#it’s full steam or nitrogen freeze

[thresholdbb]

[toadstoolgardens]

Cultivating Vegetables: Fabaceae Family

Peas, broad beans, runner beans, French beans, Lima beans, soy beans, and peanuts are all members of the Fabaceae family. This family is the most useful for those looking to grow their own food because it provides the most protein and because of it's nitrogen-fixing ability.

Peas:

Fresh peas in the summer are one of the greatest rewards from the garden. Later in the season they can be also cooked and dried. They are a great source of nourishment and can even work in a small garden by growing dwarf peas.

Soil & Climate: Peas aren't fussy when it comes to soil, light soil will give you an early crop and a heavy soil a late one, but rich loam is best (which can be achieved by adding lots of compost and organic material). Peas don't like acid soil, so if your pH is lower than 6.5 add lime. Peas grow well in cooler climates with plenty of moisture. If you live in a hot climate they may need to be grown in spring and fall to avoid the hottest times of year.

Propagation & Care: Make a trench with a hoe about 2 inches deep and 4 inches wide. Sprinkle the pea seeds evenly with about an inch or two between each. Rake the soil back into the trench and press down firmly. Give it a good soaking if the soil is dry which will start them growing. You can also speed up germination by soaking the seeds for up to 48 hours before planting.

Peas take about four months to grow to maturity. Sow some every fortnight from March to July to have fresh peas all summer.

Unless you're growing the smallest dwarf peas, they'll benefit from sticks to hold them up. Any branches with twigs left on will do or some course wire netting. Peas don't like drought, so watering in dry weather will result in more peas. However, don't water the foliage in muggy weather to avoid mildew and rot.

Harvesting: Use both hands to pick peas, holding the vine in one hand and the pod in the other. Very young peas are delicious and full of vitamins A, B, and C. They are super sweet and packed with sugar! A few hours after picking this sugar turns to starch (that's why store bought peas taste like nothing but mush) so eat them fresh or freeze them immediately to preserve the sugar.

As peas grow older and tougher on the vine you'll need to boil them. You can also leave them on the vine to keep getting tougher and tougher until they're completely ripe and hard, then pull the vines out and hang them up. Once the vines dry thresh the peas out and store them to be boiled at a later time.

Broad Beans:

For the self-sufficient gardener, broad beans are one of the most important crops. They'll keep you fed right through the year with their high protein content.

Soil & Climate: Broad beans like strong, compost rich soil. They are very similar to peas in terms of their climate preferences, but they're more hardy than peas and can be planted out later in the autumn. Broad beans also don't like acid and prefer of pH of 6.5 or higher. Broad beans benefit from potash and comfrey leaves as a green manure if you have access to them.

Propagation & Care: If you live in a climate that doesn't receive heavy snows, sow your broad beans in autumn. If it's too cold where you are, sow them as early in the spring as you can. Soak the seeds for 24 hours prior to planting. Dig trenches 3 inches deep and about 2 feet apart and sprinkle the seeds 6 inches apart in each one.

Adding mulch between your plants is helpful. If your beans are planted someplace windy or exposed you may want to stake each corner of the row and run a string from stake to stake to keep the beans from falling over. In most gardens though this isn't necessary.

Harvesting: Snip the tips of growing broad beans in the spring to thwart black fly, these tips are some of the tastiest fresh greens of the springtime. Soon after this you can start pulling the small pods and cooking them as they are. Later in the season the pods get tougher and must be split open and the beans removed. When the seeds too get too touch let them dry on the plant and harvest by pulling the entire plant. Hang the plants up and shuck the seeds when they're completely dry and store. Soak dried beans for at least 24 hours before cooking and boil them well.

Runner Beans:

Both beautiful and nutritious, the runner bean is an ideal plant for a small-scale vegetable garden.

Soil & Climate: Runner beans are not frost hardy and prefer a warm sunny climate, although this isn't essential. In warm climates it can survive the winter underground and grow up again in spring as a perennial. In cold climates you can sow indoors and plant outside after the last frost. Runner beans need lots of moisture at the roots and need rain showers or watering to flower. It grows well in most soils but prefers rich ones with plenty of humus and moisture. 6.5 pH is ideal, so lime if lower.

Propagation & Care: In autumn, dig a deep trench and fill it with muck, compost, or any other organic matter you can find. In the spring cover the trench with soil and plant on that. Sow after the last frost 3 inches deep and 10 inches apart.

Before your runner beans are too tall, stake them with at least 7ft tall stakes. They can climb as high as 12 feet and can make a great shade or privacy producer. They can also be planted in a circle by building a wigwam or tipi out of of poles, creating a little bean fort! The bean fort is honestly my favorite reason to grow runner beans.

Harvesting: Pick runner beans like peas, with both hands. Pick and pick again! Keep picking them while they're young and tender and try not to let them get old and tough on the vine. If you keep picking they'll keep growing!

French Beans:

Soil & Climate: Plant when the soil is warm in the summer. They prefer lighter soil and soils improved with compost, and again a pH of around 6.5. The more humus you can incorporate while digging the better!

Propagation & Care: Dig trenches two feet apart and sow the seeds 12 inches apart in each trench. Just keep your bed well weeded and the soil nice and loose!

Harvesting: Like the rest of the beans, you can eat the green pods with young beans inside or the ripened beans can be dried. Let them ripen on the vine, then pick and hang the vines upside down and thresh the beans out when fully dry.

Lima Beans:

Comes in both bush and climbing varieties.

Soil & Climate: Lima beans will need at least three months of fairly farm days and nights and the seeds need warm soil to germinate. Wait a few weeks after the last frost to plant and keep in mind the first frost of autumn will cut them down. Lima beans like light soil but will grow anywhere except heavy clay, they prefer a slightly acid soil around a pH of 6.

Propagation & Care: Sow seeds about 3 feet apart for bush varieties and 8 inches apart for climbing varieties. Bush limas should be in rows 30 inches apart and climbers in one row. Mulching is very valuable and the beans must be kept well watered!

Harvesting: For eating green, pick and pick again once the beans are swelling in the pod. Like runner beans they get tough when left on the vine too long. If you want to dry them for butter beans leave them on the plant until they're dry and thresh by walking on the plants or picking by hand.

Soy Beans:

Very high in protein, soy beans can be eaten fresh, dried, or crushed for their oil.

Soil & Climate: Soy beans only grow where it's warm. They love lots of organic matter and moist conditions and can tolerate slightly acid soils but aim for pH 6.5.

Propagation & Care: Sow outdoors in the early summer, typically when apple trees are in full bloom is the perfect time to sow soy beans. Plant 1 inch deep and 3 inches apart in rows. Make sure to weed rigorously and add mulch with compost if you can.

Harvesting: Pick soy beans and eat them whole or wait for them to ripen and steam or boil the pods before shelling them. You can also pull the plants and hang them to dry.

Peanuts:

Peanuts are packed with vitamins A, B, and E as well as protein!

Soil & Climate: Peanuts need a warm growing season of four to five months. They like sandy soil and actually prefer an acid soil, around pH of 5. Dig the soil deeply and incorporate lots of compost, but don't add lime for peanuts.

Propagation & Care: You can plant peanuts shells and all or shell them and plant the nuts. Plant shells 8 inches apart, nuts 4 inches apart. In warm climates plant 4 inches deep, in cool climates plant much more shallow around 1.5 inches deep in rows 30 inches apart. Plant right after the last frost to give them the longest growing season, especially in cooler climates. They may need to be started under glass or other protection if your climate is very cold. As they grow, raise the soil in a circle around the plant so the fruits growing at the end of the stems can easily bury themselves. Peanuts only ripen underground.

Harvesting: In a warm climate pull the vines when the leaves go yellow and hang them to dry. In cooler climates leave them under the first frosts, the nuts will keep ripening underground even if the leaves frost away. Before eating, roast your peanuts in the shells for 20 minutes in a 300 degree F oven and leave them to cool.

Seymour, John. The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. DK Publishing, 2019.

[split-n-splice]

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

37. Aura of Others – 10

It was only after Drakken had left and she’d had a few minutes to fully come back to her senses did she remember why she didn’t want to be left at her apartment in the first place. The solution was simple but not easy, and once again, she opted to ignore it completely, barely succeeding.

Instead of succumbing to the siren call of a little orange bottle or finally dumping the drug down the drain once and for all, Shilo decided a refreshing walk in the dark to the river for air and a smoke under the bridge was in order, followed by a stop at the 24-Seven for a Freezee and a snack. She couldn’t help finding herself back at the bridge, hoping just a little that her favorite stalker could take another pass through her neighborhood so she could hitch a ride with him, but no dingy white utility van came chugging out of the dark to whisk her off. After finishing her slushy and chips, she resigned herself to waiting the full twelve or so hours until he returned for her, even if she was tempted to turn on her heel and hoof it to the lair.

She slept in her own bed that night, as she should, blanket pulled up to her chin. It was all she could do to hold on tight to the phantom sensation of peace left behind by her old friend’s inexplicable magic touch.

Her efforts were almost in vain but determination anchored her in place throughout the night. When her alarm welcomed the dawn, she could barely give herself a pat on the back for not giving in and seeking out the quick solution with adverse effects. That she hadn’t scorched her bedsheets was a plus.

Hunched over a bowl of cereal at the wobbly dining table, she was just considering going back to bed to try sleeping in when the telephone rang, giving her a small start. She turned a deaf ear to it, dreading the likelihood of Buckley’s girls calling to get on her case about one thing or another, but grudgingly decided to answer when the caller tried a third time – although simply blasting the phone was definitely appealing.

“Hello, you’ve reached—,” she began monotonously, only to be interrupted with a crabby reply.

“Would you get out here already?” groused Drakken from the other end of the line. “I’ve only been honking for the past five minutes, and I’m starting to get looks.” She hadn’t noticed any honking over the obnoxious television blasting downstairs.

Shilo took an involuntary step toward the kitchen window, but the length of the cord stopped her. “Why not just knock?”

The stubborn man grunted. “It’s freezing outside. No.”

Some frosty fresh air might do the trick to wake her up, like a splash of cold water, she decided, and hung up without another word.

A couple minutes later, she was dressed and diving out the door with her go-bag slung over her shoulder. Restless night aside, she couldn’t stave off the trace of a smile until she was facing the beat-up old van, glad to get away from the temptation.

Her smile was definitely gone when Drakken greeted her with a wry, “Good morning, sunshine.” One tired look from her was all it took for his own smile to wither and fade, and he mumbled, “Or not.”

Or not was right. An overcast had the little desert oasis looking bleak today, and it certainly didn’t help that there was no henchman on duty to tend to the gate. The one upside was the new mobile phone Drakken passed to her to replace the one she’d destroyed some weeks ago, which was only to be used for work-related calls, not “bullshitting with friends,” as he put it.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” she wondered, climbing out and rolling her shoulders. She tried not to glance toward the mess of aircraft odds and ends littering half the garage, or get her hopes up that she’d finally get to see him put them to good use.

Drakken flashed a crooked grin. “I can let you fire the cannon,” he offered. “Or you could give the henchmen a brushup. Keep them sharp.” He flapped a hand and shrugged then, taking a few quick steps ahead of her. “Or you could just sit around and look pretty. Whatever tickles your fancy, I suppose.”

“We need to do something exciting,” she complained, following him through the foyer and up the stairs.

The man snorted and shot a frown over his shoulder. “I tried that, but you had some very important business to attend to Friday night. Or did you forget?”

She wished she could. Her face warmed over as she wondered if it had really been worth sacrificing a weekend of thrills and ocean breeze. “Sore loser,” she coughed into her fist. Drakken’s frown turned into a deep grimace and his glare might have burned anyone else, but before he could open his mouth to retort anything, she gave his shoulder a rough shove through the lab door to push him toward the cannon. “C’mon, let’s fire that puppy up. I wanna take a shot.”

He grunted something curt but complied, wearily pleading her to hold her horses while henchmen on call moved the device to a safer location – outdoors and facing the mountainside. As the two goons in red jumpsuits retreated, Shego didn’t miss one of them playfully elbow Drakken hard enough to make him stumble. She almost barked a laugh, but wiped the smile from her face as Drakken rubbed his arm and came skulking up to her.

“Do they always push you around?” she mocked under her breath, though the henchmen were already out of earshot.

“They’re new,” he defended in a low grumble. “They’re still learning who the boss is around here.”

“Well, toughen up,” advised Shego, turning to inspect the cannon. “Maybe work on your evil laugh. Every villain worth their salt has an evil laugh. You know, go into the theatrics of it. It’s cheesy, I know, but it’ll remind those dropouts what they signed up for.” As she watched Drakken from the corner of her eye, pouting and stroking his chin, she couldn’t help musing inwardly that it might help remind him of what he’d hired her for too. They’d get to the chase eventually, once the looming threat of her family was off her back, but for now she’d have to resign herself to putting on charades and lying low.

Donning earmuffs and goggles, she couldn’t wait until the day came that lying low was no longer such a priority – because the thrill of firing a deadly weapon like a cannon only whet her appetite for what the future had in store.

She pushed up her goggles and knocked back the muffs, peering over the control board to see the fate of a wooden dummy and the boulder behind it. Barely a smoking sliver remained of the target, and all that was left of the boulder was jagged chunks of rubble.

Drakken’s hand clapped down on her shoulder, a wide grin stretched on his face. Protection aside, her ears still rang and she barely heard his laugh, let alone him ask, “Think that’ll stop an intruder?”

She gave a confirming thumb up. “Dead in their tracks.” Her answer was maybe a little louder than necessary, and maybe her smile was a little wider than necessary too.

He smothered his own grin then and pawed a droplet from his glasses, only to look skyward and subject himself to more speckles on the lenses. “Good day for this,” he decided merrily.

“The locals probably just think it’s thunder,” Shego agreed. She could hope, anyway.

Smiling proudly at his creation, her companion patted the body of the cannon before taking a swift step back, hissing and shaking his hand. With the onset of a drizzle, steam was beginning to rise from the weapon. “Two more shots, and we should let her cool down,” he said, retreating to his place a few steps behind her. “And dial it back, just a little. Don’t want to blast through the cafeteria wall. Or maybe it’s the dorms back there…” He scrunched his brow in uncertainty.

Looking up at the wooded mountain slope, it was hard to believe there was an entire subterranean headquarters dug into it, but she’d seen crazier things. Things like manholes and dumpsters that lead to the immaculate networks of tunnels and offices beneath cities, and lairs built anywhere from in plain sight to active volcanoes.

Drakken was exuberantly pleased with his handiwork and her use of it, even if she intentionally missed the second target to blow out the bottom of a pine to crush the target instead. By the third shot though, a warning light and persistent beep came on, and Drakken was practically shoving her aside to flip switches and smash a button or two, the humming cannon hissing and billowing steam and an ominous nitrogen fog which he danced from foot to foot in for a brief moment before bouncing away hissing half-formed curses under his breath.

“Okay!” he said, clapping his hands as he strode by. “This weather has gotten miserable. I don’t know about you, I’m ready for a nice cup of cocoa m—hot cocoa and a good book by the fire.”

The sprinkle hadn’t yet seeped through the fabric of her uniform, though she couldn’t deny it was a little nippy out. Still, Shego didn’t protest as she abandoned the weapon to cool down, and turning down a mug of hot chocolate proved impossible.

She didn’t count on Drakken actually grabbing a book off a bookshelf otherwise dedicated to houseplants before leaving the living room, and she lingered an extra minute on the couch, blowing into her piping hot mug for a moment before deciding she might like watching the fire better than the television after all.

As expected, Drakken was down in his office, settled in at his desk with the fat book split open before him to study some nonsense. When Shego threw herself down in the computer chair before the CCTV across the office, he looked up with wide eyes and wiped away his chocolate mustache.

“Did you just get here?” he blurted, sounding a little bewildered.

She didn’t answer, sparing only a glance his way before giving a small snort and kicking her feet up on the surveillance desk. The magazine stationed there had been read front to back more than once, but she spread it on her lap regardless.

The minutes ticked by, each second punctuated by the analog clock on the wall just behind Drakken, which Shego eventually had enough of. Maybe she was just a little too eager to blast anything even mildly annoying to smithereens after her fun with the cannon, but it was almost worth it just to hear him yelp as he ducked and shielded his head from falling debris.

“Shego!” he barked, nearly lunging across the desk toward her. “Don’t spook me like that! I have had a very bad night, and I’m jumpy enough as it is.”

Arching her brow at him, she had to wonder, “I thought everything was hakuna matata?”

“What?”

“Your mommy issue.” She settled back in her seat, turning back to her magazine. “Thought ya fixed it?”

“What?” he repeated, and shook his head with unkempt hair flapping. “No, no, not that kind of bad night. Bad as in…hnng...” He bit at his nails. “I-I don’t wanna talk about it.” He dropped back down into his seat.

“Sweet! I don’t wanna hear about it.”

“Shego,” Drakken whined.

She recognized the tone, if only because she’d heard it a million times from her baby brothers begging her for one thing or another. After all that practice, she really ought to be impervious to whining, but she made the mistake of casting another glance in his direction.

He wasted no time once he had her attention, blurting out, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Oh, not this again,” she groaned, head lolling back in exasperation before shooting him a critical frown. “What? Did something go bump in the night? You live in a creepy cave, man. What can I tell you?”

Drakken’s face had blushed purple and he stared intently at the fireplace. “It was a little more than a bump.”

“Then it was probably just a bad trip,” she decided when he stubbornly zipped his lips sealed tight.

Not tight enough, apparently. After only a second or two, the words flew out. “I swear there was someone in my lab with me last night! I kept feeling like I was being watched – or touched – and then one of the Bebes sat up and fell off the table, but she couldn’t have! She wasn’t even plugged in!” He flapped his hands as he explained, until he briefly hid his face in them. “And then when I tried to go to bed, the blankets suddenly – don’t give me that look, Shego! I’m not on anything, and I wasn’t drinking either, for your information!”

She wiped “that look” – whatever it was, cringing disbelief or something – from her face and tried to look back to the magazine. “O-kay,” she said, pursing her lips, and raised a finger to begin. “One, you’re so sleep-deprived on a regular basis, I’m not surprised if you hallucinate sometimes. Two, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen your robo-girlfriends you’re playing god with twitch all on their own before. They’re a little too lifelike, if you ask me. It’s creepy. Third, what about your blankie? What, did you see a sheet ghost?”

