#Galvani's lab

[mynonsenseistingling]

Dishonored

[deepdwellingsteamboat]

DISHONORED (2012) Offices of Dr. Galvani ☛ Dr. Galvani's lab

[patricia-von-arundel]

Man, some folks need to read a book or two on the history of medicine.

Try Roy Porter, Carole Rawcliffe, or Steven Cherry. There are also great articles often available for free on Pubmed. If not, email the first author - they'll get it to you.

(Hey, did you know the debate about whether consciousness was stored in the heart or the brain continued until the 18th century? And that the father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, lived until the 1930s? That an understanding of Mendelian genetic inheritance in humans - an "inborn error of metabolism" - was postulated based on a family in London with Alkaptonuria, aka "black urine disease," and that that research was not published until 1902 (by Archibald Garrod). Between 1902 and the present, basically everything we know about chromosomal-level genetic inheritance and mutation was discovered? Did you know that the reason calico and tortoiseshell cats are always female is due to the presence of Barr bodies, which is an inactive X chromosome, and this can also be seen in humans, including in males with Klinefelter Syndrome [XXY] and in sterile male calico/tortoiseshell cats? And that even more rarely, a male calico/tortie is not sterile?)

(Do you know why the Hippocratic Oath is called the Hippocratic Oath? Who Galen is? The age of the oldest known eyeglasses? The four humors, and what they were believed to represent? Why medicine stagnated during the first few centuries of Christian dominance in Europe? What the link is between sickle cell anemia and resistance to malaria? What is the modern treatment for bubonic plague? Who Phineas Gage was? What animal Luigi Galvani used to study the role of electricity in neural connections? Who frickin' Rosalind Franklin is???)

Seeing that post about arguing against there not being enough research into hormonal and surgical treatments for trans men and women... Man. That one hurt my head.

Since 1990, we've learned how to keep HIV all but dormant and to stop it passing from a parent to child. Chemotherapy for cancer treatment was first developed in the 1940s, and radiation is actually older than chemotherapy. Hemophilia B can be treated now quite simply by injections and transfusions to introduce Factor IX, a clotting factor, when before the 1950s it was a death sentence. The structure of DNA wasn't discovered until 1953 - now, students in basic biology labs can play around with splicing and inserting sequences into genetic codes!

My point is... a lot of what we understand about medicine has, for various reasons, only become established and accepted in the last 200 years or so. And with gene therapy, it's likely to explode again.

Read up on the history of medicine. Especially if you question its use in certain people to help them physically become who their conscious mind knows they are. You might learn something!

And honestly, the history of medicine is insanely grim-and-gross fun. If you're into that. 😉 The Mütter Museum is also out there!

[mightyflamethrower]

Authored by Martin Hoyt via RealClearHealth,

It did not have to be this way. The COVID-19 pandemic cost American citizens their lives, their livelihoods, education, mental health, reputations and, ultimately, civil and religious freedoms. “The U.S. accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population, but more than 25% of total COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, and it currently ranks among the top 10 countries in COVID-19-related deaths per capita,” wrote the authors of  2023 commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And for all that, we have government to thank.  

For years leading up to the pandemic, the nation had spent billions on preparation and planning for a biohazard attack or event. Whatever we learned was quickly discarded or undone by a lack of accountability, transparency, and humility. Decades of planning and untold man hours of research and training were rendered ineffective by a corrupt culture of greed, self-importance, scientific misconduct, and outright fraud. Because, while the government worked to prevent the worst, it was also helping to create chaos and contagion by funding and facilitating gain of function (GOF) research. 

GOF research refers to laboratory efforts to make viruses deadlier or to increase their transmissibility. The potential for disaster is obvious. Almost five years prior to the pandemic Dr. Marc Lipsitch and Dr. Alison Galvani noted that GOF pathogenic research posed “a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to extensive spread of the new agent, could cost many lives … Furthermore, the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories conducting such research increases around the globe.” 

But according to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails and other NIAID communications obtained via FOIA – those that weren’t deleted by the now-infamous “FOIA lady” – the Wuhan lab was working on Covid research with the U.S. as early as 2015. And the worst happened. Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University told a Senate committee hearing on June 18, 2024, that “… lapses in U.S. oversight of gain-of-function research and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research likely contributed to the origin of COVID-19 …” 

While Ebright said GOF has no medical utility, he emphasized that there are “major incentives to researchers worldwide, in China, and in the U.S. The researchers undertake this research because it is easy, they get the money, and they can get the papers [in science journals].” 

Not surprisingly, China was selected because it was quicker and cheaper to conduct research without U.S. government entanglements or oversight. Dr. Steven Quay also testified on June 18 and said the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a “level-2 lab,” as opposed to highly secure level-4 labs elsewhere. Moreover, Dr. Fauci et al were able to fund this research because the law was silent. Ebright again:  

… in this category of research, which is the most significant in terms of consequences and potentially existential risk there is almost no regulation with force of law. No regulation with force of law for biosafety or any pathogen other than the smallpox virus and no regulation with force of law for bio risk management for any pathogen.

But the U.S. and the world, may have temporarily escaped imminent catastrophe. Consider, according to Dr. Quay, what Wuhan obtained from Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in 2019: “two vials each of 15 strains of virus: seven varieties of Ebola virus, the Hendra virus, and two strains of Nipah virus, Malaysia and Bangladesh.” These virus samples, according to Dr. Steven Quay, are “the top three most deadly human pathogens on the planet.” The samples were obtained under murky circumstances (“described as a possible policy breach”) from a level-4 lab and surreptitiously flown on a commercial flight to Beijing where they were subsequently placed in a level-2 lab overseen by a country with a long history of a disregard for proper safety protocols.

Gain of function research probably created COVID-19, but our legislative and executive branches created the conditions for the disaster. Congress failed to pass laws governing specific GOF research, both Congress and the executive branch failed to effectively manage the federal health and science bureaucracy, and various agencies failed to monitor the behavior and performance of grantees and vendors engaged in GOF research. When catastrophe struck, self-interest and political survival of those responsible overrode the best interests of our citizenry. 

Who in the government benefited? How and to what extent did they benefit? Did any GOF research contribute to the U.S. global or response? Is GOF research being rerouted to our defense and security agencies to avoid scrutiny? NIAID continues to stall, obfuscate, and otherwise restrict transparency to its current and past activities. We know there was a concerted effort by senior leaders like Anthony Fauci to hide or delete emails but many other records still likely exist that remain uncovered.

This must change. Any research activity or sponsorship of scientific endeavors that are capable of mass extinction, such as GOF, must be subjected to a higher level of accountability and scrutiny by our elected leaders and the American public. Accountability, transparency, and public debate after an international crisis like Covid-19 can’t undo the global catastrophic harm that was done. It can, however, reduce the ability of our public health bureaucracy to contribute to the next disaster or looming crisis.

