[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
A pioneering liquid metal combination is shaping up as a potential secret weapon in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance, and promises to outlast existing implant materials.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Root-knot nematodes (RKNs) are worm-like parasites of the genus Meloidogyne that are found in many parts of the world. They attack the roots of plants, causing them to wilt and eventually die. It is estimated that crops worth nearly USD 173 billion are lost every year due to RKN infestations. While chemical pesticides are effective in controlling RKNs, they also kill other microorganisms that are beneficial to plants, thereby reducing soil fertility. New, less toxic control methods are needed to prevent the loss of crops and soil fertility to RKNs.
[syndicated profile] soranews24_feed

Posted by Oona McGee

Totoro and the Catbus are joined by Jiji for this joyous new collection. 

One of the great things about Studio Ghibli merchandise is the way the products aren’t just beautiful but functional as well. That’s certainly the case with this new collection, which turns some of the studio’s most beloved characters into pouches that can be used by adults and children alike.

The range begins with Totoro, from the 1988 movie My Neighbour Totoro, whose beautifully rotund belly is perfectly primed for stuffing.

The character’s tail is faithfully recreated on the back of the pouch, helping to bring the character to life no matter which way you look at it.

▼ On the ear you’ll find another adorable detail, in the form of a cute Soot Sprite.

The next pouch is dedicated to the blue “Medium Totoro”, who appears smaller than the grey “Large Totoro” in the film. In the way of pouches, though, both Totoros are identically sized, measuring roughly 19.5 × 14.5 × 3.5 centimetres (7.68 × 5.71 × 1.38 inches).

▼ The blue Totoro also has a cute tail on the rear…

▼…but on its ear you’ll find the white “Small Totoro” hitching a ride.

▼ For the next pouch in the series, the Totoros are joined by their friendly forest pal, the Catbus.

You’ll feel like your small accessories are going for a magical ride every time you pop them into the pouch.

▼ Finally, we have Jiji, representing Kiki’s Delivery Service.

This black pouch measures 17.5 × 12 × 3.5 centimetres, helping you to store small items like coins, keys and makeup.

Each pouch is designed to be held in the hand or hung around the neck, straddling the line between functional holder and wearable plush toy. Priced at 2,750 yen (US$18.34) each, the pouches can be purchased at Donguri Kyowakoku stores and online (links below) while stocks last.

Source: Donguri Kyowakoku
Featured image: Donguri Kyowakoku
Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku (1, 2, 3, 4)

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Instruments and Paradise

Oct. 8th, 2025 03:55 pm
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[personal profile] alobear
The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable is set in the early 1700s in Venice and charts the life of Anna Maria della Pieta, a young woman abandoned at an orphanage at birth, who grew up to be one of the most celebrated violinists of the age. She was taught by Vivaldi, and the novel fills in the gaps of her story, suggesting she may have had quite an influence on his music.

It took me a while to get into this book, since I didn't like Anna Maria much, especially as an eight-year-old, but also in her later teenage years. She shows unbridled ambition and self-absorption, to the exclusion of all else, and to the detriment of her friendships with other girls in the orphanage.

But the book is well written and vivid in its depiction of 18th century Venice and the world of these girls in particular. It's a fascinating portrait of the orchestra and Vivaldi's involvement with it, though it also has heavy themes of patriarchy, misogyny, abuse of power, marginalisation due to both gender and class, and a very toxic institutional environment.

It was very good, though I'm not sure I really enjoyed it - I was ultimately glad I persevered, though. I initially feared the ending would be too harsh, then that it would be too easy - and it managed to find a balance between the two, which was satisfying.


Paradise Lost by John Milton - in graphic novel form by Pablo Auladell - is an interesting way to tell the story of the fall of Lucifer and the ejection of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. It's not done in an art style that particularly appeals to me, but I really liked how the different realms and allegiances were denoted by text box colour - and some of the full-page spreads were quite spectacular. I enjoyed revisiting some of Milton's poetry and the reading experience as a whole was a good one.

condor

Oct. 8th, 2025 07:55 am
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[personal profile] prettygoodword
condor (KON-dor, KON-dawr) - n., either of two very large New World vultures, the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus).


Andean condor soaring overhead, and huge
Thanks, WikiMedia!

Very large, with a typical wing-span of 3m (10ft), making them among the largest flying birds in the world. The Andean population is under threat, but not nearly as endangered as the California condor, who were once reduced to a population of 22 in captivity -- all wild California condors today were bred from them and released. [Sidebar: Extremely lucky visitors to the Grand Canyon might see one soaring by.] The name is (via Spanish cóndor) from Classical Quechua kuntur (the t > d shift was common in the coastal dialect of the time).

