So people are like the periodic table of elements… there’re the alkali metals and the alkaline earth—super reactive. they’re the ones that are dating someone every other week, always in an out of relationships, have chemistry with EVERYONE. Then there’s the noble gases and they’re the forever alone… and then there’s everyone in between 

mozzu:

banana pose

Wholesome animal fact: seals banana pose when they feel content. These are 4 happy seals!

I think I just found a hack to my productivity?

I need to find a summer job (I know I should already have one, procrastination’s a bitch) but mother’s day is coming up and I need to order my stepmom a gift. I found something I think she’d like but I’m not going to order it until I apply to some jobs. I have everything ready to go, I just have to confirm my order really but I’m going to get the most satisfying outcome out of finishing my tasks. Essentially, I’m giving something without a clear deadline (get a job) a deadline by proxy (can’t order time sensitive gift until I get a job). Kinda a dangerous game if you let things pile up but I think I’m onto something.

loki-zen:

memecucker:

Good for them

In what world is this supposed to be bad

the only bad bit is that they didn’t share in kind whatever insight let them make it single shot

My non-expert understanding is that all the vaccines provide some protection with one shot and more protection with two. There might be real differences in how much of the total effect is in the second shot, but they are probably relatively minor. The reason different vaccines have different approved regimens is because the pharma companies made different choices regarding which regimen to use in clinical trials, and regulators will only approve an exact combination of vaccine and dosing regimen that was directly trialed. It would probably be better, all things considered, if they were more flexible on this point.

pretends-to-be-a-catgirl-online:

the-grey-tribe:

unknought:

When a doctor makes a bad joke and I laugh, I’m sure what’s going on in their head is “I’m being friendly, I’m putting the patient at ease” but what’s going on in my head is “this person could deny me treatment on a whim, I better play along”.

On some level this feels like I’m being kind of unfair. It’s not a test, it’s an attempt at a normal friendly human interaction, and instead of reciprocating that I’m responding with insincerity and paranoia. But I’ve had doctors before who smiled and told me earnestly that they were on my side and restricted my access to care for stupid, petty reasons, and I have no reason to think that won’t happen again.

You can’t negate a power differential by being nice.

Sorry for taking this post somewhere unexpected.

So there is a lot of radical feminist theorising already about how every man-woman relationship is imbalanced because of ~~power relations~~. But some people take this too far, and they say “In order to reap the rewards of being loved, you have to subject yourself to the mortifying ordeal of being known, which makes heterosexual relationships imbalanced ~~power relations~~ somehow.“

Žižek also likes to talk about being friends with your boss, so I won’t repeat that here, but I have seen people say “It’s ~~power relations~~ when I go on a date and I have to laugh at a man’s jokes in order to sleep with him.“

I have also read takes like “Telling jokes is a method of oppression and laughing is collaboration and complicity even when they are genuinely funny.“

Which is to say this whole topic complex is primed for critique drift. It’s easy to look at this situation and to think “Doctors telling jokes is a problem and should be banned.“

Huh, these things look pretty disanalogous to me: While I don’t understand your exact point about gender, it’s nonobvious how to fix power imbalances between genders. But there are lots of things that would have an immediate and obvious effect of lessening the power imbalance between doctors and patients:

• Make it easier to get prescription drugs without a prescription
• Make it easier to get scheduled drugs
• [US specific?] Break up cartels limiting the number of residency spots or otherwise limiting the supply of doctors
• Reduce the credentials and knowledge someone needs to be allowed to treat a given condition to the bare minimum that’s actually needed for that condition
• Make it harder to involuntarily (or pseudo-voluntarily) commit people to psychiatric hospitals. Change liability rules and other incentives away from the idea of preventing suicide at all costs

Of course, all of these come with their own cost-benefit comparison, but “have a norm against doctors making jokes or otherwise trying to be relatable” comes with a cost-benefit comparison too, and to me it looks like one that’s a lot worse. Am I missing some reason why people would cling to that idea and not any on my list?