Borrowed from:

(https://stuff-that-irks-me.tumblr.com/)

[saramalinovic]

“Science Hero”

Activity title: “Science Hero”- Science fair

• Type of activity: Service Creativity

• Duration: 8.6 – 13.6.2023

Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

2. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

3. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Activity description:

Science fair organized by IB DP students

Reflection:

In the hall of our school on June 13, 2023, the 17th one-day science fair was held, which was organized together with our professors on the topic "Science Hero".

Students from my group and I worked on our research during the lab week from June 8 to June 13. Students and professors, as well as other visitors to the fair, had the opportunity to watch the presentations of the scientific achievements of five different scientific heroes from Isaac Newton to Rosalind Franklin, Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier, Luigi Galvani all the way to Leonardo da Vinci.

[soysaucevictim]

“it feels like my brain (was floating in a fishtank)”

(See warnings/summary on Ao3.)

[ Prologue/Start ] [ Previous ]

Chapter 10: When Shall I Be Free?

Vic noticed Roman acting strange, a lot like Remus had before he made Jude.

So he wasn’t as blindsided when Roman asked to come with him to work, otherwise, out of nowhere. Roman was twitchy and distracted, as Vic refreshed his kid on where everything was at the zoo. Roman was never as interested in the animals there as Remus and it had been years since Roman was last here. 

Vic knew if he hadn’t had the blessing of knowing his sons their whole life – he’d probably be confused about why they were so different about it. Vic agreed with Remus on the animals being better than people, humans also being animals taken into account, it really was like the kid sort of knew what he was on some level?

Roman was very visibly uncomfortable with basically any animal species that had some sort of nonsense stigma attached to them. The last time Roman was even at the zoo ended in him being spooked by watching one of the ambassador komodo dragons tearing apart a deer carcass behind the scenes. It was like he desperately wanted to separate himself from them.

Ever since Vic Awakened, he realized he only could draw parallels with his “patients”, personal experiences, and philosophy more than fully getting inside their heads. Perhaps, Logan was onto something on that one. He saw how uncomfortable Roman was about a lot of things, and wished he could help more.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“This is going to sound weird and gross… but where do you keep the animals when they die? I-I don’t think I can do what I need to when there’s still life in their eyes...”

“Understandable. Admittedly, the bureaucracy will be easier to deal with that way, too.”

Vic brought his son over to the freezers where they kept all dead animals for processing. They were waiting on necropsy and sample-taking from the on-site lab. Those not to be cremated in the same lab were to be prepared for natural history museums or colleges with veterinary/ecological programs.

There were different species at different stages – grouped together by taxa. There was usually a pretty diverse selection from eagles to green iguanas. Vic wasn’t sure where to point his son toward, worried he wouldn’t stand the sight of it all. “Take your time, mijo. I’ll tell you if you can… use the remains.”

It was a chilled room with shelves of labeled containers, Vic always shivered a little bit in this space. Remus often shrugged it off and it looked like Roman was unaffected too. Remus liked colder weather and Roman just ran pretty hot, so it made sense to Vic. Roman paced around looking for whatever he needed here, not saying anything and a look of laser focus.

Eventually they stuck around the iguanas section, this zoo had a robust population that were crowd favorites. They were pretty well cared for there, but accidents, old age, and other things happen. A lot of times it was pretty open and shut cases for the zoo staff.

When Vic cleared Roman for a pair of specimens, and they had them splayed onto a table nearby. Roman asked, “There’s no cameras in here are there?”

Vic had to glance around before reassuring him, “Nope!”

“Okay, didn’t think so.”

Vic watched as a low growl came from Roman and energies gathered around him. This time he saw features of Roman’s Horror flicker into view, jagged claws and scaly skin. The skin looked ethereal and mid-molt, no wonder he seemed so agitated. 

Roman peeled off pieces of skin and gingerly swaddled the two lizards in it. In moments, the skin melted into them. They started to twitch uncontrollably like Galvani’s frogs. The green scales took on the same colors of his Horror, even though the iguanas’ natural color pattern remained.

These weren’t juveniles and weren’t exactly small – but they grew nearly a whole extra yard in length. Their claws and spines hardened, twisted, and darkened into gnarled lava glass. The teeth grew larger and sharper – no longer the herbivorous pattern they naturally had and so quickly that their jaws warped unevenly. Then, the two creatures curled up into a painful looking ball as each violently sprouted bloody wings. The blood crystallized into scales and the two creatures righted themselves as if nothing had happened.

Vic swore that the whole thing should have disturbed Roman, given how he acted around Remus’s horrorspawn. But Roman stood there with a hazy smile, petting them affectionately. Roman looked to Vic asking, “Aren’t Rubí and Oro the cutest?”

Vic blinked and stared at them, he and Remus had a bizarre definition of “cute” as it was. He could find something uncanny and endearing about these new horrorspawn – but he had enough social awareness to know that not many would upon looking at them.

He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, given the time he wandered around in Roman’s soul. A solid reminder of what Roman and Remus were – there was no way of changing that. And he had no desire to.

They could unpack everything once Remus was back, safe and sound.

-

In the last week of October, Remus’s horrorspawn stopped harassing the brood entirely.

The instant midnight struck, making it officially All Hallow’s Eve, Remus left Roman another message. Only it didn’t sound like his brother at all, at least at first.

“Miss me? I hope you didn’t forget our appointment this fine evening? I’ve been building up to something and I’m looking forward to showing it to you all. I’ll be around the New Orleans Square. You won’t disappoint me, will you? Please please be there, Robro. I-I’m sca-!”

Again, he was cut off. Roman was relieved his brother was still alive out there, but he had no idea what to expect once at Disneyland. Everyone had whipped together some costumes beforehand. Besides being festive, it would provide some plausibly deniable cover for some of the brood’s planned supernatural activity. That’s what Janus asserted, anyways.

Roman couldn’t get out of his mind ever since he “talked” to Milo about making nightmares, the stupid nickname he got. He huffed, going for Jake Long’s outfit. It was still Disney, so it was good enough. The green highlights suited Remus more, if he was being honest with himself.

Everyone was to arrive at the park, except for Patton. Pretty much everyone was vocal about not endangering him by taking him along. Carrie was able to convince him to go trick-or-treating with those Heroes she met at the Ren Fair. He’d be in good hands. That didn’t stop her worrying about all the other park guests, nor whatever state Remus was in.

Virgil was restless about the separation, but Carrie was glad that he could be convinced this was for the best. Patton even cheerfully handed him the costume he wanted his brother to wear, which made Virgil flush with embarrassment. It was a Spider-Man suit – but at least he picked the black one from the third movie. Tastefully edgy.

Carrie found some amusement that Vic and Logan were dressed as fictional doctors, Dolittle and Frankenstein, respectively. Logan seemed more annoyed about it than Vic – so he used that magic to make them more distinguished. Logan cribbed from the Romantic Period attire and Vic was more contemporary. Vic asked to have some embroidery with animals on his own lab coat, Logan obliged in that embellishment.

