Scientific Research - Tumblr Posts

(via Trial of brain injury implant at Stanford proves so successful patients refuse to turn it off)

A brain implant that allows people with head injuries to function again proved so successful in a trial that participants refused to turn the device off.

I don't know if it's just a coincidence that this document is attached to a scientific report with a paperclip. A letter with a NASA letterhead signed by a Nazi scientist doesn't seem to fit the holidays. I think maybe I should let my curiosity rest for a while and leave these things in the file cabinets where they have been for decades.

This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…

Fallout four fandom research (Sponsored by Vault-tec)

So, fallout four fans are…. An interesting species of gamerus genus to say the least, ranging from those who enjoy the game causally, to roleplayers, to the ones that really need to go outside (GO TOUCH SOME GRASS MAN, YOUR’E NOT IN A VAULT FOR THE LOVE OF DOGMEAT) So, here’s some research I’m done from living amongst this truly…. Complex species.

First, we have the war between Piper, Cait, and Curie fans. I’m more partial to Cait, mainly because my family struggled with drug issues a lot and seeing her overcome it is nice. I do like Piper and Curie, think they’re nice. And I know if any of their fans find this research, I’ll be in deep, heavily radiated water.

We have the hardcore roleplayers, these are cool. They manage to create great stories with the limited resources Bethesda gave them, I have respect for them.

Then we have the ‘Fallout x or fallout y is SO much better’. I will not comment

We have the nexus mods users…. I have luckily not looked into them, but what I’ve heard, they aren’t I’d want to mingle with.

We have the Dogmeat fanatics, I fall into this group. Dogmeat is my child and I love him.

And that concludes my research thus-far. I’ll keep you all updated.

Scientific Paper Review: Insects may or may not be sentient??

Reading this (https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/epdf/10.3920/JIFF2022.0041?role=tab) paper about welfare when farming black soldier flies (published 2023) with the main author being Meghan Barret, who is a super duper cool female scientist that believes strongly in insect welfare (e-portfolio link here: http://meghan-barrett.com/about-me/), and I'm astonished!

Introduction starts off with a quick overview of what the paper is getting into and then dives into background history. I love reading scientific papers simply because there is so much cool stuff to learn. Animal welfare is dependent upon how the animal views how it's doing. A pampered lap dog with depression still has depression. A sad bug living in a super duper cool vivarium (which are way hard to set up) is still sad.

Insects in science may or may not be sentient. How do you define sentient? Where do you draw the line of responding to making decisions? Wild! If insects are sentient we should, of course, treat them like we are. If they aren't how do we determine welfare for something that's not sentient. This isn't about philosophy though so we're continuing on.

There is a model called the five freedoms model. The paper said it best so I'm quoting them here, "According to that influential model of animals’ interests (Brambell, 1965), animals ought to kept in ways that keep them free: (1) from hunger and thirst; (2) from discomfort; (3) from pain, injury, and disease; (4) to express normal behaviour; and (5) from fear and distress.".

From here the introduction continues to go on to explain that it's hard to tell when an insect is doing or has this stuff. If a pet cat decides to be a picky eater, is the owner a bad owner for not keeping them free from hunger and thirst or is the cat being picky? Again though! Not hear for philosophy or ethics that's been discussed a hundred times before.

What can be determined though is if something kills an insect it is bad. If it increases mortality, like a parasite would, it is bad. Good thing is that factors between farmed invertabra (aka bugs) is pretty universal. Another good news is we know a lot about the biology of the black soldier fly! They have six larva stages.

That concludes this part of the post! More coming soon.