smartbutuncertified

[smartbutuncertified]

I wonder if this has changed recently? My mother told me that the only reason they worried about my due date was that she had gestational diabetes with me, so they were trying to balance her health and mine. They let her go overdue with my older sibling. It sounds a little odd that they don't have data on it though, if it is a new development within the past ~30 years.

The whole "the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" bit is actually a fairly impressive bit of psuedoscience for how incredibly stupid the way it misinterprets the data it's based on is.

Okay, so: there's a part of the human brain called the "prefrontal cortex" which is, among other things, responsible for executive function and impulse control. Like most parts of the brain, it undergoes active "rewiring" over time (i.e., pruning unused neural connections and establishing new ones), and in the case of the prefrontal cortex in particular, this rewiring sharply accelerates during puberty.

Because the pace of rewiring in the prefrontal cortex is linked to specific developmental milestones, it was hypothesised that it would slow down and eventually stop in adulthood. However, the process can't be directly observed; the only way to tell how much neural rewiring is taking place in a particular part of the brain is to compare multiple brain scans of the same individual performed over a period of time.

Thus, something called a "longitudinal study" was commissioned: the same individuals would undergo regular brain scans over a period of mayn years, beginning in early childhood, so that their prefrontal development could accurately be tracked.

The longitudinal study was originally planned to follow its subjects up to age 21. However, when the predicted cessation of prefrontal rewiring was not observed by age 21, additional funding was obtained, and the study period was extended to age 25. The predicted cessation of prefrontal development wasn't observed by age 25, either, at which point the study was terminated.

When the mainstream press got hold of these results, the conclusion that prefrontal rewiring continues at least until age 25 was reported as prefrontal development finishing at age 25. Critically, this is the exact opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study was unable to identify a stopping point for prefrontal development because no such stopping point was observed for any subject during the study period. The only significance of the age 25 is that no subjects were tracked beyond this age because the study ran out of funding!

I gets me when people try to argue against the neuroscience-proves-everybody-under-25-is-a-child talking point by claiming that it's merely an average, or that prefrontal development doesn't tell the whole story. Like, no, it's not an average – it's just bullshit. There's no evidence that the cited phenomenon exists at all; if there is an age where prefrontal rewiring levels off and stops (and it's not clear that there is), we don't know what age that is; we merely know that it must be older than 25.

[smartbutuncertified]

Sunny forest

[smartbutuncertified]

My first rec would be "be more specific". Rural vs urban poverty are very different, as is poverty between countries (What programs are available? And how easy are they to access?), and the experience of it changes drastically based on your other identity factors. A black man with undiagnosed depression living with three roommates is gonna have a very different experience than a vietnamese woman with a kid and a husband who's still struggling to make ends meet.

Then, look for people's stories that are similar to the ones you want to write about. Talk to people who live in poverty. Figure out what you want to write about, about it.

I want to write poetry about living in poverty but I need some reference first. Does anyone have any recs?

[smartbutuncertified]

#Kumon white tea my beloved

[smartbutuncertified]

Experimenting with a limited palette

#looks like a china print!!

[smartbutuncertified]

TW insects it's time to learn all these drawing rules or something………but i'm too lazy

[smartbutuncertified]

[smartbutuncertified]

Olives with metallic pencils

[smartbutuncertified]

This is site with the most chronically ill users per capita that I've seen, so that tracks.

"Autistic characters in popular media are always robots or aliens" I mean, that's just not true. Autistic characters in popular media in fact span a wide range of backgrounds, including (but not limited to):

Time traveller

Former cultist

Morbid little girl

Grown in a tube

Ambiguously foreign

Talking animal

Curse victim

Tech support

Raised by wolves

Ninja assassin

World famous detective

French

[smartbutuncertified]

My Starlight!

Painting by me

[smartbutuncertified]

A gray day

[smartbutuncertified]

Sunset

[smartbutuncertified]

smells like spring

[smartbutuncertified]

The two best reasons to get into fossils are booping trilobites and getting to say the word "fossiliferous" a lot.

Fossil [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball is holding two pieces of rock in a paleontological site. Megan, Ponytail and White Hat are in the background.] Cueball: It's weird to pry open a rock and see an animal that no one has laid eyes on for 400 million years.

[Zoom in on Cueball looking at the fossil he is holding.]

[Cueball pokes the fossil.] Cueball: Boop! Off-panel voice: Hey! Don't boop the trilobites!

[smartbutuncertified]

[smartbutuncertified]

Is the "them" the "someone" or the "acquaintance"? I can presume the "they're" is the "someone".

If you hear someone describe an acquaintance as "a cancer", will you think lower or higher of them if you find out that they're into astrology?

[smartbutuncertified]

Who wants to chill with these furry pals?