I'm sure there's some metaphorical relation between this post and this image if you think hard enough
You may or may not have noticed I've taken a break from authoring science-related content. There's no particular reason for this other than getting addicted to Factorio - an RTS game - and generally just needing a breather from the grind of digging into research papers to pick fault in the small print, the trawling through google-found forums to find legitimate news sources and so on.
This came at a fairly good time since SteemSTEM also decided to take a break for similar reasons, and like SteemSTEM, I feel I'm ready to get back into it, because I constantly see annoying things on the internet that are scientifically misinterpretive, and I think up inspirational musings on a daily basis. Most have been lost to the sands of memory unfortunately, but I might as well start collecting again now!
Today I'd like to do an overview of the various series I've been doing over the months here so we can all pick back up from where we left off, but also if there are any new readers out there, this might be a good place to look so you get a good idea about the community I partly represent: SteemSTEM.
So here's what I've been writing about, and what I plan on writing about in the future:
Tree of Life Series
The tree of life series came about when I found a remarkable interactive website logging literally millions of organisms intuitively organised in an actual tree you can zoom in on and find information about where and when they arose. From here, I naturally have to dig into more details and I've been slowly working my way from the dawn of life right up to humanity.
So far we're 7 episodes in and approaching the end, having explored how the three domains are remarkably different but oddly connected, how fungi really are more related to humans than plants, where plants and animals went separate ways, how there are so many areas roadblocked by controversial uncertainties and unranked clades of life, why we're bilaterally symmetrical, why that means we're genetically evolved to be lazy and much more.
The next episode of this will be the next thing I post on Steemit.
Surviving the Extremes Series
A lot of pop-sci digs into things like tardigrades surviving space and cockroaches surviving radiation, but I wanted to look into the more unappreciated survivors out there who choose ridiculously niche environments to stave off competition. This series has been extensive and has explored all manners of environments including spiders at the top of mountains where even plant life cannot survive, archaea in cracks of the earth hundreds of metres below the bottom of the sea, ants and camels that feature adaptations in every single nook and cranny of their bodies to survive, penguins whose circulatory system manages to heat itself up allowing them to keep their feet on frozen tundra, aeroplankton, the billions of organisms surviving so high up in our atmosphere that the radiation from the sun should by all counts destroy them, annnnd so on.
Chinese Pseudoscience Series
Another extensive series that I think is my crowning achievement on Steem. in terms of what I have learnt and what I can show people, there is more information locked away in this series than any other.
It looks into Traditional Chinese Medicine and why we should ALL stay well away from it. I started off looking at the history of TCM, which highlighted how despite Chinese culture often bragging about the lengthy history of it all, scholars back then actually denounced it as nonsensical mumbo jumbo. thousands of years ago. In fact, emperors were known to actively ban the practice and it was only in the 50's and 60's when Mao Zedong brought it back to appease the millions of citizens he simply could not provide real, or 'western', medicine to them. Mao Zedong even stated himself that he did not believe in the practice, but like, whatever bro. From there it's just spread into pop culture because... eh.
I then looked into the actual research out there and aside from most of the research I looked into at great depth being hugely flawed, even according to the authors themselves, the research was often hugely and unforgivably biased, with the vast majority of it coming from China, tested on Chinese citizens, written in Chinese and published on Chinese-only journals. Not only this but the results were, for the most part, over 90% successful across the board. If I recall it was quoted as something like 20% of research done was over 96% positive. Wow.
Further into this series I take huge digs at TCM and the damage it is actually doing. Not only does it not work, such as Acupuncture, Cupping and herbal medicine in general, but it vastly damages wildlife, renders countless species endangered and already endangered species extinct, but it also damages humans.
Many of the potions used are built on the premise of treating something with that thing. Want a bigger sex drive? Eat a dick. You get the idea. What this also means is that literal deadly poisons are used in these potions to attempt to heal ailments, and it seems almost every potion can cure at least 100 different things. How? Simply because it's not regulated at all. Investigations found all manners of poisons, illegal substances, endangered animals and a large array of things that are simply not in the ingredients list, a list that is vastly flawed to begin with.
