so uhhhhhh i know this is a plant blog but realtalk lads im a little freaked out by that wild ass new organ discovered in our bodies according to a paper published literally yesterday am i right my lads, my bois, lmao hhaha
(as of 3/28/2019, paper was published in the reputable international research journal “Nature” on 3/27/2018, publication here, study was started in 2013) ok so like uhhh this is my rough translation of the paper they published using my current level of biological knowledge, if anyone else has a more in depth understanding with human anatomy things and would like to add on with anything i might have missed feel free to add but this is my takeaway:
-scientists were looking at some stuff in the inside of a bile duct they were studying in a live patient (this will be important later) using a laser that lets them see the cells in real time. they injected some stuff into the duct and saw the spaces inbetween the cells fill up with fluid in strange, tube-like structures that didn’t correspond with what they expected to be there, so they sectioned and froze them to study them closer; they realized that upon closer inspection, the fluid-filled places were VERY small collagen tubes forming a complex matrix of bundles surrounded by a weird cell covering that seemed to connect them to one another. they called this the Interstitium.
-they sectioned some more places where squeezy things might happen, like the inner linings of the bladder, lungs, lymph nodes, and the soft tissue enclosing our muscles, filled them with the same indicator, and hyper froze them like they did to the first sample and found the same weird matrix of fluid-filled tubing:
they concluded from what they found from this that:
1. our previous thought of the space inbetween the cells in these parts of the body, which we thought were just kinda like, there or whatever doing nothing (a series of spaces that were already called the Interstitium that were largely ignored), are actually full of complex tubing running through a ton of very important parts of your body
2. when the structures they’re chilling around (like your bladder and bowel) contract, the fluid moves around all weird
3. the reason this wasn’t discovered before is because when the tubes are squished too hard- like when scientists are cutting into them- they have a tendency to collapse really easily,especially when being treated with chemicals for microscope use, giving the impression of the kind of tissues that we’ve traditionally seen in specimens and thought of being in these sensitive areas (closely compact and dense cell mats). it turns out that in living people, these tubes run between the cells carrying fluid; the scientists were able to see this initially in live patients using the above mentioned laser technology, and then took live biopsies by quickly freezing the cells in place before removal to prevent their collapse.
4. yes, these can move cancer cells around, which is HUGE seeing as they seem to enclose a LOT of important and delicate muscles in our bodies in one giant, complex system. when they looked at it in cancer patients, the tumors they found seemed to kind of be….leaking….into them…..because the tumors were putting pressure on the fluid tubes….which easily collapse…..and move things that fall into the fluid around….
5. the scientists also explored things like hernias and colon damage in relation to these, but unfortunately this is where my translation powers run out as non-plant-related terminology starts being used lmao im so sorry im like this
tl;dr: the membranes that surround some really important parts of squishy things like our stomach, bowels, colon, lungs, muscles, etc are full of very delicate and complex tubing that runs in a weirdly complex system to other important squishy things throughout our bodies and looks like a weird organ that we didn’t know was there before (or like, we knew about it, we just didn’t know it was so…connected and uh…organy). also it seems to have an impact on the spread of cancer throughout these regions
This summary was great!! I have some more fun translations for y’all:
-the interstitium isn’t so much an organ as a tissue type and it’s p much everywhere you have squishy bits that gotta move
-some cancers can use it to spread (metastasize) to other areas. For example if a dudes got skin cancer but only of the epidermis(v top layer of skin) it’s a p small chance it’ll spread BUT if it gets into the dermis (next layer, where they see this tissue) there’s a much higher chance it’ll spread
-these fluid filled areas could possibly act as one more shock absorbing layer (adipose, or fat, also does this)
-probably also gives organs that move (heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, etc) room to move a bit
-is probably important to a concept called third spacing where fluid collects in your tissues (esp. your legs cuz gravity) bc for some reason your heart isn’t pumping well enough to suck it back up or your kidneys aren’t taking out enough fluid etc etc
-swelling in general is probably super important w/ this
-there are weird flat cells that we don’t really know what they are or what they do yet but we’ve got hypotheses: could be a type of stem cell, could be a type of fibroblast (cell that makes collagen/elastin/etc), could be important to scar formation if so (and a type of scar called keloid scar looks like this tissue but exaggerated)
-may have some big implications for cell to cell communications and inflammatory conditions like IBS/IBD, pancreatitis etc
-we may be able to use this fluid as a diagnostic tool once more research is done
-shows how the specific technology and techniques they used are v v important and how we need WAY more research done in this area
-also cells in the tissue may or may not interact w/ the collagen and that may or may not be important later
i passed a dude on the road in my neighborhood bc he was going like 10 under the limit, so he followed me until i parked and went inside a building so that when i came out he had blocked me in with his car just so he could yell at me. i wanted to destroy him but what the fuck can you say to a bastard who’s already aggressive enough to go that far? you cant respond appropriately to a cock who threatens you cuz he’ll just threaten you more for getting angry at him instead of being submissive.
