James. Early thirties. They/them.
Most likely just a human suit filled with ravens.
Incorrigible villain stanning; compulsive nitpicking & analysis. Friendly neighborhood heartless aromantic. About page
the reason it takes me as long as it does to do my transportation homework, is at least half of the time I spend it doing shit like this instead of the actual write-up….
this article is doing absolutely nothing to dissuade me from my (still open to being proved wrong!) impression that “complete streets” is a frankly complacent concept that hamstrings rather than promotes meaningfully robust bike & ped policy
"Two researchers in the US and Australia have discovered important mechanisms that prevent B cells from attacking the body’s own tissues in autoimmune diseases like arthritis, lupus, and multiple sclerosis—and in the process have won a prestigious prize.
Normally, the body’s immune system protects us from viruses, bacteria, and foreign substances. However, in autoimmune diseases, the immune system starts attacking tissues in the body instead.
Researchers had long tried to discover the cause of autoimmune diseases. But, Christopher Goodnow and David Nemazee, independently of each other, adopted a new approach.
They asked why we do not all develop these diseases. Their focus was on B cells which, together with white blood cells and T cells, are the building blocks of our complex immune system.
“They have given us a new and detailed understanding of the mechanisms that normally prevent faulty B cells from attacking tissues in the body, explaining why most of us are not affected by autoimmune diseases,” says Olle Kämpe, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and chair of the Crafoord Prize committee that awarded the pair 6 million Swedish kronor ($600,000).
Neutralize B cells
In recent years, physicians have started to experiment by using existing drugs to neutralize B cells for patients with severe autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, which has proven to be very effective at improving their quality of life.
Thanks to this year’s Crafoord Prize Laureates, we have gained fundamental new knowledge about what is happening in the immune system during autoimmune disease attacks.
“This also paves the way for development of new forms of therapies that eventually can cure these diseases—or might prevent them in the future,” said one professor of clinical immunology at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences...
More details from the video, since the article glosses over the particulars:
"The laureates discovered what is now called B cell tolerance.
When B cells develop in the bone marrow, not all of them are perfect. To remove the faulty ones, a mechanism starts, in which defective cells are programmed to destroy themself through apoptosis.
The laureates discovered two new mechanisms that are used if some of the bad cells are left. Re-editing, where the immune system alters the combination of receptors, and anergy, that silences B cells with self-reactive receptors.
The laureates were able to demonstrate that these mechanisms sometimes fail. This means that faulty B cells can cause an attack on the body's own tissues – leading to autoimmune diseases.
Thanks to the laureate’s discoveries, doctors like Anders Bengtsson soon felt able to start treating patients with lupus, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and many other autoimmune diseases, with medicines that eradicated B cells.
Anders Bengtsson: "I'm very happy that B cells has gotten so much attention because of the laureates. I have seen my patients getting so much better and getting a better life."
Autoimmune patient: "Today, I feel very good. I really have hope in the research that it will revolutionise things and perhaps even cure it all. That’s what I want, hope for, and believe in.""
-Article via Good News Network, April 6, 2025. Video via The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, January 29, 2025.
@lansplaining encouraged me to finish this random meta nobody asked for, so let’s talk about Meng Yao, Meng Shi, and 孟母三遷 (mèng mǔ sān qiān), a proverb about good parenting.
A warning: this is super long (even for me!) and is less quality meta and more my ADHD brain jumping around a maze of loosely related ideas. Proceed with caution!
is this real? / i thought pro wrestling was fake? wrestling is 'fake' in that the fights are choreographed and the winner is predetermined, but the physicality is very real. there's no way to 'fake' getting whipped with a metal chain so hard it leaves welts.
why ARE they chained? this is a specialty fight called a 'dog collar match' where both participants are, you guessed it, fitted with dog collars which are then chained together.
is this legal? / how can this be allowed? why wouldn't it be? they're both consenting adults who planned and agreed to it.
but they could be seriously hurt! they know, and they accept the risk. pro wrestlers are well aware of the injuries possible in their line of work, and they do it anyway because they're crazy people.
IS there aftercare? of a sort, yeah - there's a medical team on hand to patch everyone up, and lots of coworkers backstage to give them a 'job well done!'
why are they wearing thigh highs? they're kneepads/shin guards for protection. looking like sexy thigh highs is just a bonus side effect!
ok, but why's that guy in a shiny speedo? personal preference. wrestlers can design their own outfits and some prefer full coverage long tights, while others wear less to show off the gams.
