#spinal source

[billa-billa007]

Diagnosing Spinal Source of Extremity Pain: Subjective Exam with Nick Rainey

Extremity pain, which refers to pain or discomfort in the arms or legs, can have various causes, including issues originating from the spine. The spine plays a crucial role in transmitting signals between the brain and the rest of the body, so problems in the spinal column can lead to extremity pain.

[incorrectlooneytunesquotes]

It's like, how much more looney could this be and the answer is none. None more looney.

Bugs Bunny

[gaza-giving-tree]

Imagine holding your child in your arms, knowing that with every passing day, their tiny heart is struggling—fighting for survival in a place where medical care is nearly impossible to access.

Image: (Top) Sharif Alamoudi's son Ahmed, one of his two boys conceived with IVF and born in the midst of war. Ahmed has holes in his heart, requiring urgent medical care.

@shareeffamily

@shariffamilyy

Story written by @rumiandroses

For Sharif Alamoudi and his wife, the journey to parenthood was long and difficult. After four rounds of IVF, they were finally blessed with twins, the children they had dreamed of for so long. But just as their family was finally complete, their world was shattered by war.

One of their two sons, Ahmed, was born with holes in his heart and requires urgent surgery. On top of this, he suffers from nerve damage in his eye, a condition that could worsen without proper care. Yet, in Gaza, where hospitals have been bombed, medicine is scarce, and borders are closed, getting medical attention is nearly impossible. Every day, Sharif and his wife watch helplessly as their son’s condition deteriorates, unable to do anything but hope and pray for a way out.

Sharif himself is also struggling—his herniated disc causes severe spinal and nerve pain, making it impossible for him to work overseas and provide for his family. With no income, no access to treatment, and no way to escape, their future is uncertain.

This family needs our help. Their fundraiser has gone without donations for too long, and every dollar could mean the difference between life and death for baby Ahmed.

If you can, please donate—even the cost of a cup of coffee could bring them closer to safety and the medical care their child desperately needs.

You can donate to the Alamoudi family GoFundMe [HERE]

This campaign has been vetted by @90-ghost. Sharif is currently trying to get his family's campaign vetted by other sources, as well.

[stareiiez]

You're Mine, Now and Forever

notes: first actually long fic for this fandom, and its giving a slow start. don't worry! it gets better from here. also idk how I feel about this style of writing, it feels off. idk.

warnings: MINORS DNI.

words :3.3k

chapter two

You don't know how it happened, or how much time passed when the first scream ripped through the air and the first bloody body collided with your frantic driving on the express lane outta town. After all, it was just supposed to be like any other day, with you spending your time at work during a slow hour; organizing and reorganizing dresses for what felt like the nth time that hour just so you looked productive. Pop music filtered slowly through the store's speakers and you hummed to the few lines you knew of Chappel Roan's new hit song. The two customers milling around the clearance section chatted to another one of your coworkers across the store, and your manager was at the cash register, scrolling through logs of ordered clothing items to make sure they were in stock in the store's catalogs.

It was a boring day. A lunch break was the motivation for you to continue mindlessly nitpicking at full clothing racks when the first explosion shook the very building. The music stuttered glitching just to accompany the flickering overhead flourescent lights. Then another explosion follows soon after, a deep heavy boom that sinks into the soles of your shoes and rockets up your spinal cord to shake your back molars. Your mouth wants to open, to ask the obvious ' What the fuck was that?" out loud like every stereotypical blonde that questions the bloody scream they heard in the middle of the night in every 90's horror movie. But the chorus of screams and chaos answers your inner thoughts instead. Screams of fleeing citizens running away from whatever danger caused the very ground to shake, and smoke to plume into clouds upwards.

"Stay back, " your manager barks to you and three other women who cower together in a small huddle. She walks towards the still rattling glass doors of the store. A shared fear decorates your faces as you all watch with bated breath; the two sets of wide doors swing open, and your manager steps out into the chaotic mass of running bodies that swarm past her.

Horror paints her face when she sees the source of the destruction. Her head is tilted backward and jaw slack, her amber eyes the size of marbles, she's rooted to the spot. You're surprised she's not knocked off her small feet with every push and shove she endures. "Oh my god." Your ears strain, eyes focused on the way her mouth moves over each syllable with a slow, shocked pace. You're not blessed with reading lips, but you'd like to think that adrenaline fuels your brain enough to make out the word 'Invincible' before the ground shakes again.

This time, the destruction targets your building particularly. One second you're standing and the next, you're knocked on your ass washed away in a wave of shattered glass and minuscule pieces of asphalt and rubble that spray into your vicinity. The outside world, once muffled by plexiglass, screams with sirens, and people running for their lives berate your ringing eardrums. Your front doors are destroyed and buried under brick-and-mortar rubble. Severed limbs stick out this way and at odd angles from the tight crevices of drywall and insulation. The dust makes your eyes water, and you choke on a scream that squeezes your throat something fierce. You like to think you're not consumed by the panic and the trauma of watching your manager and several others get crushed to death in a matter of seconds because Mark has gone off the deep end.

"Come on!" Your coworker's words bark at you. Suddenly she's at your side, in your shocked haze, she managed to be the functioning one out of the rest of your group. Her hands grab onto your forearm and yank all your dead weight to your feet. "We need to leave! I don't want to die here!" Her free hand holds onto the sobbing customer, the other woman accompanying her is missing. Surely buried under the rubble that caved in one corner of the dress store, maybe she was one of the hands that was reaching out from the concrete bloody mess. The thought makes you want to stop and vomit, your stomach curdles with how much stress and adrenaline swarms through your body in nauseating waves.

You follow her, not like you had a choice, she's pulling your trio towards the back of the store and the emergency exit. Her breaths are ragged and half-sputtering between prayers to some god she believes in that your only exit isn't blocked off either. "Stay here, I need to get the keys in the office." Your coworker says, dropping both of your hands. Her face is an ashy pale gray when she turns to give both you and the other woman a once over, checking to see if you're all in one piece and able-bodied enough to book it once she gets the door open. You must look just like her, the expression of unrestrained fear and cement particles dusting your face. Small streaks of blood trickle down your temples and nose bridge, thanks to the shards of plexiglass that rained over you in the third explosion.

You nod, swallowing down acidic bile that bubbles at the back of your throat. Your eyes linger on her small back when she makes a mad dash to the small back office down the hall. When she disappears from your line of sight, your phone vibrates in your pocket. It makes you jump right out of your ashen grey skin. The woman beside you startles as well, her hand clutching at her heart. "Sorry," you manage to whisper, while your hands scramble to the right back pocket of your jeans to dig out your phone. The now cracked touch screen illuminates too brightly, shining a picture of you and Mark Grayson posed in a goofy pose. Your fingers poised in a 'peace' sign, while the male was peeking out from behind your shoulder with his two pointer fingers raised above either side of your head. Your twin smiles look so carefree in the saved contact picture you have of him.

Your thumb taps on the green answer button, and you raise the phone to your ear. Mark's out-of-breath panting sends chills down your spine in some sickly worrisome way. Your name barks through the speaker of the phone, the continuous screams make it almost hard to hear him. "Mark? Mark, what's going on? " You don't even question why the hell he's calling in the first place, isn't he the supposed one murdering and tearing down the city? Isn't that why the people screaming his superhero name saw him wreak havoc?

"No time! Please tell me you're safe. ." a pause, his ragged inhale makes your heart squeeze in time with your clammy palm gripping the phone tighter to your ear. "Please."