the reason that carol (2015) and the handmaiden (2016) were snubbed by the academy of motion picture arts and sciences but call me by your name (2017) was not is because the idea of women living without men and/or exacting their justified revenge upon men makes men and patriarchally conditioned women so uncomfortable that they would rather see a grown man sleep with a teenager. in this essay i will
When i was like 13 was allowed to use the internet unrestricted for the first time and i spent a lot of time on Runescape. One of the people i talked to on there was this person who had much higher levels than me in every skill and had, to my perception, a seemingly overflowing amount of game resources. One day i was taking about wishing i could get gold ore to level my smithing and not having access to any and they like “here, you can have this gold that i have” and just gave me this big stack and i was like “i don’t even have anything to offer back”. They told me they didn’t need anything and just wanted to be nice. I said that they didn’t have to and what they told me honestly has stuck with me since, they said “life’s too short to spend it being mean to people” and like it’s such a simple thing to say but combined with their actions and the weight they bore to me at the time was hugely influential on my outlook on life and the way i treat others. I don’t know who that person is but they changed my life that day and I’m so thankful to them.
high level MMO-ers are either the nicest people on earth or the spawn of Satan there is no in between
Runescape was a big part of my formative years for better or worse. Age twelve left me impressionable at best and the free lobster this guy gave me one day just stuck with me. We fished together for days on end and we talked about our parents and stuff. If you’re out there NinjaKirby69 I miss you buddy.
I forgot to type it up yesterday but one of my best experiences didn’t even involve me. It was when my younger sister, Runescape user cooldudetha, crashed the steel market single-handedly out of sheer boredom.
I need to know this story
So if you’re not aware, Runescape has the Grand Exchange, which is basically a global trade market controlled by supply and demand. It’s an incredible system, and deserves a lot of commendation.
Well one day back in…I think Summer between 2010-2012? my younger sister and I had nothing to do but play Runescape in our free time. I did what all aspiring heroes do, I was happy to go out and commit mass goblin murder. My sister was more creative. At first she went to train Smithing in Al Kharid, which is this desert area with easy access to iron, coal, a player bank, and a smelter. So basically she made craploads of steel for hours on end for like a week. But then she realized she had nothing to do with the steel. She could go find a smith with an anvil and train Smithing further, but that was boring since she’d already been grinding forever. So she went to the Grand Exchange and sold it all.
Thousands of units of steel ingots.
And it sold like immediately, since there was always a large amount of people training Smithing at the level they could use steel.
Obviously she became fabulously wealthy and didn’t know what to do with her newfound wealth. But since she spent a lot of time at the Exchange, she knew basically how the market worked. I’m not 100% sure on what the thought process was for her, but she essentially realized a basic economic principle: If she could control the supply and demand for steel she could accelerate her profit margins.
So like any reasonable 12-14 year old, she bought out about twice as much steel as she sold. Flooding the market had almost halved the price, and she now was both the supply and demand. Of course, as a result of some mystery person buying tons of steel, the price went up again. So she went and sold it at the higher price. She spent about another week or two playing Carnegie before it got old and she retired to Lumbridge with fat stacks of gold and the finest armor money could buy (but she couldn’t wear due to low Defense level).
I found out from a friend later who was part of one of the big trade guilds that the big market guilds were all pissed that somehow the steel market had crashed, skyrocketed, then crashed in quick succession for no goddamn reason and all of them had lost thousands of coins in the process.
My favorite thing about this is that it validates my entire Master’s Degree. This. This is how games can develop incidental learning and teach kids valuable lessons. This 12 year girl figured out, and manipulated, a free market economy because she was bored. She was able to recognize, understand and utilize a fundamental principal of economics to entertain herself.
that’s actually exactly where you want to keep a nuclear plant. When nuclear plants are built they are put by large bodies of water so that they have a constant water supply as well as a radiation sink should they catastrophically fail. the key to making meltdowns manageable is shielding and distance
Distance is important because radiation obeys the inverse square law. That is, if you double the distance, you only get ¼ the radiation. If you were four feet from a radiation source that put you in a 600R/ hr field, but immediately jumped back to 8 feet away, you would only be in a 150R/hr. As you can see, the exposure drops off VERY fast with distance.
