Rainy Day Impressions

i fucking hate when people look down on those with social anxiety like “oh that happens to everybody” “just do it you’ll be fine” no, it’s a legitimate disorder and a lot of people are inadvertently hurt by you brushing shit under the rug begone thot

The result (feat. my Pinterest as a widget)

one day you think: I want to die. and then you think, very quietly: actually. actually. I think I want a coffee. a nap. a sandwich. a book. and I want to die turns day by day into want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friend, I want to sit in the sun, I want a cleaner kitchen, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else. I want to live.

- via duckbunny

idk i just wanna sit in a dark library at night in the candlelight wearing an oversized sweater and exchange glances over my book to my lover while the rain pours outside and feel at peace with the world

phys.org

Scientists discover that water molecules define the materials around us

For decades, the fields of physics and chemistry have maintained that the atoms and molecules that make up the natural world define the char

OKAY THIS ARTICLE IS SO COOL

I'm going to try to explain this in a comprehensible way, because honestly it's wild to wrap your head around even for me, who has a degree in chemistry. But bear with me.

Okay, so. Solids, right? They are rigid enough to hold their shape, but aside from that they are quite variable. Some solids are hard, others are soft, some are brittle or rubbery or malleable. So what determines these qualities? And what creates the rigid structure that makes a solid a solid? Most people would tell you that it depends on the atoms that make up the solid, and the bonds between those atoms. Rubber is flexible because of the polymers it's made of, steel is strong because of the metallic bonds between its atoms. And this applies to all solids. Or so everybody thought.

A paper published in the journal Nature has discovered that biological materials such as wood, fungi, cotton, hair, and anything else that can respond to the humidity in the environment may be composed of a new class of matter dubbed "hydration solids". That's because the rigidity and solidness of the materials doesn't actually come from the atoms and bonds, but from the water molecules hanging out in between.

So basically, try to imagine a hydration solid as a bunch of balloons taped together to form a giant cube, with the actual balloon part representing the atoms and bonds of the material, and the air filling the balloons as the water in the pores of the solid. What makes this "solid" cube shaped? It's not because of the rubber at all, but the air inside. If you took out all the air from inside the balloons, the structure wouldn't be able to hold its shape.

Ozger Sahin, one of the paper's authors, said

"When we take a walk in the woods, we think of the trees and plants around us as typical solids. This research shows that we should really think of those trees and plants as towers of water holding sugars and proteins in place. It's really water's world."

And the great thing about this discovery (and one of the reasons to support its validity) is that thinking about hydration solids this way makes the math so so so much easier. Before this, if you wanted to calculate how water interacts with organic matter, you would need advanced computer simulations. Now, there are simple equations that you can do in your head. Being able to calculate a material's properties using basic physics principles is a really big deal, because so far we have only been able to do that with gasses (PV=nRT anyone?). Expanding that to a group that encompasses 50-90% of the biological world around us is huge.

hi! i've changed my major but i've also switched universities at the same time, so i'm not sure if my experience is relevant to what you're going through. nonetheless, let me know if you want to talk about it together! i know this can be a very difficult experience, and i hope that you will find peace, happiness, and success no matter how it turns out in the end <3

Thank you so much for answering and offering your help!

First of all the current situation: I'm starting my third semester in Medical Engineering next month in a town very far from my hometown. I'm not a very social person and the only friend I had in this town decided to move away a few months ago. I think the main reason why I want to change is because I'm lonely and homesick, I miss my old friends who all study in the same area.

At the same time I've always been torn between studying biology or engineering and now I'm thinking biology might be a better fit. That would also allow me to move back home.

It's not that I don't like engineering, I enjoy maths and I would definitely be able to finish this degree with good grades.

I'd love to talk to you about this, about what made you change and when you knew it would be the right decision

This made my day, it’s so wholesome! My childhood cat was a former stray and she was the sweetest kitty I’ve ever met ❤️

Madly in love with my newest IKEA purchase and the neighbor‘s cat Timmy (even though he constantly tries to break into our apartment -a criminal, but a cute one)

Also I’m already 🌼stressed🌼 about my exams

This is wayyy to aesthetic to be just candle wax. It kind of reminds me of summer vacation in France with my Family 😊

Hey guys! Today I took a break from studying to pursue my creative endeavours with...you guessed it! Candle making! 🫧 What do u guys think? Are the sea breeze scent and the ocean aesthetic going to relax your mind? Hope they do so with mine 🪸

Do you ever feel like it was way easier to find friends, when you were younger? I don’t know what happened, but somehow between the age of 13 and now, I lost most of my social skills. I get really bad anxiety when talking to strangers and now I only have one friend at Uni and she’s skipping classes pretty often so I don’t know if she’ll pass the exams. All of my close friends live far away, I’m scared of being lonely.

Well, at least I have the neighborhood cats, that’s step one of my 15-year-plan to become a crazy cat lad 🩵🤍