Carrie herself dressed up like Elizabeth Swan, in a stylish replication of Sao Feng’s armor. She also tied on that enchanted bag, to hide her actual weapons from the gate crew. She did, however, bring along fake swords to assemble the look. She was more focused on wanting to completely and utterly exterminate the monster that took her son from her, but if that wasn’t feasible- she shook her head. She simply thought, “We’ll obliterate that bridge when we get to it.”

In addition to the contingency plan materials, Logan tossed a can of AXE body spray and a lighter into the bag. Carrie quirked an eyebrow and Logan simply answered, “Just in case.”

Janus didn’t really stray from their typical color scheme and elegance. When Vic asked about it, Janus smirked and showed him some fangs and a few fake blood squibs. Logan groaned, “A vampire, of course she picks that.”

This earned an indignant huff from Janus, and some much needed laughter from the remaining brood members. They were all sure they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the mirth at the park for long.

-

They arrived a few hours after noon.

The park was done up for the whole month to celebrate the occasion. Topping the entrance gates were several pumpkins and jack o’ lanterns fashioned into characters like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald.

There were no incidents in line, as Roman had his horrorspawn sneak through ahead of them. There were a few scant glances at them, but no one intervened. The funny thing about all this supernatural stuff was how beings like himself had to pretend to be Normal. They could find some protection in the crowd, but he was sure that wasn’t going to remain the case soon.

Roman still had trouble getting into the mood like pretty much every year before this point. It was one of his and Remus’s favorite holidays. It was definitely Remus’s, to no one’s surprise. Roman had it tied with Christmas – that meant more treasure to his pile. He groaned, thinking, “Quit thinking like Remus is- no. I’m not even going to finish that thought.”

City Hall and the rest of Main Street were decorated with warm, fall colors: in the bunting, the marigolds, the carnations, and more jack o’lanterns peppering the buildings around them. Roman couldn’t focus very well, in between the overhanging dread and maintaining command of Rubí and Oro. Oro kept wanting to snatch away some of the carved pumpkins, littering the place. Rubí snuck off and stole one of those Mickey light spinners from some random guest that was too busy on the phone to notice it.

At least they hid from sight of most people here, when they returned with the objects he loved. It was energizing to him, but he had to tell them to stop doing it, just in case. His mom noticed how restless he was, “Roise, don’t worry too much, alright? We’ll find him. So help me-”

Roman noticed that terrifying fury simmering behind her eyes, fury and fear. He didn’t comment on that, “Th-thanks, mom…”

While they were still going north along Main Street, someone bumped into Virgil. Virgil didn’t seem to catch who they were beyond saying, “Geez, dude. Coming in here smelling like an entire brewery!?”

Roman’s attention snapped to them just before they got lost in the crowd. It was some random guy dressed as King Triton, his gait obviously drunken. He wore one of those golden sequin shirts, on top of all the canon stuff. He had a suspicious fanny pack around the waist and a replica of the Trident strapped to his back. The prop seemed familiar to Roman, somehow. It was a wonder how he managed to get past park security in such a state.

Despite some of his face being covered by a large costume beard, Roman suddenly recognized it. Roman elbowed Virgil, “I-I think that was the police chief, Vee.”

Virgil let out a hushed curse, “Why is he here!?”

“I don’t know!”

Roman was unsettled by that, “Was he going where I think he was going?”

Janus cleared their throat, “I believe he was heading into Frontierland.”

Vic piped up, “How-?”

Janus whispered to him, “You should know by now. I have eyes in many places, Val.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, as the rest of them renewed their focus. It was along the way to New Orleans Square. As they walked along the Rivers of America, everyone had a strange feeling. Carrie looked around first, “I-I think I can sense him nearby!”

The Beasts in the group nodded at each other.

Before much longer, Roman saw Remus standing there at the Photo Spot. Remus was staring at the docked Columbia, very still, with strange company. He was dressed like the others in the group, wearing burgundy robes. Roman shuddered about them being the so-called friends his brother mentioned. They reeked of overflowing fear and admiration, yet no other guests acknowledged their presence.

He looked back, “I-I want to try to talk to him, first.”

Janus whispered back, “Be careful.”

Virgil added, “We got your back. Because, someone has to.”

Roman took a deep breath and approached. He recognized at least one of the robed guys from the scalpers group and another one of the staff members from their high school. Another of them, a total stranger, had a more elaborate robe. They had a hand on his brother’s shoulders, they hadn’t moved the entire time. As he drew closer he saw just how sickly Remus appeared, it made him want to run toward him. “Remus! Is that you?”

Remus waved back eagerly, and once the distance was closed he wore an unhinged smile, “The, one and only, Robro!”

“A-are you okay?”

“Never better!”, Remus’s smile appeared forced, “But yeah, wanted to show off some new friends!”

The person who was still holding Remus’s shoulder smiled at Roman, “I’m sorry I took so long to properly introduce myself. You may call me Cass, you must be Roman! I’ve heard so much about you from My Sign.”

They reached out with a free hand. Roman noticed that it had burns on it and he shook his head vigorously, “Let go of him.”

Remus frowned, his face flashing with fear before that smile was plastered back on.

Cass’s tone became apathetic, “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m its Herald and we are bonded by such a great Promise, you see?”

Roman looked more closely at where the two had contact and was immediately revolted. The arm was writhing and incomprehensibly inhuman and actually buried into his brother’s shoulder. Cass smiled as they went toward caressing Remus, more of Cass’s body boring into Remus.

Remus’s manner was delirious, “¿No es maravilloso Cass? ”

Roman saw red and went to try to rip Cass off his brother, but it happened too fast. In an instant, the Insatiable and Remus had merged completely into one another. “Say hello to my Harbingers! Go forth and tear at reality itself!”

From out of the river rose a fleet of Remus’s horrorspawn. Just like Remus, they looked wrong. They looked like they were rotting and blistered and some of the many eyes on them were clouded over. Before Roman could react – they started to dart off in different directions of the park.

That was the rest of the Brood’s cue to step in, before anyone could get hurt. The nearest crowd of guests ran off screaming, Carrie took the opportunity to shoot down one of the spawn, it took a few frantic reloads for it to fall and come apart. It was difficult with how unpredictably it moved and not wanting to hurt any of the guests.

Vic was restless, looking at Logan, “Do you feel that Ellis?”

Logan, nodded, “Unfortunately. It would seem they were here longer than we anticipated.”

Carrie spoke up, “What are you two-?”

The mages shivered moments before a fog rolled in. From the mist, phantoms appeared among the crowd. Some looked confused and benign, but many took more guests for a chase, some even entered the humans around them. Vic was told of one of the things that the Insatiable can do – thinning the veil between ghosts, spirits, and mortals. It could be so thin that those without Sight can see them, too. There was a reason for this to be the chosen day.

Familiar faces manifested before the party. The ghost of Steve gazing upon those who knew him with uncharacteristic resignation. He was somehow readable despite the poorly reconstructed approximation of what his face used to be. A few others had circled Remus, some Roman vaguely recognized, others not. Remus froze at the sight of one of them, as if he remembered something horrific.