“YES!” he practically shrieked, interrupting her quiet chuckle. He was trembling on the edge of his seat. “I thought for sure it was you screwing with me! Something very strange is happening here, Shego. I-I am going to get to the bottom of it – but please – can you…not...go home? Tonight?” His nerves now surfaced, he’d made a complete 180-turn from his insistence she leave yesterday.

While Shego wasn’t sure she’d yet to see him so jittery and scared silly, her initial reflex was to decline. She held her tongue, though. “You’re not just trying to trick me into sleeping with you tonight, are you? What do I look like? A Cuddle Buddy?” she jeered, if only because dry humor was a better option than taking his concerns seriously. Still, she wished she’d thought twice before the words left her mouth, because her cheeks weren’t the only ones to get rosy.

Drakken blanched before his face flushed a deep purple. “Oh, no. Goodness no. Not if you – I would need to be out of my mind – that isn’t happening anymore, Shego. You may lay claim to the couch, and no more. I don’t like sharing.” He shook an unconvincing finger at her, as if he had the authority to tell her where she could and couldn’t crash. Which, technically as her boss and the owner of the lair, he sort of did – but she was willing to disregard that authority.

“Fine,” she said, still preferring to remain skeptical he’d seen anything at all. He had to have been imagining it. “Not sure how useful a bodyguard is against a ghost, but hey! I’ll give it a go. But you know that means you’ve gotta take me to Buckley’s in the morning, right?” She might have liked to see him struck with worry at the prospect, but he wasn’t.

“Right,” Drakken sighed, and he relaxed enough to surprise her. Whatever he may or may not have encountered last night had evidently spooked him enough to risk encountering the very real and very intimidating Joanne Buckley. “So you’ll stay?”

Shego gave a nod and a shrug. “If it makes you feel better.”

“I do think it would,” he mumbled, turning back to his book.

She stood as she knocked back the rest of her cocoa, and crossed the office to reach for Drakken’s mug. “Refill?” she offered.

“Uhm…yes—no—maybe. Sure, yes, please,” sputtered Drakken as he tugged his book away from her and pointedly rested his arms across the pages. Shego narrowed her eyes at the familiarity of it. If he was one of her brothers, if she was back home in Go City, she would have yanked the book away to see what comic he was reading when he ought to be studying.

The man gasped and grappled for it when she snatched it up anyway. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find stamped into the cover, but she wasn’t surprised to catch him reading some Paranormal Science: Volume II baloney. She raised her brow at him as he stared back at her wide-eyed and reaching, and she studied his face just long enough to note the sickly bags under his eyes were especially dark today. He must have read Volume I last night, she figured.

She smirked and passed the book back, and he hastily clutched it close to his chest as if it were some invaluable possession his life depended on. She took his cup next and rolled her eyes as she turned away. “Promise me you’ll be doing something useful when I get back with your…cocoa moo,” she snickered over her shoulder. “That means lay off the scary bedtime stories.”

“They are not bedtime stories!” he snapped after her. “I really did see something!”

“I’m not checking for monsters under the bed,” she warned dryly as she swung into the stairwell. Goodness knew she’d had her fill of that.

His discontented grumbles faded away behind her as she climbed, yet his concerns still rang in her head. “A ghost, huh?” Shego scoffed to herself, glancing back down the dark twisting crag that sufficed for a stairwell. It was a creepy enough lair. An overactive imagination was all it would take to convince someone the place was haunted.

It had to be contagious, because as she tread quietly down the hall to the lab, each footstep faintly echoing, the hairs on the back of her neck rose and she couldn’t help wondering if she heard a second set of footsteps. She paused at the lab to listen carefully, but all was silent save for a few gently-whirring motors running in the mainframe and the rumble of the furnace kicking in, so she shrugged it off as just the echo.

She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering. It was a big lair. Far from the biggest, but it certainly wasn’t the smallest either. She’d done a fair bit of venturing, and she’d wandered down enough long empty hallways leading to nothingness and dead ends to know someone could get lost on the lower levels buried deep in the heart of the mountain.

Hadn’t Drakken said he had skeletons in his basement?

She shook her head and kicked the door of Drakken’s apartment shut behind her, but even as she tried to focus on making fresh cocoa, she couldn’t dismiss the possibility someone had died in the lair, one way or another. In the fridge, a fresh beaker of a frothy purple concoction set beside the milk served to remind her that Dr. Drakken was a scientist to some degree after all, and he did call himself a villain, so the odds of a human test subject ending in terminal failure might not be completely out of the realm of possibility.

She shuddered and grabbed the milk, reminding herself that the peculiar purple fluid in the suspicious beaker was merely a harmless home-brewed beverage Drakken liked spiking his coffee with. How twisted could a man who indulged in frothy purple creamer be?

Had Drakken been kidding yesterday when he suggested offing her friends? He certainly hadn’t been when he’d given her the new-and-improved weaponized gloves and goaded her into attacking insubordinate henchmen. Her heart gave an uneasy thud as she studied the gleam of the metallic tips at the ends of her gloved fingers. Hadn’t his last set of henchmen been afraid of him? What did they know that the new guys didn’t?

Maybe someone had been killed in the lair before.

The whistle of the teakettle made her jump.

She reached for it in reflex, only to pause and stare at the squealing pot. The microwave dinged beside her to announce the two mugs of water were hot and ready for cocoa. Her brow knit. She hadn’t set the kettle, had she? She was too impatient to bother with kettles.

Quickly flicking the burner off and moving the kettle to another, her brow furrowed as she shook her head. She pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered to herself that she was just tired.

Just as she was mixing two spoons of cocoa and a dash of milk, surely not up to snuff for picky Drakken but good enough for her baby brothers, the scream of the kettle had her dropping the jug as she leaped back.

Blurting a swear and barely catching the milk jug mid-air, she stared wide-eyed at the kettle on the burner.

She was tired.

She was just tired.

She told herself so as she all but threw the kettle into the sink under a stream of cold water.

Her face was flushed and her heart was pounding and the hot cocoa was getting cold as she stood there in the kitchen, eyes peeled for the slightest movement. She watched and stared, but not so much as a leaf of the devil’s ivy atop the fridge quivered. It had to be a prank. She found no one hiding behind the kitchen island, but swore to herself it couldn’t be anything but a prank.

Had Drakken slipped something into her hot chocolate earlier? Could the purple froth creamer induce hallucination?

Had someone died here?

Shego rubbed her neck and inwardly berated herself for getting so easily spooked as she turned back to the lukewarm mugs waiting on the counter.

She was perfectly ready to write off any and all odd events as paranoia and delusions and fatigue, but as she reached for the mugs, a tap on her shoulder had her tensing.

That was it. The last straw. Someone was screwing with her, and she was sick of it.

Was that perfume she smelled?

Where had she smelled that cherry before—?

Reflex had her whirling around, a fist clenched and flying through the air. There was no time to let the punch fall short or feel dumb for overreacting and swinging at nothing, because suddenly her knuckles were connecting with the familiar solid feel of a jaw despite nobody in sight.

A barstool toppled over and Shego heard the distinct shout of a girl.

She blinked.

Indeed, there was a young woman lying on the floor, reaching for her jaw, a trace of cherry red already dribbling down her chin.

“Phew, that felt good,” Shego breathed, rubbing her knuckles and staring in a stupor down at Priscilla Kimbley mouthing obscenities. She’d wanted to get her hands on the girl for years, and here she was now, alone and vulnerable and down on Shego’s turf. It was an opportunity to wail on her Shego might never get again.

She didn’t though.

She stared until the obvious question came to mind as the girl sat up. “How did you – where did you—?”

Priscilla’s eyes popped wide and locked on Shego’s. Her bloodied mouth fell open.

Suddenly she was gone.

“Hey! Get back here!” Shego shouted, and she dove after the – the apparition? Enemy? Intruder? She definitely landed on someone’s legs. Warm and very real to the touch, but completely invisible. Her fingers dug in to latch on, and a squeal punctuated the moment the sharpened tips of her gloves sunk through denim jeans. The girl, invisible or imagined, twisted in Shego’s grip and a heel struck her shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to dislodge her.

“Show yourself!” Shego demanded, grappling with the invisible intruder until she had the writhing girl pinned with a knee to her gut and arms held to the floor.

The squirming stopped. She felt the girl heaving for air. “Get offa me first, how ‘bout that?” spat the disembodied voice below her.

Shego hesitated.

A voice at the back of her head warned her she really shouldn’t, but she slowly backed off, one hand secure around a wrist.

Or so she thought.

A twist, and there was nothing but plain empty air to grip before she could grab hold of anything else. She was up and running, almost thankful for those middle school years in track together, and she slammed into the door just as it cracked open, slamming it shut in consequence. She locked it and leaned back heavily, blocking the only escape. The only escape she knew of anyway.

She reached out for the open air in front of her, feeling nothing. “I know you’re here,” she hissed. “How are you doing that? Did my brothers set you up with some kind of cloaking device? Did they send you?” That had to be it. “Show yourself!”

“Are you gonna punch me again?” seethed a voice from clear across the den, in the nook leading to Drakken’s room. She must have been planning to try an escape through the only other available door.

“Maybe!” Shego laughed incredulously. The idea of socking her was enticing – but getting some answers was regrettably more important.

She waited on edge for a reply.

Several seconds passed before Priscilla tried to haggle with her. “I’ll stop when you stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Your hands, pussycat.”

Her glance flicked down. Without consciously intending to, her hands were outstretched to her sides, clutching hot crackling plasma ready to throw. It took a deep breath and determination to withdraw it, taking comfort in knowing she could flare up again in an instant if need be. It would seem whatever trick Priscilla had up her sleeve, she could call on it just as quickly, so she had that to contend with.

Shego set her hands on her hips and waited impatiently.

Like a camouflaged chameleon, the disguise faded away until the girl was plain as day on the far side of the room.

“Alright, fork it over,” Shego insisted, holding out a hand.

“Fork what over?”

“The cloaking – whatever they gave you – whatever it is you’re doing that with! I want all your bugs on the table, right now,” she insisted, mustering up the commanding tone she’d once used on her little brothers. Issuing orders to Priscilla, one year her senior and the bad influence since preschool, felt a little wrong – but Shego had busted her fair and square infiltrating her boss’s lair—

She realized with a nervous skip of her heartbeat that she’d messed up. The fact someone had infiltrated at all, worse yet because of her, could not go over well with Dr. Drakken. Especially if the rat had been sent by the infamous spy organization manipulating her former team. She was guilty by association. She could always pretend she’d invited Prissy over – but Drakken was liable to blow a gasket – and there was still the problem of Global Justice – who was she kidding? That was a crappy idea. It would never work.

“Geez, Shi, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” scoffed the girl as she straightened her pink letter jacket.

“What?” she snapped. A ghost? Well, in a way she had. Priscilla must have been the ghoul haunting the lair. It would explain a lot. She shook her head and persisted. “The bugs. Any GJ tech you got on you. Get rid of it. Now.”

Priscilla crossed her arms and sneered. “What makes you think I’m working for them?”

“Because!” Shego spat. She almost stepped away from the door to storm up to the leery girl to throttle answers out of her. “Why else would you just show up right after my brothers? And you can’t expect me to believe you aren’t bugged when you can – when you can—,” she heaved for breath and reached for her temple.

Was she bugged? Practically ever since she became Shego, the slippery girl had evaded any attempt to confront her. Every time without fail, she’d disappeared without a trace.

Shego gawped at the girl who’d walked out of her life years ago, not unlike others. She had a lot of nerve to come walking back in now.

Priscilla’s smile wasn’t friendly. “That’s cute. You think you were the only ones in the blast radius to be affected when Lady Fate gave the neighborhood a makeover?” she snorted. “You think you’re the center of the world as always, I see. Still wanna feel wanted and special?”

A wolf in a cotton-candy sheep’s clothing, Priscilla sure knew where to hit where it hurt. Shego swallowed bile and willed herself not to let the wound show. Prissy would only pick at it.

“What do you mean, affected?” Shego hissed.

“Come on, you’re smarter than that. Don’t tell me you never noticed.” The intruder’s eyes idly wandered away and she tugged at the leaf of one of Drakken’s houseplants in the nook. “Those criminals you used to fight. Some seemed a little extra special, didn’t they? Kinda gifted, right? Funny how they didn’t pop up until after the impact.”

“Team Go aren’t the only ones with a glow,” Shego surmised flatly, though the possibility was still hard to wrap her head around. Global Justice had worked tirelessly to track down anyone who might have had even the faintest trace of a glow, evaluating everyone who’d been within the blast radius. Supposedly. They’d lied before. They’d even tried lying about Lady Fate striking Go City at all, though it had been too big a crater to cover up overnight.

“Uh-huh,” said Prissy nonchalantly, breaking off a large leaf of Drakken’s monstera plant to fan herself with. She sighed. “Look, I was gonna just mess with you a bit and pop out and be like, surprise! We can be besties again! But then I find out you’re still doing the whole Shego thing, and now it’s all kind of weird.” She blew a raspberry and feigned a pout.

Shego stared with a raised eyebrow for a long moment before laughing incredulously. “You can’t expect me to believe that crock,” she shot.

“Mickey went to talk to you last night, didn’t he?” Prissy innocently wondered. “He was supposed to anyway. He was gonna explain how we couldn’t keep hanging out with you as long as Global Justice was watching you. We didn’t want to get busted and drug into it and made to join some stupid team just because it was the right thing to do.” The way she rolled her eyes, Shego was inclined to believe her.

Her chest ached. She couldn’t believe that she was buying it. “You seriously – you seriously have a glow?” she blurted. “Then why can’t I see it?”

Priscilla shrugged. “There are things the human eye can’t see,” she explained simply, and as she did, the big jagged leaf was engulfed in a shimmer like heatwaves down to every tip, and then it was gone. Yet she continued to fan herself with it. “We really did think it would be cool to reconnect and all, but I guess this was a waste of time since you’re still Shego. I should probably bail.”

Shego took a single cautious step away from the door. “Yeah. You should. I’ll get Doc to take me into town for lunch so you can hitch a ride in.” Was she seriously about to let a potential spy go running back to snitch? Potentially so. “Just keep it low-pro until then.” She’d have to weigh the potential drawbacks for beating her to a pulp later.

“Sure thing, babe,” chimed Priscilla, her apathetic voice already disembodied.

A knock at the door made Shego jump and swear under her breath. How many times was she going to jump today? She should not be this jumpy. She was willing to blame side effects of the drug.

“Shego? Are you in there?” called Drakken. “Why is the door locked? Oh, fiddlesticks, where are my keys…?”

For a fleeting moment she considered holding the door shut, but disregarded the childish notion and reluctantly unlocked the door for Drakken instead.

He must have been leaning on it trying to force it open, because he came stumbling in. “Ah, Shego! There you are,” he greeted, a little winded as he patted her on the shoulder. “Look what I found! Look, look, just look.” He was determined to make her look even if she didn’t want to, practically shoving an item in her face. So much for trying not to be childish.

She glanced between him and the door and where Priscilla had been standing moments ago across the room, until Drakken stepped into her line of sight to model goggles more absurd and protruding than his usual magnification set.

“You look ridiculous,” she grumbled as he spieled an explanation on infrared goggles and how they worked. He eagerly attempted to cinch them down and begin a search as he prattled, but she reached for them to pull off his head. “Can we play ghost hunters later? I’m starved,” she groused, trying to stay situated directly in front of him so he couldn’t peek past her to take a look around.

“There’s leftovers in the fridge,” he dismissed. He cracked a huge grin and reached for her face. “Oh, do you look strange.”

She swatted his hand away from her cheek. “You’re one to talk. Chow. Now.” Her blush had to be visible enough without thermal imaging.

“No,” he said stubbornly. “I’m going to prove it to you. I am not imagining things.” He sidestepped around her.

Shego grabbed for his wrist, willing her hand to remain cold as she did, and tugged him back toward the door. “Okay, fine. I believe you. There’s a ghost. Now can we please just go—”

“Shego?” Drakken’s confident and eager demeanor had changed in an instant. He seemed suddenly smaller, with a wavering note of fear in his voice. She didn’t like the sound of it. “W-what’s that?”

“W-w-what’s what?” she mocked with a sarcastic stutter. He was pointing a trembling finger behind her before she could pull him back to the door. She knew exactly what he had to be pointing at, but wryly suggested anyway, “I’unno. A plant?”

A hand rested on her shoulder then, and it wasn’t Drakken’s. She spared a tiny glance down, saw the fingers, and heard the intruder’s voice practically in her ear. “Gig’s up, babe.”

Drakken squealed and lurched away. “It can talk!” he shrieked, and Shego all but ripped his hodgepodge homemade goggles off so he could see for himself that it was no ghost hovering behind her before he could faint.

[thecomicsnexus]

The Human Torch

MARVEL COMICS #1 OCTOBER 1939 BY CARL BURGOS, PAUL GUSTAVSON, BILL EVERETT, AL ANDERS, TOHM DIXON, BOB BYRD AND BEN THOMPSON

CONTEXT

Pulp-magazine publisher Martin Goodman founded the company later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939. Goodman, who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. Launching his new line from his existing company's offices at 330 West 42nd Street, New York City, he officially held the titles of editor, managing editor, and business manager, with Abraham Goodman (Martin's brother) officially listed as publisher.

Timely's first publication, Marvel Comics #1 (cover dated Oct. 1939), included the first appearance of Carl Burgos' android superhero the Human Torch, and the first appearances of Bill Everett's anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, among other features. The issue was a great success; it and a second printing the following month sold a combined nearly 900,000 copies. While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc., Timely had its own staff in place by the following year. The company's first true editor, writer-artist Joe Simon, teamed with artist Jack Kirby to create one of the first patriotically themed superheroes, Captain America, in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). It, too, proved a hit, with sales of nearly one million. Goodman formed Timely Comics, Inc., beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941.

While no other Timely character would achieve the success of these three characters, some notable heroes—many of which continue to appear in modern-day retcon appearances and flashbacks—include the Whizzer, Miss America, the Destroyer, the original Vision, and the Angel. Timely also published one of humor cartoonist Basil Wolverton's best-known features, "Powerhouse Pepper", as well as a line of children's funny-animal comics featuring characters like Super Rabbit and the duo Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal.

Goodman hired his wife's cousin, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939. When editor Simon left the company in late 1941, Goodman made Lieber—by then writing pseudonymously as "Stan Lee"—interim editor of the comics line, a position Lee kept for decades except for three years during his military service in World War II. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles.

Goodman's business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. One of these shell companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55 (May 1944). As well, some comics' covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12 (Winter 1946–47), were labeled "A Marvel Magazine" many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961.

