Jules @afewbugs@librem.one

Altruism in birds?

When we attached tiny, backpack-like tracking devices to five Australian magpies for a pilot study, we didn’t expect to discover an entirely new social behaviour rarely seen in birds.

Our goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds, and to test these new, durable and reusable devices.
Instead, the birds outsmarted us.

As our new research paper explains, the magpies began showing evidence of cooperative “rescue” behaviour to help each other remove the tracker.

https://theconversation.com/altruism-in-birds-magpies-have-outwitted-scientists-by-helping-each-other-remove-tracking-devices-175246?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton

“Wood smoke is astonishingly harmful. Though only 8% of households in the UK (mostly wealthy ones) have a wood-burning stove, they release more small particulates (the most dangerous pollutants) than all the vehicles on the road. Even a modern, approved, “eco-friendly” wood burner produces 750 times as many fine particulates as a heavy goods vehicle.”

#AirPollution #ClimateChange #Energy #Wood
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/27/wood-burning-stove-environment-home-toxins

Our mistake was turning them back on.

UK Covid modelling data to stop being published so government can continue to pretend they did a great job.
#COVID #UKNews
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64093155

Spending 10+ hrs this weekend mending clothes that I couldn't get around to for over a decade thanks to serious overwork

and sitting with how this sweater got into this condition because its first owner couldn't keep up with high-maintenance clothing as her body deteriorated

has really been an exercise in thinking about how time is the only thing we have.

Here's the first & most recent mend I've made on this sweater so far.

Practice counts for a LOT!

There's a reason I've had this sweater for 12 years & only now got around to mending it. It just plain takes time. It sits in that lovely place between "it's so simple!" & "actually no, it's not at all."

idk I feel like a lot of content about mending clothes can get real preachy about "people just don't take time for this anymore." That attitude can go fuck itself into the sun.

"a company called Karens for Hire ('We Karen so you don’t have to'), which promised to harness the power of accomplished complainers in the service of beaten-down customers, abused tenants and anyone else with a dispute that outstripped their own capacity to carp....Karens for Hire, which includes two other part-time advocates and a lawyer on retainer, has received more than 2,300 requests for help since it launched last spring."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/26/karens-for-hire-customer-service-complaints/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

okay you all need to see this new cover by the HarperCollins Union (who are still! on! strike!) bc im pretty sure theyre not on mastodon and this is so funny everyone needs to see it

And you need to support them in their fight for a fair wage!!!!! ill share some of their links down thread for how to support 👇

artist: https://www.catleeart.com/links.html

#bookstodon #books #literature #reading #writingcommunity

When you want to go for a Boxing Day swim... but there’s sewage in the water!

😧 💩 🏊

We’ve launched legal action against the Government to make sure water companies clean up their act – and clean up our rivers and coastal waters.

Support the cleanup: https://glplive.org/clean-waters-t-261222

Fission is in the news, but few recognize that a woman physicist was behind the discovery.

Lise Meitner’s brilliance led to the discovery of nuclear fission. But her long time collaborator Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry w/o her in 1944, even though she had given the first theoretical explanation.

Albert Einstein called Meitner “our Marie Curie." She also adamantly refused to work on the atomic bomb during WWII. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201502/physicshistory.cfm #women #history #science #energy

When I was a kid, the calendars said Boxing Day (CAN, AUS, UK) for December 26th.

I really thought Canadians, Australians, and Brits absolutely beat the shit out of each other the day after Christmas every year. For fun. Or it wouldn’t be a holiday.

I was TERRFIED of them.

For this year's gingerbread I made... Curiosity!

#space #gingerbread #nasa #mars #curiosity #baking #astronomy

I gave a glib answer when my daughter asked what I wanted for #Christmas . I now have world peas.

one of my favorite things on social media is when people nerd the heck out about hobbies I don't know anything about.

I have a friend on instagram who's super into Breyer horses and like, I know fuck-all about either real horses or plastic ones but she does these explainers about the hobby that are always a delight to read

Post about your hobbies. It's okay to take up space. Delight somebody with details.

“Booty call” and “butt dial” has been offered up as an example of where the literal meaning of two phrases is the same but the implied meaning is very different (denotative vs connotative meanings).

Today a coffee mug gave me another example: “dad bod” and “father figure”

#linguistics #wordplay

My first reaction to this is that it's about 30 years too late. But right now I'm just glad that at least someone has turned up to the party, even if it's later than ideal.

Building energy efficiency is something we really need to look into as we try to cut emissions here in the west. It's up there with reducing private car ownership for impact on emissions reductions. Imagine being able to live in a home that is warm, comfortable, and can be heated for next to nothing. Welldone Scotland.

I don't think this is getting the coverage it needs. Scottish government to require passivhaus standard for all new build homes. This is big. Really big. Growing out of lessons from the 70's oil crisis. Passivhaus buildings use very little energy to heat, or to cool. We've known how to do this for decades. It's gross negligence from all western governments that the same is not true of all new builds in the developed world.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23197204.government-announces-passivhaus-standards-adopted-scotland/