One area where my point doesn’t really apply is situations where doctors are rationing access to some resource that’s actually scarce (as opposed to it being gatekept for some other reason). One central example here would be deciding who gets an organ transplant. But in this situation, I would expect the organ allocator to be more aware of the power differential (reducing the difference between how they see a social interaction and how you see it) and change their behavior accordingly. Furthermore, if they don’t, I’m not actually sure it’s that bad for us to critique drift our way into a social norm against organ allocators telling jokes.

I tend to think of “is this a resource that’s scarce for reason that isn’t made up?” as a spectrum, with organ transplants on the “yes” end, some complicated surgeries right next to it, medication that’s expensive because of patents close to it, and easier surgeries like orchiectomies closer to the middle; and with antibiotics, HRT, ED meds, stimulants, and pain meds all at the “no” end. I would have guessed that almost all of medicine happens close to the “no” end, am I off here?

While antibiotics themselves are not a very scarce resource, absence of antibiotic resistance at the population level very much is, so I would put antibiotics firmly in the category of things that need to be rationed, right up there with organ transplants.

(Arguably even higher than that, because we could have private markets in organs if we wanted to, but private markets in not-taking-antibiotics would be infeasible.)

Question?

Science side of tumblr, which do guys like more. There girls wearing little to no clothing or their clothes? Guys feel free to pit your own to sence in.

Hey science/psychology/human behaviour side of Tumblr, why do parents like to use the guilt tactic so much? I am so tired of it.

beetlejuicefanatic-aka-randi:

forestdemonn:

Science side of Tumblr please explain to me what Ender pearls are exactly. They turn into Eye of Ender after using blaze powder but if it isn’t an eye originally what is it?

Some sort of condesenced bit of magical power with an ability to track a player and teleport them probably with some unactivated part or just act as ‘closed’ and when introduced to blaze powder 'open’ showing the eye and changing the abilities

Holy shit I was expecting some debate of random shit and people saying it’s the enderman’s balls. This is the best description I’ve ever seen.

Science side of Tumblr please explain to me what Ender pearls are exactly. They turn into Eye of Ender after using blaze powder but if it isn’t an eye originally what is it?

candelantern:

azzandra:

ann-beth:

spidereggs:

vetulicolia:

Ok so Haumea, a dwarf planet beyond Pluto, spins so fast it gets elongated like this. This is just what it looks like. Something deeply unsettles me looking at it. Terrifying.

this is so fucked up

This planet looks like a cool rock someone found in a creek.

one day it’s going to hatch and then all of you will be sorry

I look forward to meeting our dizzy, space hatchling overlord and/or destroyer.

normal people watching medical videos: this is interesting but also really gross and i don’t know why i’m watching it

me, an absolutely useless science nerd, watching medical videos: BIOPSY! BIOPSY! BIOPSY!

katy-l-wood:

mayfriend:

foreverrwinter:

They’ve found the cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Babies who die of SIDS have a significantly lower level of an enzyme, the purpose of which is to rouse the baby from sleep if necessary (such as the baby stops breathing). This is extremely huge science and medicine news. There is a biological reason. It’s not random.

Previously, parents were told SIDS could be prevented if they took proper precautions: laying babies on their backs, not letting them overheat and keeping all toys and blankets out of the crib were a few of the most important preventative steps. So, when SIDS still occurred, parents were left with immense guilt, wondering if they could have prevented their baby’s death.

Dr. Carmel Harrington, the lead researcher for the study, was one of these parents. Her son unexpectedly and suddenly died as an infant 29 years ago. (…) Harrington explained what she was told about the cause of her child’s death. 

“Nobody could tell me. They just said it’s a tragedy. But it was a tragedy that didn’t sit well with my scientific brain.” 

Since then, she’s worked to find the cause of SIDS, both for herself and for the medical community as a whole. She went on to explain why this discovery is so important for parents whose babies suffered from SIDS. 

"These families can now live with the knowledge that this was not their fault,” she said.

(…) As the cause is now known, researchers can turn their attention to a solution. In the next few years, those in the medical community who have studied SIDS will likely work on a screening test to identify babies who are at risk for SIDS and hopefully prevent it altogether.

