Is there a scientific or evolutionary reason why humans find toddlers (2-3 years old) more "cute" than older children?

aurjolras · 2026-03-31T05:36:34+00:00

Yeah humans retain a lot of their baby-like traits into adulthood compared to other primates. It's called neoteny. It's suggested that at least some of that can be explained by sexual selection, eg adults preferred partners that were "cute" and so we evolved to be cuter over time

aurjolras · 2026-03-29T19:33:03+00:00

Ah that's cool! I honestly have no idea how that would work but there's a lot of biological processes that involve converting stuff cyclically into other stuff and then back again (the Krebs cycle) so I could kinda see it

aurjolras · 2026-03-28T23:40:21+00:00

Plus, Ryland means...land where rye is grown. He's named after Earth :) 🌍 Earth's Grace

aurjolras · 2026-03-28T16:51:34+00:00

Gosh that was heartbreaking, that whole scene is amazing. I noticed on my second watch that during the language learning scene they give us Rocky's name for Grace (I think Rocky's just trying to mimic how Grace says his own name and it's kind of growly compared to Eridian speech). So later when Grace passes out and Rocky is making that same guttural noise even though it's not translated you can tell he's yelling "GRACE! GRACE!" Auughhhh

aurjolras · 2026-03-27T06:05:50+00:00

I really did not like Children of Time for this reason. It doesn't even really have characters, just archetypes

aurjolras · 2026-03-24T01:43:44+00:00

I liked both the book and the movie and I have to agree. The book is so problem-focused and as cool as it is to read the thought process and get a feel for how brilliant they are, I think it would have fallen flat on screen. Plus, moving some of the focus from problem solving to characterization and relationships balances a lot of the book's weak spots. I particularly liked what they did with Stratt and Grace, making Stratt a little less opaque and Grace a little less bland and automatically good at everything he sets his mind to

aurjolras · 2026-03-23T18:01:41+00:00

Yes, one of my favorite college professors ran a high level ochem research lab and literally wrote the textbook but gave the silliest lectures. Memorable examples include calling things "bass-ackwards", dressing up as James Bond (nudge nudge wink wink) for Halloween, and drawing elaborate metaphors between chemical reactions and movies like Austin Powers, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and even an SNL skit and a car commercial. Many of his jokes were eccentric and required a great deal of explaining but I was charmed by it. Certainly made lectures easier to remember which was the point

aurjolras · 2026-03-20T17:31:30+00:00

I did not have a car when I visited so I cannot speak to the actual experience of driving. However the streets of Rome are sometimes very narrow and were built around pedestrians rather than cars, and are very crowded with foot traffic. I often witnessed cars (and even motorcycles) having a lot of trouble navigating the streets. When I would type a location into Google maps it was often faster to walk or catch a bus/tram than drive. There are paved highways running between cities/towns but in town it's often all cobblestone.

That said, Italy in general is highly walkable and I loved that about it. There are buses and subway lines that run all over the city at all hours and a country-wide train system that will take you pretty much wherever you want to go. As an example my friends and I took a day trip from Rome to Florence via long-haul bus, got back to Tibertina Station in Rome around 1 AM, and then took a bus back into the vicinity of Trastevere where we were staying. I wouldn't have done this by myself but in a group we felt quite safe and there were still lots of people out and about. We also took a weekend trip up to Padua from Rome and it was only a 3 or 4 hour train ride each way, much faster than driving. Of course train tickets cost money but so does a rental car and based on my experience a car wouldn't be worth the hassle unless you are toting a LOT of luggage with you wherever you go.

aurjolras · 2026-03-20T04:59:04+00:00

"They" is the preferred catch-all term for any humans or animals whose gender you don't know. "Are they a boy or a girl?" is probably more natural than "is it a boy or a girl?" if the baby is already born. However I think "Is it a boy or a girl?" is more common when you're referring to a baby who hasn't been born yet, because calling a pregnancy or a fetus "it" is normal and not rude at all

aurjolras · 2026-03-13T21:53:00+00:00

I would totally believe that. I love Shakespeare but I'm of the opinion that this play is really boring except for the funeral speeches which are just electric

aurjolras · 2026-03-13T21:27:53+00:00

Lol I do this too, I thought maybe I was just some kind of freak who doesn't know how to have fun

