YALL my anesthesiologist is the nephew of the Nobel Laureate and astrophysicist who discovered dark energy
LOL HOW AMAZING IS THAT!!!!! we discussed dark energy as I was falling asleep 😂😂
me and the best surgeon and friend in the WORLD @annepeledmd
the painting is my grandmother’s, who passed BRCA2 to my dad.
the bedside photo is me and my dad, who passed BRCA2 to me.
multi-generational love, surrounded by the warriors who came before me.
You know what I feel? Brave. I feel brave.
I’ve summited the biggest hurdle in my life and I am so proud of myself.
I have the best team i could’ve ever imagined- my surgeon @annepeledmd, my partner, my friends, and everyone on Twitter. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. I could not have done this without y’all.
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Navigating a BRCA diagnosis & double mastectomy was scary, but @The_Breasties helped get me through it by supporting those impacted by breast or gynecological cancers.
They changed my life.
This Giving Tuesday, their goal is to raise $20k today.
today marks the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. this is my story.
my goal is to empower and educate, and to share that Knowledge is Power.
i’ve always known that cancer ran in my family.
my dad’s mom, my grandmother Grannell, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when I was a little girl. she fought over over a decade - and won - before getting diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
although ovarian cancer (dubbed the Silent Killer) is treatable, pancreatic cancer is an even trickier beast. she died 6 months after her diagnosis.
i’ve dreamt of going to space since i was little. despite the naysayers & fear of not being good enough, i’m elated to share that today, i’m taking a giant step towards that goal.
i’ve been selected for @NASA’s @HI_SEAS, a Mars Analog Astronaut Simulation on Mauna Loa, Hawai'i.
how it started vs how it’s going
located at 8,200 feet above sea level, the HI-SEAS habitat is where i’ll live for 2 weeks as though i were on Mars. with a crew of 6, we’ll go on spacewalks, experience a Martian “time delay” of 20 minutes for all comms, and conduct astronomical and geological research.
let's pretend that our own calendar--the one that runs from January through December--is representative of *the Universe*.
imagine that it's midnight on January 1.
all of a sudden, our Universe expands.
at the stroke of midnight, 12am, the Universe expands from *extreme* high densities and temperatures. and it expands rapidly - so rapidly that the timescale wouldn't make sense to write.
this is the Big Bang.
for the first 10^-41 seconds of January 1st -- that's 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000043-- the four fundamental forces rea unified as one.
electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and gravity. all together as one.
lemme tell you about relativistic space fireballs.
yeah, you read that right.
space fireballs, or flashes that release as much energy in SECONDS as the Sun releases in its entire 10 billion yr life.
also known as: GAMMA RAY BURSTS.
some bursts are extremely short (less than a couple of seconds) and some are fairly long (several minutes). a few are even as long as a couple of hours.
what could possibly form such an energetic, bright, and powerful fireball careening through space?
we think that the short gamma ray bursts (<2sec) form from merging binary neutron stars or a black hole swallowing a neutron star. both neutron stars and black holes are the dead remnants of ~supernovae~!