"I'm fine." You copy his pause, brows wrinkle in thought. You know you're lying, you're not fine. You're dazed and confused, shaking in your sleek shoes. Your legs are unsteady and becoming more and more unstable, the comedown from adrenaline is going to be a fickle bitch that'll do you in if whatever happening outside doesn't kill you first. "I'm still at work, I'm waiting for the door to get unlocked as fast as it can be."

Even through the grey background noise on the other side of the line, Mark's sigh crackles through the call. You could picture his shoulders just dropping the tiniest inch in relief, that a loved one of his hadn't been hurt or god forbid, even slaughtered mercilessly in the devastation that had been going on. "You need to get out of here." His voice urges, tensely.

"Mark-"

"I'm serious!" His tone jumps, he's barking. Halfway yelling, and you flinch. The woman at your side reacts by recoiling, both of your nerves bouncing off one another like electrons bouncing off the walls of an atom. "You need to get the fuck out of here, find a car-- any car. Don't even think about hiding, you need to drive as far as you can outta here. You hear me?"

You swallow dryly, fingers squeezing tighter. Blood rushes in your ears, you know you can't argue. There's no way to get information outta him now, not when his words are clipped, whatever is happening outside is far more important and drastic than arguing with his girlfriend who's too stubborn to flee for her life without asking stupid questions. You're smarter than that, and he knows it. He's lost far too many things, and gone through too many traumatizing situations than to waste time and not save the people he loves. Your eyes close briefly, counting to three in your whirling hellscape of a mind. You nod like he can even see you. You can sense it's different now. This isn't some closed-off fight between Nolan and his son that trying to stand up to him and not ' ready the Earth' for the viltrumites to come. This is far more scarier, it's drastic and life-shattering. "What about you? People are screaming Invincible is causing this."

"Don't worry about me." Mark says, his tone more gentle than before, "Just run, I can handle them and if anything happens to me? Just know I love you, okay?"

Your breath hitches. You hate how that sounds; you hate the confession on his lips. It sounds more like a goodbye than him admitting his affection for you like he does every day so casually. It feels heavier on your heart, it rattles your bones, and the tidal wave of curdling bile in your stomach roars into a tsunami. You need to vomit. You need to yell at Mark and tell him to not talk like that. You want to tell him that whatever is happening outside can be handled by the two of you together, even if you don't have any powers. Yet, before you can even voice any of those options over the phone, the call ends with a sharp click. You don't know tears are dotting your waterline till you blink so rapidly that a few salty drops cut trails down your ashy cheeks. Gray water stains the front of your shirt, and your phone lowers from your ear. Your grip is loose on the device.

"Got them!" Your coworker calls out, jogging back to you and the other woman; the jangling keys clenched tight in her fist. You don't know if it adds to the hurt your heart is already holding onto when she doesn't acknowledge the distraught on your face. She's more focused on jamming one of the silver keys in the keyhole and twisting it to the right, the satisfying click and rough opening of the door rings in your muffled ears.

The woman shoves past the two of you without hesitation, making a break for it as fast as her forty-five-year-old bones can carry her. She won't make it far, she barely would last surviving running around the bend of the building before the crowd of citizens tramples her half to death in their need to live another minute longer. Any man for themself is a fickle bitch. Your head turns to your coworker as you follow suit, breaking into a jog. She's already following behind, her pace a lot faster. "Stay safe." You call to her when she breezes past. Her silhouette disappears when she blends into the waves of people, fighting against the current so she can get to some sort of safety before she gets crushed to death herself. Her kindness, her stupid jokes, and her natural leadership are all you're going to have to remember her by; if you live long enough to even see her again.

You run a different path, following the makeshift alleyway that's half crumpled down and now smaller in size, your shoes threaten to trip on jutting-out stone and rebar when you traverse too fast. Your heart thuds faster in your chest, brain running a million miles an hour on how to keep yourself from running further and further away from the manic crowds. Alley water splashes at your ankles, sinks into your shoes, and makes your socks stick to your soles. You cringe inwardly, pumping your legs harder till you too start to run. The small alley breaks out into wide open space, and sunlight and smokey skies greet your frazzled complexion. Crashed cars and abandoned vehicles greet you immediately, some are still smoking and burning. Hot oil and melted rubber don't do anything to quell the queasiness you've been fighting this entire day, but there's no stopping now.

Now, you have to leave. No matter who Invincible knock-off is causing this; they'll be busy fighting off Mark and his team. You run along the cracked sidewalk, eyes sweeping over the conditions of the vehicles.

The lessening of people crying for help is eery, the whole city should be shouting from the tops of their lungs. It's like everyone got wiped out in a matter of seconds, or on a lighter note, they're all hiding and being as quiet as possible so they don't die next. You expected to see clogged highways and people running along the highways seeking freedom, instead, there are only deserted streets and cars tipped over on their sides that you brush past in your search for a ride.

Finally, you spot a buggy. A cute little Volkswagon with dents decorating its doors, and still running. Its engine is the loudest thing in the pin-drop silence, even compared to your sneakers pounding on the pavement. You know it's stupid to take the bait, that some conveniently placed car is here while you were in the middle of your search. You like to think you're better than the dumb female lead of a horror movie, that falls for every trick and ploy the killer lays out for her; but you're desperate. You need to fulfill Mark's wish, that you get the fuck out here and run as far as you can. The leather seat squeaks under your weight when you throw yourself inside the car and shut the door behind you. The car's radio crackles with dead static over its speakers, it sends chills up your spine and only adds to the apocalyptic atmosphere your once-busy city has been subjected to.

You're a walking target. The last survivor of your bug colony that trying to outrun the burning magnifying glass held above your head by some sadistic fucking toddler. The realistic side of things is, that you won't live to see the outskirts of the city before the Invincible knockoff crushes you and your car into smithereens. It'll be quick and painless, but you would hate to be another headstone in a graveyard that your family and Mark would have to visit. That's if they can separate your body from twisted metal and leather. With bated breath, you shift the car from park into drive and slam your foot down onto the gas. Clammy hands clench the wheel when you speed down the streets. You weren't prepped to see the mass destruction that greets you with every twist and turn you made. Bodies littered the streets, some in one piece, others most likely ripped into multiple pieces and scattered over the road and sidewalks. Collapsed buildings and homes make you swerve and splash puddles of oil and blood on the car's exterior. Your tires have run over a body part or more not to crash; the squish of flesh being flattened unnaturally is unmistakable in your ears.

"This is so fucked." You whisper under the roar of your pounding heartbeat. The city limit sign seems to grow closer and closer to you once you hit the wide-open highway. The drive through the rest of the city was thankfully quick, and you still were alive and unharmed. It's a miracle.

Your hope swells and stirs in the pit of your stomach like acid-covered butterflies, you're going to make it. You're going to make it! The delirious bubble of laughter peels from your parched throat, you can't help it. However, that laughter dies just as fast as it came. Just when you were going to pass that beloved city limit sign that seems just in arms reach now, your car hits the dark blue blur that launches itself in front of you. Your foot doesn't react quickly enough to hit the brake, but somehow you're violently stopped. Your chest hits the steering wheel, forehead threatening to follow suit if it wasn't for the seatbelt yanking you back just in time to save you from a concussion.

"Well, and who do we have here?" A male voice speaks out, way too calm for your own disorientated liking. "Hey pretty girl, didn't know if I'd see you again."

Again?!