A wonderful little bit of news.

curlicuecal:

alexseanchai:

afigmentofyour-imagination:

inklingofadream:

grrlcookery:

bisexualbaker:

labelleizzy:

nachttour:

idontevenhaveone:

naamahdarling:

blackbearmagic:

euryale-dreams:

brancadoodles:

wind-on-the-panes:

pizzaback:

sorry if i’m being a party pooper but because rabies is apparently the new joke on here ??? please remember that rabies has an almost 100% fatality rate after symptoms develop so if you’re bitten or scratched by an animal that you aren’t 100% sure is vaccinated then GO TO A DOCTOR. it’s not a joke. really. 

You’re being kind when you say “almost 100% fatality”. What people need to hear is: if you get to develop rabies symptoms, you’re dead. If you get heavytreatment after developping symptoms, you still need a miracle. Like, a real miracle, you should enter some religion if you escape that.

ALSO, I don’t want people feeling confident about petting stray/wild animals because there’s a vaccine available, either. I’ll explain why from my own experience (I’m not a doctor).

I got bitten by a wild tamarin once, on the pulp of my index finger. It drew blood, there are many wild animals in the area (tamarins, possums, bats, foxes) and it isn’t that uncommon to hear about 1 or 2 rabies cases every now and again (a puppy we gave to a friend got it, for instance), so I went to an ambulatory immediately.

Because I was bitten in an ultrasensitive area, I needed fast treatment. But it was also a small area, so the usual thing they do - inject the vaccine in the place - wasn’t a choice. They told me they’d divide the shot in 5 small ones, and inject me all over my body, so the antidote would get to my entire system fast.

Please stop for a moment and think that the disease is so worrysomethat they’d rather needle me all over than to give me one shot and wait until it spread through my system.

Then they said that, okay, but there was a catch first. I needed to take an antiallergic shot. “Why?” “Because the virus is devastating, and as the vaccine is made from it, but weakened (like almost every vaccine) it will still create a reaction, and it’s a strong one, and it’s veru common for people to have strong allergic reactions to it.” YOU HAVE TO TAKE AN ANTIALLERGIC SHOT IN ORDER TO TAKE THE VACCINE COZ THE VACCINE COULD POTENTIALLY MAKE YOU REALLY SICK

ALSO IT WASN’T JUST “A LITTLE ANTIALLERGIC SHOT”

IT WAS ONE OF THESE FUCKERS HERE.

It was OBVIOUSLY dripped in my body and not injected because HAHAHAHA. Truth be told I was an adult already and I’m tall so I have a lot of mass but STILL.

So after I had taken the antiallegic and was starting to feel drowsy (as a side effect of it) the doctor came with the 5 shots.

- One in each buttock

- One in each thigh

- One in my left arm

They all stung like a bitch and I usually don’t care about shots.

“Okay so can I go home now?”

“No, we have to keep you under observation for 2h so we’re SURE the vaccine won’t give you any reaction.”

BINCH I WAS GIVEN A BUTTLOAD OF MEDICINE BUT THERE WAS STILL A RISK.

I slept through the two hours and then was liberated to go home. My legs, butt, and left arm hurt all over, like I had been punched there, for a few days. I also had a fever (not feverish, a fever)

BUT DID YOU THINK IT WAS OVER?

WRONG!!!

I had to take fourreinforcement shots in the next month, one a week, so I could be positively be considered immunized.Every time I took a shot, my arm would swell and hurt like it’d been hit, and when night came I’d have a fever. Because that’s how fucking strong the vaccine is, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW VICIOUS THE VIRUS IS.

So yeah. DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN RISK, GODDAMNIT. Rabies is a rare condition all over, THANK GOD, and 1 confirmed case can be already considered a surge and a reason for mass campaigning, AND FOR A REASON.

If you like messing with stray/wild animals, don’t go picking them up and be extra careful. Or just, like, DON’T- call a vet or an authority that can handle them safely.