SYNOPSIS (FROM MARVEL WIKIA)

Professor Horton is holding a conference with the press, ready to reveal his creation to the world - the first android. He reveals that there is a difficult problem with his discovery. Leading the press into the lab, Horton points to a man in an air-tight, glass cage whom he calls The Human Torch. When air is let into the chamber, the man's entire body catches fire. The press in the room demand him to destroy his creation "before some madman can grasp its principles and hurl it against our civilization!" Horton refuses. Later, he is contacted and visited by The Scientist Guild. They also recommend destruction of the android since the flames cannot be controlled.

They come to a compromise. The Human Torch is sealed within a steel tube which is then sealed in a block of concrete. Horton vows to find the secret to controlling the flame.

However, some time later there is an explosion outside Horton's bedroom window. He finds the Torch gone. It is revealed that there was a slow oxygen leak in the steel tube. The Torch runs through the streets of the city, confused as to why everything he touches catches on fire. Some firemen douse him with water, but it just turns into steam. Realizing he is causing damage, the Torch dives into a pool in an effort to put out the flame.

Inside the house with the pool, there are two men: Sardo, a racketeer, and Red, his not-so-smart lieutenant. Sardo realizes the Torch could be worth a lot of money, if used correctly. The two men go to Acmen Warehouses - Inc. to sell some fire insurance. Sardo threatens that if the company doesn't buy it, they won't have any steel left. Mr. Harris, the company's president, refuses the offer and kicks the man out.

Sardo and Red place The Human Torch in a glass tube filled with water and transport him to a warehouse. There, they place him inside and throw a weight at the glass. As it shatters, the Torch bursts into flame. He quickly realizes what they are up to, and escapes with a mighty leap. The flames make him lighter than air. He burns Sardo's house down, but can't seem to find the criminal himself, who is hiding in the steel underground lab. After taking care of Sardo's men, the Torch locates the lab. Sirens catch the attention of both men. Horton and the firemen arrive on the scene. The professor notices a nitrogen tank in the flames and rushes towards it, but the Torch gets there first and melts it before it can explode. The gas puts out his flames. The fire chief fires a gun at him, but the bullet melts on his super-heated skin. The Torch returns to Sardo, who attempts to bargain for his life. The man ends up throwing a tank of sulfuric acid at the flaming android, but it backfires and explodes before even reaching the target. Sardo is killed in the blast.

After using another tank of nitro, The Torch discovers he can now control the flames and throw fireballs. While walking down the street, covered in flames, he is surrounded by the police. The Torch apologizes and demonstrates his control over the fire. The police take him to headquarters where he explains Sardo's evil plans. They let him live with Professor Horton, who takes full responsibility. The Torch explains his control over the fire to Horton, who sees it as a money-making opportunity. The Torch realizes that humans will only continue to use him for their selfish purposes and escapes through the ceiling to be free.

THE ANGEL

The Six Big Men (consisting of; Dutch Hansen who specialized in extorting protection money from night clubs; Trigger Bolo, who controlled a protection racket for retail delivery companies; Mike Malone who controlled all the illegal gambling dens; Gus Ronson who extorted local restaurants; John Dillon who ran a racket on the subway system; and Steve Enkel who fixed politicians, judges and juries) are terrorizing the city.

Eventually Dr. Lang (really the gang's leader), pretending to be a civic minded citizen gathers a bunch of like minded individuals, and had them sworn in by a mayor as special investigators. They seek to hire the costumed hero known as the Angel to hunt down and eliminate each of the racket bosses. The Angel had already taken up the job and makes his presence known, leaving Dr. Lang to believe that his plan was coming to fruition.

The Angel first goes after Ronson who was acquitted of crimes thanks to a crooked jury. Unaware that the Angel had sneaked into the back seat of his car, Ronson is strangled to death by the vigilante. Going after Mike Malone next, Angel mashes the crook into a pulp. Witnessing this John Dillon attempts to flee the Angel, jumping out a window and falling to his death. Lil provides the Angel with the location of Trigger Bolo and but vigilante is captured by his thugs. However, before Bolo could mow the Angel down, Lil orders him and Steve Enkel to take the Angel out into the woods to be executed. There Lil double crosses Bolo and Enkel, freeing the Angel, and in the ensuring fire fight Bolo and Enkel ended up killing each other.

The Angel next catches Dutch Hansen before he could make a deposit of all the stolen loot and slays him as well. Curious about who would go and pick up the loot from the safety deposit box, the Angel stakes it out and catches Lil and Dr. Lang in the act. He captures them and turns them over to the authorities, learning of their plot to double cross their colleagues in the process.

THE SUBMARINER

A diver from salvage vessel finds wrecked ship's safe empty and just recently dropped knife from shipwreck's deck. Captain orders him back down to investigate with another diver. They are searching the wreckage when attacked by Namor, the Sub-Mariner! He savagely attacks both men, stabbing one and crushing the diving helmet of the other. Namor then turns his attention to the ship, wrecking the propeller and running it aground. He heads back to his underwater home, where he is greeted by the "Holy One" who commends him on his attack against the humans. Namor brings the bodies of the two divers as trophies. His mother, Fen, congratulates him on beginning his war of revenge in such a decisive manner. Namor asks her why their people hate the Earth-men so much.

She explains that in the year 1920, a research vessel called the Oracle had journeyed to Antarctica and was doing "experiments" with explosives that killed many of their fellow citizens. Since Fen looked most like a human, she was sent to find out more about what was going on. She fell in love with Commander Leonard McKenzie, and became pregnant by him. The sailors could not understand how she was able to swim in the freezing water. She learned their language and sent back messages to the undersea army that the white men were too strong for them, but they sent an army to fight those invaders anyway. The white men's bombardment annihilated most of their race, and now, 20 years later, they are ready once again to press an attack against Earth-people, and Namor will begin this war.

Later, he takes his cousin Dorma with him to the Cape Anna Lighthouse. Once there, they attack the guard who stands watch on the lighthouse and wreak havoc on the controls and equipment hoping to destroy some of the ships that use it's beacon for safety. Some naval men come on the scene, and in order to escape, Namor and Dorma commandeer a plane which flies nearby. Sub-Mariner commands Dorma to wreck the plane and swim back home as Namor continues his crusade against humans.

THE MASKED RAIDER

Cal Brunder, a big league rancher has become a menace of Cactusville, using his army of thugs to force the smaller ranchers into selling up their property. One night they attempt to coerce Jim Gardley into giving up his land but he refuses and fights back. Brunder's goons get the drop on him and take him to their boss, who gives Gardley one last chance to surrender his land, a request that is also refused. Cal calls the sheriff to have Jim charged on trumped up cattle rustling charges and he is locked in jail.

Realizing the old sheriff is not cut out for his job anymore, Jim feigns being sick, in order to trick the sheriff into opening his cell and so Gardley knocks him out. Stealing a horse and riding out into the wilderness, Jim lets the horse free and then raids his own ranch for supplies. He spends the next number of weeks practicing his shooting skills until he becomes a crack shot. Seeking a horse, he spots a white stallion running free and one day is surprised to see that it had been caught and penned in. Taming the horse, he names it Lightning. Jim then decides it is time to go after Cal Brunder, and swearing to fight crime he dawns a black mask and dubs himself the Masked Raider.

Meanwhile, back in town Cal Brunder gets opposition from the Bleck Ranch and sends his boys to shoot the ranch owner and burn the ranch to the ground as a warning to the other ranches to give up their properties. When the sheriff confronts Cal about it, Cal warns the sheriff against opposing him. Soon Brunder's reign of terror nets with success as the ranchers prepare to deal with him.

However, just after Cal hears the news he is alerted that one of his men has been shot. Pegged to his corpse is a note, a warning to Brunder and his men that they will pay for their crimes. After gaining the support of the sheriff the Masked Raider rides into Cal Brunder's ranch and begins dusting it up with the aid of the townsmen. As the Masked Raider deals with his goons, Cal attempts to escape on a horseback. However the Masked Raider ropes him in a lasso and pulls him off his horse. He then turns Brunder and his men over to the sheriff to be sent off to jail. After the Masked Raider leaves, the sheriff wonders if the Masked Rider will go after bigger criminals.

JUNGLE TERROR

After Professor John Roberts has been gone for three months searching the jungles of the Amazon to find a diamond that can supposedly enslave people, his friend Ken Masters and nephew Tim Roberts decide to travel out to find the missing scientist. As they fly out from Florida in their own plane, they soon become aware that they are being followed by John Crafton -- a rival plantation owner.

Unfortunately for Ken and Tim, their plane cracks up and they crash, and while they survive they are soon captured by some of the local natives. Crafton and his men land safely and when they are confronted by the natives as well, they try to fight them but one of John's men is killed before they can flee the scene.

In the native village, Ken and Tim are brought to the chief who sentences them to death and sequesters them in a prisoner hut until it's time to be executed. To their surprise Professor Roberts is there as well. The Professor explains that the natives were friendly to him until they realized that he was after the diamond and locked him up. However, he had just recently found a passageway hidden in the floor and the trio decides to use it and escape the natives.

They find themselves in a cavern that leads them to a massive stockpile of diamonds. Before they can start to collect those they are confronted by John Crafton and his goon Slug who have also fled from the natives through escape hatch in the prisoner hut. The natives catch up and kill Crafton and Slug with arrows. Ken, taking Crafton's pistol holds the natives at bay while Ken and the professor flee. Ken catches up to them just as they find Crafton's airplane and the trio uses it to escape unscathed.

When the boys lament being unable to collect the diamonds, the professor shows them a smaller diamond that he managed to grab before their escape.

KA-ZAR

John and Constance Rand, along with their three-year-old son David, are flying from Johannesburg to Cairo, when their aircraft crashed into a Belgian Congo jungle. All three survived the crash but later Constance died of the tropical fever. John decides to take the 200-mile trip back to civilization with his son but a terrible storm causes the mammoth baobab tree to fall at him. Permanently deluded after being hit by the falling tree, he makes the jungle their home. David grows up, strong and healthy, in harmony with the jungle and the creatures dwelling inside it, even saving Zar the lion from the cruel death, trapped in quicksand. One day, they encounter a group of natives led by a fat white man. John tries to make them leave the sacred jungle before they profane it. The white man, Paul De Kraft, is a vicious criminal on a treasure hunt and is not so easily convinced to turn back. He tries to shoot John in the back but David sends an arrow to his arm stopping him. Later De Kraft goes to the Rand's hut and shoots John Rand. Rand's son would have met the same fate if not for Zar. The lion, remembering the young man who saved his life, kills two natives and scares De Kraft away.

John Rand dies of his shooting wounds and the feline takes the boy into his lair, accepting him as brother. He would now be called Ka-Zar, brother of Zar, and earn the respect of all the jungle creatures.

REVIEW

Because comic-books either come from Pulp or funnies, stories in this era were very extreme in their points of view. Morals... were not a thing for heroes. Patriotism, on the other hand, would justify anything.

In this first issue of Marvel Comics, we get Namor, who is hard to relate to (to be fair, he is still hard to relate to). And other questionable heroes, like The Angel.

I think the result is ok. It brought something else to the table (although, Namor would probably be the one character here with more legacy). But I found the stories to be too long (and not that complete).

One quick note: This Ka-Zar has nothing to do with modern times Ka-Zar (X-Men).

I give this issue a score of 7

[the-half-ghost-kid-hero-rp]

Dapper ^,~

“I swear, the only thing I ever seen you in are those same sweaters and jeans,” Tazaki sighed, shaking her head. Her luggage toppled to the floor behind her, discarded.

Danny looked up at her from where he was perched on the couch, elbows and knees amid a scattering of papers, notes, and charts. He watched her curiously.

“That’s because this is the only thing I wear,” he replied, giving his outfit a brief glance. He was wearing the same thing he always wore - a blue sweater and light blue jeans (his leather jacket had been tossed somewhere a while ago) - and wondered what they had done to warrant such a protest.

The huntress took her usual seat across from him, reclining in his dad’s old chair. She was still eyeing him.

“Do you even own anything else?”

“Do you?” came Danny’s smart reply, nodding to her ensemble. “You’re wearing that jacket every time I see you.”

She shrugged. 

“So?” 

Danny gaped at her.

“So you can wear the same outfit and I can’t?”

A long finger pointed at him and she shook her head.

“See, I don’t wear the same outfit. Just the same jacket. At least I have more than one different style of shirts.”

“I have other shirts,” he replied, trying and failing to reoccupy himself with his papers. At her level glance, he shrugged, quietly adding that, “I just don’t really wear them…”

“And why not?”

“Why does it matter?” Her hidden agenda behind the questioning made continuing his research nearly impossible. He had half a mind to abandon it altogether, or at least until he could stuff her face with some food. That always shut her up for a while.

“Because it’s boring. I wear this jacket because it’s leather and has pockets for things like bullets and rosaries,” the redhead explained, pinching the zipper of her jacket.

Danny rolled his eyes. “And I wear mine because my ghost core acts like a chunk of liquid nitrogen inside of me and I’m always freezing.”

She gestured to him. “And the shirt and jeans?”

“And the sweater and jeans.”

There was a moment of silence as she contemplated what he had said and for a blissful minute he thought she would drop the whole ridiculous thing altogether so he could get back to work. He was studying up on his parents’ research on the radioactive energy ectoplasm emitted, hoping that if he could isolate a sample of the unstable cells he could use it to track portals before they opened.

His train of thought was almost full steam ahead when the huntress spoke again: “What ever happened to that white shirt you used to wear?”

He sighed, the likes of which he had never sighed before, and hung his head in desperation.

“Do you just want to rummage through my closet for yourself? Because if you–”

“Okay,” she said and was already on her feet, halfway up the stairs before he even realized what had just happened.

“Hey, wait a minute!” he called suddenly, scrambling after her and trying not to trip on his dad’s Styrofoam ball model of a radiated cell. “Hold on! You can’t just–”

A disembodied cackle came from upstairs. “You just said I could!”

“That was a rhetorical question! Rhetorical!” he shouted, climbing the stairs himself. He rounded the corner just in time to see a flash of crimson hair disappear into his room and something in his gut twisted sharply. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t like he was in trouble or anything. He was an adult - or somewhere thereabouts…. probably - and could very well decide for himself what he wanted to wear. And he had been wearing the most practical, comfiest outfit he owned. At least he was fully dressed and not lounging around in his underwear like a two year old.

He skidded into his room and, sure enough, the red huntress was already up to her elbows in his wardrobe, his pile of dirty clothes shoved to the side. Well too late to stop her now, he decided, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. This was a fight he would just have to grin and bear.

“Sweaters… sweaters… sweaters… ooh, that one’s cute,” she commented, a striped button down joined the steadily growing pile of clothes on the bed.

He hummed at it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “Just forgot I had that one.”

With an eye roll she went back to work.

“I’m gonna be hearing that a lot, aren’t I?” she wondered, face and words muffled by the forest of cotton.

He shrugged again, watching a black turtle neck flop onto the bed.

“Probably.”

She rummaged in silence for a couple more minutes, and he took a moment to survey his room. It was weird seeing it from this angle. His normal path didn’t usually deviate from the bed to the door and back again. In fact, he hadn’t used his desk much at all in years. Which was obvious by the level of dust that had collected on its surface.

Grimacing, he wiped off his dirty finger onto his pants. He really should dust again, which sucked because it felt like he just did last week.

Suddenly a low whistle sounded from inside the closet and he leaned forward, curious as to what he could possibly still own that she could possibly find that would possibly elicit a reaction like that.

“Well well well, what is this?” she asked teasingly, pulling out none other than his old gray suit.

Danny’s eyes widened at it. The jacket, the white shirt, the blue tie - they were all still there, exactly as he had left them after escaping Wisconsin.

Noticing his expression, Taz frowned softly. “Everything okay?” she asked. 

Quietly, Danny nodded, taking the suit from her and sitting on the bed. He stared at the fabric, played with the four buttons on the front, remembered when Jazz had taught him how to tie a tie.

“Yeah…” he breathed quietly. Then, coming back to himself: “Yeah. I’m fine. Just… a lot of memories in this thing.” He had met Vlad Masters in this. He had been captured by Vlad Plasmius in this. He had overshadowed his dad and fought for his life in this stupid suit. And that didn’t even get into the debacle that had been the freshman year school dance.

“Good?” Taz prodded quietly, and Danny shook his head at her.

“Not really.” Slipping it off his lap, he held it by the hanger, inspecting it at arm’s length “A few that could’ve been. Eh, they were for the most part. It was just the rest of the times…”

The redhead sighed, looking away. She took inventory of what she had dispensed to the bed as she tried to figure out what to say. Staring one of his old white T-shirts, she smirked.

“Think it still fits?”

Danny scoffed at her. “Are you kidding? That was years ago. And it barely fit then.”

“But how will you know for sure unless…”

He looked at her sideways.

“Tazaki. This thing will not fit. I can promise you that.”

“Oh come on! You couldn’t have grown up that much since then!”

“Geez, thanks!” he gasped, a laugh in his words.

Rolling her eyes, she regarded him with a raised eyebrow.

“You know what I mean.”

He nodded. “I do. And the answer is still no.” With a few certain steps he approached the closet and deposited the suit into the furthest, darkest corner.

Eyes narrowed, she watched him.

“One day,” she swore, wagging a finger at him.

“Never gonna happen,” he replied coolly, brushing his hands free of the whole ridiculous matter as his footsteps carried him out of the room.

Undeterred, she shouted after him again: “One day!”

“Not on your life, princess!”

With a huff, she crossed her arms. It will happen. One day she’ll get to see him in a suit. Definitely not that one, and probably not anytime soon, but she’d get him to wear a suit if it killed her.

“And put the rest of my clothes away too!” he demanded from somewhere downstairs and the huntress winced, looking at the scattering of discarded shirts and sweaters surrounding her.

When she had said she’d get him to wear a suit if it killed her, she didn’t mean like this. She had meant out for a nice dinner - something not cooked, or broiled, or fried, or that had definitely spent most of its life in the back of a frozen truck - or maybe just in the confides of Fenton Works, where only she would be privy to his dashing….

Dashing….

Dashing-ness, Tazaki decided with a lot more of struggle than it should have taken. She was usually so eloquent, able to speak a dozen languages and had a real knack for stringing words together until they sounded just right.

But, that’s what a bullet wound will do. Screw up the mental word processing unit real good. And also cause internal bleeding, sure - and external, definitely - but having the word thing not working was a real inconvenience.

