Cary

Companies seek a competitive edge by hiring talented people, yet many capable workers are overlooked because they have autism.

People with autism are unemployed at disproportionate levels. As a result, companies are missing out on employees able to make valuable contributions. And society at large is affected since the situation creates inequities and financial dependence.

So why is it happening? Largely because autism is poorly understood and managers are ill-informed about how to accommodate affected workers.

Fortunately, recent research has provided us with many strategies to make workplaces more inclusive.

The diverse ways autism presents

Autism is a developmental disorder that people are born with. It is a spectrum disorder since it encompasses a wide range of symptoms and abilities. Each individual with autism is unique, and the way their condition presents itself varies.

Common symptoms include trouble “reading” social/emotional cues and difficulties with conventional language and communication skills. Some autistic people are non-verbal and use assistive technologies, making it important to remember that being non-verbal does not mean being incapable.

Another common symptom is repetitive thoughts or behaviours, including “stimming.” Stimming may include hand flapping, rocking, etc. It’s a reaction to being overwhelmed by a situation or by everyday stimuli.

Stimming helps people cope by focusing intensely on a specific sensation or behaviour. People who stim report that they find it embarrassing but critical in order to calm themselves. As such, the lack of social acceptability of stimming can be a greater workplace problem than the activity itself.

Lack of empathy is frequently cited as an autistic trait. This characterization is disputed by the autism community and by evidence from psychologists.

Both suggest that some people with autism may suffer from excessive levels of empathy that overwhelm, but the way they express it is not well-recognized. Other traits associated with autism include the ability to focus intensively, persistence and high detail orientation.

Unspoken social etiquette can be a mystery

Many barriers experienced by workers with autism relate to social/communication difficulties and are affected by how they behave but also how others perceive them.

For example, people with autism are often accused of lacking in emotion. They do experience emotions, but tend to express them in ways that are not readily recognized. Socially, they may dominate conversations while focusing on narrow interests, have difficulty understanding variations in tone and reading body language and facial expressions, and they may take things inappropriately literally.

Many find eye contact overwhelming, leading to avoidance that is mistaken for being anti-social.

Norms can be difficult for people with autism to perceive. The unspoken social etiquette that everyone is expected to instinctively know may be a mystery, negatively impacting job performance when expectations are not clearly communicated.

Change can also be anxiety-inducing and lead to challenging behaviours if it happens unexpectedly. Heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as smells and sounds can lead to reactions that seem extreme. A lack of understanding of those reactions often leads to those with autism being labelled “difficult,” and those labels create additional problems.

Accommodation strategies for employers

Many people with autism are able to focus intensively. If a topic interests them, they will spent large amounts of time developing expertise. Attention to detail, combined with heightened pattern recognition skills, are also common traits, leading many autistic people to become technical experts in their fields.

Some people with autism enjoy repetitive routines and can tolerate work that others find monotonous. Others are creative, able to visualize solutions to complex problems and develop unique insights. People with autism are also known for being forthright and are less likely to engage in toxic political behaviours.

There are many accommodation strategies workplaces can adopt for employees with autism. Here are some:

1. Reduce workplace stimuli

There are many ways to reduce unnecessary stimuli at work. I’m providing some examples but this should not be considered an exhaustive list. Solutions are limited only by one’s creativity.

Physical blocking of work spaces can reduce distractions. Examples include providing private offices or cubicles that face a corner. Whenever possible, LEDs should replace noisy and intense fluorescent lights. Noise-cancelling headphones can also be used, although some people will not be able to tolerate the sensation.

Similarly, uniforms can be a problem if the fabric is itchy, collars are tight or there are tags that irritate. Wardrobe flexibility may be needed.

Moving beyond the physical, minimizing interruptions can also help. You could encourage the use of e-mail instead of phone calls and ask people to use meeting rooms instead of hallways for conversations lasting more than a couple of minutes. Co-workers could be asked to schedule chats instead of “popping in.”

Regardless of your efforts, workplaces may still overwhelm sometimes. A “quiet room can be very beneficial.” They are darkened rooms in a low-traffic places containing comfortable furniture and a minimum of other sources of stimulation. Spending time in a quiet room helps people with autism cope when overwhelmed, and non-autistic workers also report psychological benefits from quiet spaces.