I must add that I live in a country with universal healthcare, so I didn’t pay a single penny for my treatment. Is this your reality? If not, ONE MORE REASON TO NOT FUCKING PLAY WITH THIS SHIT.

Rabies is 100% lethal. Period. If you are scratched or bitten by an animal you’re not positive is vaccinated, you need to find treatment NOW. And probably go through all that shit I’ve been through (also if you are immunosupressed? I DON’T KNOW WHAT’D HAPPEN)

Stay safe and don’t be stupid ffs

Guys, I know this isn’t art nor anything like that, but I’ve been hearing about this rabies thing and ???? Look I trust none of you would risk yourselves like this, but maybe you can educate someone through my experience and stuff.

Also rabies does not necessarily cause frothing-at-the-mouth aggression in animals. Docility is also a very common symptom so any wild animal that is ‘friendly’ or ‘likes to be pet’ is suspect. Literally any wild animal is a vector.

Finally, you don’t need to be bitten. All you need is to come into contact with an infected animal’s bodily fluids through a cut that maybe you didn’t notice when you were handling it when it drooled on you.

Never touch a wild animal.

Infection with the rabies virus progresses through three distinct stages.

Prodromal: Stage One. Marked by altered behavioral patterns. “Docility” and “likes to be pet” are very common in the prodromal stage. Usually lasts 1-3 days. An animal in this stage carries virus bodies in its saliva and is infectious.

Excitative: Stage Two. Also called “furious” rabies. This is what everyone thinks rabies is–hyperreacting to stimuli and biting everything. Excessive salivation occurs. Animals in this stage also exhibit hydrophobia or the fear of water; they cannot drink (swallowing causes painful spasms of the throat muscles), and will panic if shown water. Usually lasts 3-4 days before rapidly progressing into the next stage.

Paralytic: Stage Three. Also called “dumb” rabies. As the infection runs its course, the virus starts degrading the nervous system. Limbs begin to fail; animals in this stage will often limp or drag their haunches behind them. If the animal has survived all this way, death will usually come through respiratory arrest: Their diaphragm becomes paralyzed and they stop breathing.

And to add onto the above, saliva isn’t the only infectious fluid. Brain matter is, too. If, somehow, you find yourself in possession of a firearm and faced with a rabid animal, do not go for a head shot. If you do, you will aerosolize the brain matter and effectively create a cloud of infectious material. Breathe it in, and you’ll give yourself an infection.

---

When I worked in wildlife rehabilitation, I actually did see a rabid animal in person, and it remains one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, because I was literally looking death in the eyes.

A pair of well-intentioned women brought us a raccoon that they thought had been hit by a car. They had found it on the side of the road, dragging its hind legs. They managed–somehow–to get it into a cat carrier and brought it to us. 

As they brought it in, I remember how eerily silent it was. Normal raccoons chatter almost constantly. They fidget. They bump around. They purr and mumble and make little grabby-hands at everything. Even when they’re in pain, and especially when they’re stressed. But this one wasn’t moving around inside the carrier, and it wasn’t making a sound.

The clinic director also noticed this, and he asked in a calm but urgent voice for the women to hand the carrier to him. He took it to the exam room and set it on the table while they filled out some forms in the next room. I took a step towards the carrier, to look at our new patient, and without turning around, he told me, “Go to the other side of the room, and stay there.”

He took a small penlight out of the drawer and shone it briefly into the carrier, then sighed. “Bear, if you want to come look at this, you can put on a mask,” he said. “It’s really pretty neat, but I know you’re not vaccinated and I don’t want to take any chances.” 

And at that point, I knew exactly what we were dealing with, and I knew that this would be the closest I had ever been to certain death. So I grabbed a respirator from the table and put it on, and held my breath for good measure as I approached the table. The clinic director pointed where I should stand, well back from the carrier door. He shone the light inside again, and I saw two brilliant flashes of emerald green–the most vivid, unnatural eyeshine I had ever seen. 

“I don’t know why it does it,” the director murmured, “but it turns their eyes green.”

“What does?” one of the women asked, with uncanny, unintentionally dramatic timing, as she poked her head around the corner.

