#bacteria outbreak

[unofficial-sean]

A woman in Tacoma, WA was diagnosed with an active infection of tuberculosis. She has already infected several medical staff and refuses to quarantine and receive treatment for her infection. Courts are presently working on litigation to either force her into receiving treatment or jail time.

While the legal process is at work, it is really important for everyone to take preventative measures to stop the spread of tuberculosis. It can lay dormant for a long time. This has the potential to spread worldwide to nations that have otherwise kept a lid on TB infections.

Please be safe. Please do the right thing.

[environmentavegan]

I feel like every few years there's some huge issue that causes mass recalls or extremely escalated prices having to do with animal products. it's almost as if there's fundamental problems with the system and how we produce food

[reasonsforhope]

"Namibia is the driest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and home to two of the world’s most ancient deserts, the Kalahari and the Namib. The capital, Windhoek, is sandwiched between them, 400 miles away from the nearest perennial river and more than 300 miles away from the coast. Water is in short supply.

It’s hard to imagine life thriving in Windhoek, yet 477,000 people call it home, and 99 per cent of them have access to drinking water thanks to technology pioneered 55 years ago on the outskirts of the city. Now, some of the world’s biggest cities are embracing this technology as they adapt to the harshest impacts of climate change. But Namibia leads the way.

How did this come about? In the 1950s, Windhoek’s natural resources struggled to cope with a rapidly growing population, and severe water shortages gripped the city. But disaster forced innovation, and in 1968 the Goreangab Water Reclamation Plant in Windhoek became the first place in the world to produce drinking water directly from sewage, a process known as direct potable reuse (DPR). 

That may sound revolting, but it’s completely safe. Dr Lucas van Vuuren, who was among those who pioneered Windhoek’s reclamation system, once said that “water should not be judged by its history, but by its quality”. And DPR ensures quality. 

This is done using a continuous multi-barrier treatment devised in Windhoek during eight years of pilot studies in the 1960s. This process – which has been upgraded four times since 1968 – eliminates pollutants and safeguards against pathogens by harnessing bacteria to digest the human waste and remove it from the water. This partly mimics what happens when water is recycled in nature, but Windhoek does it all in under 24 hours...

Pictured: These ultrafiltration membranes help to remove bacteria, viruses and pathogens. Image: Margaret Courtney-Clarke

“We know that we have antibiotics in the water, preservatives from cosmetics, anti-corrosion prevention chemicals from the dishwasher,” Honer explains. “We find them and we remove them.”

Honer adds that online instruments monitor the water continuously, and staff ensure that only drinking water that meets World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines is sent to homes. If any inconsistencies are detected, the plant goes into recycle mode and distribution is halted until correct values are restored. 

“The most important rule is, and was, and always will be ‘safety first’,” says Honer.  The facility has never been linked to an outbreak of waterborne disease, and now produces up to 5.5m gallons of drinking water every day – up to 35 per cent of the city’s consumption.

Namibians couldn’t survive without it, and as water shortages grip the planet, Windhoek’s insights and experience are more important than ever.

Interest from superpowers across the globe

In recent years, delegations from the US, France, Germany, India, Australia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates have visited Windhoek seeking solutions to water shortages in their own countries. 

Megadrought conditions have gripped the US since 2001, and the Colorado River – which provides 40 million people with drinking water – has been running at just 50 per cent of its traditional flow. As a result, several states including Texas, California, Arizona and Colorado are beginning to embrace DPR.

Troy Walker is a water reuse practice leader at Hazen and Sawyer, an environmental engineering firm helping Arizona to develop its DPR regulations. He visited Windhoek last year. “It was about being able to see the success of their system, and then looking at some of the technical details and how that might look in a US facility or an Australian facility,” he said. “[Windhoek] has helped drive a lot of discussion in industry. [Innovation] doesn’t all have to come out of California or Texas.”

Pictured: The internal pipes and workings of Namibia's DPR plant. As water becomes scarcer in some parts, countries are looking to DPR for solutions. Image: Margaret Courtney-Clarke

Namibia has also helped overcome the biggest obstacle to DPR – public acceptance. Disgust is a powerful emotion, and sensationalist ‘toilet to tap’ headlines have dismantled support for water reuse projects in the past. Unfortunately, DPR’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness, as the speed at which water can re-enter the system makes it especially vulnerable to prejudice, causing regulators to hesitate. “Technology has never been the reason why these projects don’t get built – it’s always public or political opposition,” says Patsy Tennyson, vice president of Katz and Associates, an American firm that specialises in public outreach and communications.

That’s why just a handful of facilities worldwide are currently doing DPR, with Windhoek standing alongside smaller schemes in the Philippines, South Africa and a hybrid facility in Big Spring, Texas. But that’s all changing. Drought and increased water scarcity worldwide are forcing us to change the way we think about water. 

