MARVEL AGE: SPIDER-MAN #20 and MARVEL TALES #159
Jul. 17th, 2026 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](/%20https://www.npmjs.com/package/ocr-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyThis is a post of the last page of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #21, as reprinted in MARVEL TALES #159 and then adapted in MARVEL AGE: SPIDER-MAN #20. MARVEL AGE: SPIDER-MAN was an all-ages, setting updated version of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #2 through #21.
( This is my responsibility alone. )
( This is my responsibility alone. )
I do believe in foreign interference in our elections
Jul. 17th, 2026 11:40 am![[syndicated profile]](/%20https://www.npmjs.com/package/ocr-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
pharyngula_feed
Donald Trump gave a speech last night in which he he claimed that he only lost the 2020 election because foreigners interfered. He is obsessed with that ignominious defeat, because his ego is so huge that he can’t tolerate any contradiction of his self-regard.
Donald Trump accused China of interfering with the 2020 election in a primetime televised address that laid bare his continuing obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, but which opponents warned was a smokescreen for him to meddle in the forthcoming congressional midterms.
In a 25-minute speech on Thursday that had been hyped by Trump himself, the US president cast extraordinary doubts on the integrity of the US electoral process, saying it was “catastrophically” short of standards of fairness and trust, and vulnerable to trespassing by foreign powers.
I don’t believe China had anything to do with it — that country is happy to sell us crap, and no doubt is savoring our ongoing collapse, but they don’t have to do anything to trigger our self-destruction. Republicans are pleased to do that to ourselves, because they are busy pursuing an illusory and contradictory fantasy of American greatness that is centered on racial purity and coddling of capitalists. There is no evidence of election fraud anywhere. Every time those accusations are tracked down they find at best a handful of fraudulent votes, never enough to have any kind of significant effect, but every time a Republican loses an election they start shrieking about Democrats cheating.
They are overlooking the insidious and entirely legal interference that has been going on for decades: the lies and propaganda of Fox News, masterminded by Rupert Murdoch, and how it has corrupted the brains of an entire generation of Americans. This is the seed that has grown into the idiocy that fuels our descent, which is now self-perpetuating. Barking at the Chinese is futile and irrelevant. Look into our systemic failures to regulate our own media.
Fic: Child's Play (Baldur's Gate)
Jul. 16th, 2026 07:10 pmsettiaiChild's Play (1850 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: The Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate)
Additional Tags: Child Death, Deception, Evil Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Gaslighting, Half-Elf Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Male Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Named Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Past Character Death, Questline: Emerald Grove (Baldur's Gate), Rogue Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Temporary Character Death
Summary: It had been laughably easy to make everything at the grove fall apart.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: The Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate)
Additional Tags: Child Death, Deception, Evil Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Gaslighting, Half-Elf Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Male Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Named Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Past Character Death, Questline: Emerald Grove (Baldur's Gate), Rogue Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate), Temporary Character Death
Summary: It had been laughably easy to make everything at the grove fall apart.
Our troops will be getting gender-affirming care
Jul. 16th, 2026 02:53 pmpharyngula_feed
Isn’t that sweet? Pete Hegseth is imposing mandatory testosterone testing, but is not requiring testosterone supplements, yet. As we all know, good soldiers are in a constant roid-rage, and can be recognized by their chronic bacne.
This policy is being enabled by the ongoing corruption of science by our government.
Hegseth’s announcement comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Trump administration officials are moving to make it easier for doctors to prescribe testosterone. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration proposed easing prescribing limits on testosterone gels, pills, patches and injections.
…
Last year, the FDA removed a boxed warning about possible risks of heart attack and stroke from the drugs.
Let’s ignore all our prior medical knowledge!
…current medical guidelines generally recommend against blanket testing of testosterone levels. Typically, doctors are advised to discuss testosterone therapy with men who have troubling symptoms and documented low levels of the hormone on two separate blood tests.
Testing for testosterone is challenging because levels of the hormone fluctuate throughout the day. Accurate testosterone readings are typically measured in the morning after fasting.
I have never been tested for my testosterone levels. I know that, for sure, they have almost certainly declined since my 20s, because that’s typical, but I have never experienced problems of the sort that might prompt testing. You can tolerate a wide range of variation without noticing any effects, so barring real symptoms, doping with T is just coping with diminished masculinity of a psychological sort.
