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Sunflowers may be the future of "vegan meat"

Sunflower flour emerges as a sustainable, nutrient-packed, and surprisingly meat-like plant protein innovation.

A collaboration between Brazilian and German researchers has led to a sunflower-based meat substitute that’s high in protein and minerals. The new ingredient, made from refined sunflower flour, delivers excellent nutritional value and a mild flavor. Tests showed strong texture and healthy fat content, suggesting great potential for use in the growing plant-based food sector.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Fairies and Fey." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for fairies, seelie or unseelie sidhe, the Wild Hunt, elves, other types of fey, Radical Faeries, other queers, tricksters, contraries, rebels, adventurers, mentors, historians, explorers, magic users, partners, teachers, leaders, dark lords, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, fantasy species, activists, other unusual fantasy folk, doing magic, doing things backwards, causing mischief, breaking rules, caring for the land, exploring new territory, meeting new species, upsetting predictions, twisting tropes, flipping stereotypes, expecting the unexpected, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, adapting, improvising, troubleshooting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, coming out, running away from home, going off the rails, subverting fate, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, other fantastic activities, Underhill, faery rings, the forest primeval, underwater, underground, liminal zones, castles, ruins, dungeons, dragon lairs, schools, kitchens, campfires, libraries, apothecary shops, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other phantasmagoric settings, faerie magic, unusual magical systems, magical artifacts, enchanted musical instruments or weapons, quests, time periods other than medieval, governments other than monarchy, dragons, unicorns, enchantments, potions, reversals, contradictions, conundrums, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, fey time distortions, time travel, travel mishaps, the buck stops here, trial and error, polarity, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories Bingo Card 11-1-25

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Adventures of Aldornia and Zenobia is about live happy lesbians in a quirky fantasy world.

Clay of Life is Jewish fantasy about a blacksmith and a golem.

Dragonsilk is about trauma and recovery.

Hart's Farm is a free love community with a few really exotic characters.

Monster House is suburban fantasy with a diverse household, where the line between truth and fantasy isn't always clear.

The Ocracies features all the political systems other than monarchy.

The Odd Trio is about a family consisting of a dwarf, an elf, and a human.

P.I.E. is urban fantasy about paranormal investigations,

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. Eric the Elven King has interdimensional refugees. Officer Pink features centaurs and mystic shifters. Vybra of the Broken Angels specializes in fantasy sex and often dresses as a fairy.

Practical Magics is low fantasy with a prosaic focus.

Quixotic Ideas is contemporary fantasy where magic integrates with modern life in positive ways.

The Ursulan Cycle is genderbent King Arthur.

Or you can ask for something new.

Boost the signal to reveal a verse in any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: creative

ivyskeep

It's been a beautiful November so far. It's still sweatshirt weather.

Bridget the German Shepherd dog's cyst surgery went well. We're so tired of getting her cut into though, so we're trying an over-the-counter wart/growth remover for animals that our vet approved in hopes of keeping her from going under the knife for a while. I bought her a dog stroller for me to be able to roll her up to vet appointments for laser therapy on her arthritic joints as long as it's not too icy outiside.

Samhain was quiet with low-key prayers and offerings of food and drink some ancestors liked when they were alive.

Crafting wise, I'm adding some leftover yarn to a crocheted afghan. After that, I plan on finishing a quilt I started last year.

Current Mood: calm

ysabetwordsmith

These pictures show the next phase of assembling the lantern terrarium. (Start with Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction, Photos: Lantern Terrarium Assembly Part 1 Gathering Materials.)

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

My air plants arrived today. :D So I gathered materials to start assembling the lantern terrarium. (Start with Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction. Continue with Photos: Lantern Terrarium Assembly Part 2 Testing the Fit.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

22 Ways To Celebrate Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month, when we all come together to honor and celebrate the culture, traditions, history, and contributions of American Indian and Alaskan Natives.

They left out the Real Rent / Voluntary Land Tax movement, where people of non-indigenous heritage send money to the nearest extant tribe or sometimes a formerly-local tribe that was ousted to live elsewhere. If you don't have that option, you can also chuck it into any current fundraiser to obtain land for a tribe or fight legal battles over land. Closely related, if you own land -- especially big enough for some of it to be wild or nearly so -- consider programs to share access with tribal people. Some folks have negotiated deals where the tribe will help manage the territory in return for sharing use of it, which can grant you access to much better techniques.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Five Ways Science Fiction Can Expand Beyond Homo sapiens

* The Past
* Cryptic Populations
* Sideways in Time
* The Future
* Science!