Now, the US is ready to take the plunge, and in 2025, El Paso Water will begin operating the first ‘direct to distribution’ DPR facility in North America, turning up to 10m gallons of wasterwater per day into purified drinking water – twice as much as Windhoek. San Diego, Los Angeles, California, as well as Phoenix, Arizona are also exploring the technology."

Of course, DPR is not a silver bullet in the fight against climate change. It cannot create water out of thin air, and it will not facilitate endless growth. But it does help cities become more climate resilient by reducing their reliance on natural sources, such as the Colorado River. 

As other nations follow in Namibia’s footsteps, Windhoek may no longer take the lead after almost six decades in front.

“But Windhoek was the first,” Honer reminds me. “No one can take that away.”"

-via Positive.News, August 30, 2023

[marzipanandminutiae]

What’s the New England vampire panic?

:D

:D :D :D

IT. IS. FUN.

(to research- it was probably horrifying to live through. just so we're clear)

basiclly, it was a series of incidents in response to tuberculosis outbreaks throughout New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont) during the late 18th and 19th centuries. it wasn't actually a single event, but rather isolated cases of TB being blamed on revenants rather than disease. where this belief prevailed, people frequently exhumed the alleged vampire, burned their heart or another organ on a blacksmith's anvil, and mixed the ashes into water for living consumptive people to drink

unsurprisingly, this never worked

though the earliest documented incident was in 1793, most people's awareness of this phenomenon coalesces around the 1892 death and exhumation of Mercy Lena Brown, of Exeter, Rhode Island. after dying of TB at age 19, Mercy was posthumously accused of afflicting her brother with the disease. despite drinking the ashes of her heart and liver in water, he- shocker! -died. the Brown case reached the popular press, who reacted to it with a sort of morbid fascination. "look what these crazy backwards Country People did" energy. Brown's grave has become a popular site for legend-tripping among Exeter teens since then- the game is to stand there and say, "Mercy Lena Brown, are you a vampire?" and see what happens

aforementioned classism and/or regional prejudice is a fascinating aspect of the Vampire Panic(s). like I said, a lot of the commentary- even going back to the 18th century -takes a tone of bemused horror that such superstitions could still exist, and of judgment on the intelligence of those involved

but honestly, before widespread understanding of TB bacteria...it COULD have been vampires, for all people knew. most of them were aware that it wasn't, but when your choices are "it's a disease; do nothing and watch your loved one die" vs. "it's vampires; do this thing and your loved one might not die, even though there's no proof it works," one might want to feel like one was at least trying

and unlike other mass hysteria cases a la Salem, nobody actually got killed because of a Vampire Panic. just saying

(there's a theory that Bram Stoker may have been partially inspired by the Brown case in writing Dracula, but I've seen no compelling evidence that it inspired him any more or less than any other vampire story)

[smalllady]

Places in Mass Effect 2 - Horizon A temperate world that has hit the "sweet spot" for carbon-based life, Horizon has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere maintained by abundant indigenous photosynthetic plants and bacteria. While the native plants are not very palatable to humans, the soil conditions are such that a handful of introduced Earth species have flourished, and the colonists must take strict care to prevent ecological disasters. Genetically-engineered "terminator seeds" that grow nutritious but sterile crops to minimize outbreaks are the rule rather than the exception. Animals on Horizon appear to be exploding in diversity, similar to Earth's Cambrian period. Large flying insect analogues takes advantage of the thicker-than-Earth atmosphere and low gravity to grow enormous. Microbial life have proven relatively benign; a series of vaccinations for the most virulent strains of soil-borne diseases is all that is required for a visit. Population: 654,390 Colony Founded: 2168 Capital: Discovery Orbital Distance: 2.1 AU Orbital Period: 3.0 Earth Years Radius: 5402 km Day Length: 37.8 Earth Hours Atmospheric Pressure: 1.68 Earth Atmospheres Surface Temperature: 13 Celsius Surface Gravity: 0.7 G

[drdemonprince]

also like... getting a sexually transmitted infection, as an experience, is mostly fine and pretty mundane. again it is important to educate oneself about the various risks one is subjecting oneself to, but part of that means recognizing that a great many of the risks that you face while having sex just aren't all that big a deal.

I've had plenty of UTI's; they hurt and then you hop on Lemonaid Health or a similar app and get a prescription for antibiotics that costs like $0.20 and then you're almost instantly fine. You get a yeast infection, you run to the pharmacy for a suppository or you get a pill from your doctor and you're fine. You have a herpes outbreak, it stings like the dickens, maybe you even have a fever the first time, and you get some anti-virals from an app or your doctor or some abreva and it soothes the terribly spiky feeling and you're fine. there's so many strains of HPV out there that it's impossible to contain and most of them are so low-impact that you can't even get a sexual health clinic to test for them, just get the Gardasil vaccine for the few strains that cause cancer and roll on.

