It's not quite Dogs in Elk, but it will do.

I love you guys.

My brother and I just had a drunken convo about quorum sensing, bacteria and cancer and the mice I helped him irradiate yesterday to undo the tumors inflicted on them ( they were cute and had personalities. #93 was a whiney badass. It's for cancer curing, wee warrior mice!)

Anyway....

I love sciency stuff!

I also love my family but they are driving me crazy after only 2 days. My mother won't stop talking and my father can't hear. And I am far too accustomed to spending most of my time alone with the cats.

silverbacks are scary like woah. apes in general I have no desire to be near. monkeys are a whole different vibe.

I just reread Dogs in Elk. Fucking hilarious. I sort of miss Table Talk.

It narrows down the targets for search. Since we already know that like can exist within our parameters, we look for places that match up with us, increasing our chances of finding life.

Actually I understand why we focus on Earth-like because that could lead to us-like. Though I think that if we can't communicate with a cuttlefish, actual aliens won't be any easier. But my main issh is that the science I read and watch seems to posit that life and evolution only could get going in Earth-like worlds. That could be a translation between actual science and Nova though. I mean there are ice worms and critters who live near black smokers and use no sunlight, I think it might be possible for other places to surprise us. If life exists beyond us, I think the possibilities are actually endless. Which is so cool.

Actually I understand why we focus on Earth-like because that could lead to us-like.

I think that's PR. The biologists I've read don't think that us-like is probable. We're very much a product of chance. It was one of the central points of TAM, since it was dealing with space. They were talking mostly about aquatic life, and how it evolved/lived when the earth was young and nightmarish (to us). It wasn't that they were saying things can only live in an environment that is familiar to us, it's just that since we know life can live in an environment familiar to us, let's focus on planets that are hospitable in a way we know.

It's kind of like they were saying, "it's not that it's impossible that you put your keys in the refrigerator last night, it's just not the first place you'd look for them in the morning...they're likely on the sidetable where you set the mail down when you walked in the door, so look for them there first before checking through the weirder places."

I think that's PR

And good PR because it can get the general population's interest for at least a moment.

I'm just fascinated by the possibilities of where life has developed, what it is like and even what can be defined as life. And I want a visible supernova. You know, girl stuff.

I will return with more weird shit I've read about science, like, "why is our blood red?" tomorrow

Ooh! I know this one! Hemoglobin! Right?

I ate latkes, and they were delicious! But there were not enough of them. Though I suppose I didn't really NEED more, the deliciousness prompted me wanting more.

Also, I have been on a medication for two days which they told me might cause me to lose my appetite a bit. And I think that I am TOTALLY suggestible, and that for weight loss I should totally be given a sugar pill and told it will make me less hungry. Because two days in, I really doubt it's actually doing much yet, but I totally am eating less! Or at least, stopping before I'm stuffed.

Ooh! I know this one! Hemoglobin! Right?

Hee, yep! (That was basically my reaction too. I KNOW THIS. [It's a UNIX system!])