It left out crossbreeding with other species (like Spock in Star Trek) as well as backbreeding where remnant genes become more prevalent due to environmental pressures until speciation occurs. Regarding the latter, Sherpas are already a borderline species because they can survive at higher altitudes than other Homo sapiens due to their Denisovan heritage. They are at least a definable subspecies based on habitat adaptations, more realistically a remnant population of Denisovans with heavy Homo sapiens introgression. But when you start talking about biological differences among humans, then humans immediately start doing stupid things, so most scientists won't do it. Anyhow, if the Sherpas became isolated from other humans and stayed in the Himalayas, environmental pressure would push them toward more Denisovan-like traits.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

My air plants arrived! :D So today I need to assemble the lantern terrarium.

EDIT 11/3/25 -- I took some pictures around the yard and started laying out pieces for the lantern terrarium.

EDIT 11/3/25 -- I've been working on the lantern terrarium, trimming the branch that will go inside and testing a few air plants to fit it. Currently I have it soaking in a tray of water to rehydrate the lichens.

EDIT 11/3/25 -- I've done more work on the lantern terrarium. I have the main branch soaked, and I picked up some more twigs and chips in hopes of creating more spaces to lodge the air plants. I've glued the first piece in place, the chip I cut off the bottom end.

While I was outside, I saw the great horned owl and heard it hooting. Then I heard a shriek. A baby owl! :D 3q3q3q!!! I am 99% certain that the conversation translates to this:

Baby: "I'm hungry!"

Mama: "Shh. Go to sleep. Shh."

Baby: "FEED ME!"

Mama: "It is the middle of the DAY. Now GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP."

EDIT 11/3/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 11/3/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 11/3/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

adore

I travelled to Mumbai to attend the K-town festival. This is K-town 3.0, which means there was a 1.0 and a 2.0 (both of which I missed because I didn't even find out they happened in the first place, until now). There was no WAY I was missing this year's festival after finding out it happens.

I SAW TAEMIN LIVE. He just walked onto the stage and started performing Move (!!!!) with no preamble, no warning, no mic check. I went feral. He was wearing a tank top and a jacket/shrug that he kept shrugging off to show his arms and it was amazing. I've always thought, from videos of his performances, that he had breathtaking artisty and grace, stylistic movements all his own. But live, Taemin Hits Different. He was like a celestial being, whatever the male version of an apsara is.

I was suffering as a short girl who'd bought the cheapest tickets in the standing area way at the back, because random uselessly tall Indian guys kept blocking my view. Also people kept coming and going from the more expensive areas, walking in front of me or making me have to step back to make way for them. And when Taemin was due to perform there was a huge surge towards the barricade, so seeing him was harder than seeing the other performers. I was doing a lot of neck-craning and tiptoe-standing, and my shoulders ached.

However! It was all so surreal and such a dopamine hit! He was THERE. Taemin was there, he's REAL, y'all! Like, he might be a celestial fairy but he also, like, exists ON THE SAME PLANE AS ME. He performed Move, Advice, Deja Vu, Criminal and Sexy in the Air. Only five songs sobs BUT three of them are favourites of mine. I wish we got a whole concert of him but you know what. I'm so damn lucky I got to see him. I SAW HIM PERFORM MOVE LIVE. WHAT!!!

I posted a few clips in an Instagram post (Insta shortened all the clips, as Insta does, but it doesn't matter because this is just to document my ferality. Other people are sure to post actual fancams later.) You'll notice I couldn't hold the camera straight or steady or focused. Nor could I stop people blocking my camera with their whole heads. But you'll also notice I was shouting my head off cheering for Taemin and yelling the lyrics to his songs, which is the bit that I wanted to capture. I'M WINNING AT LIFE.

After the festival I felt this sense of wonder because Taemin is REAL and he's THERE, but I also felt an overwhelming melancholy. I was like, that was such a dopamine hit, what do you mean I can't do this every weekend? What do you mean that might be the first and last time I see Taemin live? K-pop acts almost never come to India… but maybe this is a sign times are changing. I don't know. I did a tarot reading about this and got the Ace of Cups, just a lot of feelings, big feelings. I love that I saw him, I'm sorry that I couldn't see him better, and I want to see him again and again.

I'm waiting for fancams of his K-town performance to be uploaded and then I'll share them here. In the meanwhile, if you're curious about just how ethereal he is live, this will give you an idea:

Watch on YouTube

Going to talk about the other performers in a separate post because this post is already long and fulsome with Taemin squee.

