Cut vertically (with the veins). You basically get no stinging that way (until you start cutting horizontally)

My biggest concern is not that fertility rate is low/population decline is happening, it’s that it’s happening way too quickly for society to be able to handle it.

We’re talking like 4 old people per child (estimated number). Not only would it be a massive strain on the economy to have so many elderly people/retirees to take care of, older people will also have a highly disproportionate account of political power due to their relative abundance. If it’s already such a big deal that boomers were twisting the political landscape for their gain, I shudder to think what would happen at this larger and longer scale.

All of this is going to be a breeding ground for misogyny and right-wing ideology when people start thinking that it’s [opposite gender]'s fault that they’re not living as well as they were promised by the previous generation. We’ve already seen it in South Korea, and we’re seeing it now with the rise of isolation and inceldom.

Plus, without younger people to take up the mantle, many industries that we rely on will need to downsize, and a lot of institutional knowledge will be lost. Many roles that require a “master-to-apprentice” style of learning will be lost and will be unable to recover, even if the population started growing again.

Fox News has the wrong take here, as it is wont to have. But we genuinely should be really concerned that birth rates across all developed countries are this low below replacement rate and are still dropping

Probably why they’re making EuroOffice.

I’m not sure “expendable labor” is really the most accurate description. My understanding was that the pharoahs hired skilled artisans and craftsmen during winter seasons in exchange for food. They didn’t use slaves to build the pyramids, to my understanding

Sure, but learning tends to be easier when there’s a practical application to the things you’re learning

Oh, the spider-squids definitely will trigger your disgust response. At least they evolve into something nicer after a while

I think in part because speculating what the land looks like on an alien planet is actually really hard to do, and the vast majority of artists just wing it. With sufficient planning and rigor, alien planets should look normal.

For instance, I think the landmass of Tira-292b looks pretty natural. It’s a hypothetical planet created for the Alien Biospheres project, a YouTube series that tries to build up an alien ecosystem as accurately to science as reasonably possible

It’s a seriously underrated series, I highly recommend everyone check it out

Interesting, thanks for sharing that. I wasn’t aware that there has been newer research countering the tooth wear model

There’s a reason grass is so common - it’s because it’s a wildly effective life strategy. Grass is actually quite hard to eat - there’s basically no nutrition in the leaves themselves, and grass evolved to incorporate silica “needles” in its leaves, so that it wears down your teeth when you try to eat it anyways.

Not to say that it’s impossible to eat grass, but you need to undergo a ton of highly specialized adaptations to make it possible. For most animals (including humans), it’s just not worth the effort

If we consider it to be a bug and that those are false reports, then the actual number of Linux users would be 5.33 * (1-0.23) = 4.1%.

IMO that seems like a more reasonable number than 5.33. 5.33 is a crazy jump month-over-month, even factoring in Chinese New Years (February results)

Intent is to establish a permanent moon base. Having a moon base is a prerequisite for visiting Mars - first, it’s a practice run for what you need to do to set up a base. Second, it’ll serve as a good “rest stop” for ships travelling between Earth and Mars

Explanation: this is referencing Professor Jiang from the YouTube channel Predictive History. He makes videos predicting future events. His methodology is 50% pulling out of his ass and 50% basic common sense. For some reason, many people, and several news channels, have designated him as a genius

I haven’t heard of any controversy, but I think you do important work. May not be glamorous work, but having a consistent flow of news on Lemmy helps me keep up to date on the goings-on of the world. I assume most people think similarly

To me, this reads as that Republicans want to dominate something that appears exotic to them. Same reason why, to my recollection, right-leaning people tend to favor interracial porn over left-leaning people. So it’s not that there’s a lot of trans people in red states, it’s probably that there’s very few of them. I suspect that increasing the amount of trans people in red states might actually decrease the searches for trans porn

That seems the exact opposite of capitalism? I would assume capitalist propaganda encourages you to throw away old things and buy new. Preserving old things is antithetical to that

I notice it when I eat cheese mixed with something acidic or spicy. Quite a discomforting taste but it doesn’t typically stop me from eating it anyways

Better safe than sorry. Take plan B. I can’t speak on the side effects, but I at least didn’t observe any when my SO took them.

Also, get tested for STD’s.

Alkylation is a term in organic chemistry which means to form a carbon-carbon bond (simplifying, but accurate enough). This is actually somewhat difficult to do - it turns out that carbons are actually quite stable. For context, organic chemistry tends to work with a carbon “core” that doesn’t really change a ton, with a bunch of random other atoms stuck on the carbon core. And you typically mess with the other random atoms rather than the carbon core.

However, in some semi-specific cases, you can manipulate a molecule to be unstable enough that it would be willing to break or form carbon bonds. Many forms of alkylation involve using a second molecule that contains a carbon bonded to a bromine or iodine (in this case, the molecule is C2H5Br). The end result is that your molecule (the one you want to modify) kicks out the other molecule’s bromine, and a new carbon-carbon bond is formed in its place. Basically, you’ve just fused the two molecules together.

The meme is just showing several examples of C2H5Br being used as the “secondary molecule” and being fused onto things that make zero sense.

Edit: ironically, the last example (“alkylating agent itself”), despite sounding the most absurd, is actually probably the most feasible example to alkylate

If you’re in a legal state, then sure. Start with small doses. I will say though, it does feel somewhat underwhelming. At least for me

One of the important things that you learn over time in a high stress situation is that you can only commit around 70% of your effort before you start burning yourself out.

As in, yes, you can definitely try harder and get more things done, but that can only be done in very short bursts. After a while, you would not be able to bring yourself to do anything. And so, the followup lesson is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up for only committing 70%. Take some time every once in a while to ask yourself: on a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the maximum conceivable amount of effort I can imagine myself giving, how would I rate the amount of effort that I am currently putting in to my work? If your score is 8 or above, then that’s your issue. You’re experiencing burnout.

If you have work piling up but you’re already committing 70%, then you just have to acknowledge that there is more work coming than you can reasonably handle. So what can you do? I don’t really know what your current career status is, so I can’t give solid advice. But you can consider either declining to take on more work or letting some tasks fall to the wayside.

If you are concerned that your 70% effort is noticeably lower than an average person’s 70%, then that’s a different issue altogether. You might just have depression. In which case, talk to a therapist.