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Omg this is like 800 metaphors rolled into one megaphor

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Ye olde reel-to-reel

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April's pink moon.

(April 23, 2024)

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Rufus

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Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.  Every year, researchers try to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly. The same is true of COVID vaccines, which have been reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S. This new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus. The vaccine, how it works, and a demonstration of its efficacy in mice is described in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  “What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.”

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Is Autism Over-Diagnosed

Mrs Speechie P

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Alexander Calder, 1971

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Scars on your body show that you have lived; scars on your heart show that you have loved.

Nina Dul

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An epidemic of monkeypox occurred in May 2023 that led to a disease named mpox displaying symptoms such as fever, enlarged lymph nodes, and rash. This ailment is usually mild and self-limited, but severe cases can be harrowing and may cause lifetime scarring. In response to the outbreak, researchers from Mount Sinai and the Carlos III Health Institute (ICI) in Madrid, Spain, worked together to investigate the genetic makeup of the monkeypox virus (MPXV). They mainly studied subclade IIb strains of the virus, helping them to understand the convolutions in viral genes that influence virus behavior, thereby offering strategies for intervention.

The concept of “genomic accordion” refers to periodic expansions and contractions within the genome of monkeypox virus (MPXV), especially in low-complexity regions (LCRs). Adaptive evolution for this virus depends on these variants, which are drivers of gene expression changes or modifications, including short tandem repeats.  

Contrarily, researchers believe that differences in LCRs rather than single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may explain the distinct epidemiology of subclade IIb MPXV strains. MPXV’s genetic pathways that underlie its unique transmission dynamics and pathogenicity have been illuminated through precise LCR resolution and repeat length analysis.

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There is, I think, no arguing that contemporary genre art has a character distinct from previous decades. I also think that while there are big shifts in aesthetics somewhat aligning with each decade of the 20th century, here in the 21st things have definitely slowed down — I feel like the look of genre art has fossilized somewhat in the last 20 years. I don’t have a good explanation for why. Sometimes I wonder if I’m blinded by nostalgia, and that there really aren’t any obvious objective differences at all.

Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023) is a compelling argument, I think, that there ARE definite differences. The book, by Adam Rowe (and spinning out of his social media accounts dedicated to, well, ’70s science fiction art) looks at both artists and thematic categories of art from the period, mostly from paperback covers, and offers commentary and historical context in the text. The result is startling: a body of work by a variety of artists working in their own styles that nevertheless seems visually unified. With the exception of a couple outliers, this stuff all feels of the ’70s. The fact that there are some inclusions from both the ’60s and ’80s makes this even clearer.

I think the most interesting thing about this is how bizarre some of the ’70s art seems to be. A lot of these artists appear to be entirely off the leash, delivering work they WANTED to produce rather than what they were directed to produce (you can see a shift toward clearly pairing the cover art with the content of the book in the later part of the decade). There was also more money in the work, then, so speed wasn’t quite so big a part of the equation as it is now.

And, greater questions of genre art aside, Worlds Beyond Time is still a mesmerizing collection, worthy of your time even if you just want to feed pictures to your eyeballs.

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I cant believe this tweet is how I find out

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'Giving up out of fear without being asked' is how MAGA took over the Republican Party.

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'Activist judges legislating from the bench' is the ultimate Republican projection.

The six conservative SCOTUS justices are shredding precedent and discarding case law for their personal [religious] opinions.

Their misogyny is church-approved.

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sunsets after 7pm now !!!!!!!!!!! we made it guys !!!!!!!!!!!!

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Holy shit, they got Voyager 1 working again!

15 billion miles away and NASA was able to tweak code packages on one of the onboard computers and it worked and Voyager 1 is sending signals back to earth for the first time since November.

Incredible!