[1889] Based on a true story

[theonethatgotaway]

I wonder what that story is?

[ST13R]

Soooo, mites (or something) bringing her a bug offering...?

Ketrak time?

[philman]

Sept 27, 2017 7:21:31 GMT ST13R said:

Soooo, mites (or something) bringing her a bug offering...?

Ketrak time?

Hmm, I saw it as a beetle landing and then rapidly shrinking in size.

but given the breaking branch and now this, I wouldn't put it past some jungle fairies playing about in the ether and messing with the researchers.

[keef]

Sept 27, 2017 7:21:31 GMT ST13R said:

Soooo, mites (or something) bringing her a bug offering...?

Ketrak time?

Mites leaving a dying bug, like rats leaving a sinking ship, yes that's likely. Wonder if she never met any of the guides before. Ketrak must be literally everywhere around her.

[Blitz]

At first I thought it was shrinking as well, but then using the grid as a reference it doesn't seem so on second glance. Now I'm thinking that it's the beetle's babies scattering all over the page... shudder

[shadow3]

Oh snap Surma is going to FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK OUT, trip, and fall into or together down with Tony, starting off their hot, steamy, awkward teen romance.

[pyradonis]

The bug is not shrinking, as evidenced by its size compared to the grid on the paper. But I still don't get what is supposed to be happening.

[zaferion]

This is the bug landing and all its babies going in every direction. Commencing fiery freak out in 3...2...1...

[davidm]

Long ago a single parasite crawled into the bug and made babies in it. Now the babies are all busting out and looking for a new host to infect, such as a human. For more info, please see the following documentaries:

Invasion of the body snatchers
Slither
Alien
Life
Star Trek 2, the Wrath of Khan
The Puppet Masters
The Brain Eaters
The Tingler
Plan 9 from outer space
The Ruins
The Thing
Invaders from Mars
I Married A Monster from Outer Space

[philman]

huh you're right, I couldn't see the grid in the bottom three panels as it was too faint, could only see it when I highlighted the image to change the contrast.

[phyzome]

Just to round out the options, it could also be phoresy -- little critters that are taking a ride -- saying "oh this is my stop". (Pseudoscorpions do this!) But they're probably supposed to be parasitic mites.

[todd]

The "based on a true story" part would most likely rule out the shrinking theory.

Maybe Tom will fill us in on the "true story" part later (such as when he reaches this chapter in the YouTube broadcasts). I'm not enough of an entomology expert to guess (I share Surma's "creeped out by bugs" nature).

[ctso74]

I wonder if a jungle "force" is trying to communicate, causing the mites to catch a ride on the bug, then form a circle. Drawing with animal telepathy, so to speak.
It could have been trying to communicate with them, this whole time. Tony was so focused on studying bugs, that he couldn't see the insect "forest" from the insect "trees".
It just mite be true... Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[fish]

Sept 27, 2017 14:08:05 GMT ctso74 said:

I wonder if a jungle "force" is trying to communicate, causing the mites to catch a ride on the bug, then form a circle. Drawing with animal telepathy, so to speak.
It could have been trying to communicate with them, this whole time. Tony was so focused on studying bugs, that he couldn't see the insect "forest" from the insect "trees".
It just mite be true... Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I was thinking this might be Ketrak using dying insects as a means to warn Surma about whatever the Omega device is doing.

It might be just a coincidence, though.

[Nnelg]

Sept 27, 2017 8:00:48 GMT Blitz said:

At first I thought it was shrinking as well, but then using the grid as a reference it doesn't seem so on second glance. Now I'm thinking that it's the beetle's babies scattering all over the page... shudder

Beetle's don't carry babies like that, their larvae are grubs.

Maybe you're thinking of wolf spiders?

SPOILER: Click to show

[saardvark]

Sept 27, 2017 14:08:05 GMT ctso74 said:

I wonder if a jungle "force" is trying to communicate, causing the mites to catch a ride on the bug, then form a circle. Drawing with animal telepathy, so to speak.
It could have been trying to communicate with them, this whole time. Tony was so focused on studying bugs, that he couldn't see the insect "forest" from the insect "trees".
It just mite be true... Sorry. Couldn't resist.

It's probably parasitism, since it looks like the host bug takes a last few steps and then dies (or stops moving at least). 
But whether catching a ride or parasitism, the near-circular exit pattern for the little mites(?) seems unlikely to be a natural phenomenon.  
There is some external agent influencing things here... if trying to communicate, what is the message?  Maybe a few of the mites will make an arrow so that the circle becomes a compass(?).... 