You blink quickly, as a hand rubs at your bruising chest. In front of you, is . . Invincible. His color scheme is the same, black and blue, but he looks different. His ears stick out, and his hair is hidden away by his suit. His smile which you thought was charming and shy, is replaced with a sick stretched look. He bares all of his white teeth at you like a predator intimidating its prey. In your heart you know this isn't your Mark, it can't be. Not with the way he doesn't move a single centimeter of his body, he doesn't even look like he's breathing. The man is so quiet like he's waiting for you to freak out or scream, yet you disappoint him when you don't do either option. Boring, all you do is stare at him. Jaw slightly slacked, brain whirring a million microseconds a minute. His smile, however, doesn't waver. No, not at all; of course his pretty girl has always been smarter than any bimbo bitch that cried out when he flew through their bodies and ripped them to shreds in his hands.

It's what he loves- - no, it's what he was obsessed over back in his world. It was a shame you didn't last long in his care, and now it's like a higher being is rewarding him for his hard work here in your world to plant you in front of him so suddenly. He's glad the others didn't get to you first, who knows who he would have had to kill off his variants to get to you. He rounds to the side of the car so smoothly, your eyes watching his every step. A hand smacks down on the roof of the car, adding to the multitude of dents to its being. His other hand grips the handle of the driver's side door and pulls it off as easily as peeling off a sticker from its page.

He bends at the waist, his face invading your space far too close to your liking. He can smell the waves of fear and the new spike of adrenaline leaking from every pore of your body. Your natural scent mixed in is an addicting concoction that he never seemed to get enough of, you smell the same. You look just like the one in his home world. He hit the jackpot. You flinch at his movements, leaning far back in your car seat.

"Who are you?" Fuck you sound just like her. Your voice exhales so quietly, warmed breath fanning over the lower part of his face. Delicious.

The Invincible doesn't respond, doesn't even emote as much as that smile you start to grow unnerved of. It's unnatural, just like this entire day. Just like you don't know what the fuck even happened to get you to where you are now, staring in the face of a clone of your beloved Invincible.

[angel06babysworld]

https://www.tumblr.com/angel06babysworld/785837310470209536/my-new-obsession-is-greys-anatomy-so-here-i-am?source=share

THAT WAS SO SWEET !!!!! i would love to read how he would handle giving reader an injection 'cause i know she would be the biggest drama queen about it 😭😭

doctor!rafe x gf!reader

“It’s Just a Shot, Baby”

୨♡୧───♡───୨♡୧

Rafe had warned her.

All week, he’d been gently reminding her about the vitamin injection she was due for. He brought it up at breakfast, mentioned it casually while rubbing her back as she laid on the couch, even offered to do it himself so she wouldn’t have to go into the clinic.

And she had agreed — a little too quickly.

So now, here she was: sitting on the edge of their bed in one of his t-shirts, legs swinging, arms crossed, and a pout firmly in place as he prepped the syringe on the dresser beside her.

“I changed my mind,” she announced, eyes narrowing suspiciously as he flicked the cap off the needle. “I don’t want it anymore.”

Rafe didn’t even look up. “Too bad.”

“I think I’ll just take vitamins. Like pills. Chewables. Gummy bears, even.”

He chuckled under his breath, rolling the syringe between his fingers to warm it slightly. “You’re not five, sweetheart.”

“Then stop treating me like I’m five and let me skip it!”

Now he did look up — slowly — and she immediately shut her mouth. His expression was calm but serious, the way it always got when he was in doctor mode. But under the cool professionalism was that little crease between his brows — the one he got when he was concerned.

“You haven’t been eating properly,” he said softly. “You’ve been exhausted, getting dizzy, and the pills upset your stomach. You need the injection. You know that.”

She groaned, flopping backward dramatically across the bed like she was being sentenced to death. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he replied, smiling as he sat on the bed beside her. He patted her thigh gently. “Come on. Roll over.”

“No.”

He raised a brow. “Are you really gonna make me wrestle you, princess?”

She looked at him, offended. “Yes.”

But he was already slipping his hand under her hip, effortlessly flipping her onto her side like she weighed nothing. She yelped in protest, squealing into a pillow as he tugged the hem of her t-shirt up to expose the top of her thigh.

“Rafe!” she screeched. “This is so undignified!”

“You’re getting a tiny injection, not a spinal tap.”

She kicked weakly. “You’re gonna stab me!”

He leaned closer, pressing a warm kiss to her lower back before gently gripping her thigh. “Baby,” he said patiently, “I stitch gunshot wounds with less whining than this.”

“I’m sensitive!”

“You’re dramatic,” he corrected, still smiling.

She buried her face deeper in the pillow, one hand reaching back to grab his wrist with a death grip. “If it hurts, I swear—“

“It won’t,” he said, already swiping the alcohol pad over her skin. “I’m the best damn doctor in this building.”

“We’re not in a building,” she snapped.

“Still counts.”

And before she could argue again, he slipped the needle in with one practiced motion. She froze.

“…Wait. Was that it?”

“That was it,” he said smugly, capping the syringe. “And you were about to fake your own death.”

“I was not.”

“You flopped like a soccer player.”

“I hate you.”

He leaned down and kissed the spot he’d just injected, then her hip, then her spine. “No, you don’t.”

“…Fine,” she muttered. “But I’m not talking to you for ten minutes.”

“Make it five,” he said, already pulling her into his lap. “And I’ll rub your back until then.”

She huffed dramatically, still pouting — but her arms went around his neck anyway.

“You’re annoying,” she mumbled.

“You’re impossible,” he murmured back, pressing a kiss to her temple.

But she didn’t fight him when he tucked her against his chest. Didn’t protest when his hands started gently rubbing her back in slow, soothing circles.

She just stayed there, warm and safe and very, very full of drama.

And he wouldn’t have her any other way.

tags: @amelialovesrafe @alyisdead @illumoria @blissfulbutterfliess @sydneysslove

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Lissamphibia - Urodela

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Order: Urodela

Common Name: “salamanders”

Families: 9 - Cryptobranchidae (“giant salamanders”), Hynobiidae (“Asiatic salamanders”), Ambystomatidae (“mole salamanders” and “Pacific giant salamanders”), Amphiumidae (“amphiumas”), Plethodontidae (“lungless salamanders”), Proteidae (“mudpuppies” and “Olm”), Rhyacotritonidae (“torrent salamanders”), Salamandridae (“true salamanders” and “newts”), and Sirenidae (“sirens”).

Anatomy: larval stage with gills, some aquatic species retain the gills as adults; basal tetrapod body form with a cylindrical trunk, four limbs, and a long tail; some aquatic species have reduced or absent hind limbs (image 3); moist smooth, velvety, or “warty” skin which is permeable to water and used in respiration; no claws; no ears or eardrums, but have an opercularis system allowing them to detect airborne sound

Diet: invertebrates and small vertebrates

Habitat/Range: only in the Holarctic and Neotropical regions; 1/3 of the known salamander species are found in North America, with the highest concentration found in the Appalachian Mountains region

Evolved in: Middle Jurassic; the oldest known stem-salamander (part of the clade Caudata) is Triassurus from the Triassic of Kyrgyzstan

Propaganda under the cut:

Salamanders are capable of regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies, including vital organs such as their heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord.

