Луч << ray >> this was supposed to be a half-assed humor blog then i fell into the hype(s) // multi-fandom (and no side blogs so welcome to this shitshow of a blog) // vld // y!!!oi // hq!! (+ things that i genuinely care about) // icon: @ansbr
I’m so emotional about dinosaur stuffed animals,,, there are these creatures, extinct long before any of us were alive, but we found their bones and their eggs and their footprints. And we made drawings and models of what they could’ve looked like. And we made them into stuffed animals so we could hold them. We made them soft so we could love them. I’m sobbing
are YOU a former tiktok user trying to learn how to use tumblr to fill the void the american tiktok ban is leaving in your soul? here are some things you should know, from someone who’s going on their eighth year on this hellsite:
1. you can say anything on here. gone are the days of having to use words like “unalive” and “seggs.” murder! kill! sex! fuck! speak your mind!
2. there is a community for you on here. regardless of what you’re into or however small the fandom is, you have a place here. at least one other person will have heard of your weird obscure interest. strike up a conversation!
3. followers don’t matter. tumblr is one of the last remaining social media sites in which your number of followers means absolute jack shit. this can be disorienting at first, but once you lean into the fact that everyone on this website is equal, it’s very freeing. clout means nothing here.
4. similarly, you can post at any time. while tiktok has an algorithm that favors certain times, tumblr has no such algorithm. post whatever you want, whenever you want. every post has virtually the same chance at getting notes, regardless of when it is posted.
5. tags can have spaces between the words! this one is very exciting. tags can be a whole sentence. you can also use the tags to comment on someone’s post without actually adding onto the physical post itself (which is sometimes frowned upon and called “derailing” if you use this feature to bring up a completely different point other than the one that’s being made on the original post).
TL;DR: speak your mind, find your place, followers don’t matter, post anytime, have fun with tags!! tumblr is a wonderful site used to share things you’re excited about. be patient with yourself as you’re learning and have fun!
stop saying "cannibalism causes prion diseases" this is a common misconception
gonna preface this by saying I'm not trying to be weird or edgy here I just have an interest in diseases and find it frustrating to constantly see people spreading misinformation abt how they originate and spread
this misconception comes from an epidemic of kuru, a type of prion disease (you might also seem em referred to as TSEs) that broke out among the Fore people of Papau New Guinea in the 1950s. until colonial rule, the Fore people practiced a form of funerary cannibalism in which a loved one's flesh, including organs, would be consumed after they died. this practice isn't exclusive to the Fore, and has no profound inherent dangers; cooking and eating human flesh doesn't have any more health risks associated with it than eating the flesh of an animal. what started the epidemic wasn't the practice of cannibalism, but rather a stroke of incredibly, incredibly bad luck.
(more under the cut; there's cannibalism and disease talk, but nothing graphic.)
a prion disease is caused by infectious prions in the brain. this is a type of misfolded protein that can cause other proteins to become misfolded as well. the misfolding of these proteins results in a deadly neurodegenerative disease. CJD (creutzfeldt-jakob disease), one type of prion disease, is capable of spontaneously occuring in otherwise healthy individuals with no family history of the disease; this is likely what happened to one unfortunate member of the Fore community. most of the time, only contact with brain and spinal tissue transmit this prion disease, so the women and children who traditionally ate these tissues soon began to present symptoms of the disease. the rest is fairly self explanatory; the community has no experience whatsoever with the disease, so doesn't know how to stop the spread; the afflicted die, and when they are eaten, the disease spreads to a new set of people, they die, the disease spreads more, et cetera. this continues until the practice of funerary cannibalism is brought to an end, and the last known sufferer of the disease dies in 2009.
so there's a couple things to note here. firstly, CJD, the disease that likely struck the initial sufferer, is incredibly rare. it affects roughly one in a million people, and only 85% of these cases are the result of spontaneous generation. secondly, the only reason that it was able to spread to such a degree is because cannibalism was practiced regularly in this culture. to act as though any cannibalism (ESPECIALLY in a culture where cannibalism is not normal) will lead to prion disease is absolutely absurd. the likelihood of even encountering someone with a prion disease is wildly low, and even then, if the brain and spinal tissue are avoided, the disease most likely won't transmit between the consumer and the person being eaten.
ultimately, saying that cannibalism will give you a prion disease is as absurd as saying that going to the doctor for a blood transfusion is going to give you HIV. blood transfusion might be capable of spreading HIV, but in normal circumstances, this will not happen. there is nothing inherent to blood transfusion that causes HIV, just as there's nothing inherent to cannibalism that causes prion diseases. yes, cannibalism would most likely give you a prion disease; if you happened to live in a community that already regularly practiced cannibalism, where a prion disease was already running rampant. yes, cannibalism will give you a prion disease; if you happen to stumble into one of the one people per million who has one, fail to recognize a single symptom that might deter you, and then choose to eat brain or spinal tissue rather than meat.
once again, this isn't trying to be some weird edgy cannibalism joke, i just think it's important that people have an understanding of where diseases come from and how they spread. kudos if you read this whole tangent
i learned that Air Traffic Controllers have jobs so stressful they’re required to retire at 56
Stretching air-traffic controllers too thin is a risk, particularly with the mental and physical stress of keeping aircraft from colliding into each other. So, absent proven performance in air-traffic control breakthroughs, the FAA will have to replace the retiring controllers – with properly trained candidates. It’s a matter of public safety. (x)