breadstiks:

it’s physically impossible to fit words into a venn diagram

punsicle:

punsicle:

punsicle:

im gonna watch the first episode of supernatural

wow what a cute little family

wELL THAT SURE DIDNT LAST LONG

shuckl:

shuckl:

shuckl:

toast annoys me so much cos like it’s bread that’s been toasted so we call it “toast” but if you fry a potato it’s not called a “fry”

fries

do you ever look back at your mistakes

egberts:

sodamist:

egberts:

i think my cat is allergic to cats

That sounds pretty
Catastrophic

i hope you get arrested for that

thenewenlightenmentage:

Humans May Soon Regenerate Damaged Body Parts Like Salamanders

Australian researchers have isolated an immune system cell in salamanders which helps it regenerate missing limbs and damaged organs — and they suspect the same thing could work in humans, too.

Salamanders, or axolotls, are unique among vertebrates in that they’ve got remarkable regenerative powers. Adults can literally regrow and restore function to any part of the body, including the spinal cord and heart — even parts of the brain. Moreover, the regenerated tissue is scar free; once repaired, the new tissue looks almost the same as it was before.

Mammals obviously can’t do this. When we suffer tissue damage, the growth response is severely limited, while also being subject to scarring.

Now, thanks to the work of James Godwin and colleagues at Monash University’s Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, scientists are one step closer to figuring out how to transfer the salamander’s regenerative powers to humans.

A crucial part of the healing process involves the presence of macrophages — a major immune system cell type that patrols tissues and gobbles-up foreign invaders, like bacteria and fungi. What’s more, they also play an important role in determining the mode of repair and instigating the tissue regeneration process.

Godwin et al. determined this after they got rid of all the macrophages in the salamanders they were experimenting upon. Devoid of these immune cells, the salamanders completely lost their ability to regrow limbs. In a manner of speaking, they suddenly became mammal-like — left with stumps and scarred tissue.

But then, after the macrophages were re-introduced, their regenerative capacities were restored, and the salamanders were able to grow their limbs back.

“Previously, we thought that macrophages were negative for regeneration, and this research shows that that’s not the case — if the macrophages are not present in the early phases of healing, regeneration does not occur,” he said in a press statement. “Now, we need to find out exactly how these macrophages are contributing to regeneration. Down the road, this could lead to therapies that tweak the human immune system down a more regenerative pathway.”

The researchers theorize that chemicals released by the macrophages are crucial for regeneration. And indeed, this is the next phase of their research. Their ultimate goal is to reverse-engineer these techniques into human therapies — a medical breakthrough that could lead to treatments for heart and liver diseases associated with scarring (fibrosis). It could also lead to therapies for the treatment of spinal cord and brain injuries.

Read the entire study at PNAS: “Macrophages are required for adult salamander limb regeneration.”

Image: National Geographic/Stephen Dalton/Animals Animals—Earth Scenes.

rhamphotheca:

Scientists Discover Secrets to Salamander Limb Regeneration

by Tanya Lewis

Salamanders can regrow entire limbs and regenerate parts of major organs, an ability that relies on their immune systems, research now shows.

A study of the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), an aquatic salamander, reveals that immune cells called macrophages are critical in the early stages of regenerating lost limbs. Wiping out these cells permanently prevented regeneration and led to tissue scarring. The findings hint at possible strategies for tissue repair in humans…

(read more: Live Science)              

(photo: Andrew Burgess/Shutterstock)

jtotheizzoe:

Is This the Future of Flu Vaccines?

See that picture up above? You’re looking at one of the most advanced weapons (to fight a microscopic enemy) the human race has ever created. It’s a nanoparticle (in gray) coated with synthetically produced coat proteins (HA, to be precise) from the influenza virus. Normally, flu mashes its coat proteins together like so:

The nanoparticles may be a major step toward a universal vaccine, which, of course, would be an awesome thing to have, save millions of lives, help us prevent a mass pandemic, etc.

Because flu viruses mutate, shuffle and swap their genes so frequently, the precise shape of the proteins that make up their spiky suit of armor is constantly being tweaked. It’s like how, from afar, a Sarahan sand dune might appear the same shape and height from day to day, but when you look closely, the precise contours of its windswept dimpled have been changed ever so slightly by erosion. On and on it changes, never the same twice.

Our immune system relies on sentry proteins called antibodies in order to recognize foreign invaders like flu based on their binding to those precise contours and shapes, like tiny chinks in the armor. The exact set of antibodies that killed last year’s flu are stored in your immune system’s memory, ready to keep you safe from that infection in the future. Because the flu virus shuffles and tweaks its shape from  year to year, we are constantly playing catch-up, reacting to new armor every year. It’s like going home to find the lock changed, every day having to cut a new key.