Due to their popularity in the pet trade, the Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is perhaps the most famous salamander. They are paedomorphic, maturing without undergoing metamorphosis into a terrestrial adult form, instead remaining fully aquatic with obvious external gills. They resemble larvae of the occasionally paedomorphic Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum). Critically endangered in the wild, they originally inhabited a large lake in the Mexican highlands known as Lake Texcoco, along with a number of smaller, interconnected lakes such as Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco, and were abundant enough to form a staple in the Aztec diet. These lakes were mostly drained by Spanish colonists after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, leading to the destruction of most of the Axolotl's natural habitat, which is now largely occupied by Mexico City. Due to continued urbanization in Mexico City, which causes water pollution in the remaining waterways, as well as the introduction of invasive species such as tilapia and perch, the Axolotl is nearly extinct. Six adult Axolotls (including a leucistic specimen) were shipped from Mexico City to Paris in 1863, where French scientists began studying them. They were found to be able to regenerate body parts, could be artificially induced to metamorphosize, and were hybridized with Tiger Salamanders. Their success in scientific research has also led to them being prolific in the pet trade, and one restaurant in Japan even sells fried Axolotls as a menu item. Despite their large population in captivity, these Axolotls are inbred and often contain Tiger Salamander genes, and can not contribute to the tiny population of pure wild Axolotls. Lake Texcoco and Lake Chalco no longer exist, so they are native only to the freshwater lake Xochimilco, which remains a remnant of its former self, existing mainly as canals. Only 2 wild Axolotls were spotted in 2013, after months of searching. Currently, the Lake Texcoco Ecological Park is being established to restore natural spaces to Mexico City, and hopefully provide a home for the Axolotl and other Mexican biodiversity.

The similarly critically endangered Anderson's Salamander (Ambystoma andersoni), from Zacapu Lagoon in the Mexican state of Michoacán, is one of the few species of living amphibians to occur in brackish or salt water.

Salamanders of the family Plethontidae have tongues that reach up to 80% of their body length, are attached to their skeleton, and fire ballistically at prey in less than 20 milliseconds.

Slimy Salamanders (Plethodon glutinosis) do not lay their eggs in water, so they stay near them to keep them from drying out, as well as to defend them from predators.

The largest living lissamphibian is the South China Giant Salamander (Andrias sligoi) (image 2), with the largest known individual having been 1.8 m (5.9 ft) long. It is critically endangered due to habitat loss, pollution, and overcollection, and its use in traditional medicine and status as a delicacy has led to it being farmed for meat. It is hoped that this will take the heat off the wild salamanders, though wild salamanders are still often caught to bolster breeding populations in meat farms. It is unknown if any South China Giant Salamanders still exist in the wild, and those on farms are likely hybridized, as Andrias species are often caught indiscriminately and are able to interbreed. Of the known individuals that survive in zoos, all are males, and are nearing the end of their natural lifespans.

The Eastern Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) is perhaps best known for its striking, land-dwelling juvenile stage which is colloquially called a Red Eft. Eastern Newts have three stages of life: the aquatic larva/tadpole, the terrestrial Red Eft, and the aquatic adult. Having a terrestrial juvenile stage allows young Eastern Newts to disperse to new ponds. They will spend 2-3 years in the Red Eft stage before choosing a pond and transforming into an adult.

The Olm, or Proteus (Proteus anguinus) (see gif above), is an paedomorphic cave-dwelling salamander, and the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate found in Europe. It is entirely aquatic, eating, sleeping, and breeding underwater, as well as adapted for life underground in complete darkness. The Olm's eyes are undeveloped, leaving it blind, while its other senses, particularly those of smell and hearing, are more acutely developed. They can also sense both electric and magnetic fields. They have unpigmented skin, but will develop color if exposed to weak light for a few hours a day. They can live to be 100 years old, and go for years without food. This slow metabolism allowed one tracked Olm to stay in same spot for over 7 years! In the 1600s, Olms washed up from the underground waters were believed by local people to be the offspring of a cave dragon. The Olm is a symbol of Slovenian natural heritage, and was depicted on the Slovenian tolar coin, as well as being the namesake of the oldest Slovenian popular science magazine, Proteus, first published in 1933.

[xoxoauntscripty]

*TW for amateur surgery*

Okay. It's 1942.

There's a US submarine, USS Silversides, operating in HIGHLY dangerous Japanese waters.

And one poor bastard, some machinists mate, gets a case of acute appendicitis

They can't radio for an airlift because the Japanese will find them

But they don't have a surgeon on board.

The only medical person they have is a fucking pharmacist's mate

As in, a pill counter guy

As in, the cold and flu and small stitches guy

Not the "cut open a machinists mate on a moving submarine" guy

Not even 3 steps below that guy

But he's all they have, and if they do nothing, this guy is gonna fucking die.

So this motherfucker

Risks a court martial

To do surgery

Without an OR

With bent fucking spoons as makeshift retractors

And the patient's coworkers as assistants

He somehow miraculously fucking gives the dude spinal anesthesia, correctly

Opens the abdomen

Cuts out the appendix (somehow without rupturing it, which would have killed the guy)

Almost kills everybody with ether (because of course he does, it's incredibly dangerous for everyone in the room)

Identifies a MAJOR fucking bleed

Can't find the source of the bleed, so he *runs the bowel like a fucking surgeon*

Figures out it's a clamp that slipped

Does fucking vascular surgery to fix the bleed

Closes the guy up

And the patient fucking lives

This fucking completely untrained pharmacist's mate

Performs a major surgery

Underwater

On a moving ship

Without antibiotics

And saves a motherfucking life

(And manages the patient through multiple rounds of getting depth charged by a Japanese destroyer, because war)

The fucking patient is back on duty less than a week after the surgery.

So tip out a fucking glass to Pharmacist's Mate Thomas A Moore, who risked a murder and professional suicide

And possibly had

The biggest balls under the waves.

[sunarryn]

DP X Marvel #15

They were never supposed to be real.

Danny wasn’t born; he was built—stitched together in a freezing underground HYDRA lab from the broken DNA strands of James Buchanan Barnes, chosen not for loyalty or legacy but for blood. Something about Winter’s cells held a resilience no other subject had survived, even after decades on ice and countless mental fractures. Danny was Subject 077—barely more than a theory made flesh. A prototype for a new line of enhanced operatives. Something that could endure everything and obey nothing but the cold voice of a handler.

Jazz was worse. She was art. Red Room engineering at its most elegant and most horrifying. A near-perfect clone of Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, born of Black Widow blood but grown under their sharp hands and sharper scalpel. Jazz had beauty, poise, intelligence. But she was also an apex predator molded in ballet and murder, just like her source. She had been created to be the final evolution of Widow. A sleeper. An infiltrator. A masterpiece in patience and destruction.

They were never supposed to meet.

But then Vlad happened.

Dr. Vladimirov Masterov—Vlad Masters—was a ghost in every way that mattered. Once KGB, always KGB. They said he’d died during a failed mission in Chernobyl. He hadn’t. He’d gone half-dead. Half-ghost. A twisted result of an experiment gone wrong, his molecules phasing just enough to slip between states. He’d taken the failure personally, refused to fade. Instead, he rose again in America, as Vlad Masters, eccentric billionaire and corporate ghoul. But behind every charity gala and mayoral campaign was a hunger to perfect the science that had torn him in half.

Vlad had overseen Jazz’s earliest combat assessments. He’d taught Danny how to fire a Glock at age six. His affection was obsessive. Paternal in that twisted, post-Soviet way that smelled like iron and vodka. “You’re my legacy, my little phantoms,” he’d murmur, his gloved hand stroking Danny’s hair, like petting a favorite lab rat. He loved them the way a butcher loves the knife.