[nero]

At first I thought it was a type of pollen that we were seeing settle off slowly. Seeing it as parasites makes more sense.

[pyradonis]

Sept 27, 2017 14:50:06 GMT saardvark said:

Sept 27, 2017 14:08:05 GMT ctso74 said:

I wonder if a jungle "force" is trying to communicate, causing the mites to catch a ride on the bug, then form a circle. Drawing with animal telepathy, so to speak.
It could have been trying to communicate with them, this whole time. Tony was so focused on studying bugs, that he couldn't see the insect "forest" from the insect "trees".
It just mite be true... Sorry. Couldn't resist.

It's probably parasitism, since it looks like the host bug takes a last few steps and then dies (or stops moving at least). 
But whether catching a ride or parasitism, the near-circular exit pattern for the little mites(?) seems unlikely to be a natural phenomenon.  
There is some external agent influencing things here... if trying to communicate, what is the message?  Maybe a few of the mites will make an arrow so that the circle becomes a compass(?).... 

Now I've got to think of all the cartoons where a swarm of bees forms an arrow or a fist and hunts some unlucky guy who angered them.

[faiiry]

This is only a minor gripe, but Surma's hair is SO insanely thick and curly. Curly hair is a dominant trait, not a recessive one. Since Antimony resembles her mother in pretty much every other way, it stands to reason that her hair should be curly as well. Yet another issue is that Anthony's eyes are brown while Surma's and Antimony's are blue, and brown eyes, again, are a dominant trait. Antimony resembles her mother where she should resemble her father, and vice versa. But this may be an issue that is deliberately being played with, given that Antimony's close resemblance to her mother leads people to believe she should act like her mother, but in reality she's exactly like her father. Again, these are all very minor issues. Also, Annie could be straightening her hair.

What is the bug doing in the last panel? What are the thingies emerging from it? Little bugs, or spots of blood? This chapter is so mysterious.

[bansheekitty]

Sept 27, 2017 17:46:22 GMT faiiry said:

This is only a minor gripe, but Surma's hair is SO insanely thick and curly. Curly hair is a dominant trait, not a recessive one. Since Antimony resembles her mother in pretty much every other way, it stands to reason that her hair should be curly as well. Yet another issue is that Anthony's eyes are brown while Surma's and Antimony's are blue, and brown eyes, again, are a dominant trait. Antimony resembles her mother where she should resemble her father, and vice versa. But this may be an issue that is deliberately being played with, given that Antimony's close resemblance to her mother leads people to believe she should act like her mother, but in reality she's exactly like her father. Again, these are all very minor issues. Also, Annie could be straightening her hair.

What is the bug doing in the last panel? What are the thingies emerging from it? Little bugs, or spots of blood? This chapter is so mysterious.

If curly hair is a dominant trait though, Surma might only have one curly hair allele and one non-curly hair allele, so maybe Antimony got the non-curly one from her. Same with the eye color. Like how literally no one on my dad's side of the family has blond hair, my dad himself has dark brown hair, my mom has light brown hair (I don't think she has any blondes in her family either), but my brother and I both have blond hair. Clearly our families have just been carrying around recessive genes for blond hair and my brother and I happened to get them from both parents. Also how my brother has blue eyes when my mom has hazel eyes (my dad's are blue).

[Nepycros]

It could be that the little dots aren't organisms, but some kind of etheric visualization. Perhaps the longer that beetle is on something, the more damage it causes; it would explain why a branch suddenly snapped.

[hp]

Man, I got a totally different vibe from that page.

I didn't read those dots as little critters going away from the bug. To me they looked more like 2D random ink dots or something like that, so I interpreted them as some kind of energy wave/ pheromone emission/ something like that spreading from the bug.

So I figured when the bug landed it generated some kind of ether disturbance in the clipboard (remember when Neo was about to fly in The Matrix and the floor got all "rippled" just before he took off?). And that Surma being able to see it was an indication that the trip to the Amazon was starting to enhance her connection to the ether (since just a few pages ago she was mentioning how she was still struggling to use the blinker stone)

[fia]

Sept 27, 2017 17:53:37 GMT bansheekitty said:

Sept 27, 2017 17:46:22 GMT faiiry said:

This is only a minor gripe, but Surma's hair is SO insanely thick and curly. Curly hair is a dominant trait, not a recessive one. Since Antimony resembles her mother in pretty much every other way, it stands to reason that her hair should be curly as well. Yet another issue is that Anthony's eyes are brown while Surma's and Antimony's are blue, and brown eyes, again, are a dominant trait. Antimony resembles her mother where she should resemble her father, and vice versa. But this may be an issue that is deliberately being played with, given that Antimony's close resemblance to her mother leads people to believe she should act like her mother, but in reality she's exactly like her father. Again, these are all very minor issues. Also, Annie could be straightening her hair.