Get your Monkeypox shots. Get on PreP if you can. Use a barrier. Wear a mask if you can. Accept that the human body gets welts and bad smells and itchy spots and chafing and that sometimes you catch a cold and that some people are chronically ill and that we all harbor all kinds of bacteria and viruses within our bodies that do not have our DNA but which have been integral to humanity's evolution over time. We should do our best to be responsible but equating health with morality or claiming that human beings have full control over their health is an oppressive and unrealistic concept.

[mindblowingscience]

Vibrio bacteria, named for their vibrating swimming motion, span approximately 150 known species. Most Vibrio live in brackish or salt water, either swimming free or living as pathogens or symbionts in fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and corals. Because Vibrio thrives at relatively high temperatures, outbreaks in marine animals are expected to become ever more frequent under global warming. For example, over the past few decades, Vibrio have been implicated in the 'bleaching' of subtropical and tropical corals around the world. Now, researchers from Spain and Turkey have shown that Vibrio bacteria also play a role in outbreaks of mortality of an unrelated sessile marine organism, the dark stinging sponge (Sarcotragus foetidus). The results are published in Frontiers in Microbiology. "Here we show that pathogenic Vibrio bacteria were abundant in diseased individuals of the dark stinging sponge, during a deadly outbreak first observed in late 2021 in the Aegean Sea," said Dr. Manuel Maldonado, a senior scientist at the Spanish National Research Council (CEAB-CSIC) and a co-author of the study.

Continue Reading.

[workersolidarity]

🇵🇸 🚨

DISEASE, ALONG WITH A LACK OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES AND SANITATION RISKS FURTHER DISASTER IN THE GAZA STRIP

📹 A Palestinian man shows green, algae-filled water buildup in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israel's ongoing bombing and shelling, describing how disease is spreading through the Palestinian population displaced by the Israeli genocide.

The Palestinian man describes the situation as an "environmental and health catastrophe" that risks spreading disease among the population of the Gaza Strip.

"The situation has reached a critical point after government and health authorities reported an outbreak affecting half a million people," the man tells the viewer.

"The outbreak is linked to a variety of diseases caused by parasites, bacteria, and other viral illnesses," he says, adding that "the crises in the Gaza Strip has been exacerbated by the occupation's targeting of intersections, streets, and large swaths of land, leading to the bursting of sewage lines that pass through these areas."

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the risk of disease is also being exacerbated by several other factors, including, "overcrowding, inadequate water and sanitation, disruption of routine healthcare services, and a dysfunctional health system" as a result of Israel's ongoing aggression.

The WHO emphasizes the importance of "ensuring ensuring access to safe water, sanitation, the importance of hand hygiene, the availability of [Infection Prevention and Control] IPC supplies, and the appropriate selection and use of personal protective equipment based on risk assessment," all of which is being hampered by continued bombing, shelling and blockade enforced by the Israeli occupation army.

#source

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[ammg-old2]

It was December of 1996 when Karen Lips turned up the first bodies—and finally felt an ember of hope. As a graduate student working in the muggy forests of Central America, she’d noticed that an as-yet-unnamed culprit had been stripping the area of its frogs. Regions that had once rung with a chorus of croaks were silent and still, but no one had found the carcasses that could speak to a cause. With those finally in hand, “I remember thinking, Wow, this might actually be helpful,” Lips told me. Surely, data would beget a solution; surely, the frogs’ declines would now be reversed.

More than 25 years later, Lips has felt much of that early spark of hope fizzle and flame out. Scientists did indeed go on to identify the amphibian-killing pathogen: the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd for short. But Bd has not been stopped. Instead, it has spread to every continent where frogs and their close cousins are found. “If you pick up an amphibian here in the U.S., on average you have a 50 percent chance of picking up one that’s infected with Bd,” said Lips, who now runs her own lab at the University of Maryland. Eradication is no longer possible; the fungus has established itself in too many animals, in too many places. Lips sometimes imagines the planet coated in a layer of fungus that grows back when poked, prodded, or torn. “I’m not sure I have optimism,” she told me, not anymore.

Bd is the paragon of a pandemic. It has been described as perhaps the most devastating disease the world has ever recorded, in terms of its species scope and death toll. A pathogen that wriggles inside amphibian skin cells and causes fatal heart attacks, the fungus is estimated to have contributed to the decline of about 500 amphibian species, about 90 of which have been driven to extinction; more are expected to follow, sending ripples through countless food webs. Bd is also, outside of tight circles of amphibian enthusiasts, little known, and barely addressed. For the network of researchers who have devoted decades of their lives to combatting it, hope has long been hard to keep alive. And in the past three years, as another outbreak—this one, a plague of humans—erupted into public consciousness, their prospects for success have felt even dimmer.

