Rb To Make A Biological Essentialist Mad

People on twitter are always like 'there's still people on tumblr?'... As if Twitter wasn't full of stolen text posts, gifs and art originally posted here

In response to Slate's article on the possibility having non-heteromative team in figure skating (particularly, ice dance and pairs), Oniceperspective shared a glimpse of Gabriella Papadakis (FRA) and Madison Hubbell (USA) working on their same-sex program. You can see how they switch the leading figure between them.

You can see them trying out lifts in this video.

The rest is on Instagram here:

well anyway. the copyright system exists to commodify art and expression and process it into more money for larger companies, and it is actively detrimental to efforts for preservation, open education, and creation. everyone reading this is morally obligated to hoard and share data because we live in a world that is hostile to the idea that books or music or movies or scholarship have inherent value independent of a DRM stamp and ticket price. btw fuck hachette, harpercollins, wiley and penguin random house.

Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules

Research shows that cancers might not always be caused by DNA mutations, as previously thought.

Researchers say they have cracked how air pollution leads to cancer, in a discovery that completely transforms our understanding of how tumours arise.

The team at the Francis Crick Institute in London showed that rather than causing damage, air pollution was waking up old damaged cells.

One of the world’s leading experts, Prof Charles Swanton, said the breakthrough marked a “new era”.

And it may now be possible to develop drugs that stop cancers forming.

The findings could explain how hundreds of cancer-causing substances act on the body.

The classical view of cancer starts with a healthy cell. It acquires more and more mutations in its genetic code, or DNA, until it reaches a tipping point. Then it becomes a cancer and grows uncontrollably.

But there are problems with this idea: cancerous mutations are found in seemingly healthy tissue, and many substances known to cause cancer - including air pollution - don’t seem to damage people’s DNA.

So what is going on?

The researchers have produced evidence of a different idea. The damage is already there in our cell’s DNA, picked up as we grow and age, but something needs to pull the trigger that actually makes it cancerous.

The discovery came from exploring why non-smokers get lung cancer. The overwhelming majority of lung cancers are caused by smoking but still, one in 10 cases in the UK is down to air pollution.

The Crick scientists focused on a form of pollution called particulate matter 2.5 (known as PM2.5), which is far smaller than the diameter of a human hair.  

Through a series of detailed human and animal experiments they showed:

Places with higher levels of air pollution had more lung cancers not caused by smoking

Breathing in PM2.5 leads to the release of a chemical alarm - interleukin-1-beta - in the lungs

This causes inflammation and activates cells in the lungs to help repair any damage

But around one in every 600,000 cells in the lungs of a 50-year-old already contains potentially cancerous mutations

These are acquired as we age but appear completely healthy until they are activated by the chemical alarm and become cancerous

Crucially, the researchers were able to stop cancers forming in mice exposed to air pollution by using a drug that blocks the alarm signal.

The results are a double breakthrough, both for understanding the impact of air pollution and the fundamentals of how we get cancer.

Dr Emilia Lim, one of the Crick researchers, said people who had never smoked but developed lung cancer often had no idea why.

“To give them some clues about how this might work is really, really important,” she said.

“It’s super-important - 99% of people in the world live in places where air pollution exceeds the WHO guidelines so it really impacts all of us.”

Rethinking cancer

But the results also showed mutations alone are not always enough to cause cancer. It can need an extra element.

Prof Swanton said this was the most exciting finding his lab had come across, as it “actually rethinks our understanding of how tumours are initiated”. He said it would lead to a “new era” of molecular cancer prevention.

The idea of taking a cancer-blocking pill if you live in a heavily polluted area is not completely fanciful.

Doctors have already trialled an interleukin-1-beta drug in cardiovascular disease and found, by complete accident, they cut the risk of lung cancer.

The latest findings are being presented to scientists at a conference of the European Society for Medical Oncology.

Speaking to the BBC from the conference, Prof Swanton said: “Pollution is a lovely example, but there are going to be 200 other examples of this over the next 10 years.”

And he said we needed to rethink how even smoking causes cancer - is it just the known DNA damage caused by the chemicals in tobacco or is the smoke causing inflammation, too?

Curiously, the idea that mutated DNA is not enough and cancers need another trigger to grow was first proposed by scientist Isaac Berenblum in 1947.

“Philosophically, it’s fascinating. These incredible biologists have done this work 75 years ago and it’s largely been ignored,” said Dr Lim.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, stressed that “smoking remains the biggest cause of lung cancer”.

But she added: “Science, which takes years of painstaking work, is changing our thinking around how cancer develops. We now have a much better understanding of the driving forces behind lung cancer.”

Thank you 💙❤️

NBC News

This 33-year-old made more than 1,000 Wikipedia bios for unknown female scientists

Jessica Wade began writing Wikipedia biographies about women and minority scientists who never got their due — from employers, from other sc

radfem posts on @flowerr44444

Fourth in a series I of comics about protesting safety tips I made with @this.is.ysabel . This one is about the dangers of police surveillance and how to avoid it if possible. Keep being safe when you go out. Don’t get snatched!

A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, “My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?” The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.” The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way. Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks accept him, feed him, even fix his car. That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.” The man says, “All right, all right. I’m *dying* to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?” The monks reply, “You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk.” The man sets about his task. Forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, “I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth.” The monks reply, “Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound.” The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, “The sound is right behind that door.” The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, “Real funny. May I have the key?” The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, and amethyst. Finally, the monks say, “This is the last key to the last door.” The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound. But I can’t tell you what it is because you’re not a monk

Tumblr: *rolls out “best stuff first”*

My blog:

Are you aware that Iran is about to implement facial recognition software and cameras in public places and on public transportation to capture and prosecute women for bad hijab?

That means there will be a lot more women like Mahsa Amini in the future.

That's another reason the people of Iran are fighting their government in the streets. They truly fear what small freedoms they used to have being taken away by a totalitarian despotic Islamic surveillance state.

the Guardian

Iranian authorities plan to use facial recognition to enforce new hijab law

Government says it will use technology on public transport in crackdown on women’s dress