we-are-all-paranoid
brazilian | genderfluid | biomedicine major
101 posts
Latest Posts by we-are-all-paranoid
most unstable girl you know: i need to get a masters degree
Women in STEM are just witches in white lab coats instead of black robes
art source: abigaillarson-Poisonous Plants irenhorrors-Drawlloween Laboratory
Hey... what the fuck???
So I read the article, and this is super cool. Basically what happened is that they let a drop of butyl alcohol out from a syringe onto the surface of another liquid, and it just... hung out there? For a very significant amount of time, too. In the past, this type of "droplet levitation" has only lasted a few milliseconds max, but this droplet was staying levitated without any external forces applied for tens of minutes.
The reason this happens is because of Solutocapilllary convection, which as far as I can tell essentially boosts the surface tension of that one spot in the underlying liquid using vapor molecules, so that the butyl alcohol molecule can't sink in.
Also, the reason why I specified that the reason this was cool is because it was done without external forces is that APPARENTLY we've been able to levitate things using sound waves since like... the 1930s. And it makes sense that you can do that, in principle, but it still looks absolutely wild to see.
Slime Molds and Intelligence
Okay, despite going into a biology related field, I only just learned about slime molds, and hang on, because it gets WILD.
This guy in the picture is called Physarum polycephalum, one of the more commonly studied types of slime mold. It was originally thought to be a fungus, though we now know it to actually be a type of protist (a sort of catch-all group for any eukaryotic organism that isn't a plant, animal, or a fungus). As protists go, it's pretty smart. It is very good at finding the most efficient way to get to a food source, or multiple food sources. In fact, placing a slime mold on a map with food sources at all of the major cities can give a pretty good idea of an efficient transportation system. Here is a slime mold growing over a map of Tokyo compared to the actual Tokyo railway system:
Pretty good, right? Though they don't have eyes, ears, or noses, the slime molds are able to sense objects at a distance kind of like a spider using tiny differences in tension and vibrations to sense a fly caught in its web. Instead of a spiderweb, though, this organism relies on proteins called TRP channels. The slime mold can then make decisions about where it wants to grow. In one experiment, a slime mold was put in a petri dish with one glass disk on one side and 3 glass disks on the other side. Even though the disks weren't a food source, the slime mold chose to grow towards and investigate the side with 3 disks over 70% of the time.
Even more impressive is that these organisms have some sense of time. If you blow cold air on them every hour on the hour, they'll start to shrink away in anticipation when before the air hits after only 3 hours.
Now, I hear you say, this is cool and all, but like, I can do all those things too. The slime mold isn't special...
To which I would like to point out that you have a significant advantage over the slime mold, seeing as you have a brain.
Yeah, these protists can accomplish all of the things I just talked about, and they just... don't have any sort of neural architecture whatsoever? They don't even have brain cells, let alone the structures that should allow them to process sensory information and make decisions because of it. Nothing that should give them a sense of time. Scientists literally have no idea how this thing is able to "think'. But however it does, it is sure to be a form of cognition that is completely and utterly different from anything that we're familiar with.
not to be positive on main but sometimes things really are ok. sometimes you really will be happy and safe and warm. sometimes you really will be giggly and blushy and full of love. sometimes the night is chilly and your home is cozy and your tea is perfectly steeped and your phone lights up with a message from someone you love. sometimes life really is quite lovely.
is there a name for this
Therocephalians were a group of synapsids very closely related to – or possibly even ancestral to – the lineage leading to modern mammals. They were a diverse and successful group of carnivores during the latter half of the Permian, but suffered massively during the "Great Dying" mass extinction, with only a handful of representatives making it a few million years into the Triassic.
Tetracynodon darti was one of these rare Triassic therocephalian survivors, living in what is now South Africa around 251 million years ago. Only about 25cm long (~10"), it had slender limbs and strong claws that suggest it was a scratch-digger. Its long snout was lined with pointed teeth, and it was probably an active predator hunting by snapping its jaws at fast-moving prey like insects and smaller vertebrates.