Bd wasn’t always thought of as a permanent planetary scourge. When scientists first began to study the pathogen, “it was not looked at as a hardy organism,” Lips told me. Several antifungals, including a drug called itraconazole, can easily wipe it out in test tubes; so can potent chemicals released by multiple species of bacteria, including some that naturally reside on certain amphibians’ skin. Researchers actually have to fight to keep the finicky fungus growing in the lab: Even small perturbations in temperature or salt content are enough to nuke it, forcing scientists to start their cultures over from scratch. “We used to joke about how easy it was to kill,” Lips said.

Out in the wild, though, Bd rapidly proved itself to be far more formidable. Some research suggests that the fungus can linger in the environment for days or weeks, awaiting its next host; it is a fast evolver, too, with the ability to essentially “add or kick out chromosomes at will,” says Trent Garner, a biologist at the Zoological Society of London and University College London. The range of animals it can trouble is also staggeringly large: The fungus seems to be able to infect just about any of the 8,000-plus species of amphibians it encounters, transmitting directly through skin-to-skin contact, or by releasing sperm-shaped spores into water. It’s hardy; it’s ubiquitous; it’s impossible to permanently purge. Boot it out of one population, and it just moves into the next.

Researchers, having acknowledged that Bd’s threat will never completely dissipate, still try their best to mitigate its harms. Antifungals work, at least in limited contexts: About a decade ago, a team of scientists led by Garner used them (along with disinfectants) to eliminate Bd from several ponds in Majorca, Spain. Some researchers are also experimenting with probiotics that can be slathered onto amphibians like “a topical yogurt” to imbue their skin with fungus-fighting bugs, says Molly Bletz, a disease ecologist and conservation biologist at UMass Boston who’s working on one such intervention. Other scientists are looking into Bd-focused vaccines, or selective breeding in captivity—even engineered genetic tweaks—that could make certain species less vulnerable to disease. Some researchers are trying to mobilize amphibians out of Bd-infested areas; chauffeur them into fungus-free havens; or seed their habitats with crustacean micropredators, such as water fleas, that might snarf Bd down.

The tricky thing with all of these tempering tactics, though, is that they’re ultra-laborious—with little guarantee that the effects will last. In zoos, frogs that are cleared of Bd with drugs get “reinfected all the time,” Lips told me. And that’s after researchers “treat them all,” a proportion that would be infeasible in the wild. The looming specter of fungal evolution also keeps herpetologists up at night. Obed Hernández-Gómez, an evolutionary ecologist at Dominican University, in California, has found that it can take as few as 15 generations for Bd to evolve resistance to the molecules made by certain probiotic bacteria; the case is probably comparable with antifungals, though the phenomenon hasn’t been well studied. Some also worry that any chemical, bacterial, or environmental intervention could come with serious consequences for creatures that coexist with frogs, or for the frogs themselves.

Vaccines could be a more lasting intervention, with fewer environmental ripple effects. But effective immunizations don’t yet exist. Cold-blooded amphibians are also a challenging group to vaccinate. “Their immune systems are really slow,” Bletz told me, especially when temperatures dip. Even vetted vaccines wouldn’t pass protection down through the generations, requiring scientists to make regular trips into the field. Interventions in captive contexts, too, may serve only as a stopgap. The idea is to “breed them, then return them to their habitats,” says Ana Longo, a herpetologist at the University of Florida. “But if the pathogen is still there, is it worth it to spend all this effort?”

People, too, could get their act together. Humans seem to have ferried the fungus, once restricted to parts of Asia, around the globe, via imported or stowaway amphibians. Better regulation of the international trade in these animals could reduce the global burden, but Bd has already spread to nearly all frog-inhabited corners of the world, save for maybe Papua New Guinea and a few nearby island outposts, and its ubiquity is seen by many as a foregone conclusion. Researchers have also been distracted, for the past 10 years or so, by another fungal outbreak caused by a sister species called Bsal that mainly targets salamanders. Bsal hasn’t yet been detected in North America, the “hot spot” of salamander diversity, Hernández-Gómez said, and the effort to keep it out has gobbled up herpetologists’ attention, pushing Bd to the sidelines. And among some policy makers, there’s been a pervasive attitude of “what exactly do you want us to do?” Lips told me. “It’s already here.”

That sentiment has seemed particularly familiar of late, Bd experts told me, now that the world is grappling with another pandemic-caliber disease, this one trained on humans. COVID has forced a reckoning with the same sorts of questions as the frog fungus, and produced similar stalemates: What level of suffering is sustainable, or tolerable? What do you do when a disease is still raging but many people seem to have tired of fighting it? As with Bd, the coronavirus has no silver-bullet solution. Both are here to stay.

