Escapism.

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+ 249 notes 1 year ago 1042pm

medicalstate:

The Face of Testicular Pain.
Doctors who took an ultrasound of a man’s testicle to find out what was causing him pain were astounded to find a gaping face staring back at them. I can only imagine the reactions as they looked at the monitor.

+ 275 notes 1 year ago 1042pm

effyeahmicrobiology:

The dominant theory about antibodies is that they directly target and kill disease-causing organisms. In a surprising twist, researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered that certain antibodies to Streptococcus pneumoniae actually trick the bacteria into killing each other.
Pneumococcal vaccines currently in use today target the pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide (PPS), a sort of armor that surrounds the bacterial cell, protecting it from destruction. Current thought hold that PPS-binding antibodies protect against pneumococcus by inducing opsonic killing, a process in which pathogens are coated with a substance called opsonin, marking the pathogen out for destruction by the immune system.
While such antibodies are an important part of how pneumococcal vaccines protect against disease, there are PPS-specific antibodies that do not promote opsonic killing but are protective nonetheless. In the study, Masahide Yano and his colleagues identify one of mechanisms these non-opsonic antibodies use. They increase the rate of communication between the bacterial cells as well as competence-induced killing, or fratricide, where the bacteria naturally kill each other off because of overconcentration.
“These findings reveal a novel, previously unsuspected mechanism by which certain PPS-specific antibodies exert a direct effect on pneumococcal biology that has broad implications for bacterial clearance, genetic exchange and antibody immunity to pneumococcus,” says Yano.
Primary source: mBio

+ 14 notes 1 year ago 1042pm

ponury:

Extraordinary People: Living With Half a Brain
Six year old Cameron Mott from North Carolina, USA, suffers from continuous epileptic fits caused by the progressive brain disorder called Rasmussen’s Encephalitis. Extraordinary People follows Cameron and her family as she undergoes a complex and dangerous operation to cure her. The report also looks at Sean Goldthorpe, a teenager from London, England, who is undergoing exploratory treatment and monitoring to try and pinpoint how his increasing epileptic fits can be stopped.
(part 1), (part 2), (part 3)

+ 157 notes 1 year ago 1040pm

Crack Research: Doctor cracks knuckles on only one hand for over 50 years, compares to non-cracked hand, finds no arthritis.

cranquis:

I can’t believe I haven’t shared this story with you guys before! Talk about dedication to a cause (or perhaps, a deep-seated resentment towards some relative who wouldn’t let young Unger pop his phalanges)! Dr. Unger won the 2009 Ig Noble award in Medicine for this.

This article by Scientific American mentions other studies in the same area, and is quite loaded with puns too (Ooh, my favorite!)

+ 119 notes 1 year ago 1040pm

effyeahmicrobiology:

Researchers have today revealed a key discovery in understanding how the most deadly species of malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, invades human red blood cells. Using a technique developed at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, they have found that the parasite relies on a single receptor on the red blood cell’s surface to invade, offering an exciting new focus for vaccine development.
Malaria kills approximately one million people every year, mostly children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently no licensed vaccine is available.
The blood stage of Plasmodium’s lifecycle begins when the parasite invades human red blood cells, and it is this stage that is responsible for the symptoms and mortality associated with malaria. Researchers have tried for many years to develop a vaccine to prevent the parasite gaining entry into our red blood cells, but so far they have been unsuccessful. One of the challenges is that the parasite is adaptable – although several red blood cell receptors had been previously identified, none were shown to be essential: when entry through one receptor is prevented, the parasite is able to switch to another. This new research has found a single receptor that is absolutely required by the parasite to invade.
Primary source: Nature

+ 219 notes 1 year ago 1040pm

#oh my #this is actually really exciting

rhamphotheca:

oldbookillustrations: Sea anemones.

From The ocean world, by Louis Figuier, London, Paris, New York, 1872.
(Source: archive.org)

+ 137 notes 1 year ago 1029pm

moshita:

White Walls San Francisco Gallery ROA exhibit ROA

+ 122 notes 1 year ago 1029pm

han alexander the great: I do not have an idea of what beauty is. I do not allow this idea myth...

han-alexander:

I do not have an idea of what beauty is. I do not allow this ~~idea~~ myth of beauty define people and myself. I wish that the word, beauty, did not exist at all and that there is another word in its place. Because if there was no beauty, there would not have been such a thing as “ugly”. I mean, doesn’t it make sense to say that the moment you take the effort in seeing ugliness in another human being, a bigger part of you becomes even uglier?

I appreciate the human potential, rather than the worthless shell that hides those potentials from ignorant eyes. The potential of imagination, dreams, intellect, curiosity, romance, and everything else that drives a soul to new heights. Now that, if beauty truly exists, that is beautiful.

+ 136 notes 1 year ago 1025pm

#amen to that

effyeahmicrobiology:

In the oral cavity, gingival epithelial cell (GEC) layers function as an innate host defense system to prevent intrusion by periodontal bacteria. Nevertheless, Porphyromonas gingivalis, the most well-known periodontal pathogen, can enter GECs and pass through the epithelial barrier into deeper tissues. An intracellular location is considered advantageous for bacteria to escape from immune surveillance by the host as well as antibiotic pressure, leading to intracellular persistence, multiplication and dissemination to adjacent tissues. P. gingivalis are invaginated by gingival epithelial cells via the endocytic pathway, and some intracellular bacteria are sorted to lytic compartments, including autolysosomes and late endosomes/lysosomes, while a considerable number of the remaining organisms are sorted to Rab11- and RalA-positive recycling endosomes, followed by bacterial exit from the cells. Exited bacteria can re-enter fresh cells. However, dominant negative forms and RNAi-knockdown of Rab11, RalA and exocyst complex subunits (Sec5, Sec6 and Exo84) significantly disturb the exit of P. gingivalis. These are the first known results to show that the endocytic recycling pathway mediates bacterial exit from infected cells to neighboring cells and may provide important information regarding the exit mechanisms of various invasive pathogens.
Primary source: Communicative and Integrative Biology

+ 9 notes 1 year ago 1024pm

han-alexander:

I don’t feel anything. I just want to crawl into bed and hide under my blanket forever. And possibly die there. There’s no point in anything else.

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