Its combination of small size, burrow-digging habits, and unspecialized diet may be the reason it scraped through the Great Dying when most of its relatives didn't – but unfortunately it seems to have been a "dead clade walking", disappearing only a short way into early Triassic deposits.
———
NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon
References:
Fontanarrosa, Gabriela, et al. "The manus of Tetracynodon (Therapsida: Therocephalia) provides evidence for survival strategies following the Permo-Triassic extinction." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 38.4 (2018): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2018.1491404
Sigurdsen, Trond, et al. "Reassessment of the morphology and paleobiology of the therocephalian Tetracynodon darti (Therapsida), and the phylogenetic relationships of Baurioidea." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32.5 (2012): 1113-1134. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254315180_Reassessment_of_the_Morphology_and_Paleobiology_of_the_Therocephalian_Tetracynodon_Darti_Therapsida_And_The_Phylogenetic_Relationships_of_Baurioidea
Wikipedia contributors. “Tetracynodon” Wikipedia, 21 Aug. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetracynodon
Wikipedia contributors. “Therocephalia” Wikipedia, 01 Oct. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therocephalia
Fun fact: my dad, after being a surgeon for 25 years, no longer has fingerprints. The sponge he uses to wash his hands several times a day is so harsh that it’s rubbed off his fingerprints throughout the years. Sometimes he can’t get into our building because the biometric uses a fingerprint scanner 😭
Reminder to Click for Palestine today!
Click for the other causes as well if you can!
you can read the study here
In the United Kingdom, a 48-year-old who was bit by a stray feline ended up contracting a species of bacterium that scientists have never seen before. His immune response to the foreign microorganism was a doozy. Just eight hours after receiving multiple bites, the man's hands had swollen to such a great extent that he took himself to the emergency department. His puncture wounds were cleaned and dressed and he was given a tetanus shot before being sent on his way with antibiotics. A day later, he was back at the hospital. His pinky and middle fingers on his left hand were painfully enlarged and both his forearms were red and swollen. Doctors had to surgically remove the damaged tissue around his wounds. He was also given three different antibiotics intravenously and was sent home with oral antibiotics. This time, thankfully, the treatment worked and he made a full recovery. Back at the hospital, however, doctors were busy trying to figure out what had happened. When they analyzed the microorganisms present in samples from his wounds, they found an unrecognizable Streptococcus-like organism.
Continue Reading
leaving a three hour lab be like:
what time is it? why is it dark outside? where did the sun go?
I'm starving.
I'm never doing that again (literally has the same lab scheduled the following week).
i got to work with some HeLa cells today!
as cool of an experience as this was and as interesting as these things are, it’s always important to acknowledge the bad along with the good. Henrietta Lacks’ cells revolutionized so many areas of research, but she deserved so much better.
working with these cells today just really reminded me of the duality of many scientific developments. many things have come with great cost and harm and i think that’s something important to keep in mind.
if you aren’t familiar with the story of Henrietta Lacks, i highly recommend looking her up. there’s a book about her live (the immortal life of henrietta lacks) that’s very illuminating.
A door full of opportunities
i learned that there are no skeletons in the wreck of the Titanic or debris field. At depths of 3,000+ feet, seawater is undersaturated with calcium carbonate. Once animals ate the flesh of Titanic's passengers and crew, their bones dissolved (x)
look at these gorgeous bronchial cartilage cells!
Dear scientists,
Please, for the love of God, please, make your papers more understandable.
Fuck you
Sincerely,
A college student on the verge of tears
Plz reblog, I need to know I'm not alone in this.
look at that inflammatory process!!
this is a intestinal polyp slide. also check out that hemossiderosis in the hemorraged vessel to right!
Metastatic embolus from breast adenocarcinoma in the lungs
cancer cells are usually very metamorphic, which you can tell by the different shapes of the nuclei in this embolus. i love how you can see the metastasis inside a vessel perfectly in this picture!
Two neurons sensing each other and trying to connect
Credit: @rockatscientist
Neil Druckmann - HBO's The Last of Us Podcast: Episode 5