Lips has been gathering data that could draw more direct connections between amphibians’ well-being and our own. She and her colleagues recently published a paper proposing that the decline of amphibians in Central America may have led to a boom in populations of mosquitoes—typical frog fare—and raised the risk of malaria among people. Though even infectious threats to Homo sapiens can be easy to ignore. Our response to the coronavirus pandemic, in particular, felt like “a slap in the face,” Hernández-Gómez said. “If humans don’t even care about a disease that’s killing off their own,” Bletz told me, “how are they going to care about something that affects amphibians?”

In broad strokes, much of the rest of the Bd and Bsal story may feel written: More populations will dwindle; more species will disappear, many of them far from human habitations, where they may, once again, escape the notice of most. Perhaps more species will ultimately adapt to resist or tolerate Bd, and so the struggle continues to “keep populations in the wild for as long a time as possible, to give more time for natural selection to act,” says Ben Scheele, a disease ecologist at Australian National University who’s working to save his nation’s corroboree frogs. But even on an evolutionary timescale, there are no guarantees: Where frogs go, the fungus seems to follow.

“There’s almost nothing we can do, in a way, and that’s the sad part,” says Timothy James, a chytrid-fungus expert at the University of Michigan. Lips has held dying frogs in her hand, each of them sluggish, discombobulated, and weak, sometimes to the point where they can no longer muster the energy to try to wrest themselves free. “They just sort of sit there, even if you bend to pick them up,” she told me. Their deaths are slow, subtle affairs—agonizing fades that have become, like so many other infectious endings, a kind of background noise.

Some of the experts I spoke with told me there is still plenty of room for optimism—that the efforts of the few could still turn the tide, especially against the less pervasive Bsal. Others, although far from giving up on the Bd battle, feel more conflicted. At the start of the COVID outbreak, Lips felt another wellspring of hope burble up in her chest. She gave talks. She told people, “This is not my first pandemic.” Maybe, she thought, there would be a surge in interest in infectious disease; maybe, she thought, people would understand the importance of conservation, and keeping ecosystems intact. That’s not what happened. “I had hoped COVID would be our success story,” she said. “But I went from ‘This will be a motivating factor to do better!’ to ‘Wow, we’re kind of losing momentum again.’”

Lips still remembers what Costa Rica’s tropics looked like in the 1990s, before Bd was truly known. She recalls the feeling of becoming enamored of the spectacular green coloring and the nubby spiked skin of the region’s Isthmohyla calypsa tree frogs. Isthmohyla calypsa is now no longer in Costa Rica: Bd has driven it out. And Lips no longer does much fieldwork. A lot of pain comes with confronting the froglessness—trying to count creatures that she and others worry will no longer be countable in a few years’ time. Lips’ current research—some of it geared toward influencing policy, and buoying biodiversity as a whole—does keep her going. But as the frogs continue to vanish, so too does the work of the scientists who study them. “Where do I go?” she said. “Where are the frogs?”

[the-cypress-grove]

I saw your "So, you want to write vampires..." post, and I was wondering if you can do something like that for zombies? Completely okay if you cant though !!

So, You Want To Write Zombies....

I had intended to turn the "So you want to write BLANK..." into a series so feel free to make requests of different creatures or things to so I can prioritise what you will find useful. I haven't written about zombies in a while so this will be a little rusty. Tell me if I need to change or add anything. With that said, ONWARDS!

Origins

This is more important than with my vampire episode. Most zombie stories are usually set in or around the initial outbreak so it is vital that YOU know how it started even if your characters don't.

Potential Origins you might want to consider:

Experiment Gone Wrong: It was believed to be a cure until patient zero died and rose again.

Experiment Gone Right: It was a biological weapon deliberately created and released.

A Result Of Climate Change: Some sort of virus, bacteria, or fungus was trapped in the ice and, as the icecaps melted, it was released.

Magic: An option for if you're going for a more fantastical setting.

Virus / Fungal Infection: A classic, but a good one.

Aliens: It's a result of alien interference.

2. Build Your Zombies

There are many things to consider when your deciding what traits your zombies will have and a lot of that will stem from your origins. Do they just shuffle or can they run? Can they evolve or change? Can they speak? How is the infection spread e.g. is it by touch, by biting, is it airborne? Are they affected by the cold (with no body heat it might freeze them solid or at the very least slow them down)? Are they affected by the heat (this will speed up the rotting process maybe causing them to fall apart)? Do they congregate in groups? Is there a cure? Can it even be cured? How quickly will an infected person turn? Can they swim / move through water? Can animals be infected or can they carry diseases? What are the zombies senses like e.g. can they sniff people out? How do they hunt e.g. are attracted by noise, or smell?

All these will factor will determine how likely it is for your human character to survive.

Most importantly, what are you going to call them? In most media, zombies are never called zombies.

3. Themes

The zombie genre explores some of the most interesting themes (at least to me), as often the true monsters of zombie stories tends to be what humanity becomes when law and order is overturned. How far will people go to survive? Who are the true monsters; the zombies, or the people left behind?