2. Create a culture of clear communication

The communication and social difficulties experienced by people with autism are heavily intertwined. And so resolving communication issues will also help with social difficulties.

First, make unspoken norms explicit. Managers should be trained to provide detailed instructions in writing and avoid ambiguity in task assignments. Things that may seem obvious, such as how to prioritize assignments, should be explicitly explained.

Performance criteria should be clearly outlined and employees should be capable of monitoring their progress. It is worth noting that these steps help all workers, and represent documented best workplace practices.

Workers with autism report that their ability to communicate is increased when they are able to see questions in advance, when people avoid jumping between multiple topics and when their intent is not judged by eye contact or having the “right” facial expression.

3. Offer social and emotional coaching

Even with the supports already outlined, workers with autism may find the social and emotional behaviours of others mystifying. A coach can be helpful. That mentor could be a trained co-worker or an outside expert. Co-workers may also benefit from receiving information to increase understanding.

These are all simple steps that can help employers leverage the large group of under-utilized workers with autism in the labour pool.

Many of these accommodations could help all workers and represent good business practice. Accommodating autism, therefore, has the potential to make our workplaces more just and productive for all.

Katherine Breward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

fuckyeahbats:

BEHOLD

beyoncescock:

who else does this?

feministism:

haraamzada:

nadia-xing:

somecutething:

I love this so much

“U DID ME A BAMBOOZLE”

uncommonbish:

Happy Juneteenth!

carnival-phantasm:

wyrmmaster:

carnival-phantasm:

Y'all better be going to bed at a reasonable time, don’t make me tuck you in and kiss you goodnight

don’t threaten me with a good time

Last warning before I sing you a lullaby, fucker

macabrevolution:

jehovahhthickness:

The biggest dick energy

Source: [x]

Click HERE for more facts!

fuzzykitty01:

bouncybat:

shuraiya:

I’M SCREAMING

HE’S DRYING HIS LITTLE FACE

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOOOOOOOODDDDDDD

WHAT

OHMYGOSSSSSSSSSH

tilthat:

TIL the first student protest in the United States happened at Harvard in 1766 when a student yelled out “Behold, our butter stinketh!— give us therefore, butter that stinketh not.” This sparked The Great Butter Rebellion.

via ift.tt

happycottage:

Bunny appreciation post ♡

wildragon:

blaruu:

thominyourside:

tilthat:

TIL some people can “flex” muscles in their inner ears to produce a low rumbling sound

via reddit.com

yeah babey we sure fuckin can * closes my eyes real tight to give myself the brain thunders*

Wait this isn’t normal?

Like all you gotta do is shut your eyes tight and your ears go BRLLLLBBBBBRRRRR. It’s like when you yawn and it makes the same noise or when you’re hit by a loud sound ish.

I need to know the science behind this and why I can vibrate my eyes

Why do you need to close your eyes tight to make the sound? Because I don’t need to do that to ear it. I can “flex” my inner ears muscles I guess.

Last week I asked you to share stories of petty moments at work — your own or other people’s. Here are some of the stand-outs.

1. “At one of my early jobs one of my coworkers was a, shall we say, interesting character. She was called out about something in a meeting and was fuming at the rest of us. The next morning she came in, went into the rest room (so I hear) and then went into her boss’ office to quit on the spot. She left without a word to anyone else.

Later it was discovered that she had removed every roll of toilet tissue from the rest room.”

2. “Had a client tell me to move their name down 1/32nd of inch on their biz card. I changed the name of the file to indicate it was revised, sent it back to them with a cheerful ‘here you go!’ and they replied back it was perfect!”

3. “I…once made up a non-existent ‘change management committee’ to avoid this kind of thing (endless requests for minor changes). There was a form. The form was *very* detailed.

It was at a government job, as a web developer, with a lot of middle managers. There was a lot of bueracracy in everything else, but we were friendly and would generally just change things on request, at least for internal sites. This…was a mistake, because no one else could get anything done, so they’d go on the warpath about font choices. When I started telling them there was now a change management committee for the internal site, no one questioned it, and the requests disappeared after we introduced a form (we still fixed and improved things, just stopped swapping fonts every week). We even held committee meetings, which were really a extended coffee break.”