But OK, let’s test everyone, new recruits and old generals, and let’s test men and women alike. Pete might be surprised when he discovers that trans men are already pumping themselves up with testosterone, maybe making them better soldiers than AMAB men.
Don’t bother testing Pete, though. He’s so insecure that he’s probably taking testosterone supplements already. Also, he’s a pig, scarcely human.
Hegseth has previously said he does not believe women should hold combat roles and that those positions should be based on the “highest male standard.” He has blocked some military promotions for women or fired female leaders since becoming Pentagon leader.
That alone warrants firing him.
Science should be getting the credit, not your silly god
Jul. 16th, 2026 02:22 pmpharyngula_feedI could not leave the scarring of this lovely video unaddressed, so I made a video of my own.
Transcript below.
I was thrilled to run across this short time lapse video of some familiar neurons, cells that I became familiar with in the 1990s. Some ignorant Christian vandal has scrawled some words across it, but ignore those for now, and focus on just the beautiful developmental biology shown here.
There are some words that should be here, though. This video was appropriated from the Nikon Small World in Motion competition, where it won first prize in 2018. Here’s the announcement:
Nikon Instruments Inc. today unveiled the winners of the eighth annual Nikon Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition. First place was awarded to Dr. Elizabeth Haynes and Jiaye “Henry” He for their video of a zebrafish embryo growing its elaborate sensory nervous system. The video reflects a time lapse of 16 hours and uses gentle light sheet technology to capture the whole zebrafish embryo in 3D, at a high temporal resolution. Dr. Haynes studies the role of kinesin light chain genes during the highly complex development of sensory neurons, while Mr. He specializes on developing microscopy technology to image living specimens at the best possible resolution.
Attribution is important, don’t you think? Now watch the show.
I recognized what was going on instantly. I had a graduate student, Beth Sipple, who did an analysis of the morphology and behavior of these cells for her doctoral work, so I spent a lot of time looking at videos and photographs of this sort of thing. I’ll take a moment to orient you.
We’re looking at Rohon-Beard cells found in the dorsal spinal cord. These are cells that arise early in development, and the first thing they do is extend axons longitudinally in the spinal cord, pioneering the Dorsal Longitudinal Fascicle, or DLF, which is a major thoroughfare for sending sensory information to the hindbrain. This pathways is established by a daisy-chain of Rohon-Beard cells, so it forms very quickly and early in development. The cells then send a branch to the skin, with growth cones leading the way, where they form a kind of fishnet stocking of fibers that collect cutaneous sensory information.
One of the neat things about these particular cells is that they are thought to be an evolutionary holdover from the earliest chordate sensory system. They are kind of crude (but pretty): they are a diffuse information network that informs the animal that something has touched the left or the right side, with apparently little specificity otherwise. Imagine that you put up a fence around your property that rings an alarm if anything breaches it anywhere; that would be useful, but it’s not very specific about where the breach occurred. Perhaps more useful would be a series of sensors for each sector of the fence, that rings an alarm that tells you exactly where the contact occurred.
That’s coming, but it’s not shown in the video. If the timelapse extended for a couple of days, you might see those specific sensors emerging. They’re called dorsal root ganglia, and there’s a pair for each segment of the animal. So there’s a developmental sequence of first forming a broad general sensory network that can tell left from right, and then a specific localized sensory network that can tell exactly where on the body the animal was touched. This is also an evolutionary sequence, where the original primary sensory system is superceded by a much more precise secondary system, the dorsal root ganglia, which also contain multiple sensory modalities.
Also in the video you see the lateral line forming. This is a structure that first forms in the head, and then migrates caudally, dropping off neuromast organs as it goes. I found this to be a useful structure for timing development, because it grows like clockwork, and you can estimate the age of the embryo by how far down the body the lateral line has grown. I’m kind of rusty at staging embryos — I did most of my work with this system 30 years ago — but it looks the embryo at the start of the video is about 18 hours post-fertilization.
It’s beautiful stuff to see. It’s one reason developmental biology is so enthralling — you can see it all happening in the lab, over and over again, and it’s all an outcome of evolutionary history.