Vic was told by Logan that ghosts like these typically weren’t able to speak and were drawn to whatever or whoever anchors them to the Material plane. This was entirely Logan’s wheelhouse and he seemed to remain cool about it all. Logan used some of his own magic to fend off whatever ghosts he could.

Ghosts weren’t the only thing that came out to play. Spirits were something Vic grew a sensitivity toward. Unlike ghosts, they were never human in nature. Manifestations of gluttony bleeding into view from the nearby restaurants. They impelled a few humans to overwhelm said venues to eat and eat and eat. To say nothing of representations for the many other emotions, drives, and concepts the park had distilled over its decades of existence – some had even taken the shape of Disney characters. One of those spirits of gluttony? It looked like Winnie the Pooh, and it seemed to be completely oblivious about its own influence. The sheer bedlam of it all made it hard for him to remain focused on why they were there.

Vic did grasp that Arcana well enough to shield himself against the more aggressive of these spirits. He narrowly avoided a metaphysical volley from a spirit in the shape of Clayton himself, approaching from Tarzan's Treehouse. Vic didn’t have the same command over them, like what Logan was demonstrating with the dead. He was just glad that Clayton's attention was taken by the crowd-swell, its very presence bringing some guests and Character Actors to violence against each other. Really, most of his concerns lied in the fate of his children, as selfish as that sounded. He just needed to stay out of harm's way and conserve energy, to provide healing where necessary.

Something that broke through the attention of the brood was Wayne running towards Remus, shouting, “KENNY!?”

The ghost that gripped Remus with fear slowly and mournfully looked over at Wayne. Kenny had looked like he was dismembered, the pieces floating roughly where they should normally. It looked like something had voraciously gnawed onto those pieces. Roman then recognized that face and name for the ghost – he didn’t have the time to connect more than that. Within that fanny pack, Wayne had somehow smuggled in a pistol.

Roman and Virgil ran after.

Something stopped Wayne’s pursuit cold, another ghost stood between Remus and Wayne. “D-Diane? Is that you? I heard from Ken- are you really-?”

Diane was mangled and parts of her looked like she was being eaten through by a powerful acid. Her face was screwed into a scowl, nodding. Wayne looked like he was going to collapse from grief, before she reached out to him. He reached back, allowing her possession of him. The union marched up and took aim. Diane’s voice came from Wayne with renewed and sober resolve, “You ruined everything! My big day! Our lives! MY life!”

Virgil looked about the area, webbed one of the nearest trash cans, and clipped out, “Oh no you don’t!”

Virgil pulled the bin and swung it into Wayne, just as he was about to squeeze the trigger.

Before the gun flew out of Wayne’s hands, he managed to fire a couple shots. Both missed Remus. One landed into Jim’s shoulder, the other vaguely toward Tom Sawyer’s Island. Jim immediately screamed as he attempted to take cover, despite the threat and pain, he never strayed too far from Remus. The union’s expression only got angrier, wincing and huffing, “Daddy Dearest. I think you had far too much to drink.”

Carrie dispatched another of Remus’s spawn. Wayne, during his attempt at recovery, fumbled in his reach for the trident. Virgil dashed up to Wayne before he could take up the weapon, aiming to neutralize that threat.

Roman approached his brother again. Remus seemed lucid and horrified in that moment, his eyes stuck on Kenny the entire time.

Roman shouted, “Taz, what’s going on!?”

Remus stammered, not registering Roman at all, “C-Cass, why did-?”

Remus doubled over vomiting and what came out was an endless tarry torrent. He heaved and heaved and heaved. It wasn’t natural, Roman dreaded to think what that fiend was doing to his brother. Roman stepped up close, unavoidably stepping in the mess, “Taz, are you still in there?”

Remus gave a few shuddering breaths before erupting into a broken cackle, it made Roman step back.

Not-Remus stood up straight, staring into Roman, “Not for long, morsel.”

Not-Remus charged after Roman with a murderous glare, his eyes holding a searing green glow and his sclera turning black. A glow made brighter against the dusky sky. Roman froze a moment before getting his spawn on the scene and jumping back, assisted by a powerful wing beat. The gust of wind also unsteadied Not-Remus’s pursuit.

Both Carrie and Vic cried out, in between all the threats, “REJOE!”

Roman’s voice trembled, “Remus. Please. Are you-!?”

Before vanishing into the Primordial Dream, Janus hissed out, “Remember. The Plan. Everyone!”

Not-Remus laughed, glancing where Janus once stood, “Running away?”

Roman lunged forward to tackle Remus, “Eyes on me, brother!”

Roman really tried not to injure Remus, while restraining him. Not-Remus cackled, seeming to know that Roman was holding back, they spat more of that tar into Roman’s face. It smelled like rot and Roman tried not to gag, letting go momentarily to wipe it clear. “Don’t you have any more fight in you?”

“If you would just stop fighting dirty-!”

Roman grappled Remus even harder, this time his claws drawing some blood. The back of Roman’s mind raced, hoping this plan was going to work, he just needed to buy everyone time. His dad could heal Remus after it was over, he hoped. He didn’t want to think about failure. He didn’t want to think about killing his own brother.

Wayne was desperately constrained by Virgil’s webs, wheezy screaming and coughing in the process. Vic glanced over and could tell the police chief had definitely broken a rib or few, in the scuffle. The union's gaze glared at Remus first, but darted toward Virgil and Roman, too. “I should have killed that thing when I had the chance!”

Virgil groaned, binding up Wayne tighter, “‘Didn’t even have one in hell, pig.”

Virgil was done with Wayne once he sealed the man’s mouth shut. He then went to help Roman’s horrorspawn and Carrie in destroying more of Remus’s.

Not-Remus kept thrashing and started shrieking in pain and fury against Roman’s hold, Roman grimaced, “I don’t know what this Promise bullshit is and I don’t fucking care!”

As more and more of Remus’s horrorspawn were knocked out, Remus started to look more and more sickly. And his body started to shift. His skin started to look like his Horror, only this wasn’t like normal atavism use. It was visceral and Remus looked like he was in the most pain Roman had ever seen.

Roman’s grip loosened enough for Remus to wriggle out from underneath. Remus stood up shakily and hunched over as his tentacles started coming forth. Roman was dumbstruck, as Remus dived into the nearby water feature.

Roman screamed, “REMUS!”

He was about to follow, but Remus surfaced before he could.

Remus still looked vaguely human. But his form was more twisted and imposing, with features of his own towering Horror looking more corporeal than ever. There were other details that were completely wrong, pieces of marine life that looked as if they were fused to Remus. If the stakes were any smaller, he would imagine Remus quipping about “Dead Man’s Chest” and Davy Jones’s cursed crew.

Barnacles, starfish, blue bottles. Many alien, vibrant and luminescent strands of tissue wrapped around Remus like a creeping vine. Many more of such strands floated freely, threatening to ensnare anything in reach. They were grotesque and beautiful, reminding Roman of those sparkling waterfall fireworks the park would use in their nightly shows. Only the trails hung from the tendrils in a stasis. Rather, it was like a shining beaded curtain, held together with gnarled strands of jellied viscera. A cross between Remus's own tentacles and something almost wing-like.

