Tool Time
ough ough ough
Comments (94)
“New research suggests Earth was once a purple planet. Early microbes used retinal, not chlorophyll, for photosynthesis.” https://www.earth.com/earth-science/was-early-earth-a-purple-planet-scientists-say-its-possible/
Amusingly purple photosynthesis does exist (and earth was purple once). The original photosynthesizers where purple (they absorbed green light and bounced red and blue hense purple coloured). The dominant theory is that green photosynthesizers evolved to make use of the spectrum that the dominant purple organisms were not using (absorb red and blue, bouncing green thus green coloured) and eventually overtook the purple ones and dominated the earths biome because they couldnt compete with the green ones, who had a advantage in energy (from blue light, though red helps too). So you just have to give her some retinal based plankton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinal
The Director: Simple, just adjust this setting on the Device. Liz: Ah. About that.
Cyanobacteria is very popular, and also stylish since it's after Labor Day.
Severe tool blindness. ❤️
Going back a few strips: the comment that they were extremely drunk when they built the Woom device, don't remember what it's supposed to do or how to get into it, reminds me of Joe the Robot, Gallegher's drunken invention in the collection "Robots Have No Tails". Anyone who isn't familiar with Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, writing under the pseudonym Lewis Padgett, needs to go find the book!
When you have a hammer, all problems look like nails, when you have a screwdriver, all your problems look like... umm.
Truth: The work is easier with the right tool.
I just want to be a total nerd and make it super clear that if her plankton are what gave her that colour, and she’s changed colour, the plankton have changed. However, there are red algae that can photosynthesise, so it’s possible that whatever happened just added some new red light-capturing proteins, which would mask the green of the chlorophyll as it does in nature. She may now be more resistant to sun stress!
Aw, Liz cares. Even if she's not very good at expressing that care...
Bacteriorhodopsin is already a thing, they may just be photosynthesising differently.
Show some love here 💗
First rule of the smithy. Everything is a hammer
Maybe the critters just changed how they photosynthesize? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Earth_hypothesis
Could be!
When all you have is a nail, every tool looks like a hammer.
[very jon bois voice] every Al was reduced to a hapless, shaking Tim (note: Al, as Albert Borland, not as in artificial intelligence)
Could be worse. Moray’s plankton could become mutated into being like a carnivorous plant and started to acquire a taste for human flesh or even for brains.
Plankton II: "Feeeed me Seymoray!" Moray: "No! Bad Planky! Down!" *bops with rolled up newspaper*
Can't touch this!
When you call for a wrench: "percussive maintenance" That's our gremlin
Yes
For once I agree with the violent solution.
"Oh no, my plankton!" is the perfect bookend to Claire's petaaard. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3772
Pet dogs are much easier than petards.
Can’t touch this!
Yes
Liz may actually be helpful here by smashing the box. If a very miffed cat jumps out we will learn something.
Shortly thereafter Liz is awarded the Nobel Prize for her revolutionary paper entitled "Suck It Schrödinger!".
That is a serious pattern recognition deficit you have there...
Just add two more buttons and then you can give it the three-finger salute.
Now if only the quest to help moray leads Liz to figure out how the woom machine works and gets her out of her mental block and she develops a universal woom theory in the process...
I hear smash rooms are cool.
Fish, and Plankton, and Seagreens, and Protein from the Sea!
hmm, and they *are* dealing with a Box...
The Goblin demands machine blood.
This is how Warhammer 40K started, isn't it?
Smash it for me too Liz... how dare they hurt Moray's feelings (...or Moray's plankton, or Moray herself for that matter..)
They could call Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers for advice.
No because immediately one of them would yell at their call screener “does anyone screen these calls?” And then they suggest advice that is “unencumbered by the thought process.”
Seriously if they have no idea what the Device is actually doing, then they shouldn't be constantly hitting the button.
How else will they find out what it does? That's how science works. Especially mad science.
Don't cry, Moray! Your plankton can't afford the loss of salinity.
These two lab coats aren't exactly filling me with confidence.
