#doveenthefox

[scripttorture]

Thanks to you I learnt that stress positions can even be deadly, which was a new information to me back in the day. I wonder : If someone survives being in a stress position, and is on the cusp of dying/suffering lasting damage, What treatments could be applied to minimize said damage?

I’m afraid that’s a little too medical for me to know for sure.

 I’m not a doctor and I don’t know how blood and kidney problems are usually treated.

 I’m also unaware of anyone being on the point of dying and getting hospital treatment. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened- just that I’ve never read an account of it.

 Approaching the problem logically, I think looking up kidney disease would be a good place to start.

 Stress positions ultimately cause death by kidney failure. The damage to muscles throughout the body results in a lot of large proteins ending up in the blood stream. These are directed towards the kidneys. And they damage the kidneys. When they reach a certain level the kidneys fail.

 I don’t know anything about how kidney failure functions or how it’s treated. But I do know it isn’t immediately fatal.

 Looking up how doctors treat kidney failure, and how they keep people with non-functioning kidneys alive, would probably be a reasonable place to start reading.

 I can’t say that it’s absolutely the way a doctor would approach a patient who’s been in a stress position for an almost-fatal length of time. You’d need to check with a doctor to find out whether there are other, preferred ways of treating survivors.

 Sorry I couldn’t help more.

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[scriptshrink]

Hi! I was wondering: Imagine an evil scientist, or a reasearch group, who do incredibly horrific experiments at their own volition, with the "For Science/greater good" excuse. Would those scientist suffer psychological trauma from what they did? Or would their willingness to do extreme things be indicative of poblems with their psyche on default to begin with?

Scripttorture has got you covered! Check out their post here!

[i-m-snek]

Do reptiles lay non-fertilised eggs too, or that's just a chicken thing due to selective breeding for that very purpose?

Not in the way that chickens do, but they can lay slugs, but its not super common. Chickens were selectively bred for eggs :) And also meat :P

[scripttorture]

Your blog is an awesome help, but i gotta ask: Is it hard emotionally to run a blog about torture? Thanks for your work on this stuff!

Less sothan I thought it would be. I anticipated a lot of hate and a lot of tortureapologists which (so far) haven’t materialised.

I tend totake regular breaks from the blog during the week. So I spend some daysanswering asks/preparing masterposts/reading and then I’ll take two or threedays off and ignore it for a while. Usually these involve my own writing, silly cookery shows, gardening (my chili plant wants to take over the world) and video games. This seems to help.

Somethings are easier for me to read about than others. Sometimes it’s to do withplace. I can be a lot more dispassionate about events in places I have nopersonal connection to like America then I can about events in places likeNigeria, Bahrain or Cyprus.

It alsodepends on how a source is written. It’s a lot easier to read an AmnestyInternational report or academic paper then it is to read something morepersonal or emotive. I’m finding T Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’a lot more difficult than F Dikötter’s ‘Mao’sGreat Famine’ because Snyder concentrates on a much more individual levelwhile Dikötter did a really excellent job of trying to capture the scale of the Chinese famine.

I don’treally have trouble with dispassionate descriptions of torture methods and thedamage they do. But I can’t read ‘Cry,the Beloved Country’.

Honestly?I’m finding this much easier than either of my academic degrees. The materialis more confronting but I also don’t have to deal with shifting goal posts,lack of academic support, bullying or internal politics I don’t understand.

It alsofeels very rewarding. I feel like I’m helping a lot of people with theirwriting and also helping to counter a lot of the misinformation about torture,in a way that the academic tomes don’t really do.

And ifI’m being honest with myself I’d have read most of this stuff regardless of theblog.

Beingable to use it to help other people generally outweighs any emotional cost.

Disclaimer

[i-m-snek]

Following your blog, i learnt that snakes are extremely needy and fragile. Going on that, I have to wonder: How the hell are they not yet extinct in the wilds? Or this neediness only applies to pet snake breeds?

So, the only reason they are needy in captivity is because our temp ranges and humidity ranges don’t match theirs in the wild :3 So we have to create a micro climate that best matches what their natural habitat is like, to keep them healthy. So if a ball python escapes in captivity, its why usually when they are found they are dried up and emaciated. Cause the temp ranges and humidity ranges are not what that species is built for :)

[i-m-snek]

Might be a stupid question: Why do some reptiles move like as if they had... Low frame rate? Burst of speed, stop. Burst of speed, stop. I noticed this most with the newts in the garden, and geckos in the zoo.

This one I am unsure of! My guess (keyword is guess, lol) would be for camouflage reasons, however I could be incredibly wrong.

[i-m-snek]

Can feeding cooked meat to a snake be detrimental? I saw an experiment longer ago on Tv, which compared how much energy and time does it take for raw and cooked meat to be digested by them. It came up in relation to how human intelligence could develop faster after the discovery of cooking, due to more easily chewable and digestible food. Where I'm going with this: Do you think careful husbandry and feeding them more "energy efficient' food could result in smarter snakes? (Not human level ofc)

This one is actually out of my expertise :( I would assume (and this isn’t based on studies or anything) that for obligate carnivores, cooked meat would not be easily digested. I could be wrong however!