Kimberly A. Riley is a user on octodon.social. You can follow them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse. If you don't, you can sign up here.

Kimberly A. Riley @KARiley40@octodon.social

@Angle It’s not that easy. You start fiddling with one part, it affects others. Example. Domestication in canines is linked with fur color, tail length, ear flop, ect. Eye and skin color have a lot of genes with them and possibly even some non-genetic parts. Then you got hedgehog genes to fiddle with.

‪Built a cardboard house for Stew. He seems to be enjoying it. rabbits
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Once again, we're putting out the call for diverse sci-fi writers that are:
- Disabled
- First Nations
- Marginalised sexes, genders, & identities
- Neurodivergent
- POC
- Scientists (research & comms)

New or established, we want your micro-scifi based on real science! Want to know more? We've written some thorough submission guidelines for this year, so go take a look! storyseedvault.com/submissions/

#MicroFiction #tootfic #smallstories

@Angle @deutrino Yep, going to go write this now. I've had some ideas. I'll figure out an actual plot later. WEEE!!

@deutrino @Angle Now that's a designer pet. - And holy crap, now I feel I need to go write this. Hmm...

This is incredible.

Raptors in Northern Australia are intentionally spreading fire as a hunting strategy, making human firefighting efforts more difficult.

They pick up burning sticks and drop them elsewhere to start new fires.

bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2993/027

@Angle Actually, this bit would make a frightening dystopia.

So you want to have the movie star’s baby? Well, the price is they only live 10-15 years and will die of cancer. People do it anyway, knowing they get all the fun of having this kid, and none of the longterm investment of education or medical. Now that’s scary.

@Angle In short, I’d put the time table between distant future and never.

Side note. This is why cloning has so many problems. Your DNA changes over your lifetime. Mostly, it shortens (which is related to aging and life expectancy) and picks up nasty mutations (cancer).

To clone/make babies, you need to start with stem cells and those are hard to get ahold of even when you go seeking them.

@Angle This would be a fantastic start to a dystopian book. I could see lots of things to do with it.

But as for reality? Hard to say. Gotta remember that sperm isn’t the full genome, it’s half, which comes from a DNA source that hasn’t been changing because of age/damage like the rest of you.

So there are some pretty complex barriers to get over and logistical, it may not be worth the effort to invest in figuring out how to get from skin cell DNA to sperm DNA.

Enjoy the fire! I know I did, it was about 40 F during the night and I’m a wimp!
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@ekaitz_zarraga Oh wait! Those gum brushes are what I have. Didn’t know the name of them. I just need to get more.

@ekaitz_zarraga Yeah, I've collected a few different kinds of tools over the years, but I'd love to see yours.

Found these really cool silicone tipped ones a few years ago and I like them, but I only have two tiny ones atm. Need to go get some more.

Mostly, just need to keep practicing. Yours look great too, love the dwarf!

@ekaitz_zarraga Just a tiny bit of wire. Yeah, some of the details were hard to get smooth without losing texture. I have some tiny filing tools and might give those a shot at cleanup. Also hoping paint helps hide a few things!

Thanks a ton for the help. I need to start building small minis, rather than all the huge ones I tend to focus on. Only way to improve is to practice.

@letthewatersroar Since scale is very hard to tell if you aren’t familiar with minis, here he is holding a penny.
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@letthewatersroar Oh. Awhile. I discovered Super Sculpey (oven baked polymer clay) in college and have been slowing improving.

The fairy dragon is made of a 2 part epoxy clay called Green Stuff. I tried making him from Sculpey, but it was way too delicate. The Green holds up to abuse.

Yeah. He’s the smallest. I’ve done lots of modifications of D&D miniatures over the years and built a few huge ones, but this one is itty bitty.

@letthewatersroar Green Stuff. It’s a two part clay (yellow and blue) you mix together and then it dries after a few hours.

The white miniature is 3-D printed by Hero Forge.

‪As promised, I would upload when I finished the latest project. A fairy dragon! This is the most I’ve worked with green and probably the smallest mini I’ve made to date!‬

Onto painting!

‪Also, @ekaitz_zarraga
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@ekaitz_zarraga I will, thanks again. This little dragon is close to being done so I’ll post him up eventually and then we can judge how good I’ve gotten 😆.