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Hi! I’m a cell biology PhD Candidate who also makes art sometimes 🔬🧬

[couldntbedamned]

If you come across anyone who starts off with "Scientists don't want you to know..." you need to understand that they're lying. They're completely full of shit and working a grift.

Because they've never met or spoke with a scientist.

Scientists WANT YOU TO KNOW. Scientists want you to know SO MUCH. Scientists would be THRILLED to teach you EVERYTHING they know in EXPLICIT DETAIL. Scientists LOVE to share information and their findings and their theories. They don't want to hide anything, ever. They are SO HAPPY to share.

[mrtechlab]

Learned recently the Artemis II mission is carrying a 1in. x 1in. piece of the canvas used in the Wright brother’s Flyer, oohhh man. I love technology but I also adore beyond everything the sentiment for the past we attach to advancements, because a lot of people think there’s no need to remember the time we could barely figure out plane flight while blasting off to go briefly orbit the moon.

There’s sometimes a mindset of science purely for advancement, the next big thing, which feels both distinctly human and un-human (inhuman? Uhhhh) It’s our nature to go as far as we can, build until we hit something that can actually stop us. Learn and see it all. But we’re also the people that saw shapes in the stars; we have to give it all meaning. Artemis II is only one part of a much larger plan, but by itself it’s still an incredible feat. Every step of the way has meaning to the world, and taking a single square inch of fabric to make us look back is a really nice reminder of all of it.

[loucifersbitch]

if you need me, i’ll be sobbing on the floor. humans, man

[jess-the-science-mess]

What are mRNA vaccines?

DNA is the body’s instruction manual— it tells our cells how to produce all the proteins inside our bodies. Because it has such an important role, DNA needs protection. To protect it, DNA is kept inside the nucleus, where it is inaccessible to the rest of the cell. However this poses a problem when our cells need to make a protein, because they need access to the information in our DNA. The cell solves this problem by making small copies ot DNA that can leave the nucleus and be used to make proteins. These copies are called mRNA. Thanks to mRNA, our DNA is kept safe inside the cell’s nucleus, where it can’t be damaged by other things in our cells, but the instructions contained in our DNA can still be used. “mRNA” stands for “messenger RNA” because it acts as DNA’s messenger!

mRNA vaccines work by providing our cells with copies of instructions for producing antibodies— proteins that fight off infections. For example, a COVID mRNA vaccine provides our cells with mRNA for antibodies specifically designed to combat the COVID virus.

In the picture above, you can see what it might look like inside one of your cells when you get an mRNA vaccine. The pink swirls are mRNA from the vaccine, which bypass your cell’s nucleus (orange) and go straight to your ribosomes (purple). Ribosomes are what translate the mRNA instructions into antibodies. These finished antibodies (pink Y-shaped structures) can go on to fight off their specific bacteria or virus. When not fighting infections, antibodies remain in your cells, waiting for the next infection.

Some people worry that mRNA vaccines could change the DNA in their cells. However, the nucleus keeps your DNA safe- nobody can get into the nucleus without a specific invitation, and the DNA cannot get out. The mRNA in a vaccine does not have an invitation to the nucleus, nor does it need to, as it can be used to make antibodies without ever interacting with your DNA.

People also worry that vaccines might make them sick. Some vaccines can have side effects like soreness or mild symptoms, which come from the immune system getting activated and ready to fight off disease. However, severe adverse effects from any widely administered vaccine are extremely rare, and the dangers of fighting off an infection without the help of a vaccine are often far more common and far worse. Studies of COVID mRNA vaccines have found that vaccinated individuals had a reduced risk of mortality compared to non-vaccinated individuals, underscoring the importance and the benefit of this new technology.

Sources and further information:

Are COVID-19 mRNA vaccines associated with the long-term risk of all-cause mortality? In this cohort study including 22.7 million vaccinated

Mortality risk after COVID-19 vaccination: A self-controlled case series study

Although previous studies found no-increased mortality risk after COVID-19 vaccination, residual confounding bias might have impacted the fi

[anxeious]

this is making me emotional

[couldntbedamned]

If you come across anyone who starts off with "Scientists don't want you to know..." you need to understand that they're lying. They're completely full of shit and working a grift.

Because they've never met or spoke with a scientist.

Scientists WANT YOU TO KNOW. Scientists want you to know SO MUCH. Scientists would be THRILLED to teach you EVERYTHING they know in EXPLICIT DETAIL. Scientists LOVE to share information and their findings and their theories. They don't want to hide anything, ever. They are SO HAPPY to share.

[blessphemy]

if you read about any biology you can quickly lose touch with what is astonishing and miraculous vs what is mundane, from animals that steal chloroplasts to become photosynthetic, to cloning technology being old hat, to trees that didn’t biodegrade for tens of millions of years, to naturally occurring lateral gene transfer between vastly different species, to the creation of gametes from adult cells, to the ability of some cancers to induce blood vessel growth, to desert shrimp that lie dormant for years, to the sensitivity of human touch receptors, to the fact that human hardware has a latent ability to see UV but their corneas block those wavelengths, to birds that echolocate and live in caves, to human skin being covered in enzymes that destroy RNA, to individual trees becoming genetic tapestries branch by branch, to life forms that gain energy from the electron potential of metals in their environments, to plants that recognize their siblings and adjust their behavior accordingly when growing next to them, to metamorphosis

which is to say. All of it is miraculous. and all of it is mundane. biology is Chaos vs. Order locking horns forever

[animentality]

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[jess-the-science-mess]

[jess-the-science-mess]