George Just Told Me What Littlefingers Winds Of Winter Arc Is Going To Be Btw. He’s Going To Try To

As someone from konkan who called people in hilly/pahadi regions of Western Ghats "Desi" this information is even weirder...

'Desi' meant something entirely different to me growing up, tbh. We're in a mountainous region, we're from the hills so we called ourselves and the culture and the native flora and fauna 'pahadi' ('of the mountains') and that stood in opposition to 'desi' - used to mean 'of the plains'.

Then I started seeing people call themselves 'desi' to mean 'Indian', then saw it being used in a general 'south asian' sense, particularly oved the internet or in more global (but informal) contexts. I probably tagged some of my posts that had to do with something specific to India 'desi' too bc I didn't know how else to find others to talk to that stuff about but even then I never used the term for myself because it has never fit. And the kind of people I saw using it, often disapora South Asians but also particularly people from northern plain regions of India, I'd say I didn't see myself fit with their idea of desi anyway at the end of the day. And I never could get on board with using 'desi' to refer to all South Asian or even all Indian people when that's just one Hindi word, felt like ceding more ground to the homogenising of language and culture to place Hindi at the centre of the Indian identity, why would I say desi to refer to myself when I've always said pahadi, why would I say desi to refer to my friends from southern India and north east India when that's never who we referred to as 'desi' and they won't use that word in their own languages anyway, let alone why would I use it to refer to South Asians as a whole?

Obviously it's being used a certain way to have a shorthand for an identity and that's fine and whatever, and obviously there are hegemonic reasons for why That ended up being the word in common use (Hindi, north indian). I just prefer saying what I actually mean especially when I'm referring to my own identity and I think Indian, South Asian, etc etc fulfill that purpose better as far as I'm concerned

Unexpected complex chemistry in primordial galaxy

University of Arizona astronomers have learned more about a surprisingly mature galaxy that existed when the universe was just less than 300 million years old – just 2% of its current age.

Observed by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the galaxy – designated JADES-GS-z14-0 – is unexpectedly bright and chemically complex for an object from this primordial era, the researchers said. This provides a rare glimpse into the universe's earliest chapter.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, build upon the researchers' previous discovery, reported in 2024, of JADES-GS-z14-0 as the most distant galaxy ever observed. While the initial discovery established the galaxy's record-breaking distance and unexpected brightness, this new research delves deeper into its chemical composition and evolutionary state.

The work was done as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, a major James Webb Space Telescope program designed to study distant galaxies.

This wasn't simply stumbling upon something unexpected, said Kevin Hainline, co-author of the new study and an associate research professor at the U of A Steward Observatory. The survey was deliberately designed to find distant galaxies, but this one broke the team's records in ways they didn't anticipate – it was intrinsically bright and had a complex chemical composition that was totally unexpected so early in the universe's history.

"It's not just a tiny little nugget. It's bright and fairly extended for the age of the universe when we observed it," Hainline said.

"The fact that we found this galaxy in a tiny region of the sky means that there should be more of these out there," said lead study author Jakob Helton, a graduate researcher at Steward Observatory. "If we looked at the whole sky, which we can't do with JWST, we would eventually find more of these extreme objects."

The research team used multiple instruments on board JWST, including the Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, whose construction was led by U of A Regents Professor of Astronomy Marcia Rieke. Another instrument on the telescope – the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, revealed something extraordinary: significant amounts of oxygen.

In astronomy, anything heavier than helium is considered a "metal," Helton said. Such metals require generations of stars to produce. The early universe contained only hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium. But the discovery of substantial oxygen in the JADES-GS-z14-0 galaxy suggests the galaxy had been forming stars for potentially 100 million years before it was observed.

To make oxygen, the galaxy must have started out very early on, because it would have had to form a generation of stars, said George Rieke, Regents Professor of Astronomy and the study's senior author. Those stars must have evolved and exploded as supernovae to release oxygen into interstellar space, from which new stars would form and evolve.

"It's a very complicated cycle to get as much oxygen as this galaxy has. So, it is genuinely mind boggling," Rieke said.

The finding suggests that star formation began even earlier than scientists previously thought, which pushes back the timeline for when the first galaxies could have formed after the Big Bang.

The observation required approximately nine days of telescope time, including 167 hours of NIRCam imaging and 43 hours of MIRI imaging, focused on an incredibly small portion of the sky.

The U of A astronomers were lucky that this galaxy happened to sit in the perfect spot for them to observe with MIRI. If they had pointed the telescope just a fraction of a degree in any direction, they would have missed getting this crucial mid-infrared data, Helton said.

"Imagine a grain of sand at the end of your arm. You see how large it is on the sky – that's how large we looked at," Helton said.

The existence of such a developed galaxy so early in cosmic history serves as a powerful test case for theoretical models of galaxy formation.