4. Characters

Whether you have one human character or, more likely, you end up having a group, it's interesting to explore the pack bonding that occurs when these people trauma bond with each other. They go from strangers to a family unit willing to kill to protect each other.

Some things to consider:

Who is more likely to survive the initial outbreak? First responders will probably die first as they will be on the front lines during the initial outbreak. Most people in cities will die. Rural communities / those who live in isolation will be more likely to survive the initial stages.

Humanity WILL change: in order to survive people will become increasingly ruthless and selfish. This is an arc you may wish to explore through a character.

Who will be valued: doctors, vets, anyone with combat experience, will be highly valued by survivor groups. What skills will your groups need/look for? If your story takes place years/decades after the first outbreak are these skills taught and handed down or were they hoarded. What professions are more likely to survive your zombies?

Trauma: ALL your characters when exposed to your setting WILL be affected. They will all handle this in their own way. It is up to you to decide how they do it and how it manifests. Are they paranoid? Are they mistrusting? Do they try to drink to forget? Do they push others away because they lost people? Or are they clingy?

5. Setting

Your setting will have a great impact on your characters. Cities are likely to become overrun, rural communities are likely to last longer. In the cold, zombies might be slow or stop all together until they thaw. In the heat, they might rot quicker and fall apart.

If your story takes places years after the first outbreak it is likely most stores will have been stripped of their supplies by various groups.

Places where communities might form:

A bunker: is this the beginning where people are afraid? Is this later on when they need to leave when they are running out of supplies? Have generations lived down there?

A boat or a series of boats: it's mobile and zombies are not likely to be able to swim. How do they get their food? How do they get clean drinking water?

A prison: It's defendable, but how did they clear it out?

An old castle or fort: they're built for defence but how do they get supplies?

Hills / Mountain: the terrain makes it difficult for a hoard of zombies to navigate.

6. First Response / First Days

This will be where most stories begin. The response will depend on your selected origins. Who are the first to die? Who is more likely to survive? How desperate is your character to survive? How smart is your character? What is the government's response (do they want to help, will they send in the armies, or will they burn cities in an attempt to contain the zombies)?

Where does the outbreak begin?

How quickly does it spread?

7. Decay of Modern Society

All rule and law WILL breakdown, but how long does it take? This will happen quicker in some groups / people than it will in others. What rules will groups enact amongst themselves?

Have buildings become rundown and overgrown? Is tinned food still good? How have people adapted to their situation? Do cars still work?

8. Supplies

What are people eating? How are they getting it? What about clean water? Medicine?

All this will impact how long your characters will supplies and can add conflicts and dangers for your group. A zombie in a well will taint the water. A store that's been cleaned out will leave your character hungry, desperate, and irritable. If your character is diabetic, how are they getting insulin or NOT getting insulin. What about asthma? Can they find inhalers?

9. Dangers

Obviously, you have the zombies but there are other dangers out there.

Consider:

Other people within their group, other groups, or lone survivors.

The weather

Unstable buildings

Injuries and illnesses

Their own mental health

Eating the wrong plant

Animal e.g. roaming packs of starving dogs

REMEMBER; WHILE ALL WILL CHANGE, HUMANS WILL ALWAYS BE HUMANS. SHOW THE BAD, BUT ALSO THE GOOD.

[grison-in-space]

Grudgingly I had to give up dicking around on the Internet and go do some house cleaning. I'm listening to Mary Roach tell me about cholera dynamics when I remember, and I want to tell Tumblr—

Did you know that the same specialist predator/prey population dynamics over time that you usually see described in terms of Canadian lynx and snowshoe hare also apply perfectly well to Vibrio cholerae and its most common bacteriophage?

And that this is a major factor in why pathogenic cholera outbreaks — caused mostly by only one lineage of V. cholerae bacteria — eventually fade even if the population isn't wholly infected by cholera or wiped out by it?

The world is a wild and fascinating place.

[geomimetry]

AL-AN’s colors

Alright so I’ve been trying to make understanding AL-AN’s colors as easy as possible for me, so I’ll start with color coding his lines in the fabricator base. I’ve decided to only use the final version of the game for this. The colors in Robin’s lines also indicate AL-AN’s color as she says them.