What is the bug doing in the last panel? What are the thingies emerging from it? Little bugs, or spots of blood? This chapter is so mysterious.

If curly hair is a dominant trait though, Surma might only have one curly hair allele and one non-curly hair allele, so maybe Antimony got the non-curly one from her. Same with the eye color. Like how literally no one on my dad's side of the family has blond hair, my dad himself has dark brown hair, my mom has light brown hair (I don't think she has any blondes in her family either), but my brother and I both have blond hair. Clearly our families have just been carrying around recessive genes for blond hair and my brother and I happened to get them from both parents. Also how my brother has blue eyes when my mom has hazel eyes (my dad's are blue).

What bansheekitty said, with some reservations; this is because curly hair is usually understood to have what we call 'incomplete dominance', meaning that someone with a dominant and recessive gene will exhibit an intermediate phenotype (dominant curly allele + recessive straight allele = wavy hair).

If curly hair was completely dominant then Surma could have curly hair trait, which is dominant, C; while straight hair is recessive, s. So she could have the combo, Cs. Whereas Annie clearly has just 's' from each of her parents (Tony must be 'ss'), so she has the alleles, 'ss'. But since curly hair is typically incompletely dominant we should expect that if Annie is 'ss' then Surma must have had wavy hair. For Surma to have truly super-curly hair she must be 'CC', but then Annie would have wavy hair. I dunno what to say about this, except that clearly fire-elemental hereditary traits work totally differently. Maybe in fire-elemental hybrids curly hair is completely dominant. If so, then there's no issue.
To me this makes sense for independent reasons, namely that their traits as fire elementals seem closely tied to their hair type.

For blue eyes, on the other hand, it is possible, because it is recessive, that Anthony has brown-eye-dominant trait B and also blue-eye recessive trait b, such that he has the combo, 'Bb'. Surma clearly has 'bb'. So Annie could have been Bb or bb but evidently came out with the recessive trait, 'bb'.
My dad has blue eyes but I do not; but I must have one allele for blue eyes. So if my romantic partner had brown eyes but a recessive allele for blue eyes, there is a 1/4 chance we could have a baby with blue eyes even though neither of us do.

All of this hereditary stuff is yet further complicated by the fact that the traits for hair texture may not all be one gene and the traits for eye color actually involve two genes with some weird dominance relationships.

[fia]

Sept 27, 2017 17:46:22 GMT faiiry said:

This is only a minor gripe, but Surma's hair is SO insanely thick and curly. Curly hair is a dominant trait, not a recessive one. Since Antimony resembles her mother in pretty much every other way, it stands to reason that her hair should be curly as well. Yet another issue is that Anthony's eyes are brown while Surma's and Antimony's are blue, and brown eyes, again, are a dominant trait. Antimony resembles her mother where she should resemble her father, and vice versa. But this may be an issue that is deliberately being played with, given that Antimony's close resemblance to her mother leads people to believe she should act like her mother, but in reality she's exactly like her father. Again, these are all very minor issues. Also, Annie could be straightening her hair.

What is the bug doing in the last panel? What are the thingies emerging from it? Little bugs, or spots of blood? This chapter is so mysterious.

P.S. if we zoom in there is also evidence that Tony actually has green eyes!

[faiiry]

Sept 27, 2017 20:00:07 GMT fia said:

Sept 27, 2017 17:53:37 GMT bansheekitty said:

If curly hair is a dominant trait though, Surma might only have one curly hair allele and one non-curly hair allele, so maybe Antimony got the non-curly one from her. Same with the eye color. Like how literally no one on my dad's side of the family has blond hair, my dad himself has dark brown hair, my mom has light brown hair (I don't think she has any blondes in her family either), but my brother and I both have blond hair. Clearly our families have just been carrying around recessive genes for blond hair and my brother and I happened to get them from both parents. Also how my brother has blue eyes when my mom has hazel eyes (my dad's are blue).

What bansheekitty said, with some reservations; this is because curly hair is usually understood to have what we call 'incomplete dominance', meaning that someone with a dominant and recessive gene will exhibit an intermediate phenotype (dominant curly allele + recessive straight allele = wavy hair).

