想家

[vinterkosmos-deactivated2013091]

Cleopatra John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

[v-ersacrum]

Caravaggio, The Conversion of Paul (detail), c.1600

[jaded-mandarin]

Peter Paul Rubens. Detail from The Birth of the Milky Way, 1636-37.

[typhlonectes]

The first substantiated case of trans-oceanic tortoise dispersal

This Aldabra Giant Tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) appears to have survived drifting from the island Aldabra atoll all the way to the east coast of Africa. That’s 460 miles! The white things on his lower body are barnacles. Their size suggests his trip took 6-7 weeks!   Here’s the paper on the find: http://bwvet.com.br/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The_first_substantiated_case_of_trans_oceanic_tortoise.pdf

(via: Stated Clearly)

[dynastylnoire]

Hey, may I ask you a question? Do you honestly believe that every child should be vaccinated despite the many contaminates including mercury and artificial chemical compounds with unknown side effects that they are being found to be contained in them. It's a valid concern that some parents have. Another question I have is how is it logical that a person who has been vaccinated can catch virus from an unvaccinated person? Isn't it more logical to assume that vaccinations aren't quite as effective

You can ask it but I’m from a generation that got our vaccinations and never caught any of the diseases above or got mercury poisoning. So isn’t it more logical to assume it’s safer to vaccinate children instead of putting people with lowered immune systems at risk because you saw something on Dateline?

[soyeahso]

From what I understand, if enough people are not vaccinated, herd immunity disappears.  So yes, it would likely start with the unvaccinated, including people who can’t have vaccines for other health reasons.  But this also allows the bacteria to mutate and form new versions of the disease that the vaccines aren’t effective against.  Then you run the risk of the vaccinated getting the disease and the cycle will repeat.  Herd immunity is super fucking important. 

pvivax can you weigh in on this? 

[pvivax]

Why,  soyeahso yes I can!

First, unless there is a medical reason a child should not be vaccinated (such as an allergy to a compound in the vaccine), yes I think every child should be vaccinated!

Mutation of the pathogen can and has occurred, that is not the main reason for the vaccinated becoming sick. 

So WHY do the vaccinated get sick?

An EXCELLENT question with a variety of answers.

Some vaccines wear off with time.  That is why you are supposed to get your tetanus (and pertussis aka whooping cough!) shot every 10 years or so.  Think of it as a shirt, some shirts wear out quickly and have to be replaced over and over.  Then there is that one shirt that you’ve had since like middle school and 14 years later it’s still going strong.

Different vaccine formulation have different effectiveness.  In the mid 1990s the USA switched from using whole cell pertussis vaccine to aceullar pertussis vaccines over concerns about safety. Though the safety improvements are pretty much negligible from what I’ve seen.Those who had the whole cell vaccine are less likely to develop pertussis then those who had the acellular vaccine.

Vaccines are designed to do different things. Some vaccines work so that should the person be infected the disease is milder/survivable (Those with the aceullar pertussis vaccine for example may still get sick but their illness won’t be nearly as bad as if they were unvaccinated) or protect the child long enough to be strong enough to survive it

The Bacille de Calmette et Guérin (BCG) vaccine is a very good example of this. BCG vaccine is given to children to prevent tuberculosis. The BCG vaccine is really ineffective in adults and its effectiveness in children can be a crapshoot. HOWEVER it is very good at preventing miliary TB. And this gives children a chance to survive so that they may fight off the infection. (I’m not going to go into the pathogenesis of TB though it’s really interesting! Umm to me…)

But the BIGGEST reason is

           It’s a numbers game.

What the fuck does that even mean pvivax?

It means you have to take into account

The effectiveness of a vaccine, none of them 100%

How many people around you are vaccinated?  If everyone is vaccinated and you are one of the people where the vaccine didn’t ‘take’ your chances of getting sick are really low.  Contrariwise if a LOT of people aren’t vaccinated then your chances increase.  

An imperfect analogy: think of it as being shot at.  Someone shoots at you once and your bulletproof vest doesn’t work, you have a pretty good chance that the bullet will miss you and you’re good. But if you are shot at over and over and over, pretty soon there is good chance that you’re gonna get hit. 

Now for an example!

Herd immunity (the percentage of people that are vaccinated in order to for the disease to not spread and protect the vulnerable) is 98%.

 The MMR is about 97% effective, right? Let’s begin!

You have a school in Mississippi of 2000.  Mississippi has very strict vaccination laws. Only medical exemptions are allowed.  Therefore of the 2000 students, 1994 are vaccinated, a rate of 99.7%.

All of these students are equally exposed. If you are exposed to measles you have about 90% chance of getting measles.  It is VERY infectious.

Rounded down, since you can’t have a fraction of a person: 5 of the unvaccinated children will get measles.

54 of the vaccinated children will be sick.

OMG VACCINES SUCK THE FUCK SCIENCE!

Wait, wait, wait a moment!