In a bleary-eyed haze, she realized just how well Danny’s tie matched his eyes. It was astonishing, really, how someone somewhere had managed to find the perfect blue, and how that blue had found its way onto a tie, which, in turn, had found its way to Maddie Fenton’s shopping cart. Sometimes the world was just awesome.

“Taz! Taz, can you hear me?” Danny asked and it took a couple slow blinks for his face to come into focus. There were those blue eyes again, looking down at her with horrible concern. “Stay with me! Don’t close your eyes, okay? Just keep them open! Keep looking at me.”

But, despite her best efforts, her gaze wandered past him, to the sparkling chandelier overhead. Moments ago, she had been complaining about that chandelier, how it glittered and shone and… she was convinced. The confounded things were cursed. 

After all, this evening had been going just fine until, suddenly, it wasn’t. It had started as a simple detail mission. Trigger had thought he smelled a werewolf in City Hall, so she and a couple other hunters, experts, and the like had staked out the place, slipping into the mayor’s annual charity dinner. They were just about to get to the third course when suddenly bullets. 

Apparently they weren’t the only ones who wanted the chief adviser’s head on a platter - she just would have very much appreciated it if the angry guns with guns had at least asked permission before they started shooting up their target, shouting some anti-establishment, save the gorillas dribble she didn’t give two hoots about.

She had counted four dead - two officials and two civilians - and many more injured before suddenly breathing was a considerable chore and the shoulder strap of her dress turned a different shade of red. Then Danny had finally found the decency to show up.

“Y’re l’te,” she slurred sleepily, head rolling side to side as noises and pain wow she didn’t have that much to drink! “N’ce suit though…”

“Uh, thanks,” Danny replied, flinching as another wave of bullets sounded from somewhere in the war zone of the giant dinner hall. “Crap…” he muttered quietly and even in her barely conscious, definitely delirious state she could see the terror in his eyes. 

It broke her heart. She wanted nothing more than the reach out to him and shield him from this violent life - to take a gun and fire back at the people who dare terrorize the boy who’s parents had daily threatened to dissect him but had looked them in the eye every day at breakfast anyway. 

She wanted to, but her arms were unresponsive. They were still there, somewhere, but unreachable past the agony under her skin and muscles on fire just under her neck. 

Suddenly, another body slammed down next to theirs, bringing a second overturned table in his wake, covering them on two sides. 

“Taz–oh no,” he gasped and she recognized him as Trigger, the jerk who’s idea this whole thing was from the beginning. Just as soon as she was finished with dispatching the goons who were horrifying her ghost boy, she was going to give that crazy coot a good one-two bam! Right in the kisser. 

“Back off!” Danny snarled instinctively, eyes aflame with hostile green energy. From her position, and general incoherence, the red huntress couldn’t tell if those were fangs in his mouth or just the lighting. 

“Whoa whoa! Hold up, kid!” Trigger exclaimed, hands raised and backing away slightly. 

Tazaki would’ve laughed if she could take at least one breath without nearly drowning in her own blood. 

“I’m a friend! I work with Tazaki,” Trigger continued, and Danny flinched again as someone started screaming in agony somewhere behind him. His eyes lit up an entirely different green, shoulders rigid and spine bent like a feral cat. 

Trigger frowned at him. “Are… are you a civilian?” 

“Somebody’s…” Danny winced as the screaming turned to pained wails. His pulse quickened, head spinning in horror. 

“Hey, hey, kid, listen to me, okay? Not them!” 

“They need–they’re…” The cries turned to a throaty gurgling sound and Taz closed her eyes reverently. It was too late. 

“Don’t think about them!” Trigger was insisting, grabbing Danny’s shoulders hard between his hands. “Think about me! Listen to what I’m saying to you!” 

Suddenly, Danny looked up, eyes alit with crystal blue clarity. 

“They’re dying aren’t they?” 

Trigger took a moment to mourn, and Tazaki could only lay there, fuming over what was happening and that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“Yes,” the other hunter answered quietly, and Danny broke. His body started to slump with gravity, heavier than even a normal human body should ever be. And Taz wanted to scream or cry or break something because he was too young to feel the things he was. He was a boy - not a soldier like they were - still just a young child, innocent to the ways of the world. 

“Come on, kid. There was nothing you could’ve done,” Trigger said and immediately Tazaki wished for nothing else than a single bullet and the ability to aim long enough to shoot him in the face because that was no ordinary civilian he was talking to. That was a genuine, bonafide hero. The real deal. A young genius. A prodigy. A good friend. That was a boy who had done more in his lifetime than stupid Trigger had done in twice as long. 

That was Danny Phantom. 

“Dun… Dunny Pha…” she slurred, and Danny was immediately by her side, blue eyes put back together long enough to focus on her. 

Trigger blinked. “Huh? What?” he asked, scooting close, dragging his supply bag with him. It scraped against the broken glass on the floor as someone somewhere started sobbing. “Speak up, Tazaki.” 

Feebly, she slapped Danny with one hand, finger pointed to his chest. 

“…Dunny Phans…” 

Danny clasped her too cold hand in his own. 

“I’m right here, Tazzy. You… I’m right here.” 

Miraculously, something switched on in Trigger’s stupid brain and he looked at Danny, curious and stupefied. 

“What did you just call her?” 

The ghost boy blinked at him. 

“Tazzy?” 

Excitement growing, Trigger shifted so he was facing the boy, hands out as if he was about to explain ABCs. 

“And what’d you say your name was?”

Danny regarded him with a look of suspicion, which Taz could understand. She would even have encouraged it another day, but from what she remembered before everything went wrong, Trigger was the only one on the ground with her so he was likely their only option of getting out of this place alive. 

Which meant they were all as good as dead. 

“I didn’t,” Danny tested. He really wasn’t sure how he should feel about where this conversation was going. 

The red huntress at his knees tried to squeeze his hand reassuringly. 

“I…eh, I know that. But what it is?” 

“…Danny?” 

Trigger gestured for him to continue. “Danny what?” 

Taz rolled her eyes - or at least tried to. 

“Phun…” 

“Phantom?” Trigger guessed and wow remind her to be on his team next time they played charades. “You’re Danny Phantom?!” Trigger exclaimed. “Oh my– that’s Danny Phantom! He’s Danny Phantom!” 

Danny slowly inched away. 

“This… this is great! This is… fantastic!” 

Tazaki suddenly coughed, too much blood splashing out of her mouth and onto Danny’s black pants. 

“Sh’t uph,” she wheezed, and Trigger very nearly slapped himself. Too bad he didn’t. 

“Oh crap! Oh crap! Right! Right! Uh…” he looked at Danny. “Where was she hit?” 

“The neck. Around the sterno muscle, above the clavicle. Think it missed the jugular, though,” the boy replied before he could even stop and consider what a stupid question that was. 

“Missed the juggler? Guess we’ll have to go for his balls then,” Trigger tried and Taz wished she could drop dead right then and there. Whatever was waiting for her on the other side had to be an improvement of Trigger’s stupid attempts at lightening the mood. 

“No?” he asked, then cleared his throat. “Okay. Um, next order of business, uh, did the bullet come out?” 

Danny froze and tried very, very hard not to panic. It proved difficult, however, to focus on more than one thing at a time as people around him were falling and his best friend was bleeding out before him. He thought back and remembered a noise - the first gunshot - followed by an eerily long moment of silence as people comprehended what was happening. Most didn’t even hear it, and it took a few more to get everyone’s attention. Danny could see it all from above, where he had just phased through the ceiling. The maniac with the gun shouted something - his speech took a long time, which Danny had thought was weird and had stuck out to him for some reason - but amid the shock he had seen movement. Red on red, and he had known it was Tazaki and suddenly everything went crazy. He had seen chaos and bodies, and he raced to her as quickly as he could have, but the bullet had gotten to her before he could have. 

Oh no. There was a bullet. A real, metal bullet, lodged in the neck of his friend. She could die from this. She was dying. 

“No, I don’t think so,” he finally replied because he didn’t panic when he woke up after the accident and sank into the floor and he wasn’t about to start panicking now. 

“Which means…” Trigger prompted.

“The bullet is still… in her.” 

“Right. So, that leads us to can you–” 

Danny didn’t even wait for the other hunter to finish, because whatever he was going to say, wasn’t happening. Not on his watch. Instead, he planted his hands firmly on Tazaki’s body - tried not to be distracted by how cold it was - and thought metal.

Taz had zoned out as some point. Not that she could blame herself. Trigger was being his stupid self, someone somewhere else was dying, and she was so tired. But she was not going to pass out. She knew better than that. But, even in her delirious state where the world seemed to move backwards and voices sounded off pitch, she still had the presence of mind to rest her eyes for a minute. 

Or, so she thought. 

Next thing she knew, she was falling. Except she was wasn’t moving, except she was completely weightless, except she wasn’t touching anything and oh no is this what dying felt like? Being stuck in a void - unable to interact with anything, even the air? For the briefest moments she didn’t exist and it was so surreal and wrong - everything screamed at her how wrong it was - that she flailed in blind panic. This couldn’t be happening! Not to her! Not like this! She did exist, she knew it! She had memories and emotions and a life - something beyond this underwater weightlessness. 

Wait. 

Underwater. 

That rung loudly in her head and her hysterical mind clung to it, because even water - even the memory of water - existed. It had weight and form and it touched every part of her body, every pore, even when she was floating on its surface. It drenched clothes and ruined hair and somehow seemed stupidly familiar to her. But she couldn’t place it. And she was tired again. 

In the corner of her mind, the corner exactly opposite the hysteric and contemplative ones, she felt something stir. A little knock, barely distinguishable from the blood pounding in her ears, but it was there. And it brought company. 

She turned and the sight that met her eyes undid a lifetime of pain in a single instance. She screamed.

A single bullet clinked to the tile floor and Danny immediately lifted the intangibility he had placed on Taz, slowly and gently laying her back down. Hopefully she would forgive him for that one day, but the bullet was out and she would live. So that was something he could live with, even if she never spoke to him again. 

Grimacing, he flicked the thing away, not even giving it a second thought as it skittered off to who-knows-where. 

He leaned forward, staring and the red huntress’ pale face. 

“She looks really bad,” he said, and turned his eyes to Trigger, demanding he come up with the next step of keeping her alive. 

“Yeah, but she’ll be okay now that that’s out,” the hunter sighed and Danny half wanted to blast him for relaxing on the job and cry because she would be okay. “Still gotta stop the bleeding though. Doubt you’ve got a handy little trick for that, huh?” 

Like the bullet, Danny didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he ripped his jacket off and balled it together. She moaned and grimaced when he pressed it to her shoulder, and he had to remind himself he couldn’t ask for forgiveness if she was dead. 

“It’s alright. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But I gotta, okay? You’re gonna… I have to, okay? I’m sorry,” he said and didn’t even realize he was sobbing until the third tear ran down his face. 

“I’m sorry,” he continued, pleading with her to hang in there, please, just for him. Just a little bit longer. 

“I’m sorry!” 

Behind him, Trigger looked up, hunter senses alert, and whooped loudly as backup burst through the doors, making efficient work of the crazed gunmen. 

“Oh, finally!” he shouted, climbing out of their little safe area. “What took you all?”

“What happened?” the leader asked, lowering his gun. As Trigger started explaining why he wasn’t crazy and the chief adviser totally was a werewolf, the largest man in the group recognized the sounds of a particular thorn in his side sobbing and holstered his rifle, breaking from the group. 

“Danny?” he asked, yanking the heavy mahogany table away. 

The ghost boy snarled at the noise, scrambling away in an hysterical panic, eyes burning in green flames. In the half instant it took him to realize he had left his charge unattended, Asha recognized that red hair and about collapsed on the spot. 

“Tazaki…! Injured over here! Hunter down!” he shouted to the rest of the group, who rushed toward him. 

Danny scrambled back to Taz’s body, hands shaking and suit stained in red as he pressed his palms into his ruined jacket. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he was choking, arms pulsing as if he was giving the huntress’ shoulder CPR.

Slowly, Asha lowered himself down, waving the other hunters off for a moment. 

“Danny! Danny, it’s me. It’s Asha. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Danny, I’m going to take over, okay? You have to get off Tazaki, alright?” 

“I’m sorry!” 

“Danny, you have to stop. You’re hurting her.” 

The ghost boy reared back as if he had been burned. Instantly, Asha took over the hold, squeezing his palm into the huntress’ shoulder hard enough for her to groan in displeasure. 

“There you go, Red. It’s okay now,” he cooed. Looking up, he whistled the other hunters over, who got to work bandaging her up and checking her vitals. 

Letting go, Asha turned to Danny. The boy had backed himself against the other overturned table, staring somewhere between Taz’s lifeless body and another dimension altogether. 

He stared quietly, as the other hunters looked her over, and stared as they lifted her onto a portable stretcher. 

“Danny?” Asha prompted quietly, lowering himself in front of the comatose child. He knew they both wanted to go with her, but the ghost boy was in no state to get there on his own. 

“She wanted to see me in a suit,” Danny said. “Said she’d do it, one day.” 

Silently, Asha reached for the boy, who leaned into him like a lifeline. Any other day, the large man would’ve laughed at the very idea of carrying the ghost boy around. The child had peeved him off more times than Asha could count and was a long way from any sort of comradery from the older hunter. 

Of course, any other day Tazaki wouldn’t be flat lining and being carried out of city hall on a stretcher. 

Any other day, but not today. 

So he carried Danny, supporting him just the way he needed. Today, they had both almost lost their best friend. Today, he could be there to comfort and coddle a scared boy as they left behind a puddle of blood and one ruined perfect blue tie. 

//

Asked by @tazaki-theredknight-blog​ for the send “dapper” for a starter where my muse is wearing a suit or tux meme. 

Got a question or prompt for the mun or muse? Ask away! 

[mtf-unit-epsilon11]

Item #: SCP-009

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Object is to be contained within a sealed storage tank of heat-resistant alloy with dimensions not less than 2m x 2m x 2m.

Under no circumstances should SCP-009 be exposed to temperatures in excess of 0°C when not undergoing testing, and no water-based solutions shall be allowed within 30 meters of the object's containment area. Object's chamber is to be fitted with temperature sensors which must be monitored at all times, and is to be kept refrigerated by no fewer than three (3) redundant cooling units. Any malfunction of sensors, or of coolant systems, is to be reported and repaired immediately. If at any time the temperature in the containment area climbs above -5°C, the chamber is to be locked down and flooded with coolant until temperatures return to safe levels (-30°C to -25°C).

Containment area is to be kept in total vacuum during testing, and personnel interacting with SCP-009 must wear full environmental protection gear. Following testing, all equipment, personnel, and other materials must undergo dehydration procedures and be quarantined for no less than 12 hours. Any moisture found displaying properties of SCP-009 is to be quarantined and added to the containment area as soon as possible. Living organisms found to be contaminated by SCP-009 are to be terminated by chemical dessication and extracted molecules of SCP-009 added to containment.

Description: SCP-009 is approximately ███ liters of a substance which superficially resembles distilled water (H2O), except with a distinct bright red hue. This red hue is discernible in all phases, and serves as the most expedient method of identifying contaminated matter before its anomalous properties manifest. In contrast to mundane water, SCP-009 assumes a liquid phase at temperatures between -100°C and 0°C, and a solid state above those temperatures. At temperatures below -100°C, SCP-009 vaporizes into a gaseous phase similar to steam.

Examinations of the atomic structure of SCP-009 have proved inconclusive. The substance appears to be identical to normal water molecules, with the exception of [REDACTED] in contrast to standard laws of enthalpy. Dr. █████, Site ██'s resident expert on Xenospatial Physics suggests that SCP-009 may originate in a universe with alternate physical laws.

The most hazardous property of SCP-009, however, is its ability to contaminate normal H2O. When in contact with any aqueous solution, SCP-009 will, through unknown mechanisms, transfer its anomalous properties to other objects and creatures. Testing has shown it capable of assimilating ice, steam, tea, fruit juice, seawater, blood, and [DATA EXPUNGED]. The time it takes for this process to occur varies depending on temperature and the exact chemical composition of affected matter, and had been observed as taking between 3 minutes and ██ hours.

Experiments on D-Class personnel have illustrated the process of conversion by the substance, which has been found to follow a consistent pattern:

1. Initial Exposure: Subject is exposed to SCP-009, and it begins assimilating any moisture present on the exposed surface. Creatures in this stage do not commonly notice any unusual symptoms except for a slight warming sensation.

2. Surface Conversion: Frost begins to form on the exposed area as the heat produced by the subject and SCP-009 itself raises its temperature above 0°C. This stage can take anywhere from one (1) minute to █ hours, during which time subjects begin to feel [REDACTED] crystals from the epidermis.

3. Deep Tissue Conversion: Exponential increase in temperature of SCP-009 causes runaway reaction throughout subject's body, resulting in [REDACTED]. Actual blood loss is minimal due to ice crystals [REDACTED], allowing subjects to remain alive and conscious for up to ██ hours.

4. [DATA EXPUNGED]

Testing on D-Class personnel was discontinued as of 4/23/20██.

Addendum: Circumstances of Retrieval: Subject was found in ████, Alaska, on 11/05/19██. The Foundation became involved after reports were obtained from the native ████ Tribe, who came across the mangled bodies of a team of seal hunters which had apparently been ship-wrecked ██ kilometers from the village.

All victims were found encased in red ice. Cause of death recorded as internal bleeding, though closer examination found [REDACTED]. It is surmised that the low ambient temperatures in the area retarded the freezing process. This prolonged the time to total conversion by ██ hours, and allowed the victims to remain conscious until [DATA EXPUNGED].

Origin of SCP-009 is currently unknown. Investigation into similar events or materials in the area is ongoing. Evidence at the scene suggests [REDACTED], possibly involving SCP-███.

See Exploration Log A009-1 for details.

Addendum: 11/09/19██

After initial report and retrieval of specimens, it was confirmed that the arachnoid entity found by MTF-B7 (see attached file) was indeed a previously unknown instance of SCP-3023. Investigation has revealed the instance originated in [REDACTED] as a result of [DATA EXPUNGED].

Addendum: 12/06/19██

After repeated inquiries, it should be noted that the portion of coastline upon which the initial victims were found was barren rock approximately █ meters from the seashore, and was sufficiently dry and cold to prevent significant contamination of the surrounding area. Had the site been closer to the water, there is little doubt an extinction-level event would have ensued.

Consideration of upgrading SCP-009 to Keter class under review.