If we could just make antibodies that bind to an unchanging part of the viral protein, like the trunks of those blue protein trees up there, we might be able to defend ourselves from future mutants with a single vaccination. But the virus keeps those parts hidden just enough to keep otherwise universal antibodies from attacking it. 

That’s where this new research from Gary Nabel and his group might come in handy. By attaching the HA coat protein (again, the blue thing) from influenza to nanoparticles, their Achilles Heel is exposed and strong, universal antibodies are amplified and stored in your body’s defense bank. They built this nanoparticle vaccine from a 1999 strain’s HA protein, and it protected animals from a half-century’s worth of H1N1 viruses! It’s as close to universal as I’ve ever heard.

Point: humans. But, these are tricky bugs, and we shouldn’t get cocky, especially without human trials (yet). But we have brains, and they don’t. That’s really our best weapon, no? 

Ed Yong has more at Nature News, and you can check out the original research in Nature.

Inca Tern, a species of bird that lives in the Pacific coastline from northern Peru to central Chile are famous for their manly “mustache”.

did-you-kno:

Source

If River Song can concentrate on a dress size and this is her second regeneration, why can’t the Doctor concentrate on becoming a ginger?

10-roses:

sursonica:

inflammatorystatements:

Woman Time Lords can control the way they will look when they regenerate, while male Time Lords cannot. This was established in Classic Who, when Romana regenerated.

Also, the Doctor wanting to be Ginger is not about the hair color. In Gallifrey, the only ones to have red hair were the people called Heroes which were beings who were time-sentient (meaning they could see all of the time at the same time). So I doubt they will ever make him ginger.

Reblog if you consider Ten your Doctor.

onginalmaz:

I’m doing a thing where i’m trying to find out which is the most popular revival regeneration.

 

For Nine.

For Eleven. 

 

doctorwho:

God Bless the Cactuses

Doctor Who Series 4: The End of Time

fishingboatproceeds:

bbc-bestbromancecompany:

Nerdfighter Benedict? Or just failed Vulcan?

As far as I can tell, there are eight possibilities here. (I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about this.)

1. Benedict Cumberbatch is a hardcore nerdfighter and when Martin Freeman threw up a gang sign, Cumberbatch was like, “I have one of those.”

2. Cumberbatch, who obviously has a relationship with Star Trek, just naturally adapted the Vulcan sign (pulling in the thumbs, turning the palms inward, crossing the arms) in precisely the same way that I happened to adapt the Vulcan sign when I first made the nerdfighter sign in the halcyon days of 2007.

3. One of the interns on set who has gained the trust of Benedict Cumberbatch was like, “If you do your hands like this, the Internet will get really excited.” And so he did.

4. BBC, in their infinite wisdom, staged the entire photo and Cumberbatch was taught the nerdfighter sign (I MEAN LOOK AT THE PERFECTION OF HIS NERDFIGHTER SIGN! He seems so comfortable and confident in it, almost as if it is muscle memory, almost as if he has flashed it to his laptop screen on hundreds of occasions in the past, but I digress) and this photograph was staged to get people psyched for Sherlock, although what tiny segment of nerdfighteria is not already psyched for Sherlock? Also, if this is the case, who is Martin Freeman trying to advertise to? Residents of the West Side?

5. Benedict Cumberbatch has a relative or a friend who is a nerdfighter and so he is passingly familiar with nerdfighteria and liked what he has seen and wanted to make us all very happy.

6. The nerdfighter sign also happens to be the hand sign of some obscure English gang with which I am unfamiliar called like The East London Wanderers or The Slightly Intimidating Liverpudlians or whatever.

7. Nerdfighteria actually figures in the plot of the new season of Sherlock. Perhaps a nerdfighter has been (wrongly no doubt!) accused of a murder.

8. Benedict Cumberbatch was playing some kind of British version of Rock Paper Scissors against two invisible opponents, and he went double scissors (as any smart person would).

ianthe:

schmergo:

ianthe:

nothing grape flavored is flavored like grapes it’s just flavored like other grape flavored things and this is why I have trust issues

FUN FACT: Grape artificial flavor was the first artificial flavor created, by accident. That means that some guy decided, “Whoa, this smells a lot like grapes,” and now everyone pretends it’s grape-y, too…

It tastes like an accident

Am I the only one who likes grape flavored things?