Shielding matters because different particles (the “radioactive bits” that radiation describes) can’t penetrate certain things. alpha particles (the most numerous particles as well as the weakest) can’t penetrate more than a sheet of paper, beta particles cant penetrate more than a few mm of aluminum, but gamma rays (the powerful, deadly particles) need a lot of lead, though they’re half lives are short and they’re are very few gamma emitting particles. neutron radiation, the thing most people worry about, is easily contained by substances containing hydrogen (two metres of water will stop all but the most energetic neutrons).
The ocean just happens to have the perfect combination of great distance and shielding, and areas of it that experience spills often only see their rads increase by a just few integers or decimals. The sun increases and decreases local rads more significantly than that. This is why places like Chernobyl are worse off than Three Mile Island, where almost all of the radiation dissipated into the sea. Hell, that’s why the immediate land around Fukashima is uninhabitable while it’s coast has practically normalized.
This is why nuclear power plants are designed and built by people who understand nuclear physics rather than by smartasses on twitter.
Gomez gives out better relationship advice than like 90% of dudes.
Gomez Addams is a suave motherfucker who loves his wife more than his own life.
Everyone should want a Gomez. He’s p cool.
Gomez and Morticia Addams actually have a very loving and extremely healthy relationship, both in the old TV show and in the more recent movies. They were also one of the first television couples to be shown to have an active (albeit offscreen) sex life. Their frank attitude towards sexuality was shocking in its’ time, but their relationship and their family dynamic is actually more functional and more…dare I say it…sane than most families portrayed on TV.
The comedy in the show came from the family’s “odd” lifestyle, rather than from infighting and petty bickering, or worse, as was common on other shows of the time, thinly veiled references to spousal abuse. They didn’t make fun of each other or act like their children were creatures from another world. Were they strange and outside of social norms? Yes. Were they united in creating a loving home and being good, supportive parents? Absolutely.
These two support and adore their children, care for an aging mother and an estranged brother, put family before everything, and they love each other, wholly, fiercely, without reserve. They are every bit as much in love after at least a decade of marriage as they were the day they met.
Relationship goals. LIFE goals.
Just remembered in the second movie when their third child became “normal” for a period and although they were shocked and didn’t know how to handle it, they didn’t mistreat the child or love it any less. They accepted the difference, even though it was hard for them.
Reblogged for truth.
❤️❤️❤️
Posts about Gomez and Morticia Addams are almost always uplifting and I’m happy to have them on my dash, but I think my favorite bit about this conversation is what Gomez is actually saying to Fester.
It’s nobody’s surprise that many of the aesthetic and thematic elements of The Addams Family in its various incarnations are influenced by Gothic tradition (not goth, that mostly came later. And not Goth, that was much much much too early), and I think Gomez’s words are a dead bullseye in terms of Gothic mentality.
“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”
The sublime is a recurring theme throughout Gothic literature. Although the word (like “awesome”) has lost a lot of it’s original luster over the intervening decades, sublime doesn’t really mean elevated and lofty (or even heavenly) as it’s often used today, but rather something possessing the power and grandeur to induce awe and veneration in the mind of the beholder. Although less than divine, something sublime possessed a wildness and power that transcended human ability to control…or even to comprehend.
Sublime is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon leaning as far as you dare over the railing and still not being able to see the canyon floor below. Sublime is warrior-queen Galadriel being tempted by the One Ring. Sublime is waking up in the middle of the night in the heart of a wild thunderstorm.
“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”
Gomez isn’t advising Fester to treat a woman he fancies like a princess, or even elevate her to pedestal of angelic nature (who’s idea was it to equate femininity with purity anyway? What a laughable and historically damaging idea. Shame on whatever dead (probably) white dudes promoted that!)
Gomez is advising Fester that if he truly loves a woman he must do everything he can to remind her of how she’s an untameable force of nature who’s grandeur brings him to his knees in awe and terror. Just like Morticia, for Gomez.
I’ll sign off with one of my most favorite quotes of all time, because it feels suddenly very relevant:
“When I find myself surrounded by so much beauty, I feel as if I am the eye of a hurricane.”
rip tumblr 