Geekybadassorchids - Orchid

Next time transphobes call trans healthcare "experimental" you can show them this

Wait what????? You guys are allowed aspirin before age 16? What about Reye's syndrome?

“This candy taste good, I eated it all up.”

Parents Magazine   1953

So true. Part of my reasoning for becoming a doctor is to fight the problems in the Healthcare industry and to improve the quality of Healthcare in rural areas. I would like to add that these things should be free and of a high standard everywhere.

Tampons and pads should be free. Condoms should be free. Birth control should be free. Pregnancy tests should be free. Abortions should be free. HIV/STI testing should always be free. HIV/STI medication and treatments should be free. Honestly, all medication and surgery should be free. Internet should be free. Water should be free. Food should be free. Shelter should be free. Education should be free. And if you disagree or think this is too radical, then you and I can't be friends and I hope you die.

This is why biology is important.

Worm Saliva Breaks Down Tough Plastic

Polyethylene, a durable plastic, is widely considered one of the worst forms of plastic pollution, but chemicals found the saliva of the wax worm may hold the key to breaking it down. One hours worth of exposure to the saliva breaks down the plastic by the equivalent of years worth of weathering.

There are two enzymes responsible for this degradation, and it’s believed that they are the first effective agents found in nature.

Polyethylene comprises 30% of production of a wide range of materials such as pipes, flooring, and bottles. Its hardiness comes from its resistance to oxygen. In order to get oxygen into the plastic, it has to be treated with UV light, but, the wax worms saliva seems to have a similar, if not improved, effect.

Wax worms are well known for destroying honey bee hives, and researchers say that its this ability to destroy hives that may hold the key to their ability to degrade plastics.

The study, published in the journal, Nature, is led by a team of Spanish researchers, who now want to research further into the degradation of polyethylene by wax worm saliva, and hope that one day, people may be able to have a home kit that they can use to breakdown the polyethylene at home.

Source: BBC News, written by Matt Magrath , and, Sanluis-Verdes, A., et al., (2022). Wax worm saliva and the enzymes therein are the key to polyethylene degradation by Galleria mellonella. Nature Communications, 13(1). Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33127-w (Accessed: 5th October 2022)

As much as I want to support ethical farming practices I will be buying the cheapest bag of frozen chicken thighs as much as the next frugal/poor person which is why animal welfare needs to be legislated, not left up to the invisible hand of the free market or some bullshit. Invisible hand of the free market finds itself around a lot of throats.

The Feynman Technique

1000 likes!

I haven't looked into it, what's it about HD 186 302 that you like a lot?

We only have one example of how life formed. If we had even one other example, even if it was within our own solar system, it would vastly improve our understanding of how abiotic materials make the jump to biotic. But since we don’t have any other examples, all we have to go on is what we know about ourselves.

It comes down to the organic molecules which are the necessary building blocks for life as we know it. We’ve found them in protoplanetary disks— solar systems that haven’t finished forming.

An entire solar system forms together, all at about the same time, shortly after the star is born. For the most part, everything in a solar system will be made of roughly the same Stuff.

What this means is: the most likely place to find Earth-like life outside of our planet is within our own solar system.

It also means that second most likely place to find Earth-like life is in the solar system of our long-lost twin.

Recent studies have suggested that all stars are born in pairs. The vast majority of stars are actually binary systems, two stars orbiting around each other. Our solar system is an outlier. This doesn’t usually happen.

So…. where is our twin? Obviously, something happened and the stars got flung in wildly different directions. But a group of astronomers found 17,000 potential candidates, which they narrowed down to 55, and then to 4 stars that matched ours. And finally, HD 186302 was declared the most likely match. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to detect any transits to see if it has planets yet…

….but the James Webb Telescope will be able to.

We’re still learning new things all the time, so it’s possible HD 186302 isn’t our solar sibling after all. Regardless, we have a solar twin out there somewhere, like another batch of cookies made from the same batter as ours.

The James Webb Telescope has me unreasonably excited for what amazing new discoveries we may potentially find.

Damn that's a big whale

Definitely toy story

What’s your favourite fairly accurate science film