Current Mood: enthralled

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Today's Cooking
Gaming
Birdfeeding
Worldbuilding
Art
Birdfeeding
Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories Bingo Card 11-1-25
Philosophical Questions: Accuracy
Moment of Silence: Patricia Crowther
Birdfeeding
Holiday
Books
Wildlife
Garden of Repose
New Year's Resolutions Check In
Follow Friday 10-31-25: Kpop
Bingo
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Today's Adventures
Sustainability
Birdfeeding
Good News

Trauma has 34 comments. Affordable Housing has 57 comments. Robotics has 95 comments.

There will be a Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, November 4 with a theme of "Fairies and Fey." I hope to see you then!

"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv and needs $191 to be complete. Maiara and Arthur discuss taking notes.

The weather is cool and fall-like now. It rained a couple of days. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, two goldfinches, and a male cardinal. A great horned owl has been hoo-hooing outside. :D Currently blooming: dandelions, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, sweet alyssum, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, oxalis, firecracker plant, tomatoes, violas. Tomatoes, ball carrots, and groundcherries are ripe. Fields are almost all harvested.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today I am making Tomato-Basil Bread from Hello! 365 Tomato Recipes: Best Tomato Cookbook Ever For Beginners, the yeast version from page 32. (This is basically the same recipe.) We're out of parmesan cheese, so I substituted Manchego which is dry enough to grate and has a similarly sharp taste. Already the dough is a very pretty salmon-pink, currently rising in a bowl set inside a bowl of warm water to help maintain temperature.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- Bread punched down and set for second rise.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- Bread in oven.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- It's done! :D This is better than the earlier quickbread I tried. When baked, it is a bright, true salmon color thanks to the tomato sauce. The outside is crusty, the inside is springy and chewy, with a mild tomato flavor and herbal hints. If I make it again, I want to try the Little Italy Pizza Seasoning instead of plain crushed red pepper. The loaf is small and round, yielding oval slices. That's too small for grilled cheese sandwiches but would probably work for Bulgarian breakfast bread.

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

New study: Dungeons & Dragons provides real benefits to people with disabilities and the elderly

“Serious leisure” refers to an activity that demands skill, commitment, and personal fulfillment, Messina defined. With the intricate world-building, score-keeping, and character development required of D&D, she said, it’s a blueprint for serious leisure.
[---8<---]
“Players were comfortable being themselves by engaging in the game pursuit,” she added, “but at the same time were building personas in line with, or in contrast to, their normal personality. They described it as a way to take charge, or lead an effort in ways that their normal personality would allow for, but they wouldn’t be inclined to do.”

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I trimmed weeds from the tulip bed. It's about 2/3 done now.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I trimmed weeds from rest of the tulip bed. \o/

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a cardinal.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I spread the first bag of compost and manure on the tulip bed.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I spread the second bag of compost and manure on the tulip bed.

EDIT 11/2/25 -- I spread the third bag of compost and manure on the tulip bed. It is mostly covered but still needs another bag.

I picked a handful of basil leaves so I can make tomato-basil bread tonight.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

mdehners

When I started feeding the stray/indoor-outdoor cats I THOUGHT I had a great idea. I'd feed them when the growlights turned on in the AM. Sorta "Lights on Diner open!". Well, today's DST. Went to put out their breakfast and no cats. Fluff showed up just before I headed out to visit Chuck and was giving me the Evil Eye.
They'll figure it out, though they would probably prefer be fed an hr earlier;>Cheers,
Pat

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Lenoir City(Nevermore;>!)
Current Music: Old Time Music Radio

galeogirl

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: busy

ravan

Not a usual celebration for me, as I celebrate Samhain. But Sarah was Catholic, kinda sorta Celtic Catholic. So Today is more fitting to write their obituary. She used she/they pronouns, so I'm going to alternate what I use for them. Sorry if it's confusing.

Sarah Joan Hersha was born 6/1951 and died 7/2025. She was 74, and died after nearly 2 years of fighting the cancer - leiomyosarcoma - that ultimately took their life. Her first degree relatives - parents and brothers - all predeceased them. While she has nieces and nephews somewhere, their older half brothers had divorces and whatnot, and they all lost touch. Her parents were Basil and Sharoo Hersha, and yes, their mother's name is Sharoo, not Sharon. I met them both, and I swear her mother knew we were a couple before we really did.

