"More people die of the flu every year, you're just fear mongering"
No, more than 140k Americans do NOT die from flu a year. No matter how you calculate them.
2017-18 was the worst recent year and the CALCULATED deaths are still only around 61k tops.
(61k is less than 140k in case you were wondering).
And those are the CALCULATED deaths for a YEAR. That's the number that we come to using the numbers of confirmed deaths, the number of total deaths, and a bunch of math after the season is over.
Jul 14, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
So yesterday I talked about testicles and COVID-19. Opinions on ovaries are a little more mixed but...
TLDR: Ovaries probably have enough of the same receptors that if testicles are affected, so can ovaries be. So, if you have any interest in protecting your organs, wear a mask
ACE2 is expressed pretty widely through uterus/ovaries/placenta. ACE2 is the primary access point for the SARS-CoV-2 virus
Need another reason to wear a mask, socially distance, and stay safe?
SARS-CoV-2 gets into cells mostly via the ACE2 receptor. Know what tissue has a lot of ACE2 receptor (besides lungs, gut, heart, etc)?
TESTICLES.
Especially a worry for those young people who "aren't affected as badly" by COVID-19, because you might not be breathing hard, but your dangly bits might be getting permanently toasted.
Don't want your spermatogenesis and steroidogenesis screwed with? Stay home and mask up.
Jul 11, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The "readability survey" on @ravelry is inaccessible as hell, and fails to address many of the primary concerns with the layout.
It's also incredibly ineffectively written if you actually want usable, useful data out. @outcassed and @ravelry , hire an accessibility consultant!
Seriously, 35 pages and nothing on the flickering drop shadows besides a ticky box asking if you use the setting?
Jul 10, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
61,067 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday in the US
State: New Infections (% of new) - (% of tot US Pop)
TX: 11,394 (19%) - (9% of US Pop)
FL: 8,935 (15%) - (6% of US Pop)
CA: 7,248 (12%) - (12% of US Pop)
AZ: 4,057 (7%) - (2% of US Pop)
GA: 2,837 (5%) - (1% of US Pop)
TX
Jul 10, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
So let's say you have pneumonia. It's not looking so hot.
Then you get terminal cancer. You've got a week to live.
Suddenly someone comes in and stabs you in the chest with a knife.
What do you want marked as the cause of death?
That's right: Bleeding from knife wound
Lucky for you, this is how it works! (mostly)
If you're dyING of something, but something else comes in, takes advantage of that, and kills you (you can't fight back against knife guy because of cancer and pneumonia) it's still the knife that killed you.
Jun 18, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Another vaccine trial. It will be interesting to see where this goes, and I approve of the lead's comment.
theguardian.com/world/2020/jun…
This quote is good context from the lead. "Is that protection against infection? Is it protection against illness? Is it protection against severe disease? It’s quite possible a vaccine that only protects against severe disease would be very useful.”
Mar 19, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Seeing this a lot: "lots of diseases are named for where they come from."
Many viruses HAVE BEEN named after where they were *discovered.*
The decision was explicitly made to stop doing that because it causes major problems for the location it was discovered...
Where it is discovered is often not where it originated! That is, again specifically, why it was named "COVID-19."
Further: "China" is not a location.
Mar 12, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
To those who have to go to work or the electric bill won't get paid
To those who don't have a computer for kids to do online courses
To those with chronic pain, who can't stock up on meds
To those who have to work, or they'll have no job tomorrow
I see you
To those who have to work or have no healthcare tomorrow
To those who have to work because their healthcare doesn't cover essential meds
To those who have to ride public transit or they can't get to work
To those who have to ride public transit or they can't eat
I see you
Mar 7, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
From the CDC on hand sanitizer: cdc.gov/handwashing/sh…
Alcohol based hand sanitizers can be very effective against alcohol sensitive germs.
Hand sanitizer expiration dates are based on when the solution drops below 90% of listed ingredients. Usually that's 2-3 years on the shelf.
Sanitizer mostly starts at 60% alcohol which is pretty much the minimum effective at killing anything.
So at the expiration date you're at 53% alcohol. Not enough to be effective at killing things.