Nah mate two half-naked muscular men chained together by their dog collars whipping the shit out of each other with chains in a ritualised power struggle with a predetermined dominator and submitter of the interaction in a public ring is wholesome family entertainment
Being an evil doppelganger has to be so fucked up like imagine meeting a better version of yourself. Some chain of events going differently that led to "you" being a better person in a way you can never achieve. Personally I'd have no other option but to try and kill them
i think when it comes to knowledge gaps (especially on tumblr) its easy to get insecure about not knowing everything. but the real secret is that you can get away with not knowing everything if you just dont insert yourself into conversations you dont understand with blind confidence. the internet also gives you the privilege of 1) googling/wikipediaing shit before you say it, and 2) not volunteering how little you know. you dont actually have to enter the conversation just to say how little you know. part of the stereotype of dipshit stupid american on here is that americans will say full chestedly that they dont know which continent tchad is in and then go out of their way to justify it with their lack of education. when no one asked them to say either thing. and even if someone did ask, you are never under any obligation to actually answer.
since apparently it's the internet and you can just Say Things these days, I'm gonna venture out on a limb and say actually it's Jin Guangyao who's the moral compass of the story. hope that clears everything up for people 🙂
after 2 years working outdoors all day i finally got stung by an onion for the first time yesterday and i wasnt even doing anything there wasnt even a nest nearby
some favorite bits of late Act I/early Act II conversations >:3
I had forgotten Tarkis Arri gives you the “aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper” treatment! love it. I do really like her, especially as far as the various rebel leaders are concerned.
poor Eb has to put up with So Much -____-
the convo with Lady Lucretius is fascinating to me bc on one hand it’s like…… uh. yes? as a general rule, the state will often render “justice” that’s in its own best interests? are we really surprised here? – but also the assumption she’s making that genuine justice ought to look essentially like the conditions the petitioners are hoping for. which in the context of “lots of nobles and other relatively well-off people swarming Tunon’s court” (on top of simply “there are two different cultures clashing here regarding what is actually a just outcome, restitution, etc”)…. Interesting. telling, honestly. particularly since some of Kyros’s laws are pretty transparently aimed at preventing e.g. merchants from accumulating large amounts of wealth or single-industry expertise. to Ilevath this is very much a desirable feature and not a bug of Kyros’s Peace, ngl. he has… a poor opinion of the non-imperial Ruling Elite and the way they treat their subjects. “our noble Kyros’s Peace / their dastardly abuses of power” etc. etc.
lmao speaking of Poor Opinions of Ruling Elites. I do think there’s a decent case to be made that (regardless of whether it’s true of the PC or not), Calio’s “oh so do you want to rule instead? hmmm?” is a bit of a reflection of her own desires, too, which is fun. (and at this point, yes she actually is making an incorrect read on Ilevath’s thoughts in particular. he doesn’t want glory for himself, he wants A Good Grade In Fatebinder and for Tunon to force Ashe and Nerat into a Get Along Shirt and have it actually stick.)
yes, yes he does like secrets and trickery!!! what’s it to you, sir! …I mean at least Mark parses what’s actually going on rather than assuming he’s just super into, y'know, pillaging&murder&chaos. but…. yeahhhhh Ilevath’s getting a little. cranky. by the end there lmao. as far as he’s concerned he’s just being competent at his job!!! leave him alone!!!! he’s not in this for personal power except when he is but we’re not talking about that!!!!
next up: heading to Lethian’s Crossing, a.k.a. “trying to toll this road is literally illegal, please fuck off, you obnoxious self-important mercenary scum >:(”
Having read all 5 Imperial Radch books, I am intrigued by how often they come back to the legal establishment and confirmation of identity. A lot of SF, especially when it brings AI into the mix, is about identity and personhood, and typically it lands on how you get to decide for yourself, that identity is a very personal thing that other people can't impose on you. Whereas in Imperial Radch... obviously we have the Radchaai concept of civilization where they divide between Radch and non-Radch, human and inhuman, civilized and uncivilized. At the end of the first book Anaander changes Breq from ancillary to human simply by saying so with the legal and political powers that she has. At the end of the main trilogy, Breq outmaneuvers Anaander and asserts her own identity not by asserting the moral high ground of any personal epiphanies (not that she doesn't have them) but by appealing to a treaty. She takes the issue to committee. In Provenance, another character escapes eir legal troubles by appealing to that same treaty and getting eirself legally defined as an alien. Then in Translation State, a Presger translator does the opposite and calls a committee to define e as human.
So much SF takes this very internal, emotional view of selfhood and identity and 'only you get to say who you really are!!' and Imperial Radch is like woe. committee meeting be upon ye. Sometimes characters are having personal epiphanies about their identity and sometimes they are doing this for convenience, but either way the win state involves appealing to bureaucracy.
