Obsidian Wings

everybody has their limits...

by russell

our friends the tardigrades are in the news again.

the little water bears have survived extreme heat and cold (-328 F to 304 F), extended periods (years) with no water or food, extreme pressure (6x the water pressure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench), radiation at levels 1,000x a lethal dose for humans, and direct exposure to the vacuum of outer space.

they are tough little buggers.

an Israeli spacecraft loaded up with some hibernating tardigrades recently crashed into the moon.  oopsie!!  scientists wondered if they little critters might still be alive.  would they survive the crash?

so they froze some, loaded them into bullets, and shot them into sand targets.  the bullets traveled about 2,000 mph, pressure at impact was 1.14 gigapascals, which apparently is like having 40,000 people stand on you at the same time.  

this was not your average game of johnny-on-a-pony.

sadly, our little friends did not make it. "They just mush," Traspas told Science magazine.  I, for one, cannot hold this against them, there's only so much you can expect from tiny proto-arthropods.

open thread to discuss microbiota, strangely violent children's games, surprising feats of resilience, or the usual.

notes from the culture wars, chapter the millionth: in which the League of Women Voters throws some shade

by russell

From the League of Women Voters notes on a recent City Council Meeting in Salem, MA:

The motion to pass an ordinance to change the language in existing and future ordinances to remove gender bias was distracted by a long debate over the suitability of changing "manhole" to "maintenance hole." Though this linguistic change has no bearing on what anyone else calls the hole leading to sewage, six male councilors, Councilors Dibble, Dominguez, Flynn, McCarthy, Prosniewski, and Sargent, determined that “manhole” must indeed remain masculine. Those men were the majority vote, and they do get to keep their hole.

ouch.

Open thread, y'all.