Roman remembered something either Remus or his dad brought up once…

Vic gasped, “That, that looks like a giant siphonophore! Everyone be careful!”

Vic was divided between trying to pacify the rampant spirits and running to help Remus. Logan stopped him, “Don’t. Janus is working on pulling Cass out of your son’s Lair. Cass appears to be desperate now.”

Virgil looked worried, “This almost looks like…”

Carrie asked, “What?”

“Something that Beasts can’t turn back from. But-”

“Hm?”

“Janus knows this stuff better, they really need to hurry up.”

Roman was getting frustrated, he jumped up from the nearest railing and just out of reach of those tendrils. Roman then burned the nearest appendage with his breath. This earned more wild flailing and inhuman screeching from Not-Remus.

Roman managed to disable a couple more of them, dodging many swipes to grab him. It was like Hercules versus the Hydra, there just seemed to be more around the corner. He was so focused on them that he didn’t expect one of Remus's tentacles managing to grab him by the foot and being yanked down into the water. It happened so fast, he didn’t have the chance to hold his breath.

Roman never wanted to experience what his brother did in his nightmares. Yet here he was, lungs burning for air, thrashing uselessly, a creeping sense of doom coming over him. The sensation worsened as he felt something else grab him and the stabbing, burning sensation spread all over, he realized he could no longer move.

Carrie hurled the magic bag to Logan. She took only her estoc with her as she sprinted and dived in the water without a thought. The Bright Dream mixing with her overwhelming desire to protect Roman in that moment, guided her blade. She sliced through something. She felt more sounds of pain coming from Not-Remus as she tried to scoop Roman up and out of the water.

When they surfaced, Vic immediately went to work resuscitating the unconscious Roman. Vic channeled his magic into counteracting the venom as he helped his son purge the water from his lungs.

Carrie looked back and saw the severed tentacle stub flail and bleed blue. Remus’s breathing was ragged, about to grab at anyone who got too close to the water before his eyes widened, staring at his brother.

Remus clutched himself as he lurched back onto dry land. He wanted to see if he was okay. His form was still twisted and wrong, and his legs felt like noodles, unaware they were still mostly in the form of tentacles. He didn’t get far before more sick erupted from his mouth. He passed out and his body slowly started to shrink aground.

Janus reappeared on the scene, at the foot of Remus. Janus's breathing was ragged, with a few tears and other things amiss in their outfit. They hissed in Remus's direction, bringing attention to it, "You owe me a new sssunhat!"

Janus then took up one of the unresponsive tendrils, wrapping it around their hand and pulled hard. 

More pain shot through Remus as he felt something being ripped out of him. He only had the energy to curl up as felt something loosen its grip around its soul. The pain started to wash away, he wasn’t aware enough to notice his body had slowly started to turn back to normal.

Janus stood there with an enormous, bloated, waterlogged corpse of something not even remotely human. An incomprehensible hodgepodge of rotting sea life parts, and far too many teeth. It reeked strongly of salty sea water, sulfur, and ammonia. It twitched and writhed, as it tried to take in Janus as another host.

Logan fashioned a magically enhanced flamethrower from his last minute additions to the inventory. He immediately blasted the mass that they all knew to be Cass. Cass recoiled from the wave of heat and so did Janus.

Logan then used his magic to command the ghosts to continue tearing apart Cass. Cass’s screams would have been a source of mirth if not for how it persisted in its writhing.

Virgil flinched before cocooning the portions of Cass and tacking them down before they could converge once more. Logan sighed, “Looks like it’s time for Plan B. Carrie? We don’t have much time to pull this off.”

They pulled forth the components to contain Cass, their special enchantments giving off an eerily hungry glow. Reliquaries mostly fashioned out of several gaudy pieces of costume jewelry, alongside that jar of dirt Roman suggested, to Logan’s bafflement at the time.

As Logan and Carrie worked together to imprison Cass piece by piece, the spell Cass had on the park was slowly receding. The Schism. They had to hurry and leave the scene before anyone held any suspicions on what transpired there.

The twins were stabilized, but still lethargic and disoriented according to Vic.

The party split up from there. It was the Espinoza parents and Logan’s job to transport Cass’s remains. None of the Beasts were willing to let that thing into the Primordial Dream as they used that path out of the park – the fastest way to get the twins back to the estate, courtesy of Janus this time.

-

Once they did reconvene, the exhaustion in everyone was evident. For the moment, Carrie and Vic were simply glad to have their children back and together again.

-

@milktea531 @r0sethrills

Feel free to ask to be on a tag list, if you wish!

(I’ll probably tag every other cross-post.)

-

[ Next ]

[flowers-all-around-me]

How you Feelin' on jindosh/gallvani?

You told me not to actually answer this. But this is a circus and I am riding my little clown car with pride <3 (for the ship ask game)

Who accidentally pushes a door instead of pulling/vice versa Tired Jindosh has probably slammed head first into doors without realising they are there. A push/pull dilemma would be a natural follow-up.

Who doodles little hearts all over the desk with their initials inside them Galvani. Jindosh is too dignified to be that obviously in love. But my guy Luigi made the day he met Sokolov his safe number, he would totally do this too.

Who starts the tickle fights Hmm, I think Jindosh. For petty reasons too.

Who starts the pillow fights Jindosh. Again, petty reasons only <3

Who falls asleep last, watching the other with a small affectionate smile Oh, Galvani. For sure.

Who mistakes salt for sugar Jindosh. Galvani works with biology and rats, he would have everything labelled properly and always check.

Who lets the microwave play the loud beeping sound at 1am in the morning Jindosh. Again. But they are both academics, so I think both their sleep schedules are fucked enough to not care that much.

Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines Galvani. Jindosh cares for them a negative amount.

Who rearranges the bookshelf in alphabetical order Well, they're both scientists, so I think they would both be used to the alphabetical order of books? It just makes sense, much as I would like to say Jindosh organises them based on colour lol

Who licks the spoon when they’re baking brownies Jindosh. Galvani, once again, works with biology and dead rats. He knows about germ theory, whereas Kirin strikes me as someone who either doesn't care, or pulled a case of Sherlock Holmes and chose to forget that because it's irrelevant. Galvani disagrees.

Who buys candles for dinners even though there’s no special occasion While Jindosh strikes me as the one who would enjoy a bit of arson (and fire by extension), Galvani is the romantic sap, so it would be him.

Who draws little tattoos on the other with a pen Jindosh. They're not, like, hearts, but I imagine he would try for a detailed sketch of a vivisected rat.

Who comes home with a new souvenir magnet every time they go on vacation Galvani. I don't know what is it about him that strikes me as a magnet person. He might stop after the 369432 time he is robbed, though.

Who convinces the other to fill out those couple surveys in the back of magazines Hmm, this is actually a tough one? While Jindosh feels more like the one to do chaotic things like this, Galvani feels more like the hopeless romantic (to me at least). Maybe both of them have done it at some point, although the other would always roll his eyes whilst asking "Must you?" They still end up filling those, though.