Look at the numbers again!  5 of the 6 unvaccinated children developed measles, that’s a 83%.

54 of 1994 children developed measles, that’s 2.7%

But when you look at that, what do more people see?  The fact that 91% of measles cases were in the vaccinated, not that 1940 children were spared measles while only 1 non vaccinated person was spared infection.

Same scenario in Colorado where the MMR vaccination rate is 81.7%

366 vulnerable children

1634 covered.

All exposed and 329 of unvaccinated children will be sick (90% infection rate) and 45 of the covered children will be sick, again a 2.7% infection rate.  In this case however, only 12% of the sick children were vaccinated.

The more unvaccinated people walking around, the more reservoirs there are for disease and for the disease to linger and expose more people.  If very few people are unvaccinated, the disease dies out quickly, there is nowhere for it to go.  The more people that are unvaccinated, the more places there are for the disease to go, exposing more people to the virus.

      Footnotes: 54 came from. Multiplying 1994 by .97 (the effectiveness of the MMR).  1-(1994*.97)=60. 60*.90(likelihood of getting measles once exposed)=54.

45 came from: 1634 by .997 (the effectiveness of the MMR). 1634-(1634*.97)=49 49*.90(likelihood of getting measles once exposed)=44.118 (round to 45)

[dynastylnoire]

Oh wow instant follow cause facts

[amireal2u]

Honest to god you have MORE CONTAMINANTS IN YOUR BREAKFAST EVERY DAY. No I am not kidding. Industrialized society baby. You also eat a lot more of other people’s spit over the dinner table than most people realize. Which makes vaccines like, triple important. But seriously, the contaminants most people complain about aren’t actually contaminants. And they most certainly aren’t in doses large enough to do all that much of anything. I get more mercury in my morning corn flakes. And that’s real mercury, not a derivative that has been driven out of vaccines because of over reactive parents who don’t understand how the scientific method works. VACCINATE YOUR KIDS.

[shinethewaythrough]

Exactly. If you’re freaking out so much about the chemicals in vaccines, why don’t you direct some of that outrage towards the fact that there is currently no limit for the allowable amount of arsenic in infant rice cereals.

[archaicwonder]

Ancient mosaic skeleton 'meme' found in Turkey

What could be considered an ancient motivational meme which reads “be cheerful, live your life” in ancient Greek has been discovered on a centuries-old mosaic found during excavation works in the southern province of Hatay. Demet Kara, an archaeologist from the Hatay Archaeology Museum, said the mosaic, which was called the “skeleton mosaic,” belonged to the dining room of a house from the 3rd century BC, as new findings have been unearthed in the ancient city of Antiocheia.

[coolartefact]

Pectoral necklace of Amenemhat III, ca. 1860 BCE -1814 BCE, [1600x1200]

Source: http://i.imgur.com/5DtjPLG.jpg

[caravaggista]

“Be cheerful, live your life.”

Mosaic, Hatay province, Turkey (3rd century BC).

[cool-critters]

Black duiker (Cephalophus niger)

The black duiker is a forest-dwelling duiker found in the southern parts of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria. Black duikers stand around 500 mm tall at the shoulder and weigh 15 to 20 kg. They have black coats. The head is a rust colour with a large red crest between the ears. Black duikers have long, thin horns of 80 to 170 mm, but the horns of females reach only 30 mm. Black duikers live mainly in lowland rainforest, where they eat fruit, flowers, and leaves which have fallen from the canopy. They are probably diurnal, though this is surmised only from captive specimens. Black duiker are reported to be solitary, territorial animals. An estimated 100,000 black duikers are left in the world; they are threatened by hunting and are considered to be in decline across their range.

photo credits: ucumari

[coolartefact]

[OS] A bronze arrow that penetrated a skull reaching the brain. From the battle at Tollense River, Germany. 1250 BC [320x425]

Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/inline_small__3_4/public/Sch%C3%A4del6-innen.jpg?itok=VEFIDIts

[earthstory]

Pretty sure I’ve never seen manatees feeding before. It’s interesting.

[speciesofleastconcern]

sea goats

[funkysafari-deactivated20260131]

Pacific Wild Researcher Ian McAllister used an underwater housing to get this intimate portrait of a wolf wading through the intertidal zone on the British Columbia coast in Canada. This wolf took a break from eating herring roe to investigate the photographer’s half-submerged camera. Photograph by Ian McAllister

[1041uuu]

[humanoidhistory]

A spectacular look at Saturn’s north-pole hurricane, observed by the Cassini space probe on November 27, 2012.

[greatwar-1914]

Bravo, Belgium!  We are always proud to stand beside you. 

[nothingbutcrows-blog]

[painstation-deactivated20181026]

the party boy

[humanoidhistory]

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: The Agena Target Docking Vehicle is seen from the Gemini 8 spacecraft during a rendezvous in space, March 16, 1966.

(NASA/University of Arizona)