4. “I got fired from a position, in a pretty awful way. I was mad and then spent the next few months randomly writing ‘missed connections’ ads on Craigslist, posting various manager’s office phone numbers as a call back.”

5. “Once upon a time, I worked as (what was essentially) a copy editor for a healthcare company, in an environment that I would definitely label ‘toxic.’ Most of my job consisted in making comments in PDF documents – remove this comma, we can’t legally use that word, etc., etc. and people would invariably try to avoid making any edits (even stuff that was an obvious typo or a legal liability) and complain the whole way through. Couple this with a boss who was a people-pleaser, and it was eventually decided that, even though PDF comments are already the easiest thing in the world to read, we needed to write out a separate description of every single comment whenever we submitted any edits: where the comment was in the doc, what the comment was about, and the rationale for making the comment.

My colleague and I did so, with some grumbling. ‘On page two, second paragraph, there is an comma that needs to be removed. We adhere to AP style, which doesn’t use the ‘Oxford’ or ‘Serial’ comma.’ Then, our boss told us that people were complaining we weren’t ‘detailed enough’ in our descriptions.

Fine. You want to play that way? My colleague and I would turn five small comments into 500 word essays. ‘On page two of the attache brochure, inside the green box in the second paragraph, three lines down, in between the fifth and sixth word, the comma should be removed. This comma is an Oxford comma. An Oxford comma is also known as a serial comma…’ [insert explanation of what an Oxford comma is, along with examples, then conclude by stating that as we adhere to AP style, we do not use said comma. However, the AP itself has some exceptions…you get the picture]

We did this for a couple of weeks before they finally said: ‘Okay, maybe you don’t have to be *so* detailed.’”

6. “I’m a graphic designer for a company that has a lot of athlete ambassadors, and thus a lot of my coworkers fancy themselves elite athletes as well (they’re not). For a New Years post on social media, we had a ‘meet the team’ post where everyone on the team had a picture and a bio of them using their favorite athletic product we manufacture. I have one coworker that particularly thinks he’s god’s gift to the world and has a huge ego about his supposed athletic ability, and it drives me INSANE. So as the graphic designer, I built out all of the posts before posting on the brand’s social media. This coworker put one of his personal records in his bio, so I decided to take his bloated ego down a couple pegs and added a zero to the end of his record time. After it was posted, he noticed immediately and had a total temper tantrum, crying about how people are now going to think he’s super slow! It was so *chef’s kiss* satisfying.”

7. “When I worked as a cashier in Target, if a customer was especially horrible to me (seriously though why are some people so mean to cashiers) I would start to scan the items on the conveyor belt slower…and slower…..a n d s l o w e r.. .. .. . .a n d s l o w e r . . . . until I could see them seething at my incredibly frustrating pace. I would take their money and punch in the amount slowly and bag their items at the same pace too. And to make sure they knew I was being a d*ck specifically to THEM, I would then make sure they saw me scan and bag the next customer’s items very fast as they collected their bagged items. I’m lucky I never received a complaint.”

8. “I once worked a soul-crushing job in a very toxic place. The company was having some financial struggles, and they were doing a lot of hasty layoffs and trying to guilt everyone into saving as much money as possible. I finally found another job, after 8 years, and I gleefully put in my 2 weeks’ notice. The place had gotten so stingy in the past 2 years, that they completely stopped buying office supplies. A lot of people brought their own and kept them locked in their desks, but the remaining supplies were hoarded often and there was a lot of drama surrounding the sharing of these supplies. The office only had one good, heavy-duty stapler, and our office produced reams and reams of paper reports needing said stapler. It sat in a place of honor in the middle of the department, and screaming matches erupted if it was moved even an inch from its spot. Taking it back to your desk, for even a moment, was career suicide.

I staying late on my very last day in the office, and I took that stapler with me when I left for the last time. I have it at my desk at home, and I barely ever use it, but it’s my trophy of pettiness. I was underpaid by 30% there, lied to when I brought it up to management, and pressured to donate my time to the company ‘off the books’ all the time. I now have a much better job and a really great heavy-duty stapler.”