But this is also where the words the Christian vandal scribbled on the video are so jarring. Why are they talking about wombs? This is a zebrafish embryo. It’s taking place inside of an egg, no womb involved. And not only did they fail to acknowledge the authors of the work, they are needlessly vague about the organism. It’s a zebrafish, not a human, but apparently they want to mislead you into generalizing all the lovely neuronal choreography to human embryonic development. Surprise, though: humans don’t have Rohon-Beard cells. We skip straight ahead to developing a sensory system built around dorsal root ganglion cells.
Also, do I need to point out that people don’t have lateral lines? That’s an aquatic sensory system for detecting movement and compression waves in the fluid environment, we don’t have that.
If this were a human embryo, it would be a very boring video lacking all of the cells and fibers seen here!
But sure, Christians, steal the superficial details of the natural world around us and use your ignorance of what’s going on to invalidly justify your god nonsense. I have to tell you, though, that a scientific appreciation of the phenomena occurring here is far deeper and far more rewarding, and isn’t explained by a Bible verse. Try learning something, rather than trying to shoehorn Nature into your archaic theology.
See the original video unmarred by Christian graffiti here.
Fannishness (or a lack thereof)
Jul. 15th, 2026 09:10 pmsettiaiI swear that I'm going to force my brain to actually get back into properly doing fannish things again even if it kills me. That's my plan for this weekend, whether said brain likes it or not. I'm setting my alarm in the mornings on Saturday and Sunday, and I'm forcing myself to get up no matter how little sleep I get. I can always take a short nap in the afternoon if needed (also with an alarm).
I have approximately five million fic WIPs, but lately I haven't been working on anything that isn't specifically for an exchange. My plan is to to pick a WIP, open the file, and not allow myself to do anything else until I write at least 500 words. Minimum. I'm really hoping that will kickstart my muse if I'm not allowing myself to do anything else until I hit that goal.
We're also edging closer and closer to Yuletide season, so I really want to start re-reading/re-watching/etc. a few things now both for requesting and offering purposes. Reading is easier, since I can fit that in at work between calls and such, but the re-watching part is harder to fit into my schedule. I'm going to try to set aside time every day (within reason - Wednesdays and Fridays will probably be out since I have work all day and then D&D in the evening) for that purpose if I can manage it.
Not to mention that I still need to get caught up on Critical Role, especially since they're taking a break right now which is the perfect opportunity. I think part of my problem is that I left off when they were split into my least favorite group of the new campaign (The Seekers) so that's why it's been harder to convince my brain to just shut up and catch up.
My plan right now is that I'm going to watch the next episode (maybe tomorrow if my brain isn't mush after work? Saturday if it is) with a summary pulled up. That way I can more easily fast-forward if I get to a point where I've lost interest without losing track of what's going on, which is the biggest reason that I usually force myself to not fast-forward with Critical Role.
I'm not sure if any of those plans will actually work, but I'm going to try. Because lately it feels like all I've been doing is working, sleeping, and blinking only to find out that hours have passed without me accomplishing anything.
I have approximately five million fic WIPs, but lately I haven't been working on anything that isn't specifically for an exchange. My plan is to to pick a WIP, open the file, and not allow myself to do anything else until I write at least 500 words. Minimum. I'm really hoping that will kickstart my muse if I'm not allowing myself to do anything else until I hit that goal.
We're also edging closer and closer to Yuletide season, so I really want to start re-reading/re-watching/etc. a few things now both for requesting and offering purposes. Reading is easier, since I can fit that in at work between calls and such, but the re-watching part is harder to fit into my schedule. I'm going to try to set aside time every day (within reason - Wednesdays and Fridays will probably be out since I have work all day and then D&D in the evening) for that purpose if I can manage it.
Not to mention that I still need to get caught up on Critical Role, especially since they're taking a break right now which is the perfect opportunity. I think part of my problem is that I left off when they were split into my least favorite group of the new campaign (The Seekers) so that's why it's been harder to convince my brain to just shut up and catch up.
My plan right now is that I'm going to watch the next episode (maybe tomorrow if my brain isn't mush after work? Saturday if it is) with a summary pulled up. That way I can more easily fast-forward if I get to a point where I've lost interest without losing track of what's going on, which is the biggest reason that I usually force myself to not fast-forward with Critical Role.
I'm not sure if any of those plans will actually work, but I'm going to try. Because lately it feels like all I've been doing is working, sleeping, and blinking only to find out that hours have passed without me accomplishing anything.