Addendum: 12/16/20██

Super-cooling of SCP-009 for the purposes of experimentation is disallowed until further notice. Personnel are advised that liquid nitrogen is only to be used on the subject in controlled amounts, and only until temperatures have reached acceptable levels.

Related note: Possible application of SCP-009 in cold fusion research pending evaluation.

Memo from O-5 Command: 1/09/20██

We've decided to keep this thing Euclid for now. We understand the concerns raised, but as long as you keep the power on and nobody goes near its containment area, there shouldn't be a problem. That's why we're keeping it in Site ██, after all.

As for the cold fusion research, we're putting a pin in that for now. Frankly, we don't have it in the budget for another SNAFU like Site ██. The salvage team still hasn't found Dr. █████'s [REDACTED]

 Hide Report

The following experiment record was recovered via a chance occurrence of SCP-507 shifting into a universe in which the described test was carried out using SCP-107. The applicability of the reported findings to our own universe is pending review.

Input: 10mL of SCP-009

Result: "Red snow" fell in test area for 27 minutes with moderate intensity. Grass growing in test area began runaway reaction which ended with entire area being "frozen" within minutes. Notably, anti-enthalpathic reaction of SCP-009 did not extend past the effective radius of SCP-107, for reasons still under investigation. Non-grass plants in area turned bright red in color, greatly expanded, and mutated to display cyan-colored "tentacles" similar to those of species Drosera capensis. Mucilage produced by these tentacles later found to be tiny beads of SCP-009. How the plant is able to survive with SCP-009 integrated into its cell structure is currently under investigation, with preliminary hypothesis being the plant is a reflection of flora from the substance's native universe.

[writingthingsisdifficult]

Spirit Bear

Taking a break in my birthday celebration (really, it’s just me sitting on my sofa, eating cake) to write this thing, inspired by Wardruna’s “UruR”. (Loosely translated, the lyrics are: I travelled in my mind/back to the ice that gave birth to me/feel the warmth of the breath that thawed me.)

You have a secret, one you’ve never known how to tell Sam and Dean, but suddenly they’re faced with it – what will they do when you attract a monster they’ve never heard of before?

Sam x reader

Please let me know what you think, and give me a shout if you want on – or off – my tag list.

Word count: 2477

“We’re awesome!” Dean offered you a high-five, and you slapped his hand with enthusiasm, relishing in the electrifying high that came with every successful hunt.

“Oh yes, we are! Tonight we really deserve an extra bottle of beer.” You took a step towards the car and your leg wobbled a bit, sending a familiar frost into your toes. Fuck! Not now. Not tonight! You’d planned to take advantage of that liquid courage and buzzing success to… Well, it didn’t matter now. You would be incapacitated for the next few days.

Sam was by your side immediately, supporting you by the elbow, sending chills up your arm, lessening the spreading numbness a little bit. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah.” You thought about it. “No. No beer for me tonight. Sorry guys. I need to go… mmmotel.” Your voice was already slipping, and you cursed internally. Usually you were alone during these – seizures – and you didn’t want Sam and Dean to see you so vulnerable.

Cold sweat coated your body, making you sticky and gluing your clothes to your skin. And along with the dizziness and sickness came the longing: the yearning for something long since passed. The ice beckoned you, luring you into the dark depths, back where you should’ve remained resting all those years ago.

With one Winchester on each side, you slowly made it to the motel room you all shared with relative ease. Each step sent lightning through your bones. The ice-cold pain exploded in front of your eyes; white stars and fireworks clouded your vision, and you clung to your support as if your life depended on it.

“Jesus, you’re freezing!” Sam commented when a bone pale hand closed around his.

“Don’t worry,” you wanted to say, but with a frozen tongue and numb lips the words were jumbled into a drowsy donworr.  

“What’s going on, Y/N, please tell me,” Sam begged, careful to not hurt you as he lowered you down on the bed. As he placed your head on the soft pillow, Dean lifted your stiff legs so you’d be comfortable, flinching from the sudden chill in your body.

After tucking you in with both yours and his blanket, Sam lightly kissed your forehead and sat down on the edge of the mattress and stroked your hair. “What is going on?” he repeated, growing more desperate with every shivering breath you took.

“…n-not explain n…now,” you stuttered through your clattering teeth. “T-too late. But Sam: what’vr y’see in’ere… dn be ‘fraid. Ah… anda beri … not… bad.” Your eyes glazed over, fresh frost roses wound their way over your irises, dulling the colour before spreading over the rest of your face.

Sam never checked, but he knew the rest of your body was covered too. You were completely frozen; your usually soft hair hidden under a thick layer of white and fuzzy rime, and your lips dark blue.

Running a finger over your pale skin hurt – it was like dipping his hand in liquid nitrogen. He felt like throwing up. Not knowing what to do – what had caused this: it was excruciating. You hadn’t been in contact with a witch in months, no cursed objects, no magicks. Despair and desperation wrapped around him as he watched you, ignoring Dean’s futile attempts at coming up with a theory.

Suddenly the lights flickered. The room grew dark as if a shadow blocked the sun. Sam grabbed his gun and jumped to his feet, standing over you like an angry lion, ready to rip out the throat of any threat that might be approaching, and Dean copied his brother, standing guard, watching the door.

A presence filled the room as the shadow deepened. It crept over the walls, slowly, deliberately, closing in on you. The temperature rose, like a gust of desert winds, whipping Sam’s hair into his face.

The wind increased, rolling back and forth – in and out like a breath, filling the now almost pitch black room with heat.

“Dean!” Sam yelled, his mouth dry. It was as if the air had burned and shrivelled up, and in the dim light, he strained to see anything at all. His stomach twisted with dread – this was nothing like any monster they’d encountered before. Was it even possible to kill?

“I’m here, Sammy,” Dean replied as if he was far away. Feeling his way over the floor, he joined his brother, standing watch over you.

“Where?” Still clutching the gun with one hand like a lifeline, Sam fumbled in the darkness with the other – grasping at the empty air until he met Dean’s reassuring hand, and held tight.

Light footsteps resonated from behind the shadows, coming nearer and nearer, until they broke through the shroud. Suddenly the sound was clear; bare feet slapping and dragging towards them, sharp claws scraping over the floor. With each step the air grew hotter.

Dean felt sweat drip from his nose, and Sam shook his head to keep his soaked hair out of his eyes. He turned to face you. Frost radiated from your body, and a faint blue shimmer, just barely visible, pulsated over your exposed skin.

A sharp gasp from Dean, filled with confusion and anger, turned Sam around again. The source of the steps was so close he could feel the creature inhale and exhale, and slowly – as if emerging from dark smoke, it became visible. The contour first, a large head on massive shoulders. A bulging back, covered in dark fur. Burning eyes deep in its hidden face.

“You’re not getting her,” he said, his voice nothing more than hoarse whispers. Next to him, Dean straightened and inched closer to block the way to you.

The creature puffed hot air through its snout and growled. The rumble was low and sharp, like a large rock being dragged across a hard surface. Something in the guttural snarl was earthly and primal, and it made the hairs on their arms rise as the waves of it hit their chests, making every breath a labour to take.

Dean attempted to fire his gun at the creature, but his hand wouldn’t obey his mind.

The creature growled again, louder and slower, standing in front of them like a rock. Then a voice from nowhere filled their heads: “Move.” It entered their minds with precision, searching briefly for the right expression.

“No.” Sam trembled. “We are not leaving her.”

A sense of both amusement and impatience filled the air, and the creature spoke in their heads again, this time faltering and broken, a voice that reminded Dean of old oak trees and dried bark. Sam had a vision of razor-sharp sand trickling over the edge into the abyss and sending a cloud of harsh dust into his eyes.

“Move – help – frozen – dying – melt.” The creature’s misery permeated the darkness, but still Sam and Dean weren’t willing to step aside.

With a snort of great effort, the creature lifted its body up on its hind legs. Reaching its paws towards them, a blast of boiling air rushed over them. The room changed, revealing a grey sky filled with the promise of snow.

Sam shook his head, trying to step out of the vision, but it only grew stronger. Dean blinked from the sudden light, squinting at the picturesque scene that played in front of them. Snow clad trees appeared under the heavy clouds; the metallic taste of winter coated their tongues.

All of a sudden a loud roar broke through the serenity. There was some sort of commotion by the forest edge; an animal fighting for its life, but to no avail: a huge net fell from the trees, and it was dragged away, roaring and raging at first, then whimpering in pain and despair.

The vision shifted, pulling them closer to a warm light in the distance. A cluster of timber houses around a bonfire built on painted rocks, infused with herbs that smelled sweeter, almost sickly sweet, the closer they got, and in a cage covered with sigils, suspended over the flames, sat the captured animal: a huge bear-like creature. Its fur was black, almost blue where the light from the flames danced over it, and its sad eyes shone with a pale orange, like a fire that’s dying.

Sam felt a pang of sorrow for the doomed creature: that something so beautiful and wild should die so savagely. Beside him, Dean muttered to himself: “It ain’t right,” he said, shaking his head. “It ain’t right!”

The world darkened around them again, but the place remained. All the houses had dark windows now, and above them a full moon shone bright.

The bonfire area, that had been bustling with people trying to get a good look at the bear-creature earlier, was empty now, save for a lone figure: a teenage girl who sat in a chair, wrapped in thick clothes and a woollen blanket. Steam rose from her mouth as she stoked the glowing embers that remained of the fire.

In the cage, the creature rocked back and forth, breathing heavily and painfully. Its ears were drooping, and the fur seemed dirty and matted.

Every now and then, the girl glanced up at the creature with regret in her eyes. Her eyes and nose were all that could be seen in the fur-covered hood, and they were so familiar that Sam took a step towards her. Under his boots the snow crunched and squeaked.

“Y/N?” he breathed.

You never heard him, of course, but you stilled, apparently deep in thought, before you slowly got up, shaking the stiffness from your limbs and rubbing your hands together. Taking a few steps towards a tall pole in the middle of the enclosure, you stopped to listen for a few seconds, casting an uneasy glance towards the nearest cluster of houses. Everything grew still, even the soft weeping from the creature.

Then, as if you finally made up your mind, you acted swiftly: untying the rope that held the cage in place and swinging it back over safe ground, away from the burning embers. It creaked ominously as you lowered it down, and once it touched the snow, the door flung open.

The creature’s head snapped up, a fierce fire returning to its hazy eyes. It snorted and puffed, watching you with weary eyes as you backed away from the cage, leaving it unprotected, and with a final shake of its body and soft growl, the creature took off, leaving a trail of melted paw prints and mist hanging in the air.

Once again the vision shifted, and now they stood on the edge of an icy lake. The depths of the water sucked away all light, leaving a glistening, dark green surface. You were creeping over the thin ice, sliding on your stomach like a penguin and pushing forward with your feet, reaching for something Sam couldn’t see. With a shout of victory, you lifted a small object into the air and turned around, slowly and cautiously making your way back to the shore.

A loud crack rang through the air like a whip. Dread ran down Sam’s spine, and he reached for his brother. Their hands met in the middle, and they clutched each other as they watched a rift in the ice grow longer, chasing you as you hurried to get away.

Frothy waves twisted and turned as the crack expanded. Small flakes broke off, and soon you found yourself struggling in a slush of jagged shards. Within a minute you stopped fighting, and sank under the water.

Sam called for you. He was ready to dive in, if Dean hadn’t held him back and pointed to a shadow that formed over where you’d gone down. From inside the shadow, a warm light flicked. Long flames licked the sky as the dark cloud spun around itself, slowly transforming into a furry animal that descended onto the cracked ice as if it weighed nothing.

Suddenly the water bubbled and steamed, lifting something – you – out of the depths. The bear-creature took you in its arms and carried you to shore, placing you gently in the snow. You were pale and your lips were dark blue, and your eyes lifeless and dull.

You weren’t breathing, and Sam watched in horror as the creature opened its mouth to devour you. But instead of swallowing you whole, it breathed on you. Over and over, until colour returned to your skin, spreading like paint in water. You spluttered and retched, then sat up, smiling tenderly at your rescuer as it dissipated into nothingness, enveloping you in a bubble of warm, dry air.

Next came a flurry of rapid visions, one right after another; visions of you lying on a bed, on the ground, on a sofa: cold, pale, unmoving, before the bear-creature emerged from the shadows to breath life back into you. Sam felt sick as he watched you freeze to death over and over, and he leaned heavily on Dean, who in turn leaned on Sam, no doubt feeling equally weak.

Once the visions faded, and they were back in the now sweltering motel room, both Winchesters took a step to the side to let the bear-creature pass. It swooped between them, panting and growling, and stopped, hovering just inches above you. It then let out a long, hissing breath, melting the crystals in your eyelashes.

Slowly your chest began to rise, and you gasped, sucking in air as if you’d been drowning, looking into the fading face with gratitude and a gentle smile. “Thank you, anda beri,” you whispered as the last kiss of flames blew your hair back with a poof.

Sam and Dean sank down on the bed on each side of you and enveloped you in a bone-crushing hug. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!” Sam growled, resting his forehead against yours.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Dean asked, patting your head and hair.

“Sorry,” you muttered, looking at the hands in your lap. “I… I honestly didn’t know how. And I figured if I managed to… be… alone…” Your voice trailed off, leaving you in a pool of embarrassment.

Sam kissed your nose, just a fleeting touch you weren’t really sure you felt at all. “Y/N, look at me.” His voice was gentle and there was a smile hidden somewhere in it. Looking up, you found two glistening, kind eyes, brimming with love. “You will never have to be alone for this. Never again.”

Somewhere in your consciousness you felt Dean let go of the two of you, but you didn’t register. All your attention was directed at Sam, who smiled at you like the first sunshine that caresses the recently thawed out earth in the spring, and you knew – you both new that the two of you would face this together for as long as you lived.

Tagging my friends:

@awesomeahwu @brynleewolfe @funwithfanfics @babeinthebowtie @savingapplepie-eatingthings @winchesterprincessbride @savvythedork @littlegreenplasticsoldier @youtubehelpsmesurvive @blackcherrywhiskey @mrswhozeewhatsis @schwarzwaelder-kirschtorte @aiaranradnay @fandomismyspiritanimal @barneybrigade  @mogaruke @wstrumpel @iamreadinginsecret

[industry5566-blog]

Food And Beverage Wastewater Treatment

Spartan Environmental Technologies supplies ozone generators and ozone generator systems for a wide variety of applications including water treatment equipment suppliers Our offering not only trims down your life-cycle costs but also upgrades food grade safety and quality standards. Harvested product may be processed on shipboard or stored by icing or freezing for transport to the processing plant. This simultaneously reduces water intake and wastewater discharge, saving substantial operational costs. We have created a craft food and beverage water system to meet your industry specific needs so that you are free to craft your products with the confidence you are working with the cleanest and highest quality water. If you're a food or beverage manufacturer and are experiencing product quality problems, or are having issues with your equipment or your production process, your water could be the culprit. With greater scaling resistance and adaptability to varying feed water, Desalitech's ReFlex Reverse Osmosis systems purify water at unparalleled levels of efficiency and ease. With installations throughout the world, Envirogen is a leader in water, filtration and wastewater treatment for the food and beverage industry, with a track record of providing effective, reliable solutions to a broad range of customer types. Food and agricultural wastes are ideal for biogas production due to the relatively high total organic carbon loadings compared to many other wastes. Here at Esmil we provide Food & Beverage Wastewater Treatment systems across a range of industrial sectors. Food production is a water-intensive industry. This wastewater contains high concentrations of solids, oils, phosphorus and nitrogen. Sign up for the latest news, trends and innovations in water, wastewater and reuse. Learn more about DuBois' comprehensive C&S solutions for your Food or Beverage facility. Nyex treatment systems are optimised to ensure that effluent regulations are consistently met for colour and COD with a targeted, low-maintenance process which does not require chemical dosing or produce secondary waste. From conveying and washing to cooking and bottling, fruit and vegetable applications are highly dependent on water in their processes. Hydrostatic cookers, retorts, autoclaves and aseptic processing equipment are all prone to stressful conditions because of the high pressure and temperatures within the vessel. Anaerobic MBR was developed to treat highly concentrated (industrial) wastewater streams with a COD of >7,500 ppm and simultaneously produce biogas. Incorporated in the year 2014 at Kolkata, (West Bengal, India), we Three Star Aqua Technology” are a Sole Proprietorship Firm, engaged in manufacturing, wholesaling, trading and retailing optimum quality Filter Vessels, RO Plant, Water Softener Plant, Cartridge Filter, RO Membrane, Plastic Flow Meter, etc. That moment arrived two years ago for Oland Brewery, when its wastewater discharge threatened to overwhelm the Halifax municipal treatment plant and force the Nova Scotia city to release water with levels of biological oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS) into Halifax Harbor that would exceed national and provincial limits. The types of treatment technologies used for food processing wastewater are not unusual among wastewater treatment options and include the typical array of biological and physical chemical treatments. Discharges of food and agricultural wastes are a significant contributor to nutrient and carbonaceous and nitrogenous waste discharges. The market for water and wastewater treatment equipment in the food and beverage industry was valued at $195.7 million in 2000. Food processors can reuse water for landscaping, equipment washing, cooling towers and more. Parkson's sludge handling and drying systems contain all of the necessary transfer and reducing equipment required in order to minimize solids disposal costs. By using proven technology from a range of partner manufacturers, we can offer a tailored Food & Beverage Wastewater Treatment system to suit your specific requirements. Compactness and ease of operation help make these systems an ideal process for treating and recycling wastewater in space-limited environments, providing effective control of biological activity and high-quality effluent while allowing for higher organic loading rates.

