Not... quite what I meant, but hells of a good shot, MintzBuck
Biologically, I mean :S
(I've decided on a way more fun and interactive format for the posting, so this is how this is going to work: over the course of these next weeks of posts, I will teach you how a biologist with infinite time and money would go about building a foot, of any size and shape (s)he wanted. We will discuss it! SCIENCE is done through hypothesis, and asking the right questions - the experiments come later.)
To start with, this has been done, sort of, actually, in chickens and in mice. Take a little embryo, pop some growth factor on the right chunk, and you'll make an extra wing. Or leg, depending on where you do the injection. (No, the chickens and mice don't normally live - ask about that later!) But! That's because all the instructions are already there, and that particular growth factor is one of the start signals for making a limb. For the sake of learning, let's pretend we have to tell the leg everything (well... the important things) on our own. My PhD is on toes, so I am pretty excited about this topic.
Now it gets interactive! Fuzzy people, what do we need to make happen to get us a nice, happy mouse leg? Let's say you're looking at a little ball of cells and you want to say unto it, "You are ridiculous! You should organize yourself into a leg or something!" List some things! and I shall respond. Don't think too hard. What is in a leg? Bones? Toes? How should we make them? Think broad - this one's easy, and there are no stupid answers! Just entertaining ones ;D
I needed to change some things, because I had an idea for making this so much cooler. A lot of this idea is still evolving, but the basic plan is to have a number of events on this blog:
Topic of the Month - in preventing tl;dr. Each month or so, I will introduce a topic and try to start a dialogue with you about it. For instance, my first one will be about feet! How do we get them? Where did they come from? How do we make one? I will give some thoughts for discussion, you will respond, and then I will respond in kind and further the topic in the next post. That way, you don't have to go through an entire boring article before getting to ask your questions, and I don't have to textwall you! We both win :D
Fuzzy SCIENCE news! Every now and then, I will post an article that has been published in the past few days and give a short spiel on the lab(s) that published it, how they did it, what they did, and finally just offer up some thoughts on how friggin' awesome the results could be for us furries and for the world at large! And then, you will comment, and ask questions, and I and others more knowledgeable than I will answer them, and we will be engaged and austere and wait no not that at all we're all about tails and wings and furry faces, right? Let's figure out how to make some and get 'em!
Idea sandbox. Once a month, I want to toss up someone's - yours, your parents', your dogs' - idea for some shoot-for-the-stars invention/achievement or another. For me, it would be making dragons. I will put that out here on the blog for you to see and admire, so you can know what your fellow fuzzies are thinking and dreaming. For the month following, I'll read the comments, spam you all with my thoughts, and over the course of it, put everything you've said into the closest and most reasonable idea I can, and publish it as something plausible, sort of a la this special Animal Planet did in 2004 (except in text and/or drawn format - speaking of which, any available artists who want to ply their trade with a mad scientist? *eyebrow bobbing everywhere* ).
Twitterrrrrrrrrr please follow me @SiberTerrian it makes me feel important. Also! I will Tweet about other places that make SCIENCE easy, or that have cool ideas, or I'll just link to articles in Nature that I think are particularly awesome, in addition to providing updates about the site and postings here.
Ideas? Tell me your ideas. I am just one weasel, and while my brain is undoubtedly the most attractive internal organ ever devised, it needs input so I can make this something fuzzy people want to see!
(Art in a petri dish by Klari Reis; from Co.EXIST)
Wait, no, that's not what I meant. Lemme try again.
ABSTRACT/SUMMARY
Supersummaries of everything I think: @SiberTerrian on Twitter. Follow me into the future!
SCIENCE oh my god SCIENCE is so beautiful <3 Yessssssss and the furry fandom is full of thousands and thousands of extraordinarily creative people frominfinitely variable walks of life. The scientific community has been historically difficult to approach, but I am here to fix that if I in any capacity can, and I want to do it for furries in a way that is appealing to furries because this is the catch-all community: we accept the rejects, the outcasts, the pariahs, the brilliant and the constrained and give them a place to flourish. We have places for art and socializing and writing so I want there to be a place for SCIENCE. Here, I plan to bring furries to the scientific community and put things on a level everyone can understand and talk about and learn about and contribute to. This will be a place for thought, creative, mad and beautiful. Want to know more? Read on! Onward, I say!!
