Channelknight Fadran

Humans don't have hygroreceptors.

Insects have hygroreceptors. Spiders have hygroreceptors. Humans do not.

Fadran, what the heck is a hygroreceptor?

Humans, most traditionally, have the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. This was devised  (somewhat unsurprisingly) by Aristotle, has carried through to modern-day education, and is completely and totally wrong.

At least... scientifically, anyways.

I don't mean to diss on my boy Ari. He's great. And if he'd had access to our modern-day academia surrounding biology and such, then he would've come to a different conculsion. Those five consist of several overlaps between a whole slew of disputed senses and non-senses that humans may or may not have, because these bloody neurologists cannot for the life of them ever agree on anything.

Fadran, what the heck is a hygroreceptor?

There are a few senses that most neurologists (apparently) agree upon. Nociception is the sense of pain, Proprioception (I refer to it as Somatic) is the sense of your own body (like where you arm is, and how you can move it without thinking), and Equilibrioception is the sense of balance.

The numbers are disputed. Most agree on at least nine. Some say there's twenty-one. Michael Cohen theorized and researched fifty-three total senses (I'm going to list them all in a spoiler box because why the heck not).

But no hygroreceptors.

Fadran, what the heck is a hygroreceptor?

A Hygroreceptor is a type of sensory organ that detects humidity and wetness. Go find a nature documentary from BBC and see if you can find David Attenborough explain the life cycle of some insect that stays underground its entire life until it somehow senses rain a day early or something. Most invertibrates have hygroreceptors, meaning that they can feel wetness.

Fadran, you ding-dong, I can feel humidity. You fool. You imbecile. You absolute candlestick.

No you can't.

Go jump in a pool. Or leastaways imagine jumping in a pool. If you're where I am then it is not yet pool weather.

What do you feel?

Cold, first of all. Probably. You're going to feel cold. But then you're going to swim around for awhile and it'll start to warm up until you're comfortable.

(Unless you're swimming in that one pool we had with an AirBNB that one time. Blimey, that was frigid).

Why do you feel warm in the pool after awhile? Well, because you got used to it, right?

WRONG.

Humans have thermoreceptors, which are not temperature detectors. You are not feeling temperature, you are feeling the heat exchange from your body. This is why a room temperature metal plate will feel colder than a room temperature plastic plate; the metal is a conductor, and draws heat from your body. You feel the heat leaving your body, and thus the metal feels cold.

When you jump in the water, the water is colder than your body. Humans run at nearly 100 Fahrenheit on average, which is actually pretty dang hot if you think about it. Most of this heat is internal, meaning it's really warm in all your squishy organs and such, but less so on your skin (the reason why your head/ears are what you check for fevers is probably because that's where you brain is - that thing is more powerful than any PC ever built. It's gonna run hot sometimes). This is why you can jump into 50 F water as a 98 F without freezing to death; we're pretty tough in that regard, all things considered. But we're a lot warmer than the water regardless, so thermodynamics kicks in and we start losing heat.

When the water stops feeling cold, that's because we're coming into external equilibrium with its temperature, such that we stop losing heat so rapidly. After awhile the water might even start to feel warm. All the molecules are finally calming the heck down with the heat exchange and figuring out how chill or un-chill this party is going to be.

But then you suddenly have to pee and this pool really isn't big enough to do it quietly, so you have to get out and go to the bathroom.

And then suddenly it's freezing again.

There is water all over your body, and you start feeling cold. If it's windy then doubly so. It's because the water's cold, right?

Not quite. It's because you're warm - and the water wants to be too.

There's air, and its molecules are all nice and chaotic. Molecules like being chaotic. That's how the universe designed them. Water, as a molecule, also likes being chaotic. Like all matter, it's most chaotic in molecular form as a gas - meaning, when it evaporates.