“Rabies,” the director said. “The raccoon is rabid. Did it bite either of you, or even lick you?” They told us no, said they had even used leather garden gloves when they herded it into the carrier. He told them to throw away the gloves as soon as possible, and steam-clean the upholstery in their car. They asked how they should clean the cat carrier; they wanted it back and couldn’t be convinced otherwise, so he told them to soak it in just barely diluted bleach.

But before we could give them the carrier back, we had to remove the raccoon. The rabid raccoon.

The clinic director readied a syringe with tranquilizers and attached it to the end of a short pole. I don’t remember how it was rigged exactly–whether he had a way to push down the plunger or if the needle would inject with pressure–but all he would have to do was stick the animal to inject it. And so, after sending me and the women back to the other side of the room, he made his fist jab.

He missed the raccoon.

The sound that that animal made on being brushed by the pole can only be described as a roar. It was throaty and ragged and ungodly loud. It was not a sound that a raccoon should ever make. I’m convinced it was a sound that a raccoon physically could not make. 

It thrashed inside the carrier, sending it tipping from side to side. Its claws clattered against the walls. It bellowed that throaty, rasping sound again. It was absolutely frenzied, and I was genuinely scared that it would break loose from inside those plastic walls. 

Somehow, the clinic director kept his calm, and as the raccoon jolted around inside the cat carrier, he moved in with the syringe again, and this time, he hit it. He emptied the syringe into its body and withdrew the pole.

And then we waited.

We waited for those awful screams, that horrible thrashing, to die down. As we did, the director loaded up another syringe with even more tranquilizer, and as the raccoon dropped off into unconsciousness, he stuck it a second time with the heavier dose. Even then, it growled at him and flailed a paw against the wall.

More waiting, this time to make sure the animal was truly down for the count.

Then, while wearing welder’s gloves, the director opened the door of the carrier and removed the raccoon. She was limp, bedraggled, and utterly emaciated, but she was still alive. We bagged up the cat carrier and gave it to the women again, advising them that now was a good time to leave. They heeded our warning.

I asked if I could come closer to see, and the clinic director pointed where I could stand. I pushed the mask up against my face and tried to breathe as little as possible.

He and his co-director–who I think he was grooming to be his successor, but the clinic actually went under later that year–examined the raccoon together. Donning a pair of nitrile gloves, he reached down and pulled up a handful, a literal fistful, of the raccoon’s skin and released it. It stayed pulled up.

Severe dehydration causes a phenomenon called “skin tenting”. The skin loses its elasticity somewhat, and will be slow to return to its “normal” shape when manipulated. The clinic director estimated that it had been at least four or five days since the raccoon had had anything to eat or drink. 

She was already on death’s doorstep, but her rabies infection had driven her exhausted body to scream and lunge and bite. 

---

Because, the scariest thing about rabies (if you ask me) is the way that it alters the behavior of those it infects to increase chances of spreading. 

The prodromal stage? Nocturnal animals become diurnal–allowing them to potentially infect most hosts than if they remained nocturnal. 

The excitative stage? The infected animal bites at the slightest provocation. Swallowing causes painful spasms, so they drool, coating their bodies in infectious matter. A drink could wash away the virus-charged saliva from their mouth and bodies, so the virus drives them to panic at the sight of water.

(The paralytic stage? By that point, the animal has probably spread its infection to new hosts, so the virus has no need for it any longer.)

Rabies is deadly. Rabies is dangerous. In all of recorded history, one person survived an infection after she became symptomatic, and so far we haven’t been able to replicate that success. The Milwaukee Protocol hasn’t saved anyone else. Just one person. And even then, she still had to struggle to gain back control of her body after all that nerve damage.

Please, please, take rabies seriously.

This has been a warning from your old pal Bear.

I knew how bad it was, but I had never read anything like the raccoon story.

I am not exaggerating when I say that is literally terrifying.

Y'all please read this. That is absolutely hideous. That’s literally like something from a horror movie.

Do not fuck around with wildlife. Or weird strays.