Hahah this was so fun. I probably spent too much time thinking about these rat bastards way too seriously. But I will not be stopped >:3

[first-stricture]

Galvani's old lab off of Clavering Blvd, Distillery District.

[piuswong]

(The K12 Engineering Education Podcast)

Do scientific research articles sometimes sound like another language?  To K-12 students, very often it’s yes.  Tanya Dimitrova tried to help solve this problem by founding the Scientific Journal for Kids, where her team of writers, designers, and teachers translates articles from scientific research journals into more kid-friendly language.  Tanya talks about how her time as a science teacher in Central Texas influenced her to found this nonprofit, and then explains all the details that go into collaborating with scientists to make their work more accessible.

 Related to this episode:  

• Science Journal for Kids (SJFK): https://www.sciencejournalforkids.org/

• SJFK article relating to osmosis and energy: https://www.sciencejournalforkids.org/articles/how-can-we-turn-ocean-water-into-renewable-energy/

• Tumble Podcast: https://www.sciencepodcastforkids.com/

• Past episode with Marshall Escamilla: https://k12engineering.net/episodes/59

• Sarah Galvani-Townsend: https://www.sciencejournalforkids.org/articles/lesson-ideas/meet-a-scientist-sarah-galvani-townsend/

• Past guest Xiaojing Gao: https://www.k12engineering.net/episodes/113

• SJFK YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ScienceJournalforKids

• r/explainlikeimfive: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/

• CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

• Dr. Shannon Currie: https://www.shannoncurrie.org/

 Opening music by LogicMoon: https://freesound.org/people/LogicMoon/sounds/617295/

Closing music by JetSmith88: https://freesound.org/people/JetSmith88/sounds/206065/

Subscribe and find podcast updates at: http://www.k12engineering.net.  Support Pios Labs with regular donations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pioslabs. You’ll also be supporting projects like the Engineer’s Guide to Improv and Art Games, The Calculator Gator, or Chordinates!  Thanks to our donors and listeners for making the show possible.  The K12 Engineering Education Podcast is a production of Pios Labs: http://www.pioslabs.com.

[koreaunderground]

(2014/05/20) Virus experiments risk unleashing global pandemic, study warns

[theguardian.com][1]

  [1]: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/virus-experiments-risk-global-pandemic>

# Virus experiments risk unleashing global pandemic, study warns

Ian Sample

6-7 minutes

* * *

Public health experts have warned that controversial experiments on mutant viruses could put human lives in danger by unleashing an accidental pandemic.

Several groups of scientists around the world are creating and altering viruses to understand how natural strains might evolve into more lethal forms that spread easily among humans.

But in a report published on Tuesday, researchers at Harvard and Yale universities in the US argue that the benefits of the work are outweighed by the risk of pathogenic strains escaping from laboratories and spreading around the world.

They calculate that if 10 high-containment labs in the US performed such experiments for 10 years, the chance of at least one person becoming infected was nearly 20%. If an infected person left the laboratory, the virus might then spread more widely.

"We are not saying this is going to happen, but when the potential is a pandemic, even a small chance is something you have to weigh very heavily," said [Marc Lipsitch][2], an epidemiologist at Harvard School of Public Health, who wrote the report with [Alison Galvani][3], an epidemiologist at Yale.

  [2]: <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/marc-lipsitch/> ()   [3]: <http://galvani.medicine.yale.edu/index.aspx> ()

The report threatens to reignite [a crisis in science][4] that erupted in 2012 when a US biosecurity panel ruled that two separate studies on mutant bird flu were too dangerous to publish. They described the creation of new mutant strains that spread among ferrets – a proxy for humans – held in neighbouring cages. One fear was that the recipe for the pathogens might fall into the hands of bioterrorists.

  [4]: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/28/bird-flu-mutant-strains> ()

Those studies, led by [Ron Fouchier][5] at Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam, and [Yoshihiro Kawaoka][6] at the University of Wisconsin-Madison respectively, were eventually published after months of delays. Other researchers have now begun similar experiments.

  [5]: <http://www.erasmusmc.nl/MScMM/faculty/CVs/fouchier_cv?lang=en> ()   [6]: <http://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/people/kawaokay/> ()

Both Fouchier and Kawaoka criticised the latest report, [published in Plos Medicine][7], and said their work had full ethical, safety and security approval, with the risks and benefits taken into account.

  [7]: <http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001646> ()

Last year, the US government, which funds most of the controversial work, [revised its guideline][8]s for "dual-use research of concern", or DURC. Under the new rules, work can be funded if the potential benefits are substantial and the risks considered to be manageable.

  [8]: <https://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Pages/h5n1-framework.aspx> ()

But Lipsitch said there was no evidence that the risks and benefits had been weighed up properly. "To my knowledge, no such thing has been done, but funding for these experiments continues," he said.

Lipsitch said that the US government and other funding bodies must commission comprehensive risk assessments from independent experts before deciding which studies to support.

Lipsitch and Galvani are most concerned about what are called gain-of-function studies, which aim to create highly virulent strains of viruses in secure laboratories so their genetic codes can be studied. Mutations that make a respiratory virus lodge in the throat, for example, can make the virus more transmissible through coughing.

The rational for gain-of-function studies is twofold. If scientists can work out which mutations make a virus more dangerous to people, they can improve surveillance by looking out for those mutations in natural strains. The work might also help to steer vaccine development. But Lipsitch argues that neither justification stands up: surveillance is not good enough to use the information, and vaccine developers can do without it, he says.

Rather than creating dangerous viruses in high-containment laboratories, Lipsitch and Galvani urge scientists to pursue alternative routes, for example, comparisons of seasonal human flu strains and other respiratory viruses that have jumped from animals into humans. These are not only safer, the authors claim, but the studies are scientifically sound, because they do not rely on small numbers of animals.

The report was roundly rejected by Fouchier and Kawaoka, two of the leading scientists in gain-of-function studies. Fouchier said the authors were wrong on both points they made – that alternative experiments could provide answers about the transmissibility of viruses, and that the risk of an outbreak or pandemic was high.

"The research agenda they propose is important and currently ongoing, but alone will never lead to solid conclusions about mammalian adaptation and transmission: the proof of the pudding will need to come from gain-of-function studies using infectious viruses. This is why the department of health and human services has approved our research, taking into account all ethical, safety and security issues, and weighing the risks of the research against the benefits," Fouchier said.

He said the authors had misinterpreted published data to arrive at their risk of someone picking up a virus in the laboratory. "The truth is that scientific research has never triggered a virus pandemic." Lipsitch and Galvani point out that a flu strain that spread around the world from 1977 to 2009 was probably released in a laboratory accident.

Kawaoka was similarly unimpressed with the report. "The authors imply that gain-of-function studies are going on without proper reviews. This is not so and suggests they do not understand how highly regulated this work is and the approvals and planning required to conduct this research," he said. "This commentary lists many experiments they think we should be doing. We are doing many of those experiments already."