So even if TCM did work, the lesson from this series is to stay well away anyway, because it's simply not safe for human consumption and you're gambling with life. especially if you're pregnant.
The series has a few episodes left as I look into a few more areas of herbal medicine and such, but I think I've learnt a sufficient amount here. Hopefully you guys did too.
Mobbs' Memoir Series
Well, it's just nice to write about me once in a while. My life is mostly dull as hell but I have had some pretty interesting moments in the past, many interesting stories to share, and this series is just that. Not much more to it!
What I learnt last week Series
Originally 'What I learnt THIS week', I changed it because I'm lazy and always late. Basically this is a weekly digest of stuff that I've read about and taken note of, summarized and with links provided for further reading. To me this beats what a lot of steemians do, simply copying a news source about the latest iPhone or Space News. Putting it all in one post tot share with everyone allows me to move on to more niche topics the rest of the week, while also learning and teaching people how ridiculously fast our world is progressing, our knowledge collecting.
There has yet to be a week where some astonishing development has come to light that could potentially transform our existence if mass adopted. We live in exciting times and that's what this series is all about.
What's Next
Series are a good way for me to be consistent without running out of ideas too quickly. It helps me find inspiration wherever I walk and helps me become a little more pro at a given topic after digging in dozens of hours over the weeks.
I have had several plans to implement some ideas that have been bubbling for a while now but unlike science-based series, they take a bit more of my creative soul to fully establish, and that's something that drains my blogging energy and confidence at a much greater rate than delving into objective discoveries.
Regardless, I plan on the following:
Dlive-ing games
This is probably the least likely to stick, since I'm not charismatic or funny at all in person, and very shy in general. But I do like games and I think I've found a few that I'd like to share with people. This could also be a collaborative effort with online games but I have no idea so far how to hook up the ol' PS4 and such.
Soundtracks
I've already made a couple of warm up soundtrack concepts but the intention is to create an album track-by-track of fantasy-themed game music. This was actually put on hold because of a very niche problem with my hard drives from my old laptop, in which they are perfectly healthy, but cannot be re-inserted into my new laptop as an external for reasons the internet cannot explain to me. This means much of my software is currently unavailable to me but I hope to get it sorted eventually
Music-ology
A series where I mix music with science and learn about all the stuff I've wondered over the years such as Perfect Pitch, Western Harmony, Natural History, Psychoacoustics and more.
Collaborative efforts
For the longest time I've wanted to collaborate with users on Steemit, be it with games, science, art or music and I will definitely put the effort in eventually...
Storywriting
I once had a series of fiction here, based on a world that went to hell from a virus dropped down the sink in some lab. Conceptually I was very much into it, but as the story started expanding across the new, empty world, complexities started to arise, relationships and character development were lacking and I felt I needed time to fully plot this out. I still want to re-visit this story, but I have other shorts in mind too, something I might actually use to trigger the above collaborative efforts.
Debunking
I want to focus more on debunking pseudoscience. So far I've concentrated exclusively on China, but we all know China isn't the only guilty party here - I just happen to live there. The amount of nonsense I hear from America is something I really want to share my voice on.
Googling Earth
I really enjoy spinning Google Earth around, landing on a random place and looking really as deep as possible into that location, from the people, the wildlife, the landscape, the history and more. I've done this a few times over the time I've been here but I'd like to make more of a habit out of it.
Secret series
This one isn't fully developed in my head yet but it's related to - but not the same as - the debunking series. That's all I'll say for now.
And so...
As you can see, I'm full to the brim with ideas and even without those, the series I've been working on still have some things to say about the world.
I'm going to upvote this post with a bot because the raised visibility might be nice for more like-minded people to have a good overview of my page and perhaps join up, join the SteemSTEM community and share in the potential collaborative efforts.