Jack Fenton—Jakob Fentzen—was worse. A HYDRA scientist with a permanent manic grin and a knack for building machines that did things no machine should. Quantum destabilizers, molecular disruptors, spectral centrifuges—things that turned flesh to glass and time to mist. He’d been the one to isolate the Winter Soldier’s regenerative traits. He laughed through the process. He called Danny “Champ” while inserting tracking chips into his spinal cord. Danny screamed, once. Jack said it was music.

Maddie—Maja Vuković—was quieter. Colder. Her notes were written in blood and brilliance. She designed Jazz’s conditioning routines. Psychological torment dressed up as ballet recitals and etiquette dinners. Jazz learned to disassociate by age four. “You’re perfect,” She would say, brushing Jazz’s red-gold hair. “Natalia was the draft. You are the final copy.”

And then something went wrong.

It was supposed to be a routine exposure. Just a test of the ghost portal Vlad had constructed in the basement of the Fenton Works facility—a decaying front in the Midwest. But Danny fell in. Or was pushed. Or ran. The records blurred.

And then he came back…wrong.

Cells mutated. Energy readings off the charts. Intangibility. Invisibility. An ectoplasmic core that pulsed like a dying star. Not just an assassin now—an anomaly. A walking ghost. They called it a miracle. Vlad called it divinity. Jack wanted to vivisect him immediately.

Danny refused.

That was the mistake.

They underestimated the side effects of individuality. The ghost powers weren’t part of the program. And with them came emotion, conscience, defiance.

They tried to recondition him. Vlad struck him. Maddie drugged him. Jack built something with screaming blades.

Jazz broke protocol. She slit two guards’ throats with a dining knife and pulled Danny out of the operating room. He was barely conscious, bleeding green and crying. She whispered to him the way Natalia might have whispered to herself in a Red Room dormitory: “We go now. Or we die here.”

They went.

They ran.

For three years, the world forgot about the Fenton kids. Until they didn’t.

The Avengers found out during a HYDRA base raid in Belarus. Steve Rogers opened a data file and dropped it like it burned. Natasha Romanoff stared at Jazz’s image and fell silent for an hour. Bucky Barnes had to be sedated after reading Danny’s file.

“A clone?” Bucky rasped, restrained and shaking. “Of me?”

“HYDRA’s final Winter Soldier prototype,” Bruce murmured. “He’s a ghost. Literally. His molecular structure—”

“I don’t care about his molecules!” Bucky exploded. “He’s just a kid. My fucking kid!”

Steve looked pale. “They’re so young...”

“They’re us,” Natasha said quietly, staring at Jazz’s face on the screen. “Our blood. Our sins. Our ghosts.”

They scrambled, but the trail was cold. Danny and Jazz had buried themselves deep. They moved from safehouse to safehouse, mostly living like rats. Danny phased them through walls, hacked ATMs with his ghost energy. Jazz manipulated human behavior like a maestro. They didn’t speak much. They didn’t have to.

“You okay?” Danny would ask.

“No,” Jazz would say. “But you?”

“No.”

Still, they stayed alive.

Until they slipped up.

It was a gas station. A security camera. A moment of laughter—Danny made Jazz laugh, and her teeth showed. That smile ended everything.

Tony saw it first. “Is that the Fenton girl? She’s…smiling.”

Natasha was on her feet before the footage ended. “Get the quinjet.”

Steve was right behind her. “We find them. Now.”

When they did, it was ugly.

The Avengers cornered them in an abandoned church in Chicago. Danny nearly brought the roof down. Jazz went straight for Natasha’s throat.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Natasha pleaded, parrying the blade with bare hands.

“Then you’re already weak,” Jazz snarled.

Steve took a punch from Danny that shattered his ribs. Bucky didn’t fight. He just stood there, tears on his face.

“I know what they did to you,” he whispered.

“You don’t,” Danny hissed, half-ghost and glowing. “You don’t know what it’s like to be built to die.”

“I do.” Bucky stepped forward, arms open. “They made me too, and I remember every scream.”

Danny hesitated.

That was enough.

Jazz disarmed Natasha and froze.

“You look like my nightmares,” she whispered. “But quieter.”

“You look like a second chance,” Natasha said, and her voice broke.

That night, the church became a refugee camp.

Tony brought blankets. Bruce brought meds. Steve brought silence. Bucky and Natasha never left their sides.

“Don’t touch me,” Danny had growled at first.

“I won’t,” Bucky said. “I’ll just be here.”

Jazz refused food until Natasha force-fed her soup and whispered lullabies in Russian.

“You’ll kill me eventually,” Jazz muttered.

“No,” Natasha said, brushing her hair. “I’ll love you first.”

It wasn’t easy.

Danny screamed in his sleep, glowing and flailing. Once he phased into the floor and didn’t come back for three hours. Jazz stopped speaking for two weeks. She stared at walls. Cut herself just to feel.

Natasha stitched every wound.

Bucky sat beside Danny and read him books about World War II.

“You’re not him,” Danny said one day. “You’re not my father.”

“No,” Bucky agreed. “But I wish I’d been.”

Steve took them outside. Taught Jazz how to ride a bike. Let Danny fly circles around the compound.

But one day, Vlad showed up again.

He appeared in Danny’s room, phasing through the wall like smoke. “Come home, little badger.”

Danny shrieked and attacked. Vlad didn’t fight.

“I miss you,” he said, bleeding green from his mouth. “They won’t understand you like I do.”

“You’re not real,” Danny screamed. “You never were!”

Jazz shot him in the chest. He smiled.

“Perfect aim. I taught you well.”

He vanished.

After that, they didn’t sleep for a week.

One morning, Danny sat beside Bucky on the roof.

“Do you think I’ll ever be normal?”

“No,” Bucky said honestly. “Though you’ll be loved.”

Jazz, curled in Natasha’s lap, asked, “Was I always going to be a monster?”

“No,” Natasha whispered. “You were always going to be mine.”

They weren’t cured.

They were wreckage.

But they were surviving.

And for now, that was enough.

[2-dsimp]

Imagine a yandere reader x obsessive writer desperately looking for his next source of inspiration thanks to his art block.

He’s been watching you for a long time drawing ideas from your past failed relationships. The anguish, drama, fanaticism, you embodied with each darling you preyed upon made him utterly enraptured.

His desire to see the madness that swirls beautifully inside your twisted heart overwhelmed him completely. Your whole existence, rotted his brain like a lethal bacterial infection you could never get rid of.

It sent shivers up his spinal cord, He never felt so alive until you came into his picture frame.

Thus aspiring author came to one conclusion.

He needed to be the object of your attraction. He needn’t care for the dangers that come in being targeted by you.

With your illogical motives in procuring your true love serving as his helmsman. The aspiring artist could go on to write the greatest tale. That would make his viewers bellow and outcry in response.

If you became his undoing, then so be it.

He’d die for his craft, like any true artist would.

—-/———-/————

Based off an certain ask in the drafts 👀 if you guys wanna see this concept let me know lol.

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

Gabriel: Machine... I'm thinking of getting breast reduction surgery.

V1: That's okay. I want you to feel happy and healthy. Your tits are hot to me at any size.

Transcript:

The righteous spinal column of the father can't take this heavy milk.

Audio source 1

Audio source 2

[save-amal-family]

Hello my dear I'M AMAL FROM GAZA

My story in the crazy Gaza war For more than a year, this deadly war has been raging, for which we are not to blame.