TFW Rabies education comes across your dash because some fuck up calls themselves Rabiosexual.

Rebloggin’ for that raccoon. o.o The original post I can pretty much guarantee is a troll, but it’s useful to know just why rabies is such serious shit. 

Education right here

Extra reminder: If you see any animal other than a dog who’s been attacked by a porcupine? It’s rabid.

Dogs are dumb, friendly fucks who will investigate anything; everything else in the animal kingdom knows better than to mess with a porcupine, unless their brain is being ravaged by something beyond their control.

If you see a non-dog animal that has porcupine quills sticking out of it? Don’t try to help it yourself. Call animal control.

@talesfromtreatment@is-the-cat-video-cute tagging you to spread the word? Apparently people have forgotten that rabies is a brain disease, terrifying, is fatal if not treated immediately, the treatment is horrid, and the treatment is very expensive

Also I heard that in the USA, human rabies pre-exposure vaccines are not widely available and cost something like $900

Get your pets rabies vaccine every year, folks. Aside from everything else - and that’s a lot of everything - the test for rabies involves the brain, so the animal will be killed first.

And that is a kind end. The videos of rabies seizures are nightmarish

This is also why you’re not supposed to sleep outside without cover (ie a CLOSED tent) if there are swooping bats in your area. Apparently it can be very hard to realize you’ve been bitten by a bat (vs a bug, I guess it’s very small). Some students from my university were on a trip where they came into contact with bats, taking lots of selfies holding them etc, in the area they were supposed to be sleeping and the professor lost it when they saw some of the pictures. The students were housed elsewhere and the university had everyone vaccinated at the school’s expense- the pre-exposure vax may be expensive, but the number of shots you get post-exposure can vary (as demonstrated above) and it was ASTRONOMICAL.

When I looking for places to move to when I can finally leave the states, I looking to laws and procedures to bring my cat with. Any place that had eradicated rabies, intense policies and quarantines for any animal entering the country, unless you were coming from a different place that had also eradicated it. Some of would put your animal down if they were symptomatic at all. I remember thinking “what can’t rabies just treated?” No it can’t be, putting your pet down is the humane option if there symptomatic.

[image: a sixty-milliliter syringe, with human hand for scale. the syringe barrel is likely around five inches long and likely has an inside diameter of an inch or more.]

When I talk to my students about Louis Pasteur and the development of vaccines, I *have* to talk about rabies.

Do you know why “dog catcher” was such a serious occupation? Because in the late 1800s rabies ran rampant in urban street dogs. Because people who got bitten by street dogs… had probably just gotten a death sentence.

As a child, Louis Pasteur watched a man from his hometown die slowly, painfully, and unstoppably from rabies from a rabid wolf bite and it stuck with him so hard that when he grew up he put his own life on the line studying and working with rabid animals to develop a treatment. (Louis Pasteur’s wife, Marie Pasteur, was also a talented, passionate scientist who worked uncredited by his side. Many of their daughters also took up research.)

When Louis Pasteur did his first human test of his rabies vaccine, it was because a mother came to him desperate. Her 8 year old son had been bitten 14 times by a street dog. Doctors were certain he was going to die. She’d heard what Pasteur was working on and begged him to try to save her son.

He tried.

It worked.

This made national news. This made GLOBAL news.

And in the small Russian town of Beloi, locals read about this miracle cure. Their town had been attacked by a rabid wolf and twenty two people had been bitten. They knew these people were going to die. So the bitten people set off walking, carrying the most injured. They walked for weeks to get to France, where Pasteur was based.

When they arrived, the only French word they knew was “Pasteur.” Their cases were dangerously far along, possibly too far. Pasteur began treatment anyway, pushing with the most aggressive dosages he dared.

This also caught global attention. The world waited on tenterhooks.

Pasteur’s vaccine saved 19 out of 22.

The world was awed.

And when those Russian villagers returned home, to their families, it would have been like seeing the dead return.

Vaccinations changed our world.

tilthat:

TIL that Venus rotates so slowly, you could watch the sunset forever just by walking.

viareddit.com