---L.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
When astronauts land near the moon's south pole as part of NASA's Artemis program in a few years, they likely will find themselves in an unexpected treasure trove of clues that could help scientists better understand how Earth's only natural satellite came to be. That's according to a new study led by Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Engineered polymers hold promise for use in next generation technologies such as light-harvesting devices and implantable electronics that interact with the nervous system—but creating polymers with the right combination of chemical, physical and electronic properties poses a significant challenge. New research offers insights into how polymers can be engineered to fine-tune their electronic properties in order to meet the demands of such specific applications.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
New research has revealed that about 90% of marine aquarium fish sold by online retailers in the United States are sourced directly from wild populations, mostly in the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. With the US accounting for around two-thirds of all global aquarium fish imports, researchers warn that this reliance on wild capture threatens the sustainability of coral reef ecosystems and puts endangered and threatened species at greater risk of extinction.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Sexual size differences are widespread in biology, yet the "how" behind them often remains vague. We asked a concrete question in a classic model organism: when female flies are larger than males, do individual organs achieve this by adding more cells, enlarging the cells they already have, or mixing both strategies—and is this consistent across the body?
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Researchers at Leipzig University and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg have investigated a previously unknown process that occurs during protein synthesis in the cell. They examined how so-called adhesion G protein-coupled receptors (aGPCRs) split themselves into two parts.
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[personal profile] lydamorehouse
Last night, Shawn had a volunteer gig at the Ramsey County Library in Shoreview. As longtime readers know, my wife really doesn't like to drive. She's licensed, but she's generally a nervous and timid driver. On top of that, Shawn has some PTSD from an accident that happened while she was pregnant with Mason. Thus she mostly avoids driving, outside of emergencies (though she did some while I was in DC at Capclave. Go, Shawn!)

Anyway, what this means that I tagged along to the event as taxi driver. Shawn was in her meeting with the Friends for an hour... and I was left alone like a kid in a candy store.

I brought home eleven manga. Like, my bag was literally stuffed with books.

I finished one already: Two Guys at the Vet Clinic / Doubutsu Byouin no Ofutari-san by Sinonome. It's a boys' love/yaoi about a one-sided crush between a veterinarian and his boss. I'd say it's nothing to write home about, but I'll end up writing all about it over on my manga review site which you can check out if that sort of stuff interests you: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/

Okay, onward!

-----
Gaylaxicon, SUNDAY

There are a couple of things that I forgot to talk about on Saturday. One of the coolest things that happened on Saturday is that at the Murderbot panel I ran into a polycule that I'd met at the last ConFABulous. I instantly recognized them because they all wear matching rainbow masks, but also they're half the age of most of the people at our con. Plus, I feel like I would recognize them anywhere they all (there are at least four members of this polycule) because they played in a last minute Thirsty Sword Lesbians game that I threw together last ConFABulous when it was revealed to me that one of their number had come all the way from Chicago JUST to try playing this game (and when they arrived the sign-up was filled.) I still use a term that one of the players came up with for the future social media, which is "Blab" (as a Twitter/Insta/Facebook stand in.)

Anyway, I gave them my contact info and I hope they actually reach out. Three of the four are local and so they invited me to possibly come run a game with them at some point. I hope they actually do reach out. I liked the four of them quite a lot. 

So that was really cool. Plus, I finally got to meet [personal profile] pameladean 's partner Cameron.  She was deep in discussion with my friend Rachel Gold and their partner(? friend?) Stephanie, so I think we exchanged nothing more than a confused back and forth (because Rachel bought a copy of Cameron's book for me, but it wasn't clear who was paying and if the book had gone to me or Rachel.) Still, it was nice. I'm only sorry that Cameron wasn't feeling up for being on more panels. I would have loved to have showcased her and her work more. ConFABulous is less of the kind of con where writers go, but maybe since she'll have a new book out maybe we could consider if she'd make a good GoH (again, if she's up for such a thing.) ConFABulous really doesn't do GoHs, but at least Cameron is local so it's not like it would cost the con a lot.

Sunday, of course, is generally the low key day at most conventions. Anywhere else people are hungover, etc. I, myself, was crispy. That midnight performance meant I got only five hours of sleep. So, I was definitely feeling "Sunday at the Con" in a very traditional way.