We have helped our OEM partners find the best electrochemical sensor technologies to integrate into their water treatment products. FEMSA, one of the largest bottlers in Latin America, had to increase the capacity of the wastewater plant at its Alcorta facility in Buenos Aires, but there was no room for expansion. Veolia understands this and is able to help clients meet water reduction goals and minimize their environmental impact by implementing technologies that convert wastewater effluent into water that can be reused elsewhere in the plant. Sweeteners are an important part of the global food and beverage industry. Our customized Reverse Osmosis (RO) units for steam boilers provide a return on investment in energy and chemical savings by increasing boiler feedwater quality, and our graywater and reuse systems eliminate or reduce the use of fresh water for plant operations, and even eliminate water discharge to the environment. Achieve better total organic carbon (TOC) recovery from your wastewater. Since 1993, research efforts on the NEOSEP MBR, an immersed-configuration MBR process, have focused on further optimizing both biological treatment and the separation unit (membrane) to enhance permeability, improve treated water quality, and minimize sludge production and overall treatment costs. Once used, all water leaving the plant must be treated to meet discharge limits set by state and federal regulations. We offer a wide range of membranes, adsorbents, and ion exchange resins to recover, isolate, and purify nutritional products, helping your facility achieve higher yield and consistent quality. The large volumes and challenging composition of the wastewater, combined with the increasing cost of water supply, has made efficient wastewater disposal a commercial priority for most Food & Beverage companies. Anaerobic methane and energy production are also being more commonly used in municipal waste treatment plants to provide heat and electricity. Veolia South Africa services and maintains more than 15 food and beverage water treatment plants throughout Africa. Our treatment plants are engineered to perform for an industry leading 25 years. The Amagel process is faster, uses less energy, and requires less space; and Amagel rapidly dewaters sludgy waste which promotes adaptive reuse of byproducts, helps prevent purifications, and simplifies disposal. Memthane® is an Anaerobic Membrane Bio-Reactor (AnMBR) which maximizes renewable energy production while producing superb quality effluent that can be reused or discharged directly to sewer. Smaller pore sized RO membranes are problematic because of energy requirements, and also because of the volume of wastewater produced at the same time pure water is made. The latter post-milk processing is the largest contributor to wastewater production and to the strength of the wastewater. U.S. Water can assist food and beverage facilities with understanding the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements to implement a compliant water treatment and sanitation program. Our solutions diminish the overall water footprint of manufacturing plants while reducing downtime and OPEX, allowing our customers to operate more efficiently than ever before. This results in more efficient BOD and COD removal because higher MLSS concentration results in lower food to microorganism ratios, which is particularly important in the case of high-strength food and beverage processing effluents that would otherwise need an aeration tank with three or four times the volume. Veolia Water Technologies is also present in the beverage sector - working closely with breweries, so drink producers, spirit producers and distilleries. Pentair Advanced Filtration serves the Food & Beverage industry with proven technology for a wide range of applications. Each provides technological solutions for the various stages of water treatment that are required in the food & bev industry. Screening requirements can vary greatly depending on the application and poor or inadequate screening can result in ineffective wastewater treatment, discharge permit violations, equipment failure, and increased maintenance and operational costs.

Fluence is also a global leader in the design of 4SMB (four simulated moving bed) chromatography plants for the purification of fruit juices and the production of organic fructose without the use of chemical reagents. Parkson's expertise allows us to match the appropriate systems to efficiently pass through suitable water to downstream treatment systems while removing and treating solids. Nondairy ingredients such as flavors, sugars and fruits are also involved in production, and they can contribute to the waste stream. Plants are therefore increasingly pressured to treat their own water and wastewater supplies. Arvia's unique Nyex treatment systems are modular in nature and have been designed for ease of transport and installation inside or outside a food or beverage plant. During the reverse osmosis purification process, a semi-permeable membrane is used to remove ions and unwanted particles. Process water is likely to come into contact with food products. Whether discharging wastewater through POTW or NPDES, a company should consider its full cost of wastewater disposal when evaluating treatment and reuse. Treated wastewater never comes into contact with food. Water is a key ingredient in many foods and beverages. Producing one of the world's most loved condiments, this facility generates wastewater with remnants of tomato and juices that contribute to high COD concentration. Whether used to cook, cool, heat, freeze, or sanitize, water is a vital resource for the Food and Beverage industry. GE Water & Process Technologies, Trevose, Pa., is eyeing that segment, as well, although much of its work to date has involved sugary streams from beverage manufacturers. The food manufacturing industry and certain water-quality stakeholders are establishing guidelines for water reuse in production. Reduce the water intake from wells or municipalities and reduce wastewater discharge costs. Pressure boosting is needed for treatments, including reverse osmosis, where water moves through a membrane at specific pressures. It is imperative to treat this wastewater before sending it on to a municipal sewage system to limit municipal surcharges imposed for exceeding limits on TSS and BOD. It relies on a steady supply of fresh, clean water, and the Food & Beverage industry requires massive amounts of it. Nearly 70% of the world's fresh water is consumed by agricultural processes, and water shortages are now threatening the ability of Food & Beverage companies to meet the most basic needs of a growing global population. Dissolved Air Flotation Systems (DAF) are used all throughout food and beverage wastewater treatment applications because of their ability to remove total suspended solids (TSS) and particulate BOD. Efficient cooling water treatment is critical for ensuring maximized productivity and continuous operation. Parkson's controls group can provide the technologies and services necessary to monitor, analyze, and effectively control the equipment and systems involved in nearly all water and wastewater treatment processes in order to optimize the efficiency and functionality of each application. Water is a critical resource in the food & beverage market where increasingly demanding environmental requirements have given rise to new technologies and working practices to create a more sustainable way of operating food & beverage plants. During the purge, the concentrate is discharged at the minimum pressure, rather than at maximum pressure like in traditional reverse osmosis process. Boiler feed water is used for cooking, evaporation or heating equipment used in production. Wastewater from the Food & Beverage Industry often carries a high biological load. As an example, find below some wastewater issues and Lenntech pretreatments associated to a kind of food processing. Every business in the Food & Beverage industry has its own particular water demands. Different phases of the wastewater treatment process can generate unpleasant odors that may require the use of odor control systems. Culligan systems use cost-effective historical operating data logging, remote monitoring, and telemetry to help customers monitor and trend the performance of their water treatment equipment.

Some products demand a water quality that cannot be met with standard potable water. A vast majority is required by the food and beverage industry. Wastewater pollution load depends on the type of product being processed, the process and the equipment used, while the common characteristic is the strong organic content. When it comes to treating wastewater for manufacturing, there is no one size fits all”. Our teams use our technologies to build water treatment systems that are adapted precisely to the individual needs of companies such as breweries, food producers and juice and mineral water suppliers, which all surpass, often considerably, the hygiene- and technology-related rules for water use in the industry. Food Manufacturer predicts that through proper management and the installation of water recycling and treatment facilities, businesses could save over 2000% on their water bills every year. We can improve production processes from the inside out to support sustainable development in decades to come. Water is a very necessary and integral part of food and beverage processing. MIOX provides advanced chemical solutions to the food and beverage industry for all water treatment applications including source water treatment, surface or groundwater, process water treatment, cooling towers on the facility, clean in place (CIP) for syrups and raw sugars and bottle and surface sanitization. In food processing applications, water is used as an ingredient, an initial and intermediate cleaning source, an efficient transportation conveyor of raw materials, or the principal agent for sanitizing plant machinery and work areas. These limits are intended to match the wastewater characteristics of what is being produced. This process can remove both chemicals and bacteria , resulting in potable water safe for food and beverage production. These breakthrough benefits encompass myriad performance metrics, from the reduction of ever-growing municipal surcharges, through the provision of enhanced rural treatment and a greater opportunity for energy production (with harvested organic material). They are ideal for transferring abrasive or aggressive waste away from production and metering the harsh and aggressive chemicals used in water treatment. Specifically suited for large-scale (>10 mld) municipal or industrial water polishing for drinking water production or reuse. Berghof Membranes offers a complete line of membrane solutions for the food & beverage industry. Biological treatment : helps upgrade the quality of beverage and food industry effluent being released into the environment and a major component in water recycling from high organic load wastewater. With the cost of water constantly rising, DuBois' focus on water minimization programs, in cooling, boiler, and wastewater treatment, can help to further minimize costs and help your plant be more environmentally friendly. Most food processors are more interested in staying within the COD, BOD, phosphorous, nitrogen and TSS discharge limits set by municipalities and regulatory authorities. Mar Cor Purification can help these companies maintain profits by meeting water production requirements, as well as, controlling capital and operating expenses. To do this effectively, the food and beverage processing industry has to manage every aspect of water usage. This fact is reflected to the wastewater treatment technology employed which, in most of the cases, is biological with special attention to the application of the anaerobic digestion process. Ecosphere's patented Ozonix® wastewater treatment technology is a cost-effective, chemical-free solution for the treatment and reuse of the large amounts of wastewater generated from Food & Beverage operations. Veolia provides a number of technologies for treating water used in the beverage and food industries. Overtreating your wastewater system can result in excessive chemical costs, and inefficient facility operations can lead to costly surcharges or fines. With ReFlex systems, recovery is determined by the frequency of the purge steps that are controlled by the operating software, and not by the mechanical design and the number of stages like in a traditional reverse osmosis system.

Our integrated approach includes water purification equipment, pathogen and foam control, culinary steam and sanitation to provide facilities with confidence that water and process systems will meet and exceed quality assurance specifications. Over time, any equipment that comes into contact with poor quality water can be damaged or destroyed due to corrosion or sediment build-up. WCS Group provides critical system expertise for Water, Energy, Hygiene and Air systems to the Food and Beverage industry. The correct food and beverage water treatment system reduces production, maintenance and energy costs by minimising the effects of scaling and corrosion on your equipment, and maximising the potential for water-recycling. The same system can deal with completely different water treatment applications and behave completely differently for each - it can treat city water in the morning, reuse waste streams in the afternoon, and act as a second pass ultrapure system in the evening. Find out how our water treatment systems may apply to your needs and significantly benefit your results. Some poultry plants may process 2 million birds per week, so they are large-scale waste generators. Clarified water flows out of the DAF unit onto further processing or for discharge. In-process screening is utilized in many food and beverage applications for sorting, sizing, washing, and dewatering. According to the Brewers Association, the average American brewery requires seven barrels of water to produce one barrel of beer; and 70% of the intake volume is discharged to sewer systems as effluent. Biothane® high-rate anaerobic reactors are Veolia's leading technology for the treatment of high-strength wastewater, with the benefit of green energy production. Mar Cor offers a complete line of pretreatment equipment designed to accompany our Life Science water purification systems. Parkson offers several screening and solids recovery systems including in-channel and rotating or wedgewire screens, washing and dewatering technologies, and complete turnkey headwork system solutions. Water softeners and reverse osmosis are perfect for creating pure, potable water. Mar Cor Purification is a leading provider of beverage water treatment systems and services. Both processes convert the nitrogen into gaseous nitrogen without using acids or other chemicals and without generating any by-products. Because a brewery has different water needs than a snack foods manufacturer, GE has built a water treatment portfolio to target specific challenges like production uptime, foam control, and cleaning regulation. By reducing source-water requirements, any food & beverage company lessens its environmental impact. With a bachelor's degree in environmental science from the UK's Lancaster University, Barker has spent over five years analyzing the markets for technologies, plants and services within the water and wastewater industries sector. Especially where regulatory standards vary & the need for treatment is so diverse, experience and exposure to many different processes & applications simply has no substitute. Not only can the quality be improved by improving the quality of water used in production, but it can also be enhanced through technologies that address, for example, concentration and purification. Wastewater Installations of food and beverage manufacturers are continuously challenged by changing conditions caused by high peaks in amount and concentration of wastewater. These projects treated various waste streams to meet discharge regulations, reuse requirements or selective recoveries. Veolia Water Technologies helps our customers reduce their environmental impact and costs. Parkson can provide equipment, systems and fully operated system solutions to meet your water treatment needs which help you meet process requirements and discharge regulations, increase efficiency and reduce capital and operating costs. We do this by providing clean water & wastewater treatment solutions. These products are often extracted from whole foods such as green tea or fruit, or sometimes generated by fermentation.

[parentingguide8-blog]

'Our future family ... is gone': Parents in two cities grieve their lost embryos

New Post has been published on https://parentinguideto.com/must-see/our-future-family-is-gone-parents-in-two-cities-grieve-their-lost-embryos/

'Our future family ... is gone': Parents in two cities grieve their lost embryos

(CNN)When Kate and Jeremy Plants were making plans for their 2014 marriage, they had no idea the future they would face. Just months after they tied the knot, Kate was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a deadly form that the American Cancer Society says takes more lives than any other female reproductive cancer.

Because treatment could affect Kate’s fertility, doctors encouraged the newlyweds to consider banking Kate’s embryos so they could have children someday.

“So every other day for two weeks, we drove 45 minutes each way to the doctor,” Kate recalled. “There were shots in stomach multiple times a day; I was high on hormones; it was very stressful. And the whole time, I don’t know if the cancer is spreading, and I’m thinking, ‘Do I have time for this?’ “

What happened next, says Kate, could only be called a blessing. In the world of in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, it’s not unusual for couples to undergo numerous rounds of expensive, painful procedures to obtain a viable embryo, if it happens at all.

Yet for Kate and Jeremy, the first and only round of IVF produced five excellent embryos.

“The fact that my one working ovary could produce those eggs was a miracle,” Kate said.

She and Jeremy decided to store their precious babies-to-be in a long-term cryopreservation tank at the same place she underwent treatment: Cleveland’s University Hospitals Fertility Center.

Then came another blessing. Despite being “gutted like a fish” by the surgery, Kate survived ovarian cancer, after a long, painful recovery. But, she says, her good fortune didn’t last. Another year had barely gone by when symptoms reappeared; this time the diagnosis was uterine cancer. Desperate to avoid “more ripping and tearing at my uterus,” and with her five backup blessings in mind, Kate opted for a full hysterectomy in May 2017.

For Kate, now 33, and Jeremy, 38, the rollercoaster still wasn’t over. Over the weekend of March 3, the cryopreservation tank at University Hospitals suddenly failed. The temperature of the liquid nitrogen keeping the contents at icy levels unexpectedly fluctuated, possibly damaging the frozen eggs and embryos inside.

“This was our main storage area,” said Mike Ferrari, senior media relations specialist for University Hospitals. “We think about 2,100 eggs and embryos were affected, but we have not verified that to date. It affected about 700 families, but this is an evolving situation and it could be less or more.”

“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Kate said after reading what she calls the hospital’s “sterile” letter. “But Jeremy took it even harder. The rest of the world looks at it as eggs and embryos, but we look at it as our future children.”

“I actually was very angry,” said 37-year-old Amber Ash. She and her husband, Elliott, 36, have two embryos stored in the same cryopreservation unit. They had used a third to conceive their son, Ethan, 2½ years ago, and were recently considering expanding their family.

“There’s the sudden realization that our future family that was there last week is gone, in a moment,” Amber said. “It’s just shock and disbelief.”

“It makes me pause and ask, ‘what kind of safety methods are these fertility clinics taking?’ ” asked Amber’s husband, Elliott. “Perhaps protocols and practices need to be reviewed to insure they are protected.”

A ‘bizarre coincidence’

The question of safety became more urgent when news broke that another fertility clinic, Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco, also had a mishap with one of its embryo storage units.

“A single piece of equipment in our cryo-storage laboratory lost liquid nitrogen for a brief period of time,” the center said in a statement. “As soon as the issue was discovered, our most senior embryologists took immediate action to transfer those tissues from the affected equipment to a new piece of equipment. We have brought in independent experts and are conducting a full investigation.”

Strangely enough, it appears both incidents happened on the same day: March 4.

“It’s a bizarre coincidence,” said Dr. Brian Levine of CCRM, a national network of fertility centers that also freeze eggs and embryos. “Two incidents in the same day. Both of these clinics are highly reputable, and I’m sure they had policies and procedures in place.”

“What’s amazing is that it hasn’t happened before,” said Dr. Richard Chetkowski, a fertility specialist in San Francisco who uses the Pacific Fertility Center to freeze some of his client’s embryos. “As far as I know it’s the first time first time human embryos have been jeopardized by failure of the storage tanks. It’s a shock to see this risk for a stage of the process we thought was risk free.”

Even though there are no official regulations governing the freezing of embryos, Levine says the gold standard for clinics is to arm every tank with independent sensors and probes that send audible warnings, such as a beep, as well as text and email alerts to a wide group of recipients 24/7 if something goes wrong.

“Sensors have to be checked,” Levine said. “We do it daily, with another set of different checks once a week. Alarms have battery backups and all are on landlines, not cell phones. We have enough liquid nitrogen to last weeks. It’s expensive but worth it to make sure we are prepared.”

Unknown fate

Katie Miller is one of the women affected by the failure of the Pacific Fertility storage unit. She told CNN San Francisco affiliate KGO that she has two healthy children using embryos frozen by the facility and was undergoing treatments for a third when the news broke.

“It’s a real shock, because you know you put such faith in the process,” Miller said. “For some people, this is perhaps their only chance at having biological children.”

Pacific Fertility did not return calls for comment but referred to their prior statement: “The vast majority of the eggs and embryos in the lab were unaffected, and the facility is operating securely.”

“I haven’t told any of my patients that their embryos are damaged,” Chetkowski said. “We don’t know to what level the embryos were exposed to high temperature and how much they thawed.”

Chetkowski explained that if there was enough liquid nitrogen left in the tank, nitrogen steam or vapor could have remained. And while that’s not as good as being submerged in liquid nitrogen at minus-196 centigrade, it’s possible some tissue may still be viable after transfer to a new storage unit.

“It may turn out that some are more robust and survive and some may not,” Chetkowski said. “And there’s no way of eyeballing it. You don’t know the state of the embryo until the patient decides to undergo in-vitro fertilization and they’re thawed.”

As in Cleveland, the tank contained both new and much older embryos that could have been there for years.

Chetkowski is more hopeful for embryos frozen by a method called vitrification, a quick-freezing process that has been widely accepted over the last decade. Before that, he says, a slower and “less reliable” technique called equilibrium was the gold standard.

Lou Jones, the founder and CEO of Biogenics, a firm that makes warning equipment for cryopreservation units, is more pessimistic. He argues that eggs frozen via vitrification “will shatter” when put back into liquid nitrogen.

“If you add more liquid nitrogen, they are toast,” Jones said. “I’ve been trying to wave this flag for 10 years, telling them that they need separate tanks for vitrification and equilibrium processed tissue.”

Courts will decide

In Cleveland, affected families are starting to turn toward legal action after speaking to their doctors at University Hospitals Fertility Center.

“I’ve talked to 20 different patients directly, and all have been told their embryos are not viable,” said Tom Merriman, a partner at Landskroner Grieco Merriman LLC who is fielding calls from upset families. “I had another 15 emails Monday morning, and phone has been ringing all day.”

University Hospitals’ Mike Ferrari says the hospital will not comment on litigation and refers questions about the current state of embryos to the hospital’s March 8 statement, which says, “At this time, we don’t yet know the viability of these eggs and embryos.”

“We think this is a lot more catastrophic than what has been reported by the hospital,” said Mark DiCello of the Cleveland law firm DiCello Levitt & Casey. “The families we’ve spoken with who have had meetings with the hospital have not left with any sense of hope; instead there is a sense of utter devastation. We’re afraid it’s a total loss.”