It is, of course, better than nothing if you don't have anything else.
Recommendation is about 1 year once purchased once you break the seal (if still before expiration)
Jan 20, 2020 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
"Beyond Vietnam" (MLK Jr)
There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle.
It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated
Nov 11, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Veteran's Day. Complex time. I've always been anti-war, and yet I joined the Army. I found a home and family. I lost friends. I saw war's long-term after effects.
I served because I chose to. If you want to thank me, do right by my colleagues. Don't vote for plastic patriots.
Don't vote for people who think patriotism and respect are defined by the presence/absence of a lapel pin, or whether a salute happened with a coffee. Don't vote for people who wield veterans as a weapon while voting against their healthcare and schools and body armor.
Oct 23, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Oy. Super short version: SSRIs don't prevent autistic tics (which they call OCD behaviors).
This is utterly unsurprising to anyone who's ever been friends with an autistic person. Autistic stimming doesn't even look like OCD behavior if you look.
sciencenews.org/article/prozac…
Addon: As @prettynose92 noted "tics" aren't the same as "stimming." But what they describe in the article doesn't differentiate between the behaviors. Tics are *involuntary* and just happen.
Here's a video:
Oct 1, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Lots of layers here.
First, big labs =/ small labs. Structurally, they're very different in PI interaction.
Second, cascading mentorship is critical. As a student, being a PI is still a long way off, post-doc is your next step so that's critical mentorship.
Third, personally, mentorship from the PI in two labs kept me in science for nearly 20 years, and "mentorship" from the PI in another lab almost drove me from science completely, and did drive me from academic research.
But I've worked primarily in small labs
Aug 29, 2019 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Brain not cooperating with braining in the right direction. So. Microfiction.
-
Blake shuddered. There were so many things wrong with what he was seeing that he could barely enumerate them. It was like a kid’s drawing of a glow worm, lumpy and misshapen and as long as two men.
And, like a picture of a glow worm, it was lit with an eerie internal phosphorescence that showed the thick pulsing veins and organs through the eerie pale flesh. As Blake watched, three… antennae? tentacles? on its head waved, turning in his direction. Oh crap.
Aug 27, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
A tiny bit of microfiction:
_________
“I’m just going to go hang out with Jake.”
Eref snorted, “Of cource, the gross pink donut... boy. He is a… boy, right? I never remember their weird genders. I hear Eremeth’s back from university if you want to hang out...”
1/6
“He is NOT gross! He’s nice! And so helpless. I just want to take care of him, like a whiskerbug. And Eremeth is a stuck up bigot these days.
2/6
Jul 24, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
One of the rarely sung heroes that got us to the moon, Mary Sherman Morgan. Responsible for the fuel that got us there.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sher…
Who, one might ask! You see, Werner von Braun and his, by Jupiter C days, considerable gang of engineers and scientists, well funded and much acclaimed were unable to come up with a fuel formulation that would eventually get us to the Moon.
Jul 2, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I would like to see links to your favorite small nonprofit. The sort that benefits from small donations.
Bonus point if its run by someone from the relevant group. Bonus points if they're intersectional (i.e. support black/trans or disabled/autistic etc.)
One that's helped a friend of mine: @TWOCCNYC the Trans Women of Color Collective.
May 20, 2019 • 19 tweets • 3 min read
Hello again! Friendly neighborhood molecular endocrinologist here. With the news, a couple people have asked me about birth control lately. So, a whirlwind explantion of oral contraceptives for those with uteri.
TLDR Version: "The pill" prevents ovulation
1/
The two critical hormones here are progesterone and estradiol. Unspurprisingly, these are the constituents of oral birth control pills.
2/
May 9, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
This bill apparently requires "re-implantation" of ectopic pregnancies.
This... is not an actual thing that can be done. Despite ancient Greek beliefs, women are not clay pots. Fetuses are not plants that can be transplanted at will.
wosu2.drupal.publicbroadcasting.net/post/new-ohio-…
The idea that people would write legislation without any idea how the biology of the thing they're legislating is horrifying. The idea that they don't CARE is bone chilling.