9. “A manager at our small not-for-profit would often eat in the resource library that doubled as a meeting room. Sometimes she would bring her daughter to work and the daughter would do craft projects and make a huge mess. This meant staff would be scrambling for other meeting space, but the executive director never said a word about the mess or the room being used as a daycare. The manager would often direct the receptionist (a revolving series of temps) to clean it up at the end of the day. This would include lunch containers, food spilled, and glue and glitter all over the table and require a lot of scrubbing.

Our board personnel committee used that room for a committee meeting before the regular board meeting. One night, supposedly because we were so busy doing board meeting set up in the other room, the receptionist ‘forgot’ to clean the small meeting room. The first board member who walked in said, ‘What the HELL happened in here!?!’ and the receptionist sweetly said ‘Oh, that’s X’s daughter’s playroom. Sorry, I haven’t had time to clean it up the way X likes yet. I usually bill an extra 15 minutes to do it after my regular work day.’”

10. “A coworker, Jane, was very protective of her lunch hour (and the culture of our office was you eat lunch when possible and sometimes that might be late or early to accommodate other meetings) so her attitude was out of sync with the office. We had a grand boss that liked to schedule meetings right at lunchtime, and when Jane asked for them to be moved for her lunch grand boss said just bring lunch in with you if needed.

So Jane brought in a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly jars, and a tray of cheeses and proceeded to make everyone in the meeting a sandwich and cheese plate during the meeting. Neither she nor the grand boss blinked at this and for awhile we all had yummy veggie trays, sandwiches, and once a full salmon (like the ENTIRE grilled fish cut into servings conference table side) during lunchtime meetings. It was the craziest showdown ever- and both people were pretty miserable so it was great to watch.”

the stolen toilet paper, the fake committee, and other petty moments at work was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

gallusrostromegalus:

gallusrostromegalus:

gallusrostromegalus:

So while I was getting my haircut, the lady asked me if I had other plans for the day and I said:

“I’m just going to pick up the boy from daycare and then it’s date night.”

And the lady says “Oh! How old is he?”

“He’s three.”

“Mine too! Where are you registering him for kindergarten it’s such a hassle-”

And that’s when I realized I said “boy” and not “dog” because I always think of Charlie as “good boy” but this slip up has lead to a miscommunication.

The lady is now 6 minutes into a clearly needed rant about how unnecessarily complex shopping for schools is, esp when you have a neurodivergent child, so I can’t just tell her that Charlie is a dog because then she’ll feel awkward for unloading on me and she clearly has enough going on.

So the rest of the haircut became a game of “how much can I say about Charlie without revealing that he is not a human child?” And the answer is “enough to cover a half hour hair appointment, quite possibly several hours worth if I’m specific enough”

“is he very verbal?”

“It really depends on who he’s with. He’s very quiet at he but won’t shut up if he’s at the park or has a friend over.”

“was it hard to potty-train him?”

“he’s adopted, but I was genuinely amazed at how good he already was with hygene and potty stuff.”

“mine’s just obsessed with paw patrol and Frozen, drives me crazy!”

“I imagine. Charlie is colorblind so he’s not as into tv, but he always wants a toy if I take him anywhere with them.”

“oh gosh the toys! And the kids are so rough on them!”

“yeah Charlie can destroy a stuffed animal in about 2 minutes, so I only buy him the really cheap ones.”

“Does he throw tantrums when they break?”

“Not really. It’s meditative, really, taking them apart. He has hysterics if the cat takes his toys though. Runs downstairs and cries at me until I retrieve it because he’s not tall enough to get it out of the cat tree.”

The Very Good Boy in question, Charleston Chew.

---

(if you want to read more of my much weirder adventures, I have pre-orders for my book on Patreon right now: https://www.patreon.com/gallusrostromegalus )

A new paper from NVIDIA recently made waves with its photorealistic human portraits. Called StyleGAN, the algorithm had a new training dataset pulled from Flickr, with a wider range of ages and skin tones than in other portrait datasets. (If your pictures are on Flickr with the right license, your picture might have been used to train StyleGAN). Thanks to that big dataset, a new method of generating images, and a staggering amount of computer power, its human faces are indeed impressive. But, to prove that their method doesn’t just work for human faces, they also generated bedrooms, and cars… and cats.

The cats are so much fun.

