"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Andulka
Cosmic Funnies
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DEAR READER
Product Placement
PR's Tumblrdome
trying on a metaphor
wallacepolsom
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Show & Tell
@theartofmadeline
Fai_Ryy
cherry valley forever
occasionally subtle
Xuebing Du
izzy's playlists!
Origami Around
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oozey mess
seen from Croatia
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@sunnybiochemistry
Science is neither a philosophy nor a belief system. It is a combination of mental operations that has become increasingly the habit of educated peoples, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived.
Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (via retromantique)
JOINTS IN MOTION
As said by IFL science
Cameron Drake of San Francisco has created a collection of magnificent images showing joints in motion. He was aided by orthopedic physician Dr. Noah Weiss and the finished product is completely amazing. If you’d like to know more about the project, please check out Drake’s blog.
Capitalism loves science when it’s used to develop new technologies or new means of extracting resources.
Capitalism is indifferent to science when it works on things which can’t be directly commercialized.
Capitalism really hates science when it investigates environmental degradation, or when it points out that the economy is running headlong into a brick wall of resource limitation.
Burial mounds, sun-aligned pits and ancient delights galore
A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.
Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (via probablyasocialecologist)
Endless movement between hot and cold will eventually mean the end of the universe
After analyzing the DNA of 150,000 people, scientists say they can pinpoint the genetic roots of schizophrenia.
Media outlets are awash with the news that researchers in the US have apparently cured cancer with the measles virus. What are the facts behind the headlines?
Went to a talk by Dr Michio Kaku in Brisbane :) Insightful but I wish it was all audience Q&A!
Body parts age differently
h\t http://newsroom.ucla.edu/
How Soon Do You Benefit From Smoking Cessation?
One of the main reasons it’s so hard to quit smoking is because all the benefits of quitting and all the dangers of continuing seem very far away. Well, here’s a timeline that shows how quickly the effects of smoking can be undone.
The first few weeks after quitting smoking are usually the most difficult and it’s safe to say that it normally takes at least 8-12 weeks before a person starts to feel comfortable with their new lifestyle change of being an ex-smoker. Withdrawal from nicotine, an addictive drug found in tobacco, is characterized by symptoms that include headache, anxiety, nausea and a craving for more tobacco. Nicotine creates a chemical dependency, so that the body develops a need for a certain level of nicotine at all times.
Unless that level is maintained, the body will begin to go through withdrawal. For tobacco users trying to quit, symptoms of withdrawal from nicotine are unpleasant and stressful, but only temporary. Most withdrawal symptoms peak 48 hours after you quit and are completely gone in six months.
Because the first two weeks are so critical in determining quitting failure rates, smokers should not be shy about seeking all the help they can during this period.
Withdrawal symptoms begin as soon as four hours after the last cigarette, generally peak in intensity at three to five days, and disappear after two weeks. They include both physical and mental symptoms.
Mental and Emotional Symptoms
Tension and craving build up during periods of withdrawal, sometimes to a nearly intolerable point. One European study found that the incidence of workplace accidents increases on No Smoking Day, a day in which up to 2 million smokers either reduce the amount they smoke or abstain altogether.
Nearly every moderate to heavy smoker experiences more than one of the following strong emotional and mental responses to withdrawal.
Feelings of being an infant: temper tantrums, intense needs, feelings of dependency, a state of near paralysis.
Insomnia
Mental confusion
Vagueness
Irritability
Anxiety
Depression is common in the short and long term. In the short term it may mimic the feelings of grief felt when a loved one is lost. As foolish as it sounds, a smoker should plan on a period of actual mourning in order to get through the early withdrawal depression.
Physical Symptoms.
During the quitting process people should consider the following physical symptoms of withdrawal as they were recuperating from a disease and treat them accordingly as they would any physical symptoms:
Tingling in the hands and feet
Sweating
Intestinal disorders (cramps, nausea)
Headache
Cold symptoms as the lungs begin to clear (sore throats, coughing, and other signs of colds and respiratory problem)
One of the keys to quitting smoking is acknowledging that smoking cigarettes is an addiction that can be managed and overcome. One of the main reasons people give up quitting is because they find the withdrawal symptoms so fierce and unexpected. Don’t worry! these symptoms are actually good news, signs that your body is purging itself of all the harmful chemicals cigarettes left in your body.
[ sources x x]
The nitty gritty on nails
Human fingernails serve to protect the distal phalanx from trauma and aid in picking up small objects
The basic anatomy of the human finger nail is broken into two major components:
nail plate
nail unit: (a) nail fold, (b) nail matrix, (c) nail bed
Nail Plate
horny end product of the nail matrix; 0.5 mm thick; covers fingertip like a watch glass
corneocytes are flattened, anuclear and devoid of organelles
Nail Unit
Nail fold: angle between the nail plate and the dorsum of the digit skin is Lovibond’s angle. Proximal nail fold is an extension of the dorsal skin of the digits as a fold lying superficial to the matrix; it is the site where abnormal capillary patterns can be directly visualized in certain disease states (SLE, systemic sclerosis). Ventral epidermis of the proximal nail fold, also known as the eponychium, lies in direct contact with dorsal nail plate. Cuticle is the extension of the horny layer of the eponychium onto the dorsum of the nail plate and serves to protect the structures at the base of the nail.
Nail matrix: melanocytes may be present, contributing to pigmentation of the nail plate. Lunula is the most distal part of the matrix.
Nail bed: pink in color due to enriched vascular network. Epidermis is very thin, horny layer scant, granular layer absent.
Nail Plate Composition
main chemical component consists of hard keratin which is high in sulphur compared to keratins of skin
high glycine-tyrosine rich matrix protein
18% water, lipid content <5%.
rigidity depends upon arrangement of cells, their adhesions and the orientation of the keratin fibres. It is independent of chemical composition or calcium content
Nail Growth and Development
nail growth is continuous throughout life
0.5-1.2 mm/week
the longer the finger, the more rapid the growth
toenails grow at 33%-50% the rate of fingernails
regeneration of a fingernail after avulsion is 160 days; 40 days to emerge from the nail fold and another 120 days for growth to the fingertips
Interestingly enough, the composition of the nail bed varies by age and gender, “Results suggest that the Nitrogen/Sulfur ratio is indicative of sex differences and the Carbon/Nitrogen ratio of aging in healthy humans. Females have in their nails more sulfur. The increasing carbon content with ongoing age could be explained by loss of inorganic material from the nails, followed by a subsequent increase of organic material. The increasing C/N ratio gives evidence that keratin composition changes towards a higher amount of alpha-amino acids with aging.”
Sources:
http://www.dermweb.com/hairnailsmucousmembranes/nails.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18424895
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/1c/7a/27/1c7a27b67678366c23160952c6ed2c2c.jpg
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/@api/deki/files/17454/cc8491ee4eb6938db43276ce3244a365.jpg
http://eliasandwilliams.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/epidermis-labelled-2-640.jpg
What happens when you boil coke.
And here is a list of alternative uses for coke.
German artist regrows Van Gogh's ears from the genes of his great-great-grand-nephew.
A Harvard-led team is the first to demonstrate the ability to use low-power light to trigger stem cells inside the body to regenerate tissue, an advance they reported in Science Translational Medicine.