DiCello, who is representing the Ashes, filed a class-action lawsuit against the hospital on Sunday. Merriman, who is representing the Plantses, says he will also soon file a lawsuit and expects to see more from other attorneys in Cleveland.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

“You can seek class-action status, but that’s something that’s ruled upon by the court,” Merriman said. “Class action or not, all of these cases are going to end up in front of one judge.”

Both the Ashes and the Plantses are hoping they can use their lawsuits to speak up and advocate for change.

“Our goal is to seek prevention and increased oversight so this can never happen again,” Amber Ash said. “So that other families don’t have to receive such devastating news.”

“Those families are not alone,” Kate Plants said, breaking into tears. “When I think about my own grief, I feel like I’m carrying them with me. It’s easy for me to be strong myself, but when I think about all the other women and families and all the sacrifices they made. Their options were taken from them forever.”

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/

[gethealthy18-blog]

Cryotherapy Facial – What Is It, Benefits, And How It Works?

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/getting-healthy/getting-healthy-women/cryotherapy-facial-what-is-it-benefits-and-how-it-works/

Cryotherapy Facial – What Is It, Benefits, And How It Works?

Ramona Sinha January 21, 2019

I’m sure you have heard of botox. But, have you ever heard of something called ‘frotox’? It’s the nickname that the beauty industry has coined for cryotherapy facial. Cryotherapy facial is a treatment in which your skin is exposed to subzero temperatures. It is the hottest (pun intended!) skin care treatment right now that celebs are obsessed with. Scroll down to learn more about it.

Table Of Contents

What Is Cryotherapy Facial?

Shutterstock

Cryotherapy means ‘cold therapy.’ It is a treatment in which your body or a body part (such as your face) is exposed to subzero temperatures for a few minutes.

This technique was first developed in Japan in 1978. The Japanese rheumatologist, Dr. Toshima Yamaguchi, is credited with developing this technique. He primarily used this technique to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Soon, the benefits of cryotherapy moved beyond arthritis. It proved beneficial for treating inflammation, psoriasis, and tissue pain and revitalizing the skin.

Cryotherapy can be done on just one particular area of your body or your entire body. When it is done on the face, it is called ‘cryotherapy facial,’ and when it is done on your body, it is called ‘whole-body cryotherapy.’ The way it is administered depends on the specific area of the body you are addressing.

In whole-body cryotherapy, your body is enclosed in a small chamber. You need to stand inside a chamber that surrounds only your body, leaving an opening for your head. Once your body is inside the chamber, its temperature is dropped to anywhere between -200° and -300° Fahrenheit. The aesthetician blows a cold stream of air that is made of vaporized liquid nitrogen. Your body is exposed to that temperature for just a few minutes

When exposed to freezing temperature, your body thinks that it’s freezing. This triggers the natural healing mechanism of your body. It accumulates blood in the core of your body to keep it warm. This expands your capillaries, and the white blood cells start working at a faster pace to protect you. During those minutes, your brain also releases hormones, such as adrenaline and endorphins, to stimulate your organs. This reaction facilitates cell rejuvenation, boosts your immune function, and promotes self-healing.

Back To TOC

Cryotherapy facial does not involve such a chamber. Here is what you can expect during a session.

How Cryotherapy Facial Works: What To Expect During A Session

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Different doctors might follow slightly different processes for cryotherapy, but overall, the approach remains the same.

Before the treatment, your face is thoroughly cleansed and massaged. This helps in lymphatic drainage and elimination of toxins and tension from your facial muscles.

Your face might be exposed to steam. If you have any breakouts, they will be extracted with a quick session of microdermabrasion.

In some places, your face may be exposed to different light frequencies to aid repair, kill bacteria, and boost collagen production. This helps in improving your skin’s health.

Now, the cryotherapy session begins.

Your eyes are covered with protective goggles.

A cold blast of liquid nitrogen is pumped all over your face using a tube attached to the cryotherapy machine. The nozzle of the tube has lasers that measure the temperature of your skin continuously.

The tube is continuously moved all over your face. This is to ensure that no particular area of your face gets too cold.

A cryotherapy facial session lasts for 2-3 minutes. Once the process is over, your safety goggles are removed. In many places, a cryotherapy session is followed by other spa facial treatments. You may receive red LED light therapy (to increase skin radiance), a facial massage, and a hydrating mask to boost your skin’s health. Immediately after the procedure, your skin will feel tighter and smoother.

Back To TOC

Whether you are opting for just a facial or a full-body session, cryotherapy offers multiple benefits. Let’s explore them in the next section.

Benefits Of Cryotherapy Facial For Skin

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1. It Helps Improve Atopic Dermatitis Symptoms

A 2008 study involving 18 adults with mild to moderate levels of atopic dermatitis examined the efficacy of cryotherapy in reducing AD symptoms. Most of the participants experienced improvement in their condition. However, three of them complained of mild acral (areas of limbs, ear, and nose) frostbite. Overall, the subjects regarded the process as pleasant and were willing to follow the course of treatment (1).

2. It Helps Reduce Acne

A study done on mice found that exposing the sebaceous glands to a temperature of -8° Celsius reduced the number of sebocytes (sebum-producing cells), thus preventing excessive sebum production (2).

3. It Improves Blood Circulation

When you undergo cryotherapy facial, the intense cold air makes your blood vessels contract and then expand. This leads to increased blood flow to your skin and makes it look healthy and radiant.

4. It Tightens Your Skin Pores

The cold temperature of cryotherapy tightens your skin’s pores. This prevents the accumulation of dirt and bacteria in your pores.

Back To TOC

Other Benefits Of Cryotherapy

1. It Eases Pain

Cryotherapy is mainly used by athletes to treat muscle spasms and injuries. When your body is exposed to cold, it numbs the irritated nerve and helps in easing acute injuries and swelling. The cold also helps minimize inflammation, thus treating bruises, strains, and sprains (3).

2. It Eases Migraine Symptoms

A study found that cold therapy could ease migraine symptoms effectively. The study involved 101 patients (of which only 55 participants were included in the data analysis) with a migraine headache targeting their carotid arteries at the neck. The recordings were measured at various time intervals, such as during the onset of pain, after 15 minutes, after 30 minutes, and after 1 hour. And 77% of the participants said that the cold therapy helped in easing the pain (4).

Although the study claims that cryotherapy helps with migraine, the FDA does not have any evidence to support this claim (5).

Cryotherapy facial has many benefits, but it also comes with its fair share of risks. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t yet cleared cryotherapy as a potential treatment option for many skin and health conditions. The risks and side effects of cryotherapy are discussed below.

Back To TOC

Side Effects And Risk Factors Of Cryotherapy

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Anna Ghambaryan, a scientific reviewer at FDA, says that asphyxiation is the most significant risk posed by whole-body cryotherapy. She states that the amount of nitrogen in an enclosed area may cause oxygen deficiency, which can lead to hypoxia and loss of consciousness (5). Other potential risks include:

Frostbite

Ice burns

Numbness and tingling sensation

Redness

Also, avoid cryotherapy if you have:

Respiratory issues

Cardiovascular issues

High blood pressure

History of seizures

Metal implants in your body

Bleeding disorders

Anemia

Or, are pregnant

Further research is needed to prove the efficacy of cryotherapy as a treatment option for skin and health issues. If you decide to go for cryotherapy facial or whole-body cryotherapy (keeping in mind that the FDA does not approve it), discuss it with your doctor before scheduling your appointment.

Back To TOC

Do have any more questions about this new facial treatment? Post them in the comments section below, and we’ll get back to you!

Expert’s Answers For Readers’ Questions

How often should you get a cryotherapy facial?

Getting a cryotherapy facial 2-3 times a week for 2-3 weeks is recommended to repair damaged skin, treat the symptoms of a skin condition, or to get a youthful glow.

Is cryotherapy good for acne?

Yes, it helps reduce acne by tightening skin pores and minimizing excess sebum production.

Does cryotherapy hurt?

Cryotherapy is a non-invasive procedure. Though it is very cold, it won’t hurt you as much as ice does.

References

“Whole-Body Cryotherapy in Atopic…”, JAMA Dermatology

“Longitudinal, 3D In Vivo Imaging of…”, ScienceDirect

“Cryotherapy”, New York Chiropractice College

“Randomized Controlled Trial…”, Hawai’i Journal of Medicine & Public Health, US National Library of Medicine

“Whole Body Cryotherapy…“, U.S. Food & Drug Administration

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Source: https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/cryotherapy-facial/

[thresholdbb]

I first misread it as like. "You bitch (the reader), look at Chakotay" lol. But yea poor threshold babies 😔

Am I constantly berating the Voyager crew’s poor decisions and calling them names? Yes

Does that mean I love them any less? Absolutely not

But the Threshold babies deserved better, damnit!

[jillmckenzie1]

Rising Appalachia – Local Boulder Folk Music Event

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

According to a Freudian worldview, your Ego is the bossypants part of your psyche who’s always super worried with appearances and logic and avoiding risks. The Id is the wild child who wants illogical, contradictory, glorious gratification of desires. Denver is where I live out my Ego, and Boulder is where my Id wants to rule. My Id loves Boulder like my Ego loves dominating the other parts of my psyche.

I visited Boulder this weekend to attend a concert by Rising Appalachia and Lyla June, a duo of folk-singing sisters and a Native American singer-songwriter-poet. The duo’s most recent project has been a concert tour where they travel by train to avoid excessive carbon emissions. I was not certain if my Ego or my Id would win out when judging this experience because my Ego thinks that sisters playing banjos on a train requires drinking a lot of metaphorical Kool-Aid. My Id, on the other hand, babbles with joy at the thought of it.

I showed up at the Boulder Theater, where the line for the entrance snaked out the door and around the corner. The event was sponsored by Guayaki Yerba Mate and their dude was moving up and down the line with an airpot of the brew, handing it out to all the chilly takers. I happily accepted a paper cup of it, which promptly steamed over my glasses. It was scalding hot, and as dry and bitter as my soul. It’s not Kool-Aid, but well worth drinking on a freezing night at a folk concert.

When I got up to the door, the spaced-out doorman took my ticket, stamped my wrist, checked my ID (my identification, not my psyche), and applied a wristband. Then immediately seemed to forget our entire interaction.

“Wait. Did I get your ticket.”

“Uh, yeah. It’s right there.”

“Oh, yeah. There is it. Did I see your ID?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Did I stamp you?”

“Yep.”

What can I say? It’s Boulder.

Once inside, the Guayaki people handed me more tea, this time from a nitrogen frother that made the entire cold cup into liquid foam. It was weird, but not bad, like drinking the head on a pint of beer made from clover hay. I got through it and then moved on where I feel most comfortable: the bar. The chalkboard advertised a “3G” cocktail, made with a dash of yerba mate over grapefruit, ginger ale, gin. Yes, sir, I’ll take that. Antioxidants can taste like a cup of hot ass and they’re much better when concealed in the vehicle of gin, which is also bitter and herbal, but alcoholic, too. It was a pretty decent cocktail.

I attended the event solo, which was fine. I’m not on the market or anything, but it would have been pleasant if I had passed the time before the show chatting with an attractive man. Instead, I was drafted into conversation with the Colorado facsimiles of Candace and Toni. The people-watching in the theater was amazing. The concentration of white people with dreadlocks was unrivaled. “Buddy clothes,” where couples wear matching clothing is replaced with “buddy

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

locks,” where both partners have dreadlocks. Lots of shapeless dresses and dudes in headwraps. Hard to tell if people are dressed in festival wear or if it’s just, you know, Boulder.

Lyla June opened the show with a rap song, well-executed. It was a bit of a non-sequitur to see a Native woman in full Native garb performing an art that is so rooted in African-American culture. That’s art, though. She did it well and made it her own through her choice of topic, wording, and performance. Afterward, she began to sing in a voice that was not operatic or even the most lovely I’ve ever heard, but whose tones were comforting, pleasant, and nourishing. It was the cream of potato soup of voices. That doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it’s meant to be. She shared the stage with a Persian woman who, speaking as a person with limp, pale hair, had an enviable bounty and volume of tresses. There was also a guy from Burkina Faso who played a guitar-ish stringed instrument with vim and enthusiasm. My Id gobbled all this up and asked for more.

Lyla announced that the proceeds from her merchandise and album sales for the evening would be going to support La Academia, an inner-city school for kids of color. “They don’t know it yet, but it’ll be going to them,” she said. This was a bit weird, because La Academia announced in March that it is closing. However, the Denver Inner City Parish, “The Parish,” still exists, and so maybe that’s where the donation will be going.

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

After Lyla June, a man named Phil Little Thunder sang a song for the rights of indigenous people. Please pardon that I was unable to capture his native name. Both his regalia and singing were impressive. He shared the stage with a white guy who announced that he had learned through a dream that his ancestor committed genocide. This is where my Ego kicked in. A dream? Can we back this up with concrete reference material? The scientist in me wants to know.

During the intermission, I checked out the restrooms (clean fixtures, no paper towel dispensers, floors clean and dry) and then wandered back to the bar and asked for another 3G cocktail.

“Three Gee’s?” asked the bartender.

“Yeah. The one with yerba mate and gin.”

“Huh. Ok. Whatever you want.”

He ducked away and returned with three plastic cups, which, upon tasting, proved to have nothing but yerba mate and gin. I didn’t bother trying to correct him. I carried the cups back and shared them with Candace and Toni, exchanging sips of their whiskey gingers, which is what I used to call my Bullet-drinking, redheaded ex-boyfriend.

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

The Rising Appalachia sisters took the stage after the non-white folks cleared out. This goes to reinforce the fact that, since we were really all here to see them, if you want to say something and you’re female, it helps to be thin, white, and objectively hot. Even better if there’s two of you and you’re indistinguishable as a pair. They spoke in a distinctive cadence which oddly reminded me of Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald. There’s also

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

something to say about the location and audience of this politically-socially charged event: it was preaching to the choir. There’s no more welcoming place in America than Boulder for a folk concert talking about social justice. It was musically lovely and a joyful gathering of like-minded souls, but I doubt that anybody there disagreed with the message, or was even unaware of the social and historical situations they were protesting. Could it have been more impactful to stage this event in, say, Aurora?

Rising Appalachia is a pair of sisters, Chloe Smith and Leah Song, from Atlanta who have been playing for over a

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

decade as a band and performing as activists for community and justice. They sound pretty great, too! The tunes were lively and played on fiddle and guitar with drums and backup instruments. Later on, a pair of male dancers joined them on stage. They wore matching flowy white shirts and were also indistinguishable, but they were clearly enjoying themselves and were reciprocally enjoyable to watch. The sisters played a long and delightful set and then closed out the show.

Can I take a moment to vent my spleen about encores? I hate them. I find it such an irritating and transparent farce. The band acts like they’re done.

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

The audience pretends that they think the show is done. They then perform an appeal for another song and the band pretends that they have changed their minds about more music and returns to the stage. Why not just play your intended set and be done? Why this weird dance? It’s like a third-date evasiveness about why you’re inviting your date in for “a drink.” Anyway, the

Courtesy Photos of Come To Life

sisters returned to the stage and sang a charming, a cappella version of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” including vocal renderings of brass instruments. And you know? Despite my eyeroll at encores, I liked this one. My Ego finally shut up, my Id reigned, and I loved. every. minute. Which was as it should be because, you know, it’s Boulder.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/rising-appalachia-local-boulder-folk-music-event/

[thehowtostuff-blog]

Sunflowers are native American plants with many uses. Their oil is used for biodiesel and cooking oil, and their seeds can make tasty snacks. A sunflower also makes a bright and happy addition to any sunny window or balcony. Growing a sunflower in a pot is an easy project that even small children can enjoy.[1]

EditSteps

EditChoosing Your Sunflower and Container

Buy sunflower seeds for growing. You can buy sunflower seeds from your local nursery or garden center, or you can order them online. If you want rarer varieties, you may have better luck online. Dwarf varieties are best-suited for container growing.[2]

Sunflower seeds are also sold in grocery and convenience stores, but these are for eating, not for growing. After being roasted, a sunflower seed won't sprout.

If you already have a fully grown sunflower plant, put the seeds from the flower in an airtight container and keep them in the fridge. Try to plant the seeds as soon as possible. Older seeds may be harder to grow.

Choose your sunflower variety. A packet of sunflower seeds (or a listing on a website) will clearly state the name of the variety, the type of sunflower it is, and how tall the sunflower will grow. If you're shopping at a local nursery or garden center, you can also ask an associate for help.[3]

Single-stem sunflowers only grow one flower from one seed. If you want to keep sunflowers all summer, you'll have to replant every 10 to 14 days. However, single-stem varieties are pollen-less, so they won't drop pollen on your porch, furniture, or clothes.

Branching sunflowers produce many flowers over the course of the season without having to be replanted. Branching sunflowers also have some of the more unusual colors, including burgundy and chocolate.

Find the right size container. Choose the size of your container based on the height of the flower you want to plant, as well as how many flowers you want in each container. Generally, most dwarf sunflowers can be planted in a pot.[4]

Mammoth sunflowers need a container that holds at least .

If you're repurposing a container that was previously used for something else, make sure it's clean and sterile. You may also have to make drainage holes in a repurposed container. Without them, your seeds may rot.

Include a plate or saucer under the container to catch run-off water.

Add potting soil and compost. Choose a high quality, nutrient-rich topsoil or potting soil to plant your sunflowers. Mixing in compost provides a source of food for your sunflowers as well.[5]

Quality topsoil will have a pH of between 5.5 and 7.5, and have more than 3 percent organic content. These figures will be listed on the bag.[6]

As long as you use high quality topsoil, you don't need to add any drainage material, such as sand or rocks, to the bottom of the container. Doing so actually hinders water movement and can prevent your pot from draining properly.[7]

EditPlanting Your Sunflower

Push each seed about into the soil. If you're planting more than one seed in your container, sow the seeds apart.You may want to add a thin layer of compost to the top of the soil after your seeds are sown.[8]

Make sure you have a radius of around all sides of each seed. Don't sow them too close to the edges of the container.

Water the seeds daily. Sunflowers need more water than most plants as they are growing. Make sure the soil remains moist and well-drained. Give your sunflowers at least of water a week while the seeds are germinating.[9]

Sunflowers that don't get enough water during these early stages will have thin, weak stems that are unable to hold the heavy flower head upright.

