Look what I found!!! Roman empire google maps. Do you want to know the fastest route to get an army from Constantinople to London? Or how long it would take to get from Jerusalem to Rome on a shoe string? Of course you do!

https://orbis.stanford.edu/

#WritingResearch #History #RomanEmpire

Recommending it here, too:
#writing #WritingResearch

This Tumblr post has lots of information about arrows and arrow inflicted wounds:

https://www.tumblr.com/salt-and-a-dash-of-pepper/181277837478/writing-advice-on-arrow-wounds

Do you know what's impossible to find? Solid data on the percentage of people who've given birth have long-term physical side effects from it over a year later. Even info on specific conditions is hard to find. Post-partum depression, sure! A simple overall percentage of physical damage? Nope!

I want a meta-study, damn it. This is just for ONE throwaway line in my book, but I want accurate data. Harrumph.

#amwritingsf #amwriting #writingresearch #writingcommunity #research #pregnancy #question

So someone on Mastodon posted this link to an scholarly article about research into writing on wax: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1sr6hgk.7

Which I finally got around to reading today (both #WritingResearch and general interest).

And they got an expert to inscribe cuneiform on one of their wax paste formulations to show what a new writing board might have looked like.

And they snuck the translation into the footnotes.

And it’s a sex poem.

Wind blow, orchard shake,
Clouds gather, droplets fall!
Let my potency be steady as running river water,
Let my penis be a taut harpstring,
Let it not slip out of her!

Nothing like a Mesopotamian anti-impotency incantation to start the day right. Though one’s penis being a harpstring is not quite the flex it once was, perhaps.

#history #poetry #WritingCommunity

So muss es früher in Schreibbüros geklungen haben: 15 Personen, die tippen und sonst kein Geräusch weiter

Nur jetzt sehr viel leiser auf Dell-Laptops.

Ich logge eine Stunde lang 15 Studis, die die Methodenkapitel für ihre Masterarbeit schreiben. Und die können alle 10-Finger-Schreiben. Das Ohr forscht ja mit

#WritingResearch #KeystrokeLogging #ForschungKlingtGut

I'm at a CS workshop and I'm the only one with #stickers on her laptop. Like, honestly? Am I just old?

On the other hand, most of the audience looks like half my age anyway

#GenX #WritingResearch

TIL that cuttlefish ink has long been used in human art. It's a brownish color, known as "sepia" after the cuttlefish species name: Sepia officinalis.

#writingresearch #amwriting #sciencefact #nature #cephalopod

My search history now contains “Can a domesticate pig produce offspring with a wild boar?” and “How do wolf packs avoid incest?” #writingresearch

TIL that MIT students engineered E. Coli into a banana-scented bacteria called Eau d'Coli. Yep, I'm putting banana-scented poop bacteria in my future SF now. 💩🍌 🤣

#amwriting #amwritingsf #livinginthefuture #writingresearch #science #TIL

While looking up the collective noun for a group of beetles (v. boring: swarm or colony), I was charmed to learn that it is a loveliness of ladybugs. 🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞

#writingresearch #amwriting #words #writingcommunity

I got to write about my research for “The Roots in the Box and the Roots in the Bones” for the Asimov’s author blog and now you all get to go down this dark, wild rabbit hole with me. Bring a flashlight

https://fromearthtothestars.com/2023/01/12/finding-and-breaking-utopia/
#sff #scifi #writingcommunity #writingresearch #writing #climatefiction

Other #writingresearch amnesia due to blood loss 😉 , enucleation (turns out I've been spelling it wrong all along), extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

And I learned that bacterial enzymes can eat antigens and transform non-O blood types into universal donor blood! Still early days on that one, but exciting!

...Why yes, I was a bit rough on one of my characters in my most recent scene, why do you ask? 😂

(2/2)

https://www.science.org/content/article/type-blood-converted-universal-donor-blood-help-bacterial-enzymes

#amwriting #amwritingsf #biology #science

My latest #writingresearch discovery: there's no reason we're dependent solely on blood donations. Oxygen-carrying #blood can be harvested from corpses up to 6-8 hours after death!

"For twenty-eight years, the Sklifosovsky Institute [in Moscow] happily transfused cadaver blood, some twenty-five tons of the stuff, meeting 70 percent of its clinics needs." - Mary Roach, Stiff

(1/2)

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/07/a_simple_solution_to_end_blood_shortages.html

#science #biology #amwriting #amwritingsf #sciencefact

#AmWritingFirstDraft #amwriting did a good bit of research on the next likely project. Went down a bit of a rabbit hole while using StreetView in the tiny town that my project will take place, but that was glorious and necessary and told me SO much about the town.
#writing #writingcommunity #writingresearch

Today in #writingresearch

Why do people think blood is sometimes blue? (It isn't.)
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/02/03/513003105/why-do-many-think-human-blood-is-sometimes-blue

Hydraulics

Jury-rigged vs jerry-built etymology
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jerry-built-vs-jury-rigged-vs-jerry-rigged-usage-history

#words #amwriting #science

No, Google, when I ask "where to buy eyeballs near me" I am not actually interested in optometrists. Sigh.

In related news, Quora still has authoritative answers that nobody else does, even if they're 8 years old now.

#writernotserialkiller #writingresearch #amwriting

Writing research question: is anybody here a surgeon, or have you ever broken your hand? Trying to find out what a doctor might do if you severely fracture two carpal bones in your hand - do they put pins in them? Something else? Thank you! 📝 #amwriting #writingresearch

Did you know cuttlefish "hold" their breath to avoid shark attacks? So cool!

#cuttlefishfacts #writingresearch #amwriting

https://www.science.org/content/article/when-cuttlefish-hold-their-breath-they-become-nearly-invisible-sharks

Today’s #writingresearch : were Egyptian temples guarded? What was the typical lay-out? Where and how did the priests and priestesses live?
Did you know #campfire has a great tool to store your research and link them to any other element you have in the app (including other research stubs, locations, characters or elements on your book’s timeline)?
#amwriting #writingcommunity #ancientegypt

One of the coolest parts of starting a new project is the research that needs doing. Today I'm learning about foods you can forage and how to prepare them. What have you learned about recently?

#writing #writingcommunity #writingresearch #authorlife #writinglife #kidlit #middlegrade