Before the war my family lived a happy life 💔

We were displaced from our homes and our land to the tents of the displaced.We have seen all the horrors and dangers of this war.We have been hungry for a long time We lost a lot We lost our friends, our families, and our source of income. They bombed our dreams before they bombed our homes.

They destroyed my neighborhood, and my home too was deteriorated by bombardments.

My father also had a neck injury and needed spinal surgery.

How to help us 🙏

1-Donate whatever you can it make difference

2- Reblog and boost my post to reach to all of people to know about our suffering 😞

Thank you 🙏

wayneradiotv @worm-suggestion @wingwaver @extremelycursedimages @emil @rickybabyboy @redbuddi @tamamita @teaboot @turtletoria @itwashotwestayedinthewater @imlizy @ot3 @omegaversereloaded @paper-mario-wiki @prisonhannibal @poetrylesbian @punkitt-is-here @akajustmerry @amygdalae @annabelle--cane @pitbolshevik @drukhari @sporesgalaxy @danijaci @daughter-of-sapph0 @sayruq @silba @gaza-evacuation-funds @hotvampireadjacent @hungry-joe @justsomeantifas @jame7t @kurtwagnermorelikekurtwagnerd @kibumkim @lesbianchemicalplant @littlestpersimmon @zvaigzdelasas @zzoupz @charlott2n @communist-ojou-sama @valtsv @velvetys @vague-humanoid @beetledrink @bongjoonheaux @bixels @neechees @meshugenist @wolfertinger666

@wayneradiotv @worm-suggestion @weirdmarioenemies @wolfertinger666 @wis-art @wingwaver @emil @rickybabyboy @redbuddi @rednines @tamamita @itwashotwestayedinthewater @prisonhannibal @punkitt-is-here @papasmoke @amygdalae @pitbolshevik @annabelle--cane @anarchblr @sporesgalaxy @drukhari @dailymonkiekid @danijaci @hotvampireadjacent @justsomeantifas @kurtwagnermorelikekurtwagnerd @kibumkim @klapollo @longseasons @lesbianchemicalplant @zvaigzdelasas @beetledrink @neechees @marxism-transgenderism @charlott2n @valtsv @nabulsi @gaza-evacuation-funds

[imagine-darksiders]

Angel of Highway 49.

Ch. 6 - Collateral.

Optimus & Reader. Bulkhead x Reader. Starscream x causing mayhem.

Summary: 'For the first time, your eyes meet his optics, and there’s not an ounce of recognition flickering in their glossy depths as they stare up at him in unmitigated terror.

No… not terror…. Horror.

You’re horrified by his presence, his appearance, his incomprehensible existence.'

-------------------------

On paper, the mission brief had seemed quite straightforward.

Investigate the substantial Energon signature that Ratchet's scans had turned up, get in, gather as much as they could carry, and get out again.

Optimus knew the likelihood of beating the Decepticons to the punch was minimal, at best. No doubt the only reason Ratchet's scanners had picked up anything was because raw Energon had been exposed where it wasn't before, say, by a mining operation that drilled straight into a fresh deposit laying deep beneath the Earth's crust.

The coordinates had been of immediate concern to the Prime, and as soon as the team was debriefed, he and Bulkhead drove straight out to the reference point with their pedals almost to the floor, though the latter couldn't fathom his Leader's sudden sense of urgency, and when prodded, Optimus only told him that the location was 'concerningly close to a human settlement.'

It was a mine, long-abandoned, sunk beneath the cliffs near a large agricultural unit.

They were to evaluate the subterranean passages, determine the level of Decepticon activity, preferably without engaging, and look for any opportunity to seize Energon from the enemy forces. Underhanded, perhaps, but if it secures his Autobots a few more months of precious fuel, Optimus isn't above resorting to clandestine tactics.

Of course, as it's been said before, even the best laid plans often go awry...

----------

The sturdy cables of Optimus’s neck buck and strain against their tubing as he wrenches his helm towards the Southern tunnel, his optical apertures spinning wide, blazing with a fierce, cyan light.

Hidden parallel to his leader, ducked down behind a stack of energon crates on the other side of the cavern, Bulkhead does the same, his colossal chin piece falling open with a dull ‘thunk,’ and his entire frame turning rigid with alarm.

Unfortunately for them both, so too do the frames of all four Vehicon Miners.

One by one, each of the energon drills wind down to sputtering halts as their wielders disengage from the deposits in the cave walls, pausing to turn their inexpressive masks towards the disruption.

And what a disruption it is.

A haunting, spinal-strut-chilling shriek is ringing out through the mine like an air-raid siren, more piercing than the drills and far shriller than the clanking of heavy machinery. The sound goes on and on, even when the source runs out of steam, and only the echo of a scream passes through the labyrinthian tunnels until that too falls silent, leaving every Cybertronian who heard it caught in a moment of temporary bewilderment.

Optimus is the first to recover.

Denta grit tightly behind his mask, he draws his slate-dark brow plates together and begins gauging the distance between his hiding spot and the tunnel.

Speed will be essential here… Because it’s to his utmost distress that he’s matched the vocal patterns of the distant scream to that of a human.

In the next instant, his private com-link scratches to life, and Bulkhead’s hushed, bassy voice is whispering into the Prime’s audials.

“That wasn’t Miko, Boss,” he defends his charge without hesitation.

Admirable, of course. But in this instance, unnecessary.

Optimus is well aware that the cadence of the scream doesn’t belong to any one of their charges. He has them logged, after all – though he often wishes he didn’t, if only because those audio logs serve as constant reminders that there have been times where the three younglings – whilst under his care- were in states of distress severe enough to cry out at all.

That aside however, Optimus is also confident that right now, the children are safe and sound back at the Autobot base with Ratchet, doubtless waiting anxiously for Arcee and Bumblebee to return from a routine scouting mission around Jasper’s outskirts.

But that begs the question; why would a human be down here in a defunct mine during the middle of the night?

It’s a question he doesn’t give much processing power to, not when there is a far more urgent matter at hand that needs addressing.

Loathe to wait even another second for something bad to happen to the unfortunate, wayward human, the Prime heaves himself out of his crouch and vaults gracefully over the energon stacks he’d been using as cover, barking a single, concise order to his comrade-in-arms.

“Engage!”

He’s barely cleared cover when he hears Bulkhead’s response.

“So much for the element of surprise!”

A necessary sacrifice.

If there’s a human down here in danger, they no longer have the luxury of scoping out the mine’s multiple chambers and trying to take things slow.

No matter.

What matters is getting to them before whatever – or whoever - frightened them can do any harm.

Optimus’s explosive arrival sends the Vehicons scrambling about to face him, and no less than two of the four manage to drop their handheld drills in shock.

“Prime’s here!?” one bellows, tripping over his own pedes in his haste to retreat towards the far wall.

“And he brought company!” his fellow growls.

No sooner has he spoken than an eruption of noise rocks the cavern as Bulkhead comes careening around the side of his hiding spot with all the unstoppable brutality of a runaway freight train.

“Head’s up!” he bellows, raising his hefty arm high into the air and charging for the first, unfortunate Miner.

Only one seems to have recovered in time to aim his plasma cannon at Optimus, who ducks smoothly beneath the first shot and skids along the ground on his knees for several metres, drawing up close enough to the Con to negate any space between them.

Before a second round can even charge in its chamber, one of the Prime’s enormous metal servos curls into a devastating fist, and with the struts of his forearm tensed and locked in preparation, he launches himself off his knees and –

‘CRUNCH!’