Busy morning with spiders
Jul. 15th, 2026 05:34 pmpharyngula_feedWe got up early this morning to run errands in the exotic metropolis of Alexandria (not the one in Egypt), which mainly involved the process of melting my flesh into the fabric of a car seat. It is unpleasantly hot, but we had things that needed to be done.
Before we left, though, I checked out the spiders around my back door. We have a guardian Parasteatoda in a nice cobweb between the door and the mailbox…she’s a lovely young lady.
Five or six centimeters away, she had a suitor in waiting. He was busily wrapping up a present for her.
Then nearby we found Theridion hanging out in a yarrow flower.
They were turning away from me, so I got a second shot of their pretty face.
Then we scooted off to do our errands. Unfortunately, on our journey, we encountered the Freedom Propaganda Truck.
Yuk. The ass end of that ugly cargo of lies has a big sign that says “Follow me!”, so we turned and went in the opposite direction.
In which there are a barren place, fallow reading, and the heron of denial
Jul. 15th, 2026 05:49 pmspiralsheep- Lmao, "a barren place... for the sake of your sanity don't go there": I was on several trains with malfunctions due to the heat but the worst was one that lost electrical power and halted during the evening rush hour in the middle of one of the busiest Midlands commuter routes (local and express). So we were in a metal tube full of people, with no ventilation, in direct sunlight, with only electrical signalling systems to prevent another scheduled train from trying to use the track we were on. The driver and guard went through their safety procedures, with the calmly efficient guard keeping us informed over the intercom (which presumably has a separate emergency power source). Fortunately the train driver managed to switch it off and switch it on again (literally). We were eventually about 30mins behind schedule and ended up being rerouted to one additional station, so the maximum number of long distance passengers changing trains could catch their connections, and the route ended one station short of its usual terminus (not, alas, that unusual even in normative conditions). The guard finished her shift before the end of the route, by which point she was somewhat lost for words, and her final announcement to us was to advise people wanting the most distant station to change at X instead of Y because Y ~ is a barren place... for the sake of your sanity don't go there ~ by which she meant that X has facilities including canopies for shelter and loos and shops while Y is merely an open tarmac platform, but it came across as rather a Monty Python and the Holy Grail pronouncement so several people were giggling and repeating it in doom-laden tones for the remainder of the journey.
- Books: if you're wondering why I haven't been posting recently it's because I didn't read any books worth reccing in May and then read no books at all in June, due to being out and about having fun (which I'll try to post about some time).
- Birbs
Me: Oh, look at the perfect weather next week! I'm so glad I have to be near the seaside. I think I'll go a couple of days early....
::checks accommodation availability in town that is never ever full::
Me: Not even a grotty caravan on the site 15mins uphill from town?!
Western reef heron: /evil laugh in rare bird
(Don't bother googling - it's the most monotone dark grey heron on earth. Anyway, apparently the twitchers booked all available accommodation within driving distance. To paraphrase Greg Davies from series 5 of Taskmaster, "Beaten by a -king heron!")
- Books: if you're wondering why I haven't been posting recently it's because I didn't read any books worth reccing in May and then read no books at all in June, due to being out and about having fun (which I'll try to post about some time).
- Birbs
Me: Oh, look at the perfect weather next week! I'm so glad I have to be near the seaside. I think I'll go a couple of days early....
::checks accommodation availability in town that is never ever full::
Me: Not even a grotty caravan on the site 15mins uphill from town?!
Western reef heron: /evil laugh in rare bird
(Don't bother googling - it's the most monotone dark grey heron on earth. Anyway, apparently the twitchers booked all available accommodation within driving distance. To paraphrase Greg Davies from series 5 of Taskmaster, "Beaten by a -king heron!")
Virtual Garage Sale
Jul. 14th, 2026 10:04 pmsettiaiI managed to sell several things when I made one of these posts back at the end of June, so I wanted to give it one more try and see if I could find homes for anything else. While it didn't work out the week that I was off work, I'd still really like to take care of switching to a smaller storage unit sooner rather than later, and anything extra I can raise would definitely help on that front.