In many ways, generating cats is more of a challenge than generating human faces, since cats can be in so many different poses. It has an easier time generating texture than figuring out where all the legs and tails go.

I’ve noticed that for some reason, whenever it generates kittens, one is normal and the rest are haunted. There must be something difficult about pictures containing multiple subjects.

Its humans are even worse, proving that the difference between it and the version that was impressively good at generating human faces was all in the training data.

Speaking of training data, StyleGAN’s training data was something called LSUN Cat. Evidently, LSUN Cat’s images were sourced from the internet, because when it generated some cats, it added meme text to them, assuming that white blocky lettering is just part of what “cat” is.

It also attempted to generate cats with the Shutterstock watermark, although actually spelling “Shutterstock” proved tricky for it.

Another delightful thing about its internet-derived dataset: quite a lot of the cats look an awful lot like Grumpy Cat. She’s only one cat, but she had a profound impact on what StyleGAN thinks cats look like.

There are far more amazing cats than would fit in this blog post. In this bonus material, I’ve collected a few more of my favorites, including several with meme text, perfect for your internet communication needs. You can get them by entering your email here.

You can look through 100,000 example cats, and generate your own, here.

daco-broman:

im-not-a-skelmersdale-monster:

Absolute shenanigans

this is the best video on this whole website

teashoesandhair:

petermorwood:

watchfor:

trishmishtree:

starrynight35:

aquilacalvitium:

jackslenderman:

strangeracrossthestreet:

deadjosey:

callmebliss:

stuff-n-n0nsense:

babyanimalgifs:

This is so wholesome

Update: he finally got the cat to the vet to see if she had a microchip

I was already on board with his sweet wholesome open-to-love-and-nurturing heart but I was fully unprepared for getting to that last tweet and seeing how off the hook HOT dude is

https://twitter.com/pariszarcilla?lang=en heres his twitter is here there is also additonal cat photos of his children. 

CAT DAD IS BACK

aww, the kids grow up so fast. ;-;

HHHHHHHH I LOVE CAT DAD!

This is, by far, the single most adorable fucking thing I have ever seen. 

update:

I love that he kept …. All of them.

I’ve reblogged the earlier part of this thread before, and the new stuff makes it even better.

This is the Tumblr equivalent of a warm hug on a cold day.

You’re welcome.

bedbugsbiting:

My therapist said “I have to show you something on my phone!”

It was this:

astolat:

badscienceshenanigans:

0hcicero:

beautifulchaos-anumcara:

buzzfeed:

adulthoodisokay:

adulthoodisokay:

aimee-b-loved:

bijoux-et-mineraux:

reclusiveandelusive:

tsreckoah:

naughtylittledragon:

nassadii:

tsreckoah:

thepioden:

vulcanology-geology:

mollisaurus:

lizaleigh:

zdravomilla:

brambledboneyards:

xekstrin:

bijoux-et-mineraux:

Polished Malachite Stalactite - Copper Crescent, Congo

*looks around*

Is

Is anyone gonna say it

malachite is a poisonous mineral. please do not fuck the malachite stalactite

@lizaleigh do you know any rock people that can confirm/deny because I am very curious and really don’t feel like getting into a conversation with my geophysicist brother that MAY somehow get back to the fact I saw a malachite that looked like a weird dildo.

…sadly, I am not on good enough terms with any of our partner geologists to just attach this to an email with the subject line: “EXPLAIN.”

Although I think @mollisaurus is a mineral person. Thoughts?

oh geeze, i’m kinda rusty on minerals but malachite is just copper carbonate and is really common in both antique and modern jewelry so i think like if you were really gun-ho about it you could go ahead and put it wherever you want?

It’s really only a problem if you’re polishing or cutting it. The particles would be bad to breathe. It’s rather porous too, so I would worry about bacteria growing. Well, being literal anyway… Better to leave the poor thing alone. ._.

I mean it kinda depends on where you stick it because malachite does not like acidic environments very much and the malachite will degrade and also might dye your bits blue-green as the copper dissolves out.

So use a condom when fucking rocks is the takeaway here.

Oh my god guys it’s poisonous

It is super poisonous

There is a reason we do not use it in make up any more

Not even with a condom, do not fuck the rock

Try this one instead. 

malachite literally explodes in water does it not?