If curly hair was completely dominant then Surma could have curly hair trait, which is dominant, C; while straight hair is recessive, s. So she could have the combo, Cs. Whereas Annie clearly has just 's' from each of her parents (Tony must be 'ss'), so she has the alleles, 'ss'. But since curly hair is typically incompletely dominant we should expect that if Annie is 'ss' then Surma must have had wavy hair. For Surma to have truly super-curly hair she must be 'CC', but then Annie would have wavy hair. I dunno what to say about this, except that clearly fire-elemental hereditary traits work totally differently. Maybe in fire-elemental hybrids curly hair is completely dominant. If so, then there's no issue.
To me this makes sense for independent reasons, namely that their traits as fire elementals seem closely tied to their hair type.

For blue eyes, on the other hand, it is possible, because it is recessive, that Anthony has brown-eye-dominant trait B and also blue-eye recessive trait b, such that he has the combo, 'Bb'. Surma clearly has 'bb'. So Annie could have been Bb or bb but evidently came out with the recessive trait, 'bb'.
My dad has blue eyes but I do not; but I must have one allele for blue eyes. So if my romantic partner had brown eyes but a recessive allele for blue eyes, there is a 1/4 chance we could have a baby with blue eyes even though neither of us do.

All of this hereditary stuff is yet further complicated by the fact that the traits for hair texture may not all be one gene and the traits for eye color actually involve two genes with some weird dominance relationships.

Lord, it's been a really long time since I made a Punnett square in biology class. I'll just take your word for it.

[jda]

So, this is where the Ouija began...
Beings from another dimmension trying to communicate without a common language reference? And an expert Etymologis to discover it?
Seems like we are going to have an ARRIVAL-like episode.

[bicarbonat]

Sept 27, 2017 18:19:18 GMT lisanela said:

This is like seeing that "Australian spider dies, hundreds of babies come out" video all over again.

And here I just finished sloughing off the last vestiges of "nonononononono" from seeing today's page and (fool, me) Googling images of varroa mites.
Nature is constantly "hold my beer"-ing itself, and it makes my skin itch.
(But I'm excited to see where this development goes).

[bedinsis]

Is this the same kind of beetle(panel 1)?

[zbeeblebrox]

Sept 27, 2017 8:03:37 GMT shadow3 said:

Oh snap Surma is going to FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK OUT, trip, and fall into or together down with Tony, starting off their hot, steamy, awkward teen romance.

Instead of a meet cute, it's a meet gross!

[pyradonis]

Sept 27, 2017 20:00:07 GMT fia said:

Sept 27, 2017 17:53:37 GMT bansheekitty said:

If curly hair is a dominant trait though, Surma might only have one curly hair allele and one non-curly hair allele, so maybe Antimony got the non-curly one from her. Same with the eye color. Like how literally no one on my dad's side of the family has blond hair, my dad himself has dark brown hair, my mom has light brown hair (I don't think she has any blondes in her family either), but my brother and I both have blond hair. Clearly our families have just been carrying around recessive genes for blond hair and my brother and I happened to get them from both parents. Also how my brother has blue eyes when my mom has hazel eyes (my dad's are blue).

What bansheekitty said, with some reservations; this is because curly hair is usually understood to have what we call 'incomplete dominance', meaning that someone with a dominant and recessive gene will exhibit an intermediate phenotype (dominant curly allele + recessive straight allele = wavy hair).

If curly hair was completely dominant then Surma could have curly hair trait, which is dominant, C; while straight hair is recessive, s. So she could have the combo, Cs. Whereas Annie clearly has just 's' from each of her parents (Tony must be 'ss'), so she has the alleles, 'ss'. But since curly hair is typically incompletely dominant we should expect that if Annie is 'ss' then Surma must have had wavy hair. For Surma to have truly super-curly hair she must be 'CC', but then Annie would have wavy hair. I dunno what to say about this, except that clearly fire-elemental hereditary traits work totally differently. Maybe in fire-elemental hybrids curly hair is completely dominant. If so, then there's no issue.
To me this makes sense for independent reasons, namely that their traits as fire elementals seem closely tied to their hair type.

For blue eyes, on the other hand, it is possible, because it is recessive, that Anthony has brown-eye-dominant trait B and also blue-eye recessive trait b, such that he has the combo, 'Bb'. Surma clearly has 'bb'. So Annie could have been Bb or bb but evidently came out with the recessive trait, 'bb'.
My dad has blue eyes but I do not; but I must have one allele for blue eyes. So if my romantic partner had brown eyes but a recessive allele for blue eyes, there is a 1/4 chance we could have a baby with blue eyes even though neither of us do.

All of this hereditary stuff is yet further complicated by the fact that the traits for hair texture may not all be one gene and the traits for eye color actually involve two genes with some weird dominance relationships.

I think we should not be TOO sure that genes work the same way for human-elemental hybrids.