Before data transfer begins. Robin commences data transfer. AL-AN stretches. AL-AN: It has been some time since I last stretched out in so many dimensions. Like waking from a dream. AL-AN picks Robin up with his levitator arm. Robin: Whoa! Hey. AL-AN waves back. Robin: You’re really not in my head anymore? AL-AN: There are some remnants. (Pause.) Would you like your memories of me removed as well? Robin: Are you kidding? No way. You still owe me the end of your story. AL-AN: I told you I must return home. To assess. Repair. Make amends. Robin: Tell me more. AL-AN: When the bacteria escaped, it was my fault. I disobeyed the directive from my network. (Pause.) AL-AN stares off into space. Robin: Oh no... AL-AN turns green and teleports to the terminal. AL-AN: We noticed that a species of leviathan young produced an enzyme that is efficient against the bacteria. I thought if we incubated Sea Dragon eggs, we might expedite their hatching. I was not wrong... Robin: But... AL-AN: It would appear that Sea Dragon parents are stronger and more motivated than our facility was rated to handle. Robin: And the bacteria got out, infecting everything. How many survived the outbreak, back home? Are they still waiting for someone to bring back a cure? AL-AN: I do not know. Robin: Can I help? AL-AN: The fact that I withheld this information does not concern you? Robin: It was certainly manipulative. But I’ve also made my own share of mistakes. I’m still committed to helping. AL-AN: I accept your help. Find me at the Gate when you are ready. In te meantime, I must prepare.

The colors used are as follows: Purple Cool pink Green Warm pink with hints of orange Blue Saturated neutral to warm pink Orange

I'll get into what I think the colors mean in a second, but first let me preface it by saying that I could have gotten some of the colors wrong as the lighting conditions change in the scene. I also want to mention that I don't think the emotion behind a color varies from Architect to Architect. They seem to value efficiency, so having to learn the color-emotion combinations of each Architect would not be ideal. Therefore, I think this color chart applies not only to AL-AN, but to every Architect.

Purple seems to be a sort of stand-by color, as well as a color between some of the color shifts (not apparent in my color coding above). It could possibly mean there is no consciousness currently inhabiting the vessel. The in between shifts of purple could just be a product of two colors blending together as they shift from one to the other.

Cool pink seems to be a neutral color. AL-AN is not feeling any specific emotion strongly enough for it to show. It is possible that AL-AN could suppress his feelings somewhat, resulting in this neutral color.

Green seems to signify a heavier processing load and analytical thinking. He turns green as he mentions the need to assess the state of his homeworld. He turns green when he notices or remembers the terminal and what his next step for now is. What's perplexing is that he turns green when stretching too, but this could be explained by the fact that AL-AN is getting reacquainted with an Architect vessel after having been in storage and in Robin's mind for a long time. He is also waking up the facility from what seems to be a low power mode as well as powering on the robotic arms. I believe this would need some processing power. Furthermore, it does make sense that Architects would predominantly use green in their work in this case as they seem to value information and knowledge.

Warm pink with hints of orange gives me the impression of fondness and companionship. He turns this color when first looking at and interacting with Robin in his new body, before the weight of his past mistakes crashes into him again as he tells her his story.

Blue looks to me like joy or possibly amusement. He turns this color when waving back and when Robin speaks to him. He could be happy just for that, or perhaps because he is happy he is no longer limited to her cerebral cortex and can now start making real progress in returning to his home and making amends.

Saturated pink could mean embarrassment. It makes sense when applied to the part where he talks about the accident being his fault. The embarrassment he feels after waving back and hearing Robin ask if he's really not in her head anymore could be because he does not know what the gesture means, that he's a bit embarrassed by the awed reaction from Robin, because there is a bit of an awkward silence at that moment, or because of the fond and joyful feelings he's having at the moment. And then he's only feeling embarrassment as he talks about what he thought was his foolproof solution regarding the incubation of the Sea Dragon eggs. He remains embarrassed from there on out—for not knowing the extent of the damage he caused back home, for withholding crucial information about him. It could be a reason for wanting some space from Robin, telling her to meet him at the Gate when she's ready. Though perhaps he simply needs time to prepare or is only giving Robin time to prepare and his suggestion is unrelated to his embarrassment.

Orange seems like anger. He turns orange after admitting that he disobeyed the directive from his network, which he is probably angry with himself for. Orange shows up only once in this entire scene for a very brief amount of time, and I feel it makes sense in case it does signify anger, as AL-AN does not come across as someone who is easy to anger.

This is how I interpreted his colors anyhow. Some emotions we didn't get to see being represented by a color, like sadness, grief, fear, and love, or perhaps I am simply wrong in my assessment. It's possible these emotions have their own colors, but will need to exist outside of canon.

TL;DR Purple — Stand-by. No consciousness inhabiting the vessel. Cool pink — Neutral. Green — Processing. Analyzing. Warm pink with hints of orange — Fondness. Companionship. Blue — Joy. Amusement. Saturated neutral to warm pink — Embarrassment. Orange — Anger.

[pinnipediia]

Leptospirosis in California Sea Lions

With the arrival of August comes the return of the California sea lions to our area of the coast, and with the sea lions comes leptospirosis. 7/31/23 is when I first heard the sounds of their barking in the bay from my apartment, which was the first sign of their return from migration.

Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that's caused by the Leptospira bacteria. Lepto outbreaks have occurred in Cali sea lions in our area throughout the years, and it tends to occur in two-year time periods every 4-5 years or so. i.e., if a lepto outbreak occurs one year, it's common for it to occur for one more year afterwards.