(Side tangent: Doesn't water boil at 212 F? Humans are only ever a bit over 100 on bad days. Well turns out what you learned in grade school about the states of matter is also super wrong. There is always some level of action going on that takes molecules away from liquid clumps and turns them into gaseous clumps. A substance's boiling point is the highest amount of energy you can put into a fluid - anything at that or above will turn it into a gas with no chance of parole. I learned this just now and will probably make another SU at some point ranting about it if I decide the science is cool enough).

But where is the water getting its energy from?

You. Duh.

Evaporating takes energy, so it needs to suck energy away from something. That something is you. This is the essential scientific principle behind why you sweat on hot days: you generate water, and evaporation cools you down. Simple as that. 

So you finish peeing and jump back in the pool. It still feels nice and warm - that's because you're a quick peer (...pee-er? Urine-er? Urinater? Urinator?). You're body hasn't had the chance to get back into equilibrium with the regular air atmosphere, meaning you're still at roughly pool temperature on the outside. If you had dried off and sat out in the sun for awhile, you'd steadily feel yourself grow warmer as the heat of the nasty summer day starts pumping thermal energy back into your body.

Fadran, what does any of this have to do with hygroreceptors?

I know my fair share of people who say that water isn't wet.

My own older sister was one such person who consistently insisted to me that water isn't wet.

Someone's girlfriend pestered them so much that they asked Bill Nye if water isn't wet.

Water doesn't feel wet when you're in it! You don't feel the water when you're submerged! Water isn't wet!

You can't feel wetness. No one can. Your perception of wetness is a combination of developed texture and thermal senses. When you're submerged in water there's no air for it to evaporate into, so you don't feel any thermal exchange. When you're soaking back onshore you feel cold because there is. You feel the water slipping down you because you know what water feels like; there's an awful lot of it, and you feel it all the time.

But you aren't feeling the wetness.

No one is.

oh hey Tress arrived

I'm curious.

What was the lore behind your legos during your childhood? Or any toys for that matter (for me it was legos).

guys I have access to Google's weird AI called "Bard"

gimme some stuff to talk about with it

Listen

I know you're not really supposed to talk politics here on the Shard. Even if I'm not here to start campaigning or spitting ideologies, it's a dangerous conversation to invoke.

There have been ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE MASS SHOOTINGS IN 2023

Across EIGHTY-SIX DAYS

and the reason I bring this up is because just yesterday there was another in Nashville, TN that was conducted by a singular trans adult, who has since been killed. And now the political world has EXPLODED over "The Trans agenda!" and "End Gender Affirmation!" and "END WOKE CULTURE!"

and that is      s  u    c      h

CHUNGSCUD

I - 

Want statistics? Here're the statistics. One hundred and twenty-three mass shootings means that 0.81% of this year's mass shootings were committed by a trans person. 

o h h     but that's  m o r e    than  the  a v e r a g e    you say? The average number of adults who are trans is 0.3% ?

Well how's about we spread out our stats. Mr... y'know what? Imma find your tweet. Imma name names.

Benny Johnson, you absolute craphat. Here are your exact words:

Quote

The Colorado Springs shooter identified as non binary.

The Denver shooter identified as trans.

The Aberdeen shooter identified as trans.

The Nashville shooter identified as trans. 

One thing is VERY clear: the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists into terrorists.

There have been

two thousand

eight hundred

sixty-one mass shootings since 2018, when his earliest citation (Aberdeen) occurred.

That is 0.1% committed by trans/nb individuals. Out of two thousand eight hundred sixty-one, FOUR have been committed by these people.

Do I have to say any more??? Do I have to explain myself???

YOU PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TURNING A BLIND EYE TO THE HUNDREDS OF MASS SHOOTINGS STACKING UP WITH EVERY DAY UNTIL THE INSTANT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS COMMITTED BY A DEMOGRAPHIC YOU HAVE MADE A CAREER OUT OF SUBJUGATING

I need to decide what I'm going to do over the summer

it is impossible to express just how stressful this decision is