picked-in-2003.html

Warning for furries: A production company is sending a deceptive casting call for a film that appears to be a furry documentary but is actually a hateful smear film.

It's the same deceptive tactic Matt Walsh used to trick trans people into appearing in "What is a Woman". They want to do the same for furries.

Please be careful and warn others!
https://mobile.twitter.com/PleasantPicnic/status/1618898371133210625

for @porsupah and others who want the focaccia recipe as I actually make it:

Rosemary Garlic Focaccia

For a 39 x 26cm baking tray/sheet

ingredients:

• 160mL extra virgin olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves (minced)
• 2 tsp thyme (dry)
• 3 tsp rosemary (dry)
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 300ml warm water
• 1 packet of yeast
• 1 tsp honey
• 300g patent flour (Dutch flours, 450g all purpose will work in the USA, anywhere else, experiment with the required gluten amount)
• 150g regular flour
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

instructions:

1. In a skillet combine oil, garlic, thyme, rosemary & black pepper. On low heat, infuse for 5 to 10 mins. Not letting it brown.
2. Combine in a bowl; water, yeast & honey. Stir and let sit for 5 mins.
3. Add regular flour and add 2/3rd of the oil mix (cooled down, else you will kill the yeast). Lightly stir and let sit for 5 mins.
4. Mix in rest of the flour. When it comes together, transfer to floured board and kneed until dough is smooth (10-15 times.)
5. In an oiled bowl covered with a damp warm towel, let it proof for 1 hour in a warmish place.
6. Preheat oven @ 230°C.
7. Oil baking sheet and spread the dough on the sheet and dimple it with your fingers.
8. Spread the rest of the infused oil on top. Let proof for a further 20 min.
9. Bake for 15 to 20 mins. Until golden brown.
10. Cool on a wire rack.

Just thought id share this little treat from the first page of Gebbie and Moore's femme hero, Cobweb.

Featuring The Miracle of
DOLL-O-VISION
No Special Glasses Necessary!

On the Powell cable, a tourist staring at the TA pyramid wondered, “What’s that?” And without a moment’s hesitation, Maria Bontempi replied “The Egyptian Consulate,” 1973

From a local activist group today, veted by several people.

Unfortunately they didn't provide a way to communicate when the need had been met, but I'll update if I hear anything.

#DefendTheAtlantaForest #DefendWeelauneeForest