Heroes, Headshots, and Hypocrisy
From marsupial miracles to missile strikes: just another Monday.
Okay, welcome back on this Monday, July 14th, 2025! Got quite the update for you today. We’ll be coming at you with some good news for conservation, as well as general reproduction. Then we’ll be doing a full-blown wartime update. I’m going to go ahead and get the updates for the two major conflicts which are currently going on out of the way right off the bat this week, so the rest of the week we can focus on other shit. Maybe Friday we’ll loop back around to the fire and blood. Sound good?
Does it, seriously, sound good to not focus on fucking war every day for a week or so? Sounds good to me. Let’s go!
You know what would bring me almost as much joy as a war-free news week? You, hitting that upgrade button like a hero.
Thank you!
Some major progress has been made in the realm of artificial womb technology.
Can I get a womb womb?
…I’ll stop.
Scientists have officially managed to keep marsupial embryos alive and developing in an artificial womb, getting them all the way to mid-gestation. This was done with short-tailed opossum embryos, and yeah, it’s real. More real than Donald Trump’s hair, that’s for damn sure.
The smart peeps behind the project are Colossal Biosciences, working with the University of Melbourne, and apparently this is a big step toward building the kind of tech that could one day grow an entire animal outside of a body.
The fact that they picked marsupials is both smart and hilarious. As you may know from kangaroos, marsupials do a part of their gestation outside of the womb, in a pouch. Scientists basically knocked a whole stage off the requirements for most mammals by choosing to work on marsupials first.
Devious, and in the best of ways!
No, this isn’t how Jurassic Park starts. Well… okay. It literally is. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Our species is super trustworthy. I’d say, if you live near one of the places working on these things: move. Just fucking move.
All jokes aside, being able to grow embryos externally could be a huge deal for conservation. Especially for species that are endangered, can’t reproduce easily, or don’t have suitable surrogates. The tech is being built with the extinct Tasmanian tiger in mind, and they’re already moving toward adapting it for other mammals.
They’ve only reached the halfway point in the opossum’s gestation, but that’s still a first for marsupials in an artificial setup. The system mimics a womb using controlled fluids, gas exchange, and even real-time embryo imaging. It’s early, but it’s working.
Before anyone asks, yes, humans are on the list too. Not that we’re going extinct(our species fucks!)but for people who have trouble conceiving or are physically incapable, this could lead to new methods of gestation. Will lead, I mean. I don’t see scientists stopping anytime soon.
Teams around the world have been experimenting with human artificial womb systems for years now. Japan, the US, and Australia are all testing ways to support premature babies outside the body using things like synthetic amniotic fluid and sealed bio-bags.
I, for one, can see the future of this stuff playing out like a good sci-fi novel. Our species has come so far, yet we still have so far to go. For now though, I’m proud of these scientists, and everyone else working toward a brighter, more secure tomorrow.
Okay, now some news from the front-fucking-lines. Hold on to your military-issue boots and CamelBak water pack: it’s gonna be an explosive trip.
Or… I’ll just cover this shit so we can move on.
War. It truly never changes. IYKYK.
I’m not sure which situation is worse, so I don’t know if there’s a better place to start. Fuck it. I’m literally flipping a coin to decide. They both suck. No joke.
Ukraine and Russia it is.
Russia has their hands in both conflicts, same as the USA. Because nothing says ego like being balls deep, in the worst of ways, in two simultaneous military conflicts. Am I right? Probably not. Maybe though. Who knows?
But come on, those super duper manly types, the “real men” crowd, they need war. It makes them feel big in the pants.
Let’s be honest: the top-level people who push for war rarely see any of the battle these days. Some regular folks think they want war, at least until they’re waking up every night screaming because of the atrocities they’ve seen.
That’s when it’s too late to go back. But that’s when most of them finally want to.
All jokes aside, my heart genuinely goes out to everyone dealing with PTSD. Whether it came from war or just life beating the hell out of you, you are not alone. People care. Don’t forget that.