But "it just feels so much more... SCIENCEY this way." https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1510
Hurrah for the Jeph multi-ending!
I'm on Liz's side. If you can't differentiate a good hammer from a bad one, you can't be trusted with a woom device.
Yes
"LIZ SMASH!" "Ooh! Liz: you turned green! Maybe I should try getting angry!"
Don't make Moray slightly less cheerful. You wouldn't like her when she's slightly less cheerful.
Tool blindness is a terrible affliction. You can't destroy *anything* with a spork.
Well that sounds like a challenge
It's like 10,000 screwdrivers when all you need is a wrench.
So ironic.
Hammer Time! Can’t touch this. I’m sure the plankton in Mpray are fine, and if not, she could find some krill to replace them.
Stop! Gremlin time!
Yes
Every tool is a hammer - Adam Savage
I'm googling "Can Plankton turn Purple" and I swear to god if this is just because she ate Taco Bell for dinner the day before, I'm going to laugh my head off.
No but I did find an “astrobiological hypothesis” called the Purple Earth hypothesis (aka PEH) that suggests that the first “photosynthetic life forms of Early Earth were based on the simpler molecule retinal rather than the more complex porphyrin-based chlorophyll, making the surface biosphere appear purplish rather than its current greenish color.” This happened 3.5 to 2.4 billion years ago prior to the Great Oxygenation Event and Huronian Glaciation. So it’s possible that Moray’s sea monkeys will be just fine.
It's okay, everyone has that problem occasionally, even The Librarian. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3482
Dammit, Jim! I'm a Librarian, not a carpenter!
The pink scientist used to work for Hammer Films.
Remember, people, to make GremLiz feel better, give her a hammer and something EXPENSIVE.
Perhaps an artisinal, handmade jug? Because I hear those are great for hammering, and they do know a guy. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4663
Drat. NOW I have a Peter, Paul, and Mary earworm. If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning I'd hammer in the evening all over this land I'd hammer out Moray, I'd hammer out Grem LIz.
You could try seeing it from the Woom Machine's viewpoint and channel Queen's "Waiting For The Hammer To Fall": (You don't waste no time at all) Don't hear the Woom, but you answer the call (It comes to you, as to us all) Yeah, we're just waiting for the hammer to fall, yeah Oh, every night and every day A little piece of you is falling away But lift your face, the Cubetown Way Build your muscles as your body decays, yeah
It sucks that Liz is feeling so down about herself, given that she's clearly the only actually-competent scientist in Cubetown. Very much a "only human in a world full of Muppets" situation. (But she's also very much a Muppet, but in other ways)
I'm casting Kermit as Marten, Miss Piggy as The Librarian (Claire), and Moray as Janice.
I don't think so, Moray.
Yes
Are you sure it’s plankton and not phytoplankton?
Wait. Are you saying there's a plankton Thunderdome?
Unlike most of us, Moray is on a first name basis with her microbiome.
Well I for one am quite good friends with Michael Robiome. He mostly goes by Mike.
Purple symbiotes would have a hydrogen sulfide metabolism and smell like rotten eggs.
But, couldn't they smell like violets instead? Or lilacs! C'mon, there are purple flowers!
When your goo's purple dyes Can't photosynthesize That's A Moray!
When you can't convert light, and you downplay your plight That's A Moray
[Tim Allen grunting noise]
Reminds me of Lagado from Gulliver's Travels. A bunch of "scientists" who really have no idea what they're doing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagado
"IT WILL MAKE ME FEEL BETTER." That's some amazing self-aware honesty right there.
Yes
I need to find a reason to say “oh no, my plankton!” in context.
Start raising sea monkeys
Poor Moray! She's so sad and now I'm sad, too
Yes
i don't think so, Tim.
I hear she’s been banned from most rage rooms.
Yes
You know I am worried for her
Same. Don't hurt my sweet, always positive little... slime girl thing
When all you have is a wrench, everything looks like a screw.
When all you screw is... Wait a minute.