Sarah went by SJ, for a multitude of reasons. Both of us worked in tech, which was, and still is, a very male dominated field. She at first got into databases, but when a piece of garbage called Access drive Paradox out of the market, they pivoted to doing macro development for small businesses People didn't want to hire an older female full time, even those she could work rings around the younger punks. Still, they loved computers, and tech, and she had lots of gadgets to play with. They also sewed, tried her hand at weaving, and enjoyed storytelling in a shared universe.

SJ also collected things like filk CDs, various other music CDs and DVDs, and books. Near the end, they read mostly on her tablet, but we still had a prodigious library together. Their tastes were eclectic, from things like Danny Kaye to Hu. She like Celtic Rock, Elvis, the Beatles, Viking Metal, Yanni, The Village People, Classical, Country, and a bunch of other stuff I've probably forgotten. About the only thing they didn't have a taste for was rap and other edge cases.

After the first chemo failed, and put her in the hospital for ten days, she was too weak to withstand the second best option chemo, and they knew it. We sought second opinions, and they all said the same thing - chemo to "shrink" the tumor, then surgery. But the tumor didn't shrink. Sarah elected to have home hospice, and live longer, than be killed by a longshot chemo that would realistically shorten her live and probably not succeed. So we had a year and a couple months to say goodbye. While cancer treatment has come a long way in the decades since her mother died of cancer in 1993, it hadn't come far enough. Sarah started treatment at over 200 pounds, and was maybe 125 when they died - a skeleton with a big lump in the abdomen. But at least she wasn't in any real pain - the hospice people made sure they had all the pain relief she wanted, which actually wasn't much.

Needless to say, I miss my spouse. They were a complicated person, with depths and dimensions that I can't even begin to touch here, but she was loved and cherished, even if only for a little while. They officially moved in with me in 1990, we got a DP in 2011, and got officially married in 2013.

Current Mood: sad
Crossposts: https://ravan.insanejournal.com/71407.html

alex_antonin

I'll never understand how anyone could be stupid enough to fall for BS like the rapture or Armageddon. Then again, these are the same folks who believe that a man who never existed was born because an imaginary sky daddy raped a child and got her pregnant with himself.

Honestly it's no wonder so many Christians support pedophiles like Donald Trump and the GOP, and support making child marriage legal and abortion illegal. They think their imaginary pedophile god will rape another child for his second cumming, and we can't have god's rape baby get aborted, now can we? Also, the Christian god is exactly like Donald Trump: They're both predatory pedophile rapists, they're both tyrants, both hypocrites, and both have the personality of a petulant toddler.

Christianity is a tower of garbage held together with fetid, rancid shit packed in like mud. May it fall back into the darkness from whence it came, going extinct like it deserves to.

Current Mood: angry

ysabetwordsmith

The Most Powerful Type of Worldbuilding by Curious Archive

I rarely link YouTube videos anymore, but this one had some good observations about "moldy worldbuilding" and how it shows the passage of time. So I'll throw out some ideas based on that.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

fayanora

Came across this video about a post claiming there were no female authors before J. K. Rowling, and the resulting thread providing SO many examples of how wrong that claim is. Like to the point that science fiction, fantasy, and novels in general wouldn't exist without female authors. Also, a female author started the trend of letting children have books that are more than stories to convey morals.

My contribution to the comments:

Rowling wasn't even the first female author to write a series about a young child going to a school of witchcraft with an eccentric headmaster and a stern and irascible potions teacher, featuring a horrible, blond, wealthy, stuck-up antagonist student as the protagonist's foil.

She basically plagiarized "The Worst Witch" series by Jill Murphy, gender-bent a bunch of the most prominent characters (Miss Cackle into Dumbledore, Miss Hardbroom into Severus Snape, Ethel Hallow into Draco Malfoy, and Mildred Hubble into Neville Longbottom), turned the original protagonist Mildred Hubble (gender-bent) into a side character, and spliced in a plot about wizard Nazis while replacing the much more interesting Mildred Hubble with a British children's fiction cliche character of "the poor unlucky orphan." All while being racist, transphobic, whatever you call being racist against the Irish, antisemitic, ultimately making the statement of "slavery is actually good mmkay," and being a bad writer with plot holes you could pilot a 747 through with plenty of room to spare.

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Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Cool November

Photos: Lantern Terrarium Assembly Part 2 Testing the Fit

Photos: Lantern Terrarium Assembly Part 1 Gathering Materials

Native American

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그 눈빛과 움직임

Monday Update 11-3-25

Today's Cooking

Gaming

Birdfeeding

DST Fury, I mean Furry;>!

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing

Dio De Los Muertes

Christianity: A tower of garbage held together with packed shit.

Worldbuilding

Rowling's die-hard fans are fucking stupid

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