Usually, pinnipeds don't need to drink fresh water since they get their water from their food. Lepto, however, damages their kidneys which ends up dehydrating the sea lions. This means that occasionally Cali sea lions will seek out water. My mentor told me about one sea lion that wandered far out of the water into a neighborhood one summer, dazed and disoriented and looking for fresh water!

Leptospirosis can be passed from animals to humans through direct contact, primarily through urine, so keep your pets leashed and keep your distance from wild animals!

[shiut]

Homunculus Research (the kinda scientific edition)

Time for me to do the thing that I do where I think way too much about barely explained fictional science and try my best to apply actual science to it. For fun.

So, here is my biological summary for the homunculi of Rain Code, which will be mostly non-canon speculation.

What is a homunculus? A homunculus is an artificially created, cloned individual using the genetic information of a human for the purpose of developing immortality and regeneration applicable to military use.

What is a homunculus made of and how? A homunculus is created from gram-negative bacteria and human cells through complete recombinant DNA cloning. This technique is achieved through taking the genes of the human donor and incorporating the information into a bacterial chromosomal DNA and plasmid(the secondary circular DNA molecule of bacteria used for gene replication and transfer). Additionally, the incorporation of the enzyme telomerase and protein p53 is applied.

What contributes to a homunculus's regenerative properties and immortality? Homunculi exhibit accelerated initial growth and healing thanks to the bacterial hybridization of their cells. Bacteria have one of the fastest replication rates, and can replicate at a rate of about every 10 minutes compared to the average human cell's replication rate of every 24 hours. Gram-negative bacteria also have a complex layering of membrane that allow them to be more resistant to antibiotics and a more sturdy structure. Bacteria have the ability to go through inactivation, where they go into a state of metabolic dormancy that protect them and allow them to be able to wait out periods of extreme conditions and nutrient scarcity. Telomerase, the 'immortality enzyme', is utilized for its function in restoring the length of telomeres. Telomeres are a protective chromosomal cap that normally erode with each cell division, and it's this shortening that causes DNA damage and aging in humans. Telomerase repairs this erosion and allows cells to divide indefinitely. However, because of telomerase's link to increased rates of cancer, additional copies of the gene responsible for the production of p53 protein is also incorporated. P53 is a tumor suppressor that allows damaged cells to repair themselves before dividing, which prevents the spread of cancerous cells.

Why is homunculus blood pink? Gram-negative bacteria is identifiable for its bright pink color by using the gram staining method. This is because the characteristic cell wall structure of gram-negative bacteria which makes them so resilient also causes the bacteria to display the color of the safranin. Homunculus researchers may apply a gram staining process to the circulatory system of homunculi for the purpose of identification and observation.

Relevance of gram-negative bacteria in gene cloning and military research. The most commonly used strain of bacteria used in gene cloning research is the gram-negative bacteria such as e. coli for its ready availability, ease of growth and manipulation, and simplicity. Gram-negative bacteria such as e. coli has a history in military research, in cases such as a probiotic when an army surgeon isolated a strain found in a soldier who, unlike his comrades, did not develop an illness from an infectious outbreak.

What is the zombified state of imperfect homunculi? It is the result of cell inactivation that, while it is a protective measure for the cells, the slowed or halted metabolic state causes the low-functioning mental and physical faculties that present zombie-like symptoms, and is currently difficult to impossible to reverse in imperfect homunculi due to their varying degrees of cellular instability.

Why do imperfect homunculi require compounds found in human flesh for nutrients? Plasmid stability in DNA cloned cells is often influenced by the original donor's genotype. Imperfect homunculi cells may include defects in the cell division process where the stability of the human DNA contained in the cell plasmid results in incomplete DNA replication, whereas each division causes informational gaps in the gene and interrupt protein synthesis. These gaps can be filled and repaired by taking and incorporating the required information from a healthy human cell through the process of horizontal gene transfer. Human matter must be consumed and broken down in order for the homunculus cells to initiate this process. The lack of these nutrients can cause the homunculus cells to go into a state of inactivation.

Why are imperfect homunculi vulnerable to sunlight? UV has been known to exhibit antimicrobial effects. Many bacteria, especially gram-negative bacteria, are averse to sunlight. Exposure to the UV radiation in sunlight results in the damage or solar induced inactivation of unstable homunculus cells.

Written, hopefully, as simplified and concise as possible for readability. I feel like I'm forgetting more things I wanted to address, but maybe I'll just leave it here and just make more parts if I think of it :P

[ralfmaximus]

Here's the complete list of DHS flagged search terms. Don't use any of these on social media to avoid having the 3-letter agencies express interest in your activities!

DHS & Other Agencies

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

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Agent

Task Force

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Hacker

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Worm

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Social media

SOCIAL MEDIA?!