szescstopni @szescstopni@social.cleverlibre.org

The Electronic Frontier Foundation will award Alexandra Elbakyan, founder of the 'pirate' library Sci-Hub, for her efforts to provide access to scientific knowledge.

Without Sci-Hub, many academics would be unable to complete their research projects.

#EFF also highlights that Elbakyan’s work helps to challenge the current academic publishing system, where researchers are used as unpaid workhorses.

https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hubs-alexandra-elbakyan-receives-eff-award-for-providing-access-to-scientific-knowledge-230728/

#elsevier #springer #scihub

Since Paul DeJong is in the news, I am obligated to bump this Chemical & Engineering News story https://cen.acs.org/education/outreach/Science-baseball-cards-comic-books/96/i31 #baseball #chemiverse

#vetmed #veterinary #dogsofmastodon

#Covid conscious VET WANTED wanted in #Ireland

for this little guy

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) is releasing a new book on the term that he coined in #enshittification and how to end it. https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con

Everything he said over the past 7+ months about companies and organizations intentionally doing this is so spot on and I'm looking forward to get this and read it.

There's also a DRM-free audiobook version that will get released thanks to crowdfunding once again. You can find out more and contribute here. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

GOOD
MORNING
@StillIRise1963

and it is ABOUT DAMN TIME

'Henrietta Lacks’ living relatives reached a settlement late Monday with the multi-billion-dollar biotechnology company they sued seeking compensation for its routine use of regenerative cells that were taken from her decades ago without her consent, according to a statement released by the family’s lawyers.'

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/economy/science-medicine/henrietta-lacks-settlement-compensation-stolen-cells-biotech-company-JNCPZLQGEZENPCHLR643GKBBGA/

My wife has a PhD in biology. She worked with HeLa cells constantly (and never knew through that time that they were an acronym for someone’s name, much less who that person was).

It’s no exaggeration to say that modern human biological science is built entirely on cells taken from Henrietta Lacks without her family’s permission or even knowledge.

https://researchbuzz.masto.host/@researchbuzz/110814369746877025

I made that, believe or not. In 2021. #photography #bees

New #watercolor #watercolour #watercolors #watercolours #watercolourpainting #landscapepainting #landscape

We dwójkę raźniej

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a new chief. His name is Jim Skea, a 69-year-old Scotsman.

Here is what he said in one of his first interviews after being appointed...
_________________________

Speaking to weekly magazine Der Spiegel, Skea warned against laying too much value on the international community's current nominal target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared the pre-industrial era.

"We should not despair and fall into a state of shock" if global temperatures were to increase by this amount, he said. "The world won't end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees."

Skea also said that one short-term focus should remain expanding renewable electricity to reduce emissions from fossil fuel electricity generation and from internal combustion engine vehicles.

"Longer term, we probably will not be able to do without technological solutions like the underground capture of CO2," he said, referring to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
_________________________

Ah, yes, of course. Good old carbon capture and storage, that magic fairy dust which allows us all to just go ahead with our daily lives and not worry about anything.

You see, their awesome plan is that by 2050 or thereabout, capitalism will have perfected some fancy new technology that will quickly and easily remove a HUGE amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere which can then be stored away safely (we hope) — AND somehow they expect to accomplish all this without having to burn almost an equal amount of fossil fuels to do it.

This is where it's important to remember that the IPCC is *not* a scientific body. It is a political body controlled by the largest and strongest nations, taking input from scientists but filtering what they're given through bureaucrats before presenting recommendations that will support Business As Usual.

And it looks like with Jim Skea, the IPCC has just the man for the job.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-do-not-overstate-15-degrees-threat/a-66386523

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #IPCC #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

The finished patch. I need more practice. But who says visible mending must be perfect 😁

#VisibleMending

@fibrearts

@cohanf I think pollen bearing and ovule bearing are good choices from the terminology that's available now - we'd have to expand our definition of pollen to include mosses and ferns and the like, so we can avoid 'microgametophyte' which I don't think would get much traction. Polliniferous and ovuliferous perhaps. The terms exist, and though it would certainly take getting used to, they're easy to explain and more informative than 'male' and 'female'.

It's interesting to think of the fact that the reproductive process is called 'pollination,' referring to the classically male side of the process only. And then there's dioecious and monoecious, referring to households, and hermaphroditic, referring to male and female gods. Even the words 'ovum' and 'seed' have their connotations to the human situation and the word 'gamete' is just the Greek for 'wife'. Some of it may be unavoidable, I'm not advocating we change the entire vocabulary though, just the worst offenders - for now.

Just one example: the mindblowing volume that botanist Anne Wollstonecraft wrote in the 1820s in Cuba, only permissable because she did so under the guise of being an illustrator - beside making exquisite illustrations and detailed descriptions, she interviewed the indigenous people of Cuba and wrote about the ways in which they saw and used plants. Something a gentleman explorer would never ever do! The book was never published, only a single (!) hand-written (!!!) volume exists. It makes one weep at what could have been, had women been permitted to participate in this sexy, horny field of botany. How much richer we could all have been, how much more complete our understanding of the world. All because we had to frontload the whole thing with our own prejudices and sexist nonsense.

(2/3)

When you look at some fern spores under a microscope and the spores are just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#sporespondence #fernfriday

Za każdym razem, co roku, jak tylko syreny zawyją libki na baczność staną a następnie zwyzywają Testament Polski Walczącej od Bolszewików. ZA KAŻDYM JEDNYM RAZEM.

@mkfirma dlaczego nazywa Pan powstańców bolszewikami?

Behind every bit of climate denial is somebody getting paid off.

British PM Sunak appears to be no different.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/sunaks-family-firm-signed-a-billion-dollar-deal-with-bp-before-pm-opened-new-north-sea-licences-353690/

#UKPolitics #Sunak #Climate #ClimateCrisis

@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs it’s a Thing in California - they love the cheatgrass and flammable weeds and they’re nimble enough to work the steepest hillsides.
We hired a local flock at our last house. It was set into the hillside on one acre of absurdly steep and wooded redwoods, and the invasive shit was winning the understory war. A really nice mountain weirdo with about thirty goats, one longhorn heifer, and two LGDs came out one afternoon. He and a helper set up electronet with big marine batteries, and the goats and cow went right to work. They slowly moved through the entire property over three days, making the most peaceful sounds, Doing The Job. Like they clearly understood the gig, and of course the Anatolians did too. He said the heifer just refused to stay home when the goats went out on a job, so now she gets to go too 😂
At the very end they did escape, up the almost complete vertical slope onto the road above, but local Facebook immediately knew they were Wes’s goats. He’d gone to get the trailer and they were like, looks like more food if we keep going thataway, lol.
The thing is, it IS a job for an entire flock. They stuck together and ate everything in a slow wave across the property - but one or two loose goats will just kinda wander. The flock had its LGD members, and they knew the dogs were keeping them safe from lions, and they had zero desire to leave the flock and wander away on their own. It would take good training and a lot of luck to build that from a new flock, you know?
Amazing to watch them work. They were so peaceful! They ate it all, too: english ivy, poison oak, scotch broom, hazelnuts, even the low growing redwood fronds.
Wait, fuck, what IS a group of goats? It’s a flock of sheep. English is so dumb.