Viking traveler’s amulet, based on the Lillbjärs picture stone. The back reads: “Unharmed Go Forth, Unharmed Return, Unharmed Back Home”, Frigga’s blessing to Odin, possibly from Vafþrúðnismál.
How does this have almost 10,000 notes ?
Because the world is full of trouble and every little bit of help counts.
Now that I’m studying bio, may I just say how fervently I wish my primary association with the words “alpha, beta, omega” was literally anything other than what it is
My nutrition professor was talking about vitamins and said, “the only reason you all even know the words alpha and omega is because of sororities,” and I wanted so badly to raise my hand and be like “if you’re gonna be a dick for some reason, please let me explain to you in depth my immediate connotations for those words”
I’m in training to become a phlebotomist and at my last class we did blood typing and let me tell you when I walked into the lab to see A/B/O written in massive letters on the whiteboard I felt six years come off my lifespan
once I used a phrase alpha and omega of something during a lecture and one of the students giggled so hysterically I *knew* and I looked at her and she looked at me, and let me tell you, this was the most profound moment of horror and understanding I have ever shared with another person
One of my favourite historical phenomena is technology that’s based on a totally off-the-wall theory about how the world works, but ends up being sort of effective because it’s close enough. Like those old-timey plague doctor masks, whose enormous beaks are an enclosed breathing apparatus stuffed full of dried aromatic herbs on the theory that disease is communicated by the odour of decay – which is completely wrong, of course, but the masks ended up being reasonable effective at their purpose anyway because it turns out that sticking a big wad of dried plant matter in front of your airway is a pretty effective way to avoid inhaling aerosolised bodily fluids.
My favorite is the fact that scurvy was cured, and then un-cured because a bunch of perfectly sensible and intelligent people didn’t know what a vitamin was.
One of my favourite historical phenomena is technology that’s based on a totally off-the-wall theory about how the world works, but ends up being sort of effective because it’s close enough. Like those old-timey plague doctor masks, whose enormous beaks are an enclosed breathing apparatus stuffed full of dried aromatic herbs on the theory that disease is communicated by the odour of decay – which is completely wrong, of course, but the masks ended up being reasonable effective at their purpose anyway because it turns out that sticking a big wad of dried plant matter in front of your airway is a pretty effective way to avoid inhaling aerosolised bodily fluids.
My favorite is the fact that scurvy was cured, and then un-cured because a bunch of perfectly sensible and intelligent people didn’t know what a vitamin was.
Kronotsky Nature Reserve, like most nature reserves, is pretty remote and relies on gas generators for electricity, and keeps jet fuel around in case a rescue copter is needed.
Thing is, these gas drums are just out in the open. And then the bears found them, and discovered that huffing the fumes got them high to the point of passing out. So now there are all these bears addicted to huffing jet fuel, and they’re teaching it to each other.
One one hand, nobody wants bears addicted to huffing highly flammable, toxic crap. It’s not healthy or safe for the bears to just pass out.
On the other, remove the jet fuel… and you have a population of bears going through drug withdrawal, and a bunch of nature reserve workers stuck with them in the middle of nowhere. Additionally, bears have started seeking alternate sources, like trailing behind a helicopter in hopes of fuel leaks, so taking away their source might be… ill advised.
This one of the most Russian things I’ve ever read.
FantasyBoudicca 