I… no… I think you’re thinking of pure sodium?

Malachite is however water soluble, which really just means it will poison you quicker

This is both hilarious and cool as fuck because you’re getting all this information on minerals and rocks. You’re also watching people argue over wether or not you can fuck this rock

I go on hiatus for a week and come back to find tumblr molesting my post, but hey, at least we all learned something so yay tumblr, you just keep on  being you.

I’m still not sure if I can fuck this rock.

I’m looking into it.

UPDATE:

Today in “I’m so sorry, coworkers, it’s for Tumblr,” I brought this post to the attention the science reporters at BuzzFeed. Dan Vergano did a some research and weighed in on the question “Can you use malachite as a dildo or is it toxic?”

The answer is “It’s probably fine, just wash it first and maybe use a bunch of lube.”

Oh man this got so much better than the last time I saw this post

This is my favourite. Science side of tumblr: asking the REAL questions

*biologist crashes through the underbrush*

Ok so here’s the thing though

Malachite is not poisonous to YOU. BUT fucking this stalactite will probably wreck your vaginal flora and leave you with a gruesome infection within a couple days.

Want details? SO GLAD YOU ASKED, ‘CAUSE HERE THEY ARE.

• Malachite is not copper oxide. It’s Cu₂CO₃(OH)₂. Like most carbonates it’s water soluble– that’s how it became a stalactite in the first place! And technically any given chunk of “malachite” isn’t just malachite– it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. This will become important later. 

• When malachite dissolves it makes a bunch of copper (Cu++) ions. Cu++ is GREAT at killing bacteria and fungi– so good at it that sprays with Cu++ get used a lot as a spray in agriculture to stop plant disease. It takes such a large dose to harm larger organisms that copper sprays are used a lot in organic agriculture (like Bordeaux mixture). 

So bottom line, yes malachite is technically nontoxic to humans. But it kills bacteria when it dissolves and releases Cu++.

• Malachite dissolves somewhat slowly in water– but vaginal secretions aren’t just any water. A healthy human vagina has a pH of 3.8-4.5 and a salinity of about 0.9%. It’s also warmer than your average underground cave at 37°C (or 98.5°F in American meat units). As luck would have it, acidity, salinity, and warmth all make malachite dissolve faster. 

• In other words, the human vagina dissolves malachite. 

• I have no deeper explanation for why human females can dissolve rocks with our genitals. It simply is. 

• Gonna to take a quick moment to point out that sex toys that dissolve when you use them are maybe not the best investment. 

• Anyway the key question now is “how fast does the human vagina dissolve malachite?” Are we talking geological timescale, a Nazis-in-Indiana-Jones situation, or something in between? If the reaction kinetics of dissolution are very slow, then there’s nothing to worry about. An encounter with a stalactite would have to last years for enough Cu++ to leach out to cause problems. If it’s quick then we’re in trouble. 

• Unfortunately it looks like nobody really knows. One of the best sources on how malachite dissolves & precipitates in water– an EPA document on how to avoid too much Cu++ in municipal drinking water systems– helpfully says “The kinetic constraints on the formation of these solids in water systems are largely unexplored” (p. 42) because end equilibrium points is all you need to run a city water system safely. In other words, the experiments that would tell us how fast malachite dissolves in various types of water just don’t exist because nobody’s ever needed to know before. So we’d better assume it’s going to happen reasonably quickly, #for safety.

• So in best scientific fashion, we’re just going to bullshit our way ahead using what facts we DO have on hand: endpoint equlibria. 

• Is there any info out there telling us what equilibrium concentration of Cu++ we get in salty acidic water at body temperature? Almost! One J.F. Scaife published some great data on this back in 1957. TAKE IT AWAY, SCAIFE. 

That orange box is how many moles of dissolved Cu++ Scaife got from sticking malachite in some water that had 0.171 moles NaCl/L (body salinity is about 0.154 moles NaCl/L so this is slightly less salty than people) at 30°C. He’s got no acidity in there, and again the salinity and temperature are slightly lower than people. But this is probably the closest we’re going to get to data on how malachite behaves in vaginas anytime soon, folks. From this we can take away that if you leave malachite alone in a vagina you’ll get AT LEAST 9.12 x 10^-4 moles/L, or 5.8 ppm, of Cu++ at equilibrium. 