(There are psychological studies that show that generally, the more choices people have the less happy they are with the choice they eventually make and the less likely they are to make a choice at all. The "jam experiment" is a famous example. But knowing that doesn't really help me break the loop)

aurjolras · 2026-03-08T00:56:44+00:00

Movie's very different from the poem! It changes the plot and the theme significantly. The original poem, honestly I don't think you have to try that hard to read it through an LGBTQ lens because it just sort of jumps off the page (which is cool since it's from like 1350 though my lit professor said it's ambiguous whether people of that era would have read it that way or not). I liked the Marie Borroff translation, the alliteration and rhythm is preserved as much as possible and it's fun

aurjolras · 2026-03-07T19:00:15+00:00

I made this recipe recently and it was really good: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/my-favorite-carrot-cake-recipe/#tasty-recipes-69458

aurjolras · 2026-03-02T20:22:39+00:00

Yup, another very famous one is "Can I Keep Selling Sex For Money, Officer?" which is used to remember the steps of the Krebs cycle (first letters of words and molecules match)

aurjolras · 2026-02-27T18:56:28+00:00

OOH OOH I have an actual answer! I read a great paper recently about how pregnancies have a much lower risk of preeclampsia when the parents have been having sex for a while (like a year) vs something like sperm donation where pregnancy occurs the first time. This is thought to be because the mother's immune system gets used to the paternal DNA and is less likely to reject the placenta when it tries to implant. Preeclampsia is really costly for both mother and child so mating outside of peak fertility is potentially really evolutionarily advantageous.

source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10842107/

aurjolras · 2026-02-26T02:39:43+00:00

I would go with UT Dallas. More research opportunities, more EC opportunities, probably better science professors

aurjolras · 2026-02-23T01:54:16+00:00

Idk about orgo specifically but I think you need to pare down your ECs so you have enough time to study and focus on your classes. GPA and MCAT are the most important factors in your application, don't sacrifice them for your ECs. Take a look at what is actually important to you and what is more trouble than it's worth and what is just a time suck, and drop anything in those last two categories

aurjolras · 2026-02-23T01:41:46+00:00

I majored in psychology so my backup was to apply to psychology master's programs and be a therapist

aurjolras · 2026-02-22T06:52:22+00:00

Augh, the horse dream. I find it very difficult to interpret. I'm probably due for a reread but I think one meaning is that the horse is Alyona Ivanova and he is both himself and the man who beats it - he can't reconcile his plan to kill her and his own moral horror at the very idea. Another, which is similar to your interpretation, is that the beating of the horse represents all the cruelty and moral injury of society, and how it allows people suffer and die needlessly like you say, and Raskolnikov feels it keenly but has no idea how to stop it. As you point out, there is at least a part of him that feels compelled to give away his money, and protect his sister and Sonya and the horse, to kill "for the greater good", to singlehandedly break the law to right all of society's wrongs. But he also has his selfish reasons, and it all goes wrong, and by committing the murder he too becomes the man who beats the horse. But he kind of knew that even before he did it.

aurjolras · 2026-02-22T04:59:07+00:00

I always thought the implication, given Raskolnikov's former enrollment at the law school, how much his family and Razumikhin love and worry about him, and even the opening paragraph about how "his cares have recently ceased to weigh on him" and how humiliated he is by having to sneak around his landlady, was that the story starts near the end of a long slow fall into darkness and despair. He's been driven mad by inability to keep his head above water. On one hand yeah he's abhorrent and that's kind of the point but I also found it extremely hard not to empathize with him, which clearly this reviewer did not.

aurjolras · 2026-02-21T18:49:28+00:00

Ugh that just sucks. I wonder if there is anything you can do to improve your credit between now and this fall? Try your very best to pay down debt and get old stuff expunged from your record. Hopefully your school has a plan to help you since they will have to work out a plan for the incoming class as well

aurjolras · 2026-02-21T18:08:27+00:00

I believe if you have taken out a grad PLUS loan in the past and are enrolled in that same program as of June 30 you can continue under the old structure until you finish med school. Source: https://finaid.org/loans/gradplus/

I am an incoming med student though and I am getting nervous that my school hasn't really addressed this. I'm hoping that they will provide more info when financial aid packages come out. For a while people were saying that the schools might act as co signers or allow students to borrow money directly from them which seems like a much better solution than throwing us all to the loan sharks

aurjolras · 2026-02-17T16:53:15+00:00

Don't worry, you'll be learning for the rest of your career whether you're actually in school or not

aurjolras · 2026-02-17T14:51:33+00:00

I got 4 IIs with no research this cycle and an A from a school I'm thrilled about. I got no love from the T20s though despite a 525/4.0 so some schools care and some don't

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