Your soil is well-drained if water flows through it relatively quickly. Puddling or standing water in your pot indicates a drainage problem.[10]

Watch as the seeds germinate. Within a week to 10 days, your sunflower seeds should start growing into small seedlings. During this time, continue to water the seeds every day and make sure the soil is moist, particularly around the seeds.[11]

If your sunflowers are outside, you may want to cover the seedlings with baskets or netting to protect them from birds.

EditCaring for Your Sunflower

Add fertilizer if desired. While sunflowers don't necessarily need additional feeding to grow, fertilizer can make the colors on your flower heads brighter and bolder. Start with a high-nitrogen liquid plant fertilizer, then switch to one with more phosphorus when the bud begins to bloom.[12]

You can also add diluted fertilizer to your sunflower's water. Take care not to over-fertilize your sunflower – the stem may break.[13]

Keep your sunflower in direct sunlight. As the seedlings grow, they need as much direct sunlight as possible so the stems will be thick and strong and able to support the large flower head. Once grown, your sunflower should have 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight a day.[14]

The heliotropic heads of sunflowers follow the path of the sun. If not in direct sunlight, they will bend towards the sun, which may damage the stem over time.

Water your sunflower several times a week. Expect to water your sunflowers more often than you do other plants. Check the soil every day or two – it should be constantly moist. Generally, give your sunflowers about of water a week.[15]

If your sunflowers are outside, they should be fine with rain water after they reach in height.[16] You may need to compensate if you have a very hot, dry day.

As the flower grows, water the root zone in a radius around the plant itself.[17]

Keep a spray bottle handy and spritz the flower head with water regularly.

Stake your sunflower if necessary. Some dwarf varieties may not grow tall enough to need support. However, if your sunflowers reach a height of or taller, they should be anchored to something to keep the flower head from drooping.[18]

Don't anchor your support within the pot itself. When your sunflower reaches full size, it may tip the pot over. Tie the stake to a drainpipe, wall, or other object.

Harvest the seeds. If you have a sunflower variety with edible seeds, let the flower die on the stem. The seeds will ripen and dry as well. If your sunflowers are outside, cover them with netting or a paper bag to keep the birds from eating all your seeds.[19]

Generally, sunflower seeds that are black or gray with white stripes are edible.

When the back of the flower head turns brown, the seeds are typically ready to harvest.[20]

Once dried, you can keep the seeds in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 4 months. You can also freeze them if you need them for longer.

Sunflower buds can be eaten as well. Blanch them first to remove bitterness, then steam or boil them for 3 minutes. They are delicious tossed in garlic butter.

EditTips

There are several nonprofit organizations, such as Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org), that sell rare, heirloom varieties of sunflowers.[21]

Though most people roast sunflower seeds before eating them, you can also eat them raw. Sunflower seeds are excellent sources of several B vitamins and vitamin E, and are high in protein.[22]

EditWarnings

Sunflowers don't like to be transplanted, so start with a container large enough for the fully grown flower.[23]

Not all sunflower seeds can be eaten. If you plan to harvest the seeds for snacks, make sure you've purchased an edible variety.[24]

EditRelated wikiHows

Grow Garlic Indoors in a Pot

Get Amaryllis to Rebloom

Keep Poinsettias Growing To Next Christmas

Grow Flowering Plants Through Stems

Grow Sunflowers

Care for Indoor Plants

EditSources and Citations

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from How to of the Day https://ift.tt/2MvjpGy

[marketereaserch-blog]

Stem Cell Storage Industry Share and Size Report 2022

Global Stem Cell Storage Market is expected to grow at a significant CAGR in the upcoming years as the scope, product types and its applications are increasing across the globe. Stem Cell, which holds the potential of new cell-based therapies to treat critical therapeutic environments, must be efficiently deposited till it's time to use them. The storage of stem cell is termed as cryopreservation. In the cryopreservation technique, the stem cells are freezed at the temperatures below 150℃, by immersing them in nitrogen vapor. The adult stem cells are mesenchymal and hematopoietic; which has tremendous human therapeutic potential.

Additionally, to understand the progression of disease, stem cell’s therapeutic potential plays an important role. The capability to reserve stem cells is critical for their use in research as well as clinical applications. Preservation of cells permits the conveyance of cells between places, as well as the conclusion of security and quality control testing.

Stem Cell Storage Market is categorized based on product type, applications, and geography. This industry is categorized based on product types such as Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cell, Adult Stem Cell, Embryonic Stem Cell, Others. Stem Cell Storage Industry is categorized based on application into Cerebral Palsy, Leukemia, Thalassemia, Autism, Anemia, Diabetes, Others.

Stem Cell Storage Market is categorized based on geography into Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand), Japan, Middle East and Africa (GCC countries, S. Africa, Rest of MEA), North America (U.S., Canada), Latin America (Brazil, Rest of Latin America), Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain, Rest of Western Europe), and Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, Rest of Eastern Europe).

Browse Full Research Report @ https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/stem-cell-storage-market

North America has been at the forefront with regards to Stem Cell Storage Market and will continue to rule the roost in the years to come. Due to the accessibility of centralized funding for stem cell research and development in the region and people are more aware of the diseases so the stem cell market is going to upsurge in upcoming years.

Some of the key players that fuel the growth of the Stem Cell Storage Market include Beikebiotech, CBR, ViaCord, Krio, CCBC, Esperite, Life Cell, RMS Regrow, Crioestaminal, Cord life Group, PBKM FamiCord, cells4life, StemCyte, Cell safe Biotech Group, Cryo-cell, PacifiCord, Americord, Cryo Stem cell, Vcanbio, Family cord, Boyalife, and Steamed Biotech. The key players are focusing on inorganic growth to sustain themselves amidst fierce competition. As such, mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures are the need of the hour.

Market Segment:

Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Stem Cell Media in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering • North America • Europe • China • Japan • Southeast Asia • India

Global Stem Cell Media market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players including • ThermoFisher • Sigma-Aldrich • Lonza • GE Healthcare Life Sciences • Miltenyi Biotec • Clontech (Takara) • Irvine Scientific • Merck Millipore • PromoCell

Request Sample Copy of this Market Research @ https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/stem-cell-storage-market/request-sample

[sherristockman]

How to Grow and Enjoy Brussels Sprouts Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Several studies have confirmed that plant compounds called isothiocyanates, found in cruciferous vegetables, have potent anticancer activity. One particular isothiocyanate compound called sulforaphane has been shown to inhibit growth of cultured human breast cancer cells, leading to cell death. Broccoli and broccoli sprouts have garnered a reputation for being high in these beneficial compounds, but other cruciferous veggies have them as well, including Brussels sprouts, which have actually been shown to contain greater amounts of glucosinolates than broccoli.1 Glucoraphanin is a glucosinolate precursor of sulforaphane that influences carcinogenesis and mutagenesis.2,3 Compared to mature broccoli, broccoli sprouts can contain up to 20 times more glucoraphanin. Health Benefits of Brussels Sprouts In one study,4 men who ate about 1.5 cups of Brussels sprouts daily for five weeks had a 28 percent decrease in DNA damage, which the researchers concluded showed "that consumption of cruciferous vegetables [Brussels sprouts] may result in a decreased cancer risk.” As noted by World’s Healthiest Foods:5 “This connection between Brussels sprouts and cancer prevention should not be surprising since Brussels sprouts provide special nutrient support for three body systems that are closely connected with cancer development as well as cancer prevention. These three systems are (1) the body's detox system, (2) its antioxidant system, and (3) its inflammatory/anti-inflammatory system. Chronic imbalances in any of these three systems can increase risk of cancer, and when imbalances in all three systems occur simultaneously, the risk of cancer increases significantly.” One cup of cooked Brussels sprouts also contains more than 240 percent of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin K1, and nearly 130 percent of the RDA for vitamin C. They’re also a good source of fiber, manganese, potassium (which helps control your blood pressure by balancing the rather high sodium), choline, B vitamins, antioxidants and other health-promoting phytochemicals. Brussels Sprouts — A Hardy Winter Crop Brussels sprouts are a valuable addition to your home garden,6,7 and while they require quite a bit of space, they are among the hardiest of the cabbage family. If you time your planting to coincide with fall frost, they’ll actually be tastier, as the overnight chill brings out their sweetness. While they rarely do well in hotter climates, some newer hybrid varieties allow for greater temperature variances. Popular hybrid varieties8 include Bubbles, which has shorter maturation (82 days instead of 100), tolerates warmer weather and is resistant to rust, and Prince Marvel, which produces tighter, sweeter sprouts and has a maturation rate of about 90 days. Other recommended varieties include Jade Cross, Oliver, Royal Marvel and Valiant. How to Grow Brussels Sprouts A perfect cool weather crop, plan to transplant your Brussels sprout plants into your garden about 100 days before the first frost date. You can start your plants either indoors or out. If growing them directly in your garden, plant the seeds about one-half inch deep, and once they’ve reached a height of about 5 inches, thin them out so that they’re spaced about 2 feet apart. They’ll grow best in full sun but can handle partial shade. Alternatively, start your seeds indoors in starter containers four to five weeks before transplanting. When transplanting them into your garden, plant them a little bit deeper than they originally grew. The lowest leaves should be just above ground. Mulching around them will help retain moisture. If you let them dry out, the crop will usually fail. As for the soil, it should drain well, but need to be packed or pressed as excessively loose soil will encourage clubroot, a common disease affecting the cabbage family.9 In the featured video, they recommend tamping the soil down with your feet. Once or twice a month, spray the leaves with compost tea or seaweed extract. They’re very nitrogen dependent, so be sure to use plenty of high nitrogen compost. Brussels sprouts also grow well next to bush peas and beans for this reason, as these plants deliver an extra shot of nitrogen to the soil. As the plant matures, remove yellowing leaves to allow the sprouts room to grow. Just be sure to leave several of the largest, healthiest leaves toward the top. If you want or need the plant to mature faster, pinch off the top of the plant, but make sure you still have some healthy, fully expanded leaves remaining. Another growth-promoting tip is demonstrated in the MIgardener video above. You can promote maturation of the Brussels sprouts by snapping off most or all of the leaves, leaving only a healthy bunch at the crown. This will shock the plant into maturation and funnel energy toward the sprouts. Harvest Guidelines The Brussels sprouts are ready to harvest in 80 to 100 days (depending on the variety) or when they’re about 1 inch in diameter. You can let them grow larger, but the smaller ones are more tender and tend to have a more pleasant flavor. Harvest the sprouts from the bottom, up, by twisting them off the stem. Should you expect a hard freeze, you can still salvage your crop. Dig out the plant, remove any remaining leaves, hang the plant upside-down in a cool place and harvest as the sprouts mature. Sprouts that fail to develop into firm heads, remaining loosely bound instead, is a sign of heat exposure. Essentially, the weather was too warm. Flavor goes hand in hand with freshness, so avoid storing or refrigerating your Brussels sprouts for more than two days. Also avoid washing them before storing. Simply remove any damaged outer leaves and place them, unwashed, in the vegetable bin in your fridge. Wash them right before cooking if needed. How to Properly Prepare and Cook Brussels Sprouts The key to successful preparation of Brussels sprouts is to avoid overcooking. Brussels sprouts are very much like broccoli in this matter. Preparation is paramount in order to maximize their nutritional value. Here are some key considerations and helpful tips: • How to achieve more even cooking: The outer leaves cook faster than the core, so for more even cooking, carve an X into the bottom of each stem if cooking them whole. Larger sprouts will cook more evenly if cut in half. You can tell you’ve overcooked them by their color. They should remain bright green; a dull green or yellowing is an indication that valuable nutrients have been lost. • How to optimize sulforaphane content: As with broccoli (discussed in the video above),10 the sulforaphane content of Brussels sprouts is easily diminished by overcooking, as heat degrades the enzyme responsible for producing sulforaphane. To optimize retention, your best bet is to steam them for three to four minutes, until bright green.11 This will increase the available sulforaphane content by eliminating epithiospecifier protein — a heat-sensitive sulfur-grabbing protein that inactivates sulforaphane — while still retaining the enzyme myrosinase, which converts glucoraphanin to sulforaphane. Beyond the five-minute mark, you start losing valuable compounds. • How to maximize sulforaphane even further: To further boost sulforaphane content, pair your Brussels sprouts with a myrosinase-containing food12,13 such as mustard seed, daikon radishes, wasabi, arugula or coleslaw. Of these, mustard seed has been found to contain a particularly resilient form of myrosinase.14 For a recipe pairing Brussels sprouts with shallots and mustard seeds, see Epicurious.com.15 You could also try roasted Brussels sprouts with a mustard vinaigrette made with grainy mustard or mustard seed powder,16 or my balsamic drizzled Brussels sprouts recipe, to which you could simply add a dash of mustard seed powder. How to Optimize Preservation The best way to preserve your Brussels sprouts if you cannot eat them within a day or two of harvesting is to freeze them.17 But first, they need to be blanched. After picking off any damaged or coarse outer leaves, wash them and sort by size into small, medium and large. Bring a gallon of water to a rolling boil over high heat. You can blanch 1 pound of sprouts per batch. Small heads should be blanched for three minutes; medium-sized sprouts for four minutes and large heads for five minutes. While blanching can rapidly destroy anticancer compounds like glucosinolate in broccoli, Brussels sprouts have been found to be less severely affected by the blanching process, retaining far more of their glucosinolate than broccoli when blanched.18 To stop the cooking process, immerse the Brussels sprouts in ice water for the same amount of time as the blanching. Drain the Brussels sprouts on a paper towel. Once dry, pack into a freezer container. They’ll keep for up to one year if frozen at or below zero degrees F.

[scpzero]

SCP-009

Item #: SCP-009

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Subject is to be contained within a sealed storage tank of heat-resistant alloy with dimensions not less than 14 m3.

Under no circumstances should SCP-009 be exposed to temperatures in excess of 0°C when not undergoing testing, and no mundane liquids in a solid state (especially frozen water) shall be allowed within 30 meters of the subject's containment area. Subject's chamber is to be fitted with temperature sensors which shall be monitored at all times, and is to be kept refrigerated by no fewer than three (3) redundant cooling units. Any malfunction of sensors, or of coolant systems, is to be reported and repaired immediately.

If at any time the temperature in the containment area climbs above -5°C, the chamber is to be locked down immediately, and flooded with coolant until the temperature has been brought back down to between -30°C and -25°C. Atmosphere must be evacuated from the containment area when personnel are present within, and any water vapor present must be filtered and kept in the same conditions as detailed herein for no fewer than 24 hours. Any vapor displaying properties of SCP-009 is to be quarantined and added to the containment area as soon as possible.

All personnel interacting with or observing the subject must wear full environmental protection suits. All personnel leaving the containment chamber must undergo dehydration of all gear, research materials, and other objects contacting SCP-009's chamber. If contamination is discovered, no material or personnel shall be permitted to exit, and a Level 2 lock-down of the containment area shall commence. Lethal force is authorized in cases of dire need, but all security forces are strongly advised to remain as far away from their targets as possible, to minimize the chance of contact with fluids contaminated by SCP-009.

Description: SCP-009 is approximately 3,700 liters of a substance which exhibits a number of unique properties. While small amounts of the substance, in all phases, are as colorless as mundane water, en masse it takes on a distinct deep red hue.

Its most notable property, however, is the fact that SCP-009's reaction to temperature extremes is exactly opposite that of standard H2O: the subject assumes a liquid phase at temperatures between -100°C and 0°C, and converts into a solid state above those temperatures. At temperatures below -100°C, SCP-009 vaporizes into a gaseous phase similar to steam, though it still retains its red coloration when put under high pressure.

Examinations of the atomic structure of SCP-009 have proved inconclusive. Tests indicate that the subject is composed of the same combination of hydrogen and oxygen as normal water, leaving researchers to speculate that the source of the subject's abnormalities may be the atoms themselves. Dr. ██████ has suggested that the subject may have originated in or been altered by another reality in which the laws of physics are inverted.

This theory may have some merit in light of SCP-009's marked ability to "assimilate" natural water into its mass. If placed in physical contact with any aqueous solution (be it ice, salt water, or water vapor in air), SCP-009 will "spread" and contaminate any H2O in said solution, causing it to exhibit the subject's properties. Though this capacity is present in all phases, it has been observed to progress most slowly (and thus be most containable) in the liquid phase.

If the subject comes in contact with any biological source of heat, it begins a runaway reaction in which the living organism's bodily fluids are rapidly converted to SCP-009 and promptly frozen by their own body heat (because of their generally high core temperatures, mammals are particularly susceptible). Because SCP-009 produces heat while freezing (at the same rate mundane ice consumes heat while melting), the process is self-perpetuating until all available moisture is converted, or until it is halted by external interference.

Experiments on D-Class personnel have illustrated the process of conversion by the subject, which has been condensed down to a series of steps:

1. Initial Exposure: Subject is exposed to SCP-009, and it begins converting any water present on the exposed surface (usually skin) to exhibit its properties. Presence of mist, fog, snow, or other solid or vaporous water greatly accelerates this process.

2. Surface Conversion: A thin layer of frost forms on the exposed area as body heat and heat produced by SCP-009 raise its temperature above freezing. Progression to this step can take anywhere from five (5) minutes to one (1) hour, depending on victim's body temperature. At this stage, freezing has begun progressing through the initial layers of the epidermis and soon reaches live cells.

3. Deep Tissue Conversion: Exponential increase in temperature of SCP-009 causes expansion of ice crystals throughout the victim's body, resulting in widespread perforation of internal cell structure. Actual blood loss is minimal at this stage due to the crystals filling the puncture wounds, allowing subjects to remain alive and conscious for up to ██ hours.

4. [DATA EXPUNGED]

5. Death: Multiple organ failure and exsanguination via systemic crystallization.

Testing on D-Class personnel was discontinued as of 4/23/20██.

Addendum: Circumstances of Retrieval: Subject was found in ████, Alaska, on 11/05/19██. The Foundation became involved after reports were obtained from the native ████ Tribe, who came across the mangled bodies of a team of seal hunters which had apparently been ship-wrecked ██ kilometers from the village.

All victims were found encased in red ice. Cause of death recorded as internal bleeding. On victims whose features were sufficiently intact, expressions of panic and intense pain were observed. It is surmised that the low ambient temperatures in the area retarded the freezing process. This prolonged the time to total conversion by ██ hours, and allowed the victims to remain conscious until [DATA EXPUNGED].

Addendum: 12/16/20██

Super-cooling of SCP-009 for the purposes of experimentation is disallowed until further notice. Personnel are advised that liquid nitrogen is only to be used on the subject in controlled amounts, and only until temperatures have reached acceptable levels.

Related note: Possible application of SCP-009 in cold fusion research pending evaluation.