I put several "not to miss" panels on early, in the hopes of catching any folks who weren't conned out by that point.  I really wanted to catch "Problematic Favs" at 10:30 AM, because it was a panel that David Lenander suggested and I had initially resisted writing up, in part because Greg Ketter was a GoH. Greg, for those of you who aren't from the Twin Cities and/or don't know, runs Dreamhaven Books & Comics. Dreamhaven was the literal mailing address for Neil Gaiman for many, many years--so much so that the Minnesota Book Awards assumed that Neil actually lived in Minneapolis (he didn't, at the time he was living in Wisconsin, which disqualified him for the award and I was at leat partly responsible for making that clear to the MN Book Awards folks. That, however, is a story for another time.) Lisa Freitag, Greg's wife, had told me at some point that Greg is still very much in denial and won't talk about Neil. So, I started to self-censor myself/the convention, but then I thought, "No. That's not cool." David L. clearly really needed to process some of this stuff, so probably that means a lot of our local community does, too. Also, so many of us in the fannish queer community, particularly trans folks, are still pissed at the active harm that JKR continues to do. So, I decided, no, let's have at it. But, to make it work, I had put [personal profile] naomikritzer in charge because I know that Naomi has the skillset (and the wherewithal) to actually shout someone down and cut off the ramblers--which a lot of people (including myself) often THINK they have, but which Naomi has actively demonstrated on other panels I've seen her on.

Turns out this was a good choice.  

Most of the discussion was high level--there were some real, meaningful confessions and feeling and advice, but, inevitably, someone wants to relitigate this or that. Naomi just wasn't having it. In fact, at one point the person she had to actively cut off was David L., and I'm not sure I'd've been able to do that since he's an actual friend of mine (and Naomi's, to be fair. Also, I hope David is okay and knows it was done out of love.) We also had another guy, who I later found out was also disruptive in the "Superman is WOKE and other Media Malarky" panel, who was apparently wandering back and forth between the two panels demanding to be caught up on what he'd missed while listening to the other one. 

Maybe not the best start to Sunday, but you can't say it wasn't high energy!  *makes awkward face*

Post that start to the day, a bunch of us hung around and debreifed in the little lounge area behind registration. This is where I got a chance to talk to one of our special guests, Blue Delliquanti (https://www.bluedelliquanti.com/  <--if you are at all a fan of graphic novels and don't know their work, here's my recommendation: GO READ THEM NOW.)  It was from Blue and Lee Brontide, however, that I found out that that one guy was bothering both panels. Apparently, the only panel that went off without a hitch during the first hour was "Gay Vikings," which is only hilarious because I heard from both Dax and Eleanor Arnason that they felt unprepared. Adam Stemple who moderated the panel said that they were both so knowledgable and prepared it was almost ridiculously smart. I'm sort of sad that I coudn't be in three places at once. 

I conspired with [personal profile] tallgeese to blow off my final panel of the con, "Ask a GM" in order to finish the Star Trek session we started on Saturday. This was another one of those probably-not-a-good-adult-decision moment for me, but I tried to mitigate it by warning Don K., one of my co-panelist that I was intending not to be there. I totally got the Disapproving Dad look from him, which normally I can't withstand, but the truth was I was so exhausted at this point I would not have made a good panelist. I probably should have explained it that way, but I didn't. Now I have to live with my guilt.

And while that sounds flippant, I do actually feel a guilty even now. I'd put myself on that panel so that there would be a woman GM to represent. I also know that several people were curious what I might have to say about GMing, so I feel like I let them down. 

But, God got me. I was, in fact, punished for my sins.

I decided to try to play a new character at the Star Trek game (a Vulcan doctor) and there was so little for the Chief Medical Officer to do in the third act of that game, that I literally threw her on a grenade at the end of the game just TO HAVE SOMETHING TO DO. 

Despite that, I'd say it was, generally, a really good convention. It helps that I was able to recruit so many skilled panelists. However, I think that, should we do a Gaylaxicon again (and if I lose my mind an volunteer for the programming committee again) I would do a few things differently.
  1. Three tracks of programming was a bit ambitious, I think. I mean, you can't know how many attendees you're going to get, but three tracks is probably best for conventions that are regularly pulling THOUSANDS, rather than hundreds, especially since our crowd was also dipursed into two tracks of gaming as well. So, we essentially had five tracks of programming (if you count the games) and that just split the numbers too much. So, even the most popular panels weren't filling the rooms as much as I'd've liked. Maybe two tracks going forward? Two + gaming, at any rate.
  2. The other really big mistake of mine was my assumption that someone else would've alerted Dreamhaven to the names of our attending professionals. I heard through the grapevine that JM Lee left the convention early (and irritated) because he discovered that none of his books were available in the dealer's room. I will make it a point to--as EARLY as possible--start feeding any book dealers a list of people's books to have on hand and/or alerting authors that they should bring their own books to sell at the signing tables. Joey (JM) was a really early recruit of mine (and he's trad published), so I can see why he was shocked not to see any of this books available. I will complain here, only breifly, that Greg is terrible about answering emails (as is Lisa). I would have had to make a regular DRIVE to Dreamhaven to physically talk to someone in the store, but I should have done it, anyway.
  3. Then, obviously, as much previously discussed, I think the new rule going forward (again, if there is a forward) is no paneling after 7:00 pm. We just don't stay up that late. People can find their own fun the games room if they're late nighters, I guess. Midnight slash panel? Nope, "After dinner hour slash," is more like it.
  4. Plan an actual lunch break for panelists. That way there's no way to accidentally (which I did to both Haddayr and Naomi) book someone over a period when they should go get a food. I had initially thought that the hotel restaurant would mitigate this since we had half hour passing time between panels, but it turned out they were closed at a time when someone could have popped down and grabbed a sandwich to go or whatever.
  5. People really liked that half-hour passing time, though. So, that's a keeper.