Now, a little good news out of Ukraine for once: their intelligence service tracked down two Russian agents who were responsible for assassinating Colonel Ivan Voronych, a high-ranking Ukrainian officer believed to have worked on covert operations in Russian-occupied areas. The agents, a man and a woman, were found in Kyiv, and when they resisted arrest, they were killed in a shootout. It was a targeted operation by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), and honestly like something pulled straight out of a real goddamn spy movie.
So yeah. Fuck Putin.
Still, the war grinds on. I’ve been reading and listening to people talk about life in Ukraine. Folks in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine which gets bombed regularly, just kind of carry on. There lives are loud, and always with fire on the horizon.
It’s their new normal.
Speaking of Putin, again, fuck that guy. He recently recommended that Iran enter a new deal with the U.S., one that would limit or prohibit uranium enrichment in exchange for lifted sanctions. This comes around the same time as news of a suspected Israeli airstrike that reportedly injured Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi surfaces, though the truth or severity of that is absolutely in question. Countries and their leaders fucking lie. It’s what they do. Anyone else tired of it too?
Iran responded to potential future negotiations this weekend, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs stating, “First of all, there should be a firm guarantee that such actions will not be repeated. The attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has made it more difficult and complicated to achieve a solution based on negotiations.”
Which basically means: “Don’t be a fuckin’ dick and bomb people out of the blue, Trump. It makes it real hard for our people to want peace with your trigger-happy orange ass.”
And Israel? They may have almost taken out Iran’s President, but they still can’t seem to land effective shots on Hamas leadership. Fucking weird, right? Despite the fact that they can strike Iran with pinpoint accuracy from hundreds of miles away.
Coincidentally and accidentally (of course), more civilians were killed than actual Hamas targets. Again.
Shocker? Yeah, sure. We’re all totally shocked. Never would’ve seen that coming. Just keeps happening. Over and over and over again.
This continues to feel more like sanctioned genocide than anything resembling justice. Fuck those involved, and fuck those who refuse to come to a compromise. Those in power who refuse to compromise are the people we blame for the egregious upset to balance.
Well, hell, everyone. We made it.
That’s really all I’ve got for you this Monday. Nothing else to say, except for everything. Honestly, I could write about these topics until the end of time and still not scratch the surface of what these nations have been through. Every power grab, every war, every secret deal.
At least some marsupials have some solid womb tech to look forward to. Fuck yeah to that, right?
Until next time, y’all, have a wonderful day.
It wouldn’t be a wombat womb or anything, but an upgrade to paid today would sure be the bee’s knees to me.
Thank you!
Sources:
IFLScience. Thylacine De-Extinction Achieves Mid-Gestation Marsupial Embryo Development In Artificial Uterus. January 2025.
https://www.iflscience.com/thylacine-de-extinction-achieves-mid-gestation-marsupial-embryo-development-in-artificial-uterus-77640The Travel. Scientists Grow Extinct Species In Artificial Womb To Halfway Through Pregnancy. April 2025.
https://www.thetravel.com/scientists-grow-extinct-tasmanian-tiger-in-artificial-womb-to-halfway-through-pregnancy/AP News. Iran says it would resume nuclear talks with US if guaranteed no further attacks. July 2025.
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-nuclear-talks-araghchi-d0f424e954d7c6379ef075aa394af198Axio. Putin urges Iran to take "zero enrichment" nuclear deal with U.S., sources say. July 2025.
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/12/putin-iran-nuclear-deal-uranium-enrichment
All images in this article were taken, edited, created, or generated by the author unless stated otherwise.
This article contains elements of satire and opinion. All thoughts and opinions expressed are purely speculative.
I read an article about babies in bio bags. It is interesting research but gave me the heebie jeebies a little too.
As far as Israel, 🇮🇱 get they had to respond to October 7th but this has gotten insane. I donate to World Central Kitchen because they don’t give a shit about politics. They just feed people that are in need. IDF bombed one of their vans that has WCK painted on the top so it would be identified as a humanitarian vehicle. They said it was an accident. It pissed me off. They were getting rid of aid being brought in to starving people. I can’t make sense of it.
I can't help it. I'll take any chance to plug in this piece of John Lithgow literary gold. Enjoy :) https://youtu.be/uOQCwuY213Y?feature=shared