"Our involvement here is a product of the U of A leading in infrared astronomy since the mid-'60s, when it first started. We had the first major infrared astronomy group over in the Lunar and Planetary lab, with Gerard Kuiper, Frank Low and Harold Johnson," Rieke said.

As humans gain the ability to directly observe and understand galaxies that existed during the universe's infancy, it can provide crucial insights into how the universe evolved from simple elements to the complex chemistry necessary for life as we know it.

"We're in an incredible time in astronomy history," Hainline said. "We're able to understand galaxies that are well beyond anything humans have ever found and see them in many different ways and really understand them. That's really magic."

TOP IMAGE: This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was taken by the onboard Near-Infrared Camera for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, program. The NIRCam data was used to determine which galaxies to study further with spectroscopic observations. One such galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0 (shown in the pullout), was determined to be at a redshift of 14.3, making it the current record-holder for most distant known galaxy. This corresponds to a time less than 300 million years after the big bang.  NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Marcia Rieke (University of Arizona), Daniel Eisenstein (CfA), Phill Cargile (CfA)

LOWER IMAGE: Timeline of the universe: Although we are not sure exactly when the first stars began to shine, we know that they must have formed sometime after the era of Recombination, when hydrogen and helium atoms formed (380,000 years after the big bang), and before the oldest-known galaxies existed (400 million years after the big bang). The ultraviolet light emitted by the first stars broke down the neutral hydrogen gas filling the universe into hydrogen ions and free electrons, initiating the era of Reionization and the end of the Dark Ages of the universe.  NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

they should have hugged🥺

To anyone who follows me, I don't care about nor trust Colossal Biosciences anymore (The people behind the "Wooly Mice"). They have proven themselves to be headline-chasing grifters after this latest stunt. They are claiming to have de-extincted *Aenocyon dirus*, aka the Dire Wolf, by editing just 20 genes from the the DNA of a Grey Wolf (*Canis lupus*) to make this thing:

If it wasn't clear from their scientific names, Grey Wolves and Dire Wolves aren't remotely related to one another aside from being Canids, despite what pop culture like Game of Thrones would have you believe. If they did look like each other, it would have had to be via convergent evolution, as they only shared a common ancestor over 5 million years ago.

This distinction, however, isn't found in the publicized articles about this so-called resurrected Dire Wolf and makes their claim that they brought the Dire Wolf back by simply editing *20* genes from the genome of a Grey Wolf laughable. A Dire Wolf would have shared more in common genetically with a Maned Wolf (*Chrysocyon brachyurus*) or Bush Dog (*Speothos venaticus*) than it would with a Grey Wolf.

Bottom line, don't fall for whatever this company is trying to tell you. If the Dire Wolf were to be brought back, it wouldn't be via something like this, and certainly wouldn't *look* like this. If you want an idea as to how a real Dire Wolf would look like in life, here is some fantastic paleoart by artist Mauricio Antón:

Addendum: I seem to have partially miscalculated Dire Wolf genetics. They were not closer to Maned Wolves or Bush Dogs, but they were still not closely related to Grey Wolves. They were basal members of Canini, related to canids like Jackals (genus Lupulella) but distinct from them. I am sorry for this misinformation in my attempt to correct other misinformation. My main point, however, is still correct.

actually the reveal that there was no timeskip at all is hysterical. milchick really spent that whole weekend going all over town firing people, hiring people, putting together insane fruit baskets, and serving cunt in his motorcycle helmet. then at the orders of the board he had to very quickly fire the people he hired, rehire the people he fired, commission an oil painting for the severed floor lobby, redecorate the break room, and put together an award-winning claymation corporate apology video designed to showcase the new innie perks and reforms that don't exist as well as that one time helena eagan's innie sucked face with the innie whose outie his ex-boss is obsessed with. where is HIS waffle party

happy birthday sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As your present, I Drew that guy you really hate again

Thank you for making such fire books

Don’t kill me this is a shitpost

Rhaenyra, Realm's Delight

I still get excited when my friends refer to me as their friend

"My friend said" "this is my friend" "they're my friend"

Im freaking out inside every time

"True power can reside wherever the hell it wants but not with me! Now let me swing my sword around" is the only acceptable answer to Varys's riddle from the sellsword's perspective and Jaime wins the game

it’s soooo crazy that after jaime killed aerys they ASKED him who he was declaring king was he naming himself or tywin or robert or viserys. because so much of the power politics so much of the crown power is this long absurd constructed legitimacy oh the baratheons have a targ ancestor it’s almost continuity that’s why it’s ok. you can’t kill a king and get rid of all that power it was more inherent than that. but when the kings dead on the floor that doesn’t fucking matter at all ask the kid who killed him if he’s king now it’s a moment out of reality. he might as well be isn’t that the way it worked back then. none of that was real it’s all violence might makes right and momentum and jaime says i don’t care name whoever you like. it won’t be me