INTRODUCTION
Who am I, that I want to do this? I am Siber "SiberDrac" Terrian, biologist, ermine, and writer. In eighth grade, I wanted to study marine biology because I thought it was cool, and then in ninth grade I realized, "I need to make dragons. How do I do this?"
My parents and employers are blissfully unaware The Dragonriders of Pern (Anne McCaffrey) were my textbooks, rather than leisure reading.
My fledgling little scientific mind first went to genetics, focusing stolidly on how I could manipulate genes enough to make one; then on to evolutionary biology and paleontology, to figure out what there was in the past that would be useful in this pursuit, such as how anything developed wings, how pterodactyls happened, and why everything seems to have four limbs and not more; next to developmental biology, because if you want to give something a specific structure, you have to know when it gets which ones and why; and that's where I am now - specifically, my second year of graduate school, pursuing a PhD in cell and molecular biology. The biggest challenge, of course, wasn't doing the SCIENCE and getting through classes. That was all secondary, because I was blessed to be born into an academic family. The biggest challenge was pointing myself in these directions, all the while knowing that "I want to make dragons" doesn't go over well in (most) interviews. Creativity... is the driving force in SCIENCE. It is an art, and a language, and a community, and when you stifle creativity, you stifle communication and you ultimately stifle achievement and progress and I'm not complaining about myself because that's not the point - I have seen over and over and over again people get good-naturedly teased out of doing things that could otherwise be absofreakinglutely glorious because it's seen as too frivolous or ill-planned or because they get convinced they not only don't know enough but can't know enough and that is just... just... horrid. Therefore! my fuzzy and scaled and bewinged brethren, this blog is going to be one where I plan to provide your eager, beautiful, hungry brains with material, and then the lot of us can chat about the dreams we'd like the scientific community to achieve. And dream BIG, people. BIIIIIG.
And I swear, the journey will be safe. Promise. Cross my heart.
A lot of this idea is still evolving, but the basic plan is to have a number of events on this blog:
Fuzzy SCIENCE news! One to two times a week, I will post an article that has been published within the past year or so and give a short spiel on the lab(s) that published it, how they did it, what they did, and finally just offer up some thoughts on how friggin' awesome the results could be for us furries and for the world at large! And then, you will comment, and ask questions, and I and others more knowledgeable than I will answer them, and we will be engaged and austere and wait no not that at all we're all about tails and wings and furry faces, right? Let's figure out how to make some and get 'em!
Idea sandbox. Once a month, I want to toss up someone's - yours, your parents', your dogs' - idea for some shoot-for-the-stars invention/achievement or another. For me, it would be making dragons. I will put that out here on the blog for you to see and admire, so you can know what your fellow fuzzies are thinking and dreaming. For the month following, I'll read the comments, spam you all with my thoughts, and over the course of it, put everything you've said into the closest and most reasonable idea I can, and publish it as something plausible, sort of a la this special Animal Planet did in 2004 (except in text and/or drawn format - speaking of which, any available artists who want to ply their trade with a mad scientist? *eyebrow bobbing everywhere* ).
Twitterrrrrrrrrr please follow me @SiberTerrian it makes me feel important. Also! I will Tweet about other places that make SCIENCE easy, or that have cool ideas, or I'll just link to articles in Nature that I think are particularly awesome, in addition to providing updates about the site and postings here.
Ideas? Tell me your ideas. I am just one weasel, and while my brain is undoubtedly the most attractive internal organ ever devised, it needs input so I can make this something fuzzy people want to see!
YOU DECIDE and me. I will definitely be partially responsible for the results of this, probably, but YOU are the force that decides whether this continues or not.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Thanks for giving the place a look! Come back and bring your friends, comment, talk about the world and your ideas and your dreams and most importantly, do what you want and don't let the world tell you what can't be done. We are pushing the boundaries of discovery every single day and don't let some cynic with a canker tell you it's BS that'll never mean anything to the public because
is a thing and
is a thing and oh my god this is a thing :D :D :D
and over time, I'll tell you why all of them are exactly as awesome and more awesome than they seem like they are. Ask me questions, comment, tell me things, whatever you do please talk to me I'm so lonely in lab D:
See you next week!
Sincerely,
Siber Terrian
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND FUNDING
lololol funding
Thanks Xablor, Eridyne, Jet Coleman, Laine Mathis, Vale Aisling, and frostofthecwsw for inspiring me to do this and spreading the word!
Thanks Khelnio/Bradroo for the (upcoming) SCIENCE weasel picture! It is adorable.
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