Thejoyofscience - This Is For All The Nerdy Girls

Aspirate of a mammary mass from a 8 year-old, female-intact, Yorkshire Terrier.  The patient was found wondering in a field by a good Samaritan-turned-owner over the 4th of July weekend.  Although she was acting normally, the owner brought the little dog in for a ‘look over.’  On physical examination a 2cm mass was felt in the left mammary chain.  No obvious spay scar was present.

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On cytology there were copious clusters of epithelial cells.  These epithelial cells (top picture) were very non-descript, making for large, jumbled piles of cells.  Notice how you cannot see any well-defined cell borders between them?? Just a ton of nuclei (and nucleoli) blending in together!  That’s a sign of cell craziness!  Many clusters were surrounded by this gorgeous, pink-magenta material.  Likely secretory product or matrix.

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Cytologic diagnosis:  Mammary tumor!  Although the cells look quite malignant on cytology, many studies have shown you cannot reliably determine malignancy with cytology alone.  Thus, you NEED a biopsy to determine if a mammary tumor is malignant or benign in a dog.  And flip a coin on that - about 50% are malignant and 50% are benign.  Intact female dogs have an almost 35% lifetime chance of developing one of these beasts!

Journey to the Microcosmos-  The Complicated Legacy of Lynn Margulis 

Images originally captured by Jam’s Germs

Went out to a vernal pool today and saw some crazy toad action

“our work should equip the next generation of women to outdo us in every field this is the legacy we’ll leave.”

- rupi kaur

There was a sensitive pragmatic question which needed to be answered, however. To put it bluntly: Was Arya going to be naked on camera? Many cast members have appeared nude on the show, though typically signed on when they were at least 18 years old (and often agreed to nudity as part of their deal). The 22-year-old Williams joined Thrones when she was 11 and has grown up in front of fans. Williams says the showrunners let her decide precisely how much to show. “David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want,’” Williams says. “So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show, so…”

Still, when it came time to film the encounter, Williams had to be naked-ish on set, and that was a naturally a bit awkward. “In the beginning, everyone was really respectful,” she says. “No one wants to make you feel uncomfortable which kind of makes you feel more uncomfortable, because no one wants to look at anything that they shouldn’t look at which in turn makes you feel like you look awful because everyone is kind of like—” [Williams averts her eyes]. “You want people to act more normal.”

Continues Williams: “Then [the scene] was rushed. We were [directed by] David Nutter, who has a habit of speaking fast anyway. By the end we’re rushing to finish the scene and David is going, ‘Okay, you’re going to come in and do this and do that and, great, take your top off’ — and then walked off. And I’m like … ‘Okay. Let’s do it.”

Dempsie suggested the experience was strange for him too for given how long he’s known Williams, who’s about a decade younger than him. “It’s obviously slightly strange for me because I’ve known Maisie since she was 11, 12 years old,” says the 31-year-old actor. “At the same time, I don’t want to be patronizing toward Maisie — she’s a 20-year-old woman. So we just had a lot of fun with it.”

But Williams says what’s most important to her about Arya’s battle-eve night of romance wasn’t reading the scene or even filming it, but rather what this moment meant for her character. Year after year, Arya has been laser-focused on survival and training and revenge. Being with Gendry meant that, for one night at least, Arya had an experience that put her back in touch with her humanity.

“It was really interesting because it’s a very human relationship for Arya,” Williams says. “This is something she’s stayed away from, an emotion we’ve never really seen her engage with. David and Dan were like, ‘It’s the end of the world, what else would you have her do?’ This may be is a moment where Arya accepts death tomorrow, which she never does — ‘Not Today.’ So it was that moment where she says, ‘We’re probably going to die tomorrow, I want to know what this feels like before that happens.’ It’s interesting to see Arya be a bit more human, speak more normally about things people are scared of.” — Maisie Williams discusses Arya’s surprise Gendry scene

This is Phthirus pubis, a human louse, commonly known as “crabs" — it is known to infect pubic hair but can infect the EYELASHES. 

I came across this while making a high yield vector borne disease lecture for an upcoming talk. On the clinical pathology boards, they apparently really like to show “gross" gross photographs of bugs and ask what is it or what disease does it cause. I have a fascination with tick born disease, so it felt natural to expand and learn some more entomology. My attending was looking through my lecture and said I needed to add an example of a louse and a flea, since people commonly mix them up. Well, I naturally started to google… and ended up grossing myself AND my attending out. 

A job well done. Another excellent day on clinical microbiology. 

PS - up until a year ago, I thought that “crabs" were actually miniature crabs. What? I wasn’t that far off! Both are apart of the phylum arthropoda!

(Image: U. Müeller)

New neurons (in green) are guided to the neocortex  - responsible for controlling language and movement - not by glial cells, but by a protein called reelin.

Journal reference: Neuron, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.01.003

chappelle-“remember bitch you clicked on my face”

of course i did...that’s cuz you used to be funny

Pelvic Pain Research

Research link: https://wils9231.wixsite.com/website-1?fbclid=IwAR3dJS6LwJSbiTw3KE9D0nU-N81CQfHPrEfr52EWvk9i6sVqx8HScDSZLpA