[Simon Wain-Hobson][9], a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said that scientists working on the controversial virus studies should be less defensive. "There are times when we have to open up and face our critics. Marc is articulating what many of us feel is obvious," he said.

  [9]: <https://www.pasteur.fr/ip/easysite/pasteur/en/research/scientific-departments/virology/units-and-groups/molecular-retrovirology> ()

[omgthatdress]

We all know Mary Shelley created science fiction when she wrote Frankenstein, and pretty much defined what it means to be Goth with her whole fucking life.

But this of course can be looked at with a historical perspective of the early 19th century and how science was changing the very nature of life and death as we know it. Luigi Galvani discovered animal electricity as the method by which muscles move and contract, and that muscles could be made to move, even after death, with the use of electricity. With this, people speculated like mad that the dead could be used to live again with the application of electricity, and that brought up the thorny question that has always plagues scientists, “Just because you can do it, does it mean you should do it?” Thus it becomes the central theme of Frankenstein, Jurassic Park, and countless other works of science fiction. 

“Mutter” takes on this question as a song from the point of view of a lab-created sentient being who longs for a mother but has none.

[sciencenewsforstudents]

It’s frog dissection day in biology class in the new film The Addams Family. Wednesday Addams thinks she knows what to do. First, she leaps on the table. Then, raising her hands to the sky, she shouts, “Give my creature life!” A device that pulses with electricity now shocks a dead frog waiting to be cut open by the kids’ scalpels. The electricity then bounces from one frog to another. Suddenly, frogs are hopping everywhere — a bit groggy at first, but apparently as alive as ever.

This wild scene isn’t one you’ll be able to recreate on dissection day in your own science class. Electricity can’t jolt the dead back to life. Still, this scene has a lot in common with experiments that happened hundreds of years ago. Back then, scientists were learning how electricity kicks muscles into motion.

Today’s researchers know that electricity can do a lot of amazing things — including help shape the body in the first place.

Muscle powerhouse

Skeletal muscles help animals move and breathe. These muscles move because of tension in their fibers. This is called “contraction.” Muscle contractions are triggered by signals that start in the brain. The electrical signals travel down the spinal cord and to the nerves that reach into muscle.

But electric impulses also can come from outside the body. “If you’ve ever shocked yourself on something, your muscles contracted,” explains Melissa Bates. A physiologist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, she studies how bodies work. Bates focuses on the diaphragm. That’s a muscle that helps mammals breathe.

Shocking a dead frog might make its muscles twitch and get its legs to wiggle. Still, this animal couldn’t hop away, Bates points out. That’s because leg muscles can’t make their own electrical signals.

As soon as a frog hopped away from the source of electricity, the game would be up, she says. “It would fall down and be limp and not able to move.” (This applies to the muscles in a hand, too. And that has left Bates wondering how Thing — a hand without a body — can move at all.)

There are some muscles in the body that can power themselves. Involuntary muscles, such as the heart and muscles that move food through the intestines, supply their own electric impulses. In an animal that has recently died, these muscles continue to function for a while. They can keep contracting for minutes to upwards of an hour, Bates says. But that won’t help the frog make a getaway.

It is possible to use electricity to revive people when they are having a heart attack. For this, people use machines called defibrillators (De-FIB-rill-ay-tors). This isn’t reanimating the dead, though. Defibrillators only work “in something that appears lifeless but still has some of its own electrical potential to reboot that system,” Bates explains. Electricity helps get heartbeats back to a regular rhythm. But this won’t work if the heart has stopped beating entirely (which happens when it has lost its ability to make electrical impulses).

The frogs from biology lab have probably been dead for quite a while and preserved with chemicals. They couldn’t be revived with a defibrillator because they wouldn’t have any heart electrical activity left to jump start.

Twitch, twitch

Wednesday Addams’ froggy antics, while impossible, call to mind experiments that scientists did in the late 1700s. “That was the first hint that electricity is an important part of our body,” says Bates. Back then, people were just starting to see what electricity could do. Some shocked dead animals to figure out how electricity made muscles move.  

The most famous of these experimenters was Luigi Galvani. He worked as a doctor and physicist in Italy.

Galvani mostly worked with dead frogs, or rather their bottom halves. He would slice open the frog to reveal the nerves that ran from the spinal cord to a leg. Then, to study how a frog’s muscles respond to electricity, Galvani would wire up the frog’s leg under different conditions.

Italian scientist Luigi Galvani studied electricity in the body by wiring up frogs’ leg muscles in different ways. This image illustrates his experiments connecting nerves to leg muscles, which then contracted. CREDIT: Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0)

By this time, scientists already knew that an electric shock would make muscles twitch. But Galvani had questions about how and why that happened. For example, he wondered if lightning would do the same thing as the electricity made by his machine. So he hooked up one animal to a wire that snaked outside to a thunderstorm. He then watched those frog legs dance when they were jolted by lightning — just as they did with his machine’s electricity.

Galvani also noticed that when a wire connected a leg muscle to a nerve, the muscle contracted. This led him to hypothesize an “animal electricity” inside creatures. Galvani’s research inspired many scientists and created a new field of study that investigated electricity in the body.

Such work also inspired fiction. “There is an imagination that followed Galvani’s experiments,” says Marco Piccolino at the University of Ferrara. He’s neurologist, a scientist who studies the body’s nervous system. Piccolino, based out of Pisa, Italy, is also a science historian. Galvani’s experiments and those of the scientists that followed him helped inspire Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Piccolino says. In her classic book, a fictional scientist gives life to a human-like creature.

Sparking life

Nobody has figured out yet how to use electricity to make the dead come back to life. But some researchers have figured out how to hack cells’ electric signals to change how animals develop.

Michael Levin works at Tufts University in Boston, Mass, and at the Wyss Institute of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. As a developmental biophysicist, he studies the physics of how bodies develop.

“All of the tissue in your body is communicating electrically,” he notes. By eavesdropping on those conversations, scientists can crack the cells’ code. They also can play back the electrical messages in other ways to alter the body’s development, he says.

Messing with electric signals can change how animals develop. By changing the electric state of cells, researchers have made this tadpole grow an eye in its gut. CREDIT: M. Levin and Sherry Aw

Cells in the body have an electric potential (a difference in charge) across their membranes. This potential comes from how charged ions are arranged inside and outside of cells. Researchers can mess with this using chemicals that change where the ions can go.

Manipulating these signals has allowed Levin’s team to tell a frog tadpole to grow an eye in its gut. They also have gotten brain tissue to grow elsewhere in a frog’s body. They’ve even been able to tell nerves how to connect to a newly attached eye.

Everyone thinks genes determine how an animal develops. But “that's only half the story,” Levin says.

Bioelectricity could hold the power to fix birth defects, regrow organs or reprogram cancerous cells. Levin and his colleagues have already fixed birth defects in tadpoles. And they picture a day when electricity could be used similarly in medicine.

This is far from Wednesday Addams and her reanimated frogs — but so much better.