Obviously, there were a number of things that I heard compliments about, regarding programming. Adam could not get over the quality of the topics and how amazing his fellow panelists were. I got this note from a lot of people, actually, so that made me feel pretty good. The other comment I heard a lot was that people were having trouble deciding among the topics in any given hour because they were all interesting. Again, I'll take that as a win, actually (though you could read it another way, I suppose. Depending on your preference for these kinds of conventions. There are people who like one-track paneling for a reason.) 

I don't know a lot about how the other departments did. Obviously, I participated in gaming, which, for me went well.  I think the banquet was, at least, a financial success. There were a ton of people there. I talked about some of the issues with the comedy show, but comedy is always a weird one for conventions as far as I'm concerned since, as I noted, humor can so easily fall flat with us neuro-spicy nerd types. The dealer's room seemed full and active, which is good, though [personal profile] tallgeese noted with some shock that we didn't seem to have a single vendor selling dice. Two of the community tables were perpetually empty: the Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks folks seemed to only show up long enough to refresh their free dice packages and Free Mom Hugs seemed entirely AWOL every time I passed their table, which was kind of weird. Possibly both groups thought we were a bigger con? I don't know what happened there.

But, yeah, otherwise, I felt it went off well.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Not all stars are created equally. Astronomers believe that the first stars to form after the Big Bang were mostly made of only hydrogen and helium with trace amounts of lithium, as the heavier elements formed later on by nuclear fusion inside the stars. When these stars went supernova, heavier elements spread throughout space and formed more stars. Each successive generation contained more heavy elements, and these elements also became successively heavier.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Antarctic krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, are an important species in the Southern Ocean ecosystem and global carbon cycle, in part because of their poop. Their dense and rich fecal pellets sink rapidly, transporting carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean. In a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, scientists have discovered another way these crustaceans keep carbon locked away from the atmosphere—by ejecting carbon-rich masses of rejected food, called food boluses, that also plummet to the ocean depths.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
For decades, scientists have observed, but been unable to explain, a phenomenon seen in some soft materials: When force is applied, these materials exhibit not one, but two spikes in energy dissipation, known as overshoots. Because overshoots are generally thought to indicate the point at which a material yields, or transitions from solid-like to fluid-like behavior, the dual response was therefore assumed to indicate "double yielding"—the idea that to fully fluidize a material, it needed to yield twice.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
Climate change not only causes temperatures on land and in the sea to rise, but also leads to warming rivers, lakes, and streams—with serious consequences for the animals living within them. A research team at the University of Duisburg-Essen has published the largest openly accessible collection of data on the thermal tolerance of freshwater organisms to date. This data helps water management and government authorities to enact preventive measures to protect animals living in and around water.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
For decades, it's been known that subtle chemical patterns exist in metal alloys, but researchers thought they were too minor to matter—or that they got erased during manufacturing. However, recent studies have shown that in laboratory settings, these patterns can change a metal's properties, including its mechanical strength, durability, heat capacity, radiation tolerance, and more.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
An international team of scientists has generated a new ring-shaped protein nanomaterial capable of strongly binding to and neutralizing the SARS-CoV2 virus. The study, published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, highlights the versatility of the system devised to design the nanorings, which can integrate therapeutic and diagnostic capabilities, and be adapted to combat other viruses.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
A study published in Science of the Total Environment sheds light on the persistent chemical contaminants left behind at illegal cannabis cultivation sites, also known as "trespass grows," on California's federally managed lands.
[syndicated profile] phys_breaking_feed
New research, based on forest fires in Australia, proves there is a significantly higher risk of large-scale flooding when major deforestation has occurred in catchment areas. The chance of large-scale flooding in a specific catchment area can increase by as much as 700% if widespread deforestation has occurred.

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