The knuckles of his servo connect with the Vehicon’s chin-guard with terrifying precision.

An uppercut, the power behind which is enough to send the dark, purple visor snapping backwards with an audible crack. Its wearer is quick to follow suit, crumpling over onto his back before Optimus’s fist has even finished its upswing.

One down…

Bulkhead has also reached his own Con, and Optimus is glad to see that he seems to have taken the Prime’s briefing to spark.

Incapacitate only, where possible.

These are miners, not warriors.

The wrecking ball perched on the end of Bulkhead’s arm is already swinging by the time the Con has his own weapon readied, and it’s promptly knocked aside by the Wrecker’s weaponised name-sake, who is quick to follow up with a single punch to the Vehicon’s helm.

One, hard wallop, and he’s down like a sack of bricks.

Two down, two to go…

The remaining pair, those clumsy enough to have dropped their drills, at least seem wise enough to recognise when they’re outmatched.

Bulkhead wheels about, shaking scraps of the miner’s visor from his fist as he glowers at the retreating taillights of two, purple vehicles fleeing as fast as their tyres can carry them down one of the adjoining tunnels.

“Aw, where’re you going!?” he taunts them as they vanish around a corner like jettisoned scrap, “I didn’t even break a sweat!”

Yet another turn of phrase he’s picked up from Miko, Optimus notes, thankfully one of her more palatable expressions. Primus knows that girl could be an honorary Wrecker through vocabulary alone…

“Leave them!” the Prime commands urgently, breaking into a loping run for the opposite passage and shifting the plates on his dominant arm to reveal his colossal, devastating barrage cannon, hoping against hope that it won’t be seeing any action beyond warding off a potential threat.

Setting off a detonative blast in this place could cause the whole subterranean structure to collapse in on itself, another reason he’d stressed the importance of melee before this mission.

Clunking footsteps soon fall into pace behind his own, rattling the shards of energon still wedged into the cave walls.

There’s little point in maintaining stealth now, not with time swiftly trickling away beneath their pedes and the deafening silence the drills have left behind.

Whoever remains in this cavern is bound to know of their presence by now.

There’s a sudden blip on his radar - an energon signature far more significant than the deposits in the walls. It’s large, and active, and at this distance, uncloaked.

With coolant pumping fervidly through his pipes, Optimus kicks himself into gear and swings around the curve of the tunnel, bringing into view a sight so gruesome, it nearly freezes his spark inside its chamber.

A surge of alarm - his very own - hits the airwaves before he can suppress it, and although he reels it back in microseconds, he knows Bulkhead has already felt it, even from several paces behind him. An answering jolt of panic crashes into Optimus’s field as the Wrecker stumbles, his armour flaring nervously.

Because if the Prime is worried, then…

Optimus doesn’t have time to reassure his teammate.

Starscream is looming up ahead, silhouetted at the tunnel’s end by an unearthly blue light.

Megatron’s second in command cuts an intimidating figure. A frame as sharp as his tongue is angled towards the oncoming Autobots, but his attention – and more horrifyingly – his missile arm is aimed near the ground at a comparatively small rock, behind which Optimus has already locked onto four human signatures.

Another surge, this time of unshackled indignation rattles the plating across his shoulders and sends his protective protocols careening into furious overdrive.

Taking point, the Prime charges from the tunnel and into the cavern first, cannon raised and whirring as he digs in his heels and slides to a halt, drawing up his colossal frame to stand tall beneath the rock ceiling, his optics narrowed to thin slits.

“Starscream,” he thunders, authoritative and unyielding. His voice booms around the cavern, drawing another short scream from one of the humans below, yet he doesn’t dare take his optics off the threat to assess their condition, not while Starscream still has his weapon aimed unwaveringly at them.

It seems his arrival was anticipated after all.

The Decepticon doesn’t balk at their presence, doesn’t raise a weapon to defend himself… Gradually, wholly aware that he has the advantage here, Starscream raises his helm and tips his chin back to flash the Prime a haughty smirk.

“Ah, ah, ah~” he singsongs airily, just as Bulkhead lumbers to a halt at Optimus’s side, “That’s close enough, Autobot scum.”

Letting out a choked sound of rage, the wrecker lifts an arm, and his ion blaster whirls to life, though Starscream is quick to nod at the rock near his pedes and add, “Surely you wouldn’t risk any collateral damage now, would you?”

The Prime’s optics flare brightly.

Collateral… A Decepticon’s preferred synonym for the children under the Autobots’ care.

As Starscream speaks, he bobs his missile tauntingly up and down, never letting it stray from the humans locked in his crosshairs.

Behind the battle mask, Optimus peels back his dermas by a fraction of an inch – the only show of frustration he allows himself.

He’s almost relieved that Bulkhead is, by contrast, able to express himself so freely.

A low, thrumming growl shakes its way out from between the Wrecker’s clenched dentas. “Bullying humans now, Screamer?” he fumes, chomping at the proverbial bit but held in check by the seeker’s threat, “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size for a change? Or are you afraid you might lose?”

Starscream’s smirk twists down at the corners into a sneer, yet before he can offer some cutting retort, another voice pipes up from below, shattering his concentration.

“Bulk!?”

Two of the three Cybertronians present feel their sparks drop heavily into their tanks.

Bulkhead’s jaw hits his sternum with a ‘clunk!’ whilst Optimus’s only outward display of shock is the slight jump of his optical ridges.

“Miko!?” the former exclaims in a voice so shrill that it might have been comical in any other situation.

At last, unable to resist tearing their optics from the Con, both Optimus and Bulkhead shoot twin glances down over the top of the rock.

The Prime only needs a nanosecond to process the faces of each human below him.

And it’s just as he’d feared.

There’s Jack, a tired face gone slack with relief at seeing Optimus tower above him. And Rafael, with his youthful features pulled taut in fright, yet those wide, brown eyes are still so full of trust as they silently implore the Prime for help. Miko in the meantime is gazing adoringly up at her guardian with a gleeful smile stretching the edges of her mouth.

But it’s the fourth human that Optimus finds his optics drawn to and struck by, locking onto a face not quite as familiar as the children’s but known and inexplicably fond to him all the same.

“Y/n?” he murmurs far too softly to be heard over Bulkhead’s sputtered sounds of dismay and increasing panic.

His last parting from you was... regrettable, and still weighs heavily on his spark and processor when he finds himself alone with his thoughts.

For the first time, your eyes meet his optics, and there’s not an ounce of recognition flickering in their glossy depths as they stare up at him in unmitigated terror.

No… not terror…. Horror.

You’re horrified by his presence, his appearance, his incomprehensible existence.

In your eyes, he and Bulkhead are no different from Starscream – the true and only threat. In your eyes, what is he? Not a protector, but an aggressor. An unknown you have no hope of overcoming.

It doesn’t escape his notice; the stance you’ve taken in front of the children. With your back to them, arms flung out wide, you’re a trembling bulwark of fear and confusion and bravery, and the only thing standing between them and the Decepticon’s missile.

An unanticipated curl of pride warms the spark in his chamber, though it immediately bucks when his optics register the discolouration on your back. From his elevated angle, he has a clear and uninterrupted view of your shoulder blades… and the distressing gradient of a deep purple shadow sweeping across them, hemmed in by a frame of diffusing yellow.

It’s a bruise - he distantly recalls the term – and it’s swallowing up a vast swathe of your fragile skin, disappearing beneath your shirt. He’s seen bruises on humans before, small ones on the children’s knees and elbows after a tumble, or underneath Agent Fowler’s eyes after one too many sleepless nights. And while those instances are disquieting enough to witness, none have quite matched the extent of this one.