• Recall from above that most “malachite” isn’t actually pure malachite, it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. The EPA document elaborates: “[T]raditional ‘eyeball’ identification of malachite by its blue-green color is extremely unreliable, because almost all cupric hydroxysulfates, hydroxycarbonates, hydroxychlorides, and even fresh cupric hydroxide can be some shade of blue-green. … Thus, the uncertainty in the computed copper concentration in equilibrium with malachite is at least about a factor of 2 … until further experimental data focusing on this problem is generated.”

In other words, “do your math and then double how much Cu++ you think is going to be in the water, just in case.” So that gives us 11.6ppm Cu++, at equilibrium, with malachite in a (til now!) healthy vagina. 

• Next step: do we have any idea what happens to bacteria in acid conditions with copper? OH MY GOD WE TOTALLY DO. Gyawali et al 2011 checked this out in the context of “so what if we rinsed tomatoes with a solution of lactic acid and copper, because that would be a safe & organic way to get rid of E. coli?” So now this post has officially ruined stalactites, vaginas, and tomatoes.

^This would happen. These are the counts of 4 E. coli strains exposed to various levels of lactic acid & Cu++ for 8 hours. This table only shows the end counts but it represents the death of 99.7% of bacteria*.

• Losing 99.7% of your vaginal flora is seriously bad news. You’re looking at really good odds of a yeast infection, bacterial vaginosis, and/or other infection issues. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to not be in the 4% of the population or so that’s sensitive to skin contact with copper. 

• The good news? Biochemically speaking, you’re probably ok to put it in your butt. It’s not as acidic or salty in there, plus there’s a huuuuuge stockpile of gut microbes right upstream that can quickly repopulate the colon after spelunking is complete. However this stalactite is not flared at the base so it is the wrong shape for putting in your butt. Do not put this stalactite in your butt. 

• This all looks like fun and games, but I think it’s really interesting that the internet’s mistake in concluding that this stalactite is fuckable is very similar to the mistake made by the Flint water management system. Hear me out. 

• Central to the Flint lead poisoning crisis is that authorities only looked at & tested Flint’s water in its central treatment plant before it went out through the pipes. Not after it went through the pipes. They did not consider what would happen biochemically as it went through the pipes and metals started dissolving. 

• Similarly, in concluding that the stalactite is fuckable, the internet only considered the stalactite itself. Not the biochemical processes that would happen to it as it, welp, went through the pipes. 

• Media frequently reports that the Flint River’s water is “corrosive,” leading many to believe the river is full of industrial waste. This ain’t the case. You’d need industry to fill a river with industrial waste, and industry left decades ago. That’s why Flint’s so poor. So what IS in the water? Road salt. Plain old stupid road salt. The old Detroit-based source didn’t have salt because it came from Lake Huron which has a large, mostly rural watershed. Meanwhile the Flint River runs through a lot of towns, making it slightly salty as everything melts down in spring. And as we recall from the stalactite experience, a little salt is all it takes to get metals to dissolve. 

• Information on this engineering problem was not coming through clearly from the engineering or chemistry sides. It took a biologist, pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, to document the real-time results and provide the data to kick-start a high-level investigation. 

• Morals of the story: when dealing with a biological system pls consider asking a biologist, your vagina and/or city could depend on this

• Pls use a condom when fucking any water-soluble material

• Still don’t put the stalactite in your butt -3/10 do not recommend

OK, I haven’t reblogged this before now but the final post takes it to a whole new level and I can no longer resist. 

The Obvious Plant Museum of Toys is coming in March! RSVP to the FREE opening night here. Limited availability.

cat-cosplay:

“If there is ever an end in this forever war. It will be because of you and your strong right Paw.”

hmmm

Still-lifes make delicious little voyeurs out of all of us. No matter the era to which they belong, they always give us the sense that we’re spying on a table set for a night of romance, gluttony, or a secret rendez-vous; a clandestine scene where only the finest cornucopia of treats will do, or a party in another dimension where the wine overfloweth. For most of us, the fantasy stops there, but what if we told you there was a secret meaning to that chalice of sweet berry wine? Or that butterfly poised so deftly on a biscuit?