Board/Card Games
Clue (Mighty Nein edition) (example on Amazon)
Monopoly (Crazy for Cats edition) (example on Walmart)
Queen by Midnight (example on Amazon)
Books/Comics/Graphic Novels
The Lost Art of E.T. Reed: Prehistoric Peeps (example on Amazon)
Dice Tray
Wyrmwood Gaming Purpleheart Dice Tray (example on WyrmwoodGaming.com - purpleheart is third from the last)
Nintendo Switch Games
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)
TTRPGs
Daggerheart Core Set (example on Amazon)
If you're not interested but know someone who might be, please point them my way.
For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).
Board/Card Games
Clue (Mighty Nein edition) (example on Amazon)
Monopoly (Crazy for Cats edition) (example on Walmart)
Queen by Midnight (example on Amazon)
Books/Comics/Graphic Novels
The Lost Art of E.T. Reed: Prehistoric Peeps (example on Amazon)
Dice Tray
Wyrmwood Gaming Purpleheart Dice Tray (example on WyrmwoodGaming.com - purpleheart is third from the last)
Nintendo Switch Games
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)
TTRPGs
Daggerheart Core Set (example on Amazon)
If you're not interested but know someone who might be, please point them my way.
For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).
I don’t ask much of the Democrats
Jul. 14th, 2026 02:09 pmpharyngula_feed
So why do they always disappoint me?
Top of the list: demand an end to the war in Iran, and stop giving Israel support for genocide. Is this too much to ask? It’s the bare minimum exercise of human decency. Stop killing people. But too many Democrats are in the pocket of AIPAC to take a forthright position on something so simple.
Next on the list, but still pretty important: disband ICE. I know it was pushing it too far to ask to defund the police in general, but ICE is nothing but a right-wing murder squad. They killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine yesterday, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas last week. Their new excuse: they were fearing for public safety
, so they were justified in gunning down a member of the public who was not threatening the public safety. That’s a damned fine excuse, one they could use to justify shooting me, because it’s so vague.
It’s all so nebulous that the goons who murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti are still running free, the FBI has been stonewalling Minnesota authorities (sub-goal: fire Kash Patel and have him arrested), and they only recently allowed prosecutors to examine the evidence, more than 7 months after the murder of Good. ICE is basically an interstate assassination cartel operating on behalf of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, specifically looking for an excuse to kill brown people and antifa.
If a candidate for office can’t pass those two easy hurdles, they will not be getting my vote. I’m fed up with politicians who refuse to address those two simple issues.
Now you tell me
Jul. 14th, 2026 11:44 ampharyngula_feedI was wondering why I had to keep teaching the same thing every year. They’re swapping new students in on me!
I’m looking at my last year of teaching coming up. They better get it right this time, because they won’t be able to come back in 2027-2028 to catch up!
Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday
Jul. 14th, 2026 11:45 amicon_uk posting in scans_dailyIn the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.
Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.
The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.
Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.
It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.
The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.
Happy Bastille Day to those who celebrate!
In the US, a Senator died unexpectedly, and one turned out to maybe be alive, equally, if not more, unexpectedly.
In the UK an elderly politician whose pretty much every opinion I utterly disagree with was murdered for reasons as yet unknown, not that any could justify what happened.
Other loses in the week include Bonnie Tyler and San Neill. Though neither were young, and both leave an extraordinary artistic legacy behind them, one always hoped for more.
The anime "Banana Fish" is getting a proper English dub released on Netflix next year, following last years Prime Video AI dubbing fiasco.
Finally got around to watching "Thunderbolts". Comedy relief Red Guardian got old quickly and Valentina's plan was based on so many bad decisions it was like watching the first Suicide Squad film again, something I planned on never doing. Otherwise... "mostly harmless".
Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.
The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.
Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.
It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.
The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.
Happy Bastille Day to those who celebrate!
In the US, a Senator died unexpectedly, and one turned out to maybe be alive, equally, if not more, unexpectedly.
In the UK an elderly politician whose pretty much every opinion I utterly disagree with was murdered for reasons as yet unknown, not that any could justify what happened.
Other loses in the week include Bonnie Tyler and San Neill. Though neither were young, and both leave an extraordinary artistic legacy behind them, one always hoped for more.
The anime "Banana Fish" is getting a proper English dub released on Netflix next year, following last years Prime Video AI dubbing fiasco.
Finally got around to watching "Thunderbolts". Comedy relief Red Guardian got old quickly and Valentina's plan was based on so many bad decisions it was like watching the first Suicide Squad film again, something I planned on never doing. Otherwise... "mostly harmless".