[beasiswaonline-blog]

Galvanising Sales Manager

Lian Seng Hardware (private) Limited Singapore $60,000-72,000 per year Permanent Full-time Job Description – Build up existing Sales in Cold Galvanising Area – Need to have knowledge on Zinc Electroplating and set up – Perform Lab Test on chemical bath – able to perform Electro-Galvanis Job Description – Build up existing Sales in Cold Galvanising Area – Need to have knowledge on Zinc…

[un-enfant-immature]

Alphabet’s healthcare subsidiary Verily is expanding its startup investment program

Verily Life Sciences, the healthcare subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is expanding the investment and collaboration program — called Partner Space — that it launched in 2017 to work with startups.

The Partner Space already houses somewhere between six and eight companies (of which only two are publicly disclosed). That number could almost double to between 12 and 15 companies, according to Verily Life Sciences’ head of business and corporate development and ventures lead, Andy Harrison.

Verily’s move to expand its work with startups in healthcare comes on the heels of the company’s $1 billion cash infusion at the beginning of January.

That round, led by the technology-focused private equity investment firm Silver Lake, and including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, was designed to support growth in key strategic areas including partnerships, business development and potential acquisitions, according to a statement.

“The companies that are in that space we are equity owners of,” says Harrison. “We want some upside from the things that we contribute that could enhance their business.”

Harrison described Verily’s Partner Space investments as typical Series A or B deals, where the opportunity to work from the company’s South San Francisco campus was a complimentary perk, but not a prerequisite for taking Verily’s cash.

Two companies that have taken Verily up on its offer, are Freenome, which uses artificial intelligence and genomic information for better cancer screening and diagnostics tests, and Culture Robotics, which uses automation and robotics to improve cell cultivation.

“The main thesis is digital health,” said Harrison of the company’s investment strategy. “Combining complex biological processes with very sophisticated informatics. It’s the nexus of biology and informatics that we tend to focus on. We are interested in healthcare innovations that the world needs. That humanity needs.”

The Partner Space is an embodiment of that interest, according to Harrison. Or, as the company put it in a blog post back when it launched the initiative:

Through Partner Space, Verily aims to foster a rich ecosystem for innovation and idea sharing by offering office and lab space, exposure to the Verily team and other collaboration partners, and access to shared amenities.

….

Verily Partner Space is an expansion of the way we have worked at Verily since our inception – inviting our partners, from Onduo, Galvani and Verb for example, to share our workplace, eliminating the natural boundaries of space and distance. In so doing, we can more quickly advance our initiatives and solve really challenging problems in healthcare. We are excited, through Verily Partner Space, to extend our physical space to the start-up community and bring other like-minded entities into our fold with the goal to collectively pursue better health outcomes for humanity.

[ericfruits]

Eberhard Fetz

BCIs have deep roots. In the 18th century Luigi Galvani discovered the role of electricity in nerve activity when he found that applying voltage could cause a dead frog’s legs to twitch. In the 1920s Hans Berger used electroencephalography to record human brain waves. In the 1960s José Delgado theatrically used a brain implant to stop a charging bull in its tracks. One of the field’s father figures is still hard at work in the lab.

Eberhard Fetz was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle when he decided to test whether a monkey could control the needle of a meter using only its mind. A paper based on that research, published in 1969, showed that it could. Dr Fetz tracked down the movement of the needle to the firing rate of a single neuron in the monkey’s brain. The animal learned to control the activity of that single cell within two minutes, and was also able to switch to control a different neuron.

Dr Fetz disclaims any great insights in setting up the experiment. “I was just curious, and did not make the association with potential uses of robotic arms or the like,” he says. But the effect of his paper was profound. It showed both that volitional control of a BCI was possible, and that the brain was capable of learning how to operate one without any help.

Some 48 years later, Dr Fetz is still at the University of Washington, still fizzing with energy and still enthralled by the brain’s plasticity. He is particularly interested in the possibility of artificially strengthening connections between cells, and perhaps forging entirely new ones.

As an example, he points to research in which the recording of an action potential in the brain prompts not only the normal firing of a motor neuron in the spinal cord but also a parallel stimulus from a BCI delivered to the same site. The idea is to take advantage of a relationship made famous in an aphorism by a Canadian psychologist, Donald Hebb: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” This reinforced stimulus strengthens the connection between the original action potential and the motor neuron, which could help recovery from spinal-cord injuries. Such stimulation might also encourage stronger bonds in the brain itself—between the speech-processing area of a stroke victim’s brain, say, and the region that controls movements of the lips and mouth.

Asked to explain the slow rate of progress since his breakthrough paper, Dr Fetz points to the technical difficulties of recording from single cells and the high hurdle to doing this sort of work in people. But he does not think there is a need to find out much more about the brain in order to make further advances: “I have had a lot of progress by just jumping in.”

http://ift.tt/2qlunHH

[toomanysinks]

Alphabet’s healthcare subsidiary Verily is expanding its startup investment program

Verily Life Sciences, the healthcare subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is expanding the investment and collaboration program — called Partner Space — that it launched in 2017 to work with startups.

The Partner Space already houses somewhere between six and eight companies (of which only two are publicly disclosed). That number could almost double to between 12 and 15 companies, according to Verily Life Sciences’ head of business and corporate development and ventures lead, Andy Harrison.

Verily’s move to expand its work with startups in healthcare comes on the heels of the company’s $1 billion cash infusion at the beginning of January.

That round, led by the technology-focused private equity investment firm Silver Lake, and including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, was designed to support growth in key strategic areas including partnerships, business development and potential acquisitions, according to a statement.

“The companies that are in that space we are equity owners of,” says Harrison. “We want some upside from the things that we contribute that could enhance their business.”

Harrison described Verily’s Partner Space investments as typical Series A or B deals, where the opportunity to work from the company’s South San Francisco campus was a complimentary perk, but not a prerequisite for taking Verily’s cash.

Two companies that have taken Verily up on its offer, are Freenome, which uses artificial intelligence and genomic information for better cancer screening and diagnostics tests, and Culture Robotics, which uses automation and robotics to improve cell cultivation.

“The main thesis is digital health,” said Harrison of the company’s investment strategy. “Combining complex biological processes with very sophisticated informatics. It’s the nexus of biology and informatics that we tend to focus on. We are interested in healthcare innovations that the world needs. That humanity needs.”

The Partner Space is an embodiment of that interest, according to Harrison. Or, as the company put it in a blog post back when it launched the initiative:

Through Partner Space, Verily aims to foster a rich ecosystem for innovation and idea sharing by offering office and lab space, exposure to the Verily team and other collaboration partners, and access to shared amenities.

….

Verily Partner Space is an expansion of the way we have worked at Verily since our inception – inviting our partners, from Onduo, Galvani and Verb for example, to share our workplace, eliminating the natural boundaries of space and distance. In so doing, we can more quickly advance our initiatives and solve really challenging problems in healthcare. We are excited, through Verily Partner Space, to extend our physical space to the start-up community and bring other like-minded entities into our fold with the goal to collectively pursue better health outcomes for humanity.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/24/alphabets-healthcare-subsidiary-verily-is-expanding-its-startup-investment-program/