He knew you’d been hurt but this looks…

The lights in his optics flicker.

… He should have put his pede down… He should have just driven you straight to the medical clinic in Jasper regardless of your protests - no ‘ifs,’ ‘ands’ or ‘buts.’

Of all the humans who could have ended up down here, it would be the one who implied quite categorically that they never wanted anything to do with him again. He supposes there’s something divinely poetic about that. Divinely comedic too. Perhaps right now, Primus is looking down on his creation with a knowing smile.

Optimus, however, finds himself wishing that you were anywhere else at all, that fate had not led you down here. That it hadn’t led any of you down here, where your life and that of the children’s hang treacherously in the balance.

The nanosecond ends when you blink – and Optimus’s intake stalls to see a shimmering tear break free of your lash line and trickle down your cheek.

It strikes him that not only do you believe you’re supposed to protect Jack, Miko and Rafael from Starscream, but now that the Prime has unwittingly added himself and Bulkhead into the mix, you think you have two more perils to contend with.

Optimus flicks his optics up to the Decepticon once more as a dozen differing strategies spin around inside his processor. He’s getting you out of here. You and the children. ‘Whatever happens,’ he sends a silent promise down to the humans under his charge, his solicitous field spilling all the words he can’t verbalise, ‘I will keep you safe.’

Bulkhead feels it – Optimus’s EM field is a powerful thing, like everything else about the Prime. And right now, the noble intent of his leader hits the wrecker’s chassis like there’s real force behind it, tangible and physical.

Starscream feels it as well, though he isn’t bolstered by it like Bulkhead is. In fact, judging from the sudden wipe of his smug expression, the Seeker may have just come to the realisation that he’s currently threatening the very young, very vulnerable wards of a Prime and his powerhouse of a soldier.

Optimus wonders, between flitting through tactics, what you might think of him if you could feel it too.

-----

This has got to be one of – if not the - most vivid and dramatic nightmares you’ve ever had.

Either that, or…. or there’s a buildup of… of gasses in this mine or something, causing you to hallucinate. Hell, maybe that’s why this place was abandoned to begin with. If those old miners found coal seams or shale deposits down here, you could be standing in a pit filled with methane right now. And those beams and timber that were rotting away over your head as you made your way down…? How long have they been decomposing? Long enough for the carbon dioxide to seep out and gather at the bottom of the mine, you’ll bet!

That has to be it.

Gasses. Hallucinations. A nightmare.

Because you couldn’t possibly consider the third option, could you? That this might actually be happening. That there really are three unfathomably colossal titans surrounding you and the kids on all sides.

It certainly feels real enough. The sweat slicking your palms and hairline, the blood roaring in your ears, and the heart in your chest trying to make a jailbreak are all about as vivid as it gets.

Rationale is telling you that this isn’t happening. Your body is telling you otherwise. And it’s very hard to try and listen to both at the same time.

When the tallest of them – the one that had shouted something in a voice that sent a ping straight to your brain – lowers its ‘eyes’ to lock you in its sights, you freeze in place, helpless as a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.

Awful, cerulean light cuts like frostbite through the dimness of the mine and sends a chill sweeping up the length of your spine.

You’re stuck fast by its stare, the light cold and calculating as it burns down at you from an otherwise expressionless face.

Your own eyes sting with the effort of keeping them open, too afraid to blink, too afraid to take your gaze away lest it decide to strike the moment it thinks you aren’t looking, like a predator, a hungry wolf with designs on the back of your neck.

It’s hard to believe that the giant is the first to look away, pulling those twin beams of light from your face and turning them onto the comparatively smaller monster, the one with a blood-red stare.

Battling down the temptation to collapse onto your knees, you instead suck in a deep, noisy breath through your nostrils and clamp your lips firmly together as your gaze flits across to the third and final titan, shorter yet somehow so much larger than the others.

It’s as broad as a barn. Broader, perhaps. Military-green from head to toe, and it too sports a gaze that’s just as blue as the strange quartz that surrounds you. It cocks its colossal head at you, what passes for a head on that behemoth anyway, and the lights set in its face blink off, then on again. Once, twice… until something in your brain clicks into place.

It’s blinking.

You’d almost begun to entertain the notion that you’ve unwittingly stumbled upon some kind of Government-built superweapon, and that Terry might not be the crazy bastard you thought he was. But when it blinks at you, when it tips its head to the side as if it’s curious… in some uncanny way, you recognise it for what it is.

That’s something humans do.

That’s something living things do.

… What the Hell have you found down here?

Or perhaps the better question is, what the Hell has just found you?

“I see you’ve added another little pet to your menagerie,” the first robot suddenly drawls, breaking the silent stalemate that’s been brewing between you all for the past few seconds and sending your attention snapping back towards its slender face, chest rising and falling as you remind yourself to keep breathing, “I’m beginning to think you don’t care much for humans at all, if this is where you bring them to play.”

‘Humans?’

Your racing mind latches onto the word and sticks fast.

Humans… It called you humans. Implying that the speaker isn’t one…

The revelation doesn’t help you much, you’re still very much in trouble here, regardless of whether there’s another person operating these things or if they’re powered by something else entirely.

The longer you stand there without a shift or a waver in the makeup of the figure ahead of you, the less confident you are in your hallucination theory.

“Who’re you calling pets!?” Miko’s voice abruptly blasts past your ear, reminding you quite starkly of the three children pressed to your back, “If anyone’s the pet, it’s you! Megatron’s little groupie!”

You don’t have a chance to wonder what in the world she’s talking about.

The robot’s red glare snaps to her and zeroes in with murderous intent, its strange, malleable lip curling with hostility. Somewhere below your elbow, you hear Raf hiss “Miko!”

Just like that, you realise with a start that it doesn’t matter if you’re hallucinating or not.

If you are, and the children are too, it just means that you have to get them into fresh air as soon as possible. And if you’re not…

If this is real, if this is happening to you, then there truly are lives on the line, more than just your own.

And if this turns out to all be some incredibly vivid nightmare, well… you can nervously laugh about it once you’re awake. But for now…

“You dare address your betters, pest!?” the robot seethes, tilting its arm by a fraction, just enough to indicate that it’s aiming its missile point-blank at the girl. Behind you, there’s a mechanical whir, like a machine is being charged up.

Your stomach lurches. Somebody needs to do something….

….

………. Shit. Fine.

“Don’t!” you blurt out before you can put too much thought into your actions, taking a fumbling step forward and drawing the silver juggernaut’s furious glare, “Don’t point that at her! She’s just a kid!”

There are several intakes of breath from behind you, and one from somewhere high above your head, but your attention remains fixed steadfastly on the red-eyed robot, goosebumps springing up along your arms when it lets out a deriding chuckle and flashes you a glimpse of stark-white metal sitting just beyond its ‘lips,’ like a set of teeth.

“Oh? What have we here? Trying to play the hero,” it sneers the word with about as much sincerity as it might afford a dead fly, scoffing somehow through its gap for a mouth, “Pathetic. Ah-! Not so fast, Prime!” Quick as a flash, the robot lifts it gaze to the ones behind you, sharp red lights flashing dangerously, “Unless you want to be picking up the pieces of your little friend here for the next deca-cycle.”

You haven’t forgotten about the threats behind you, snatching a glance over your shoulder to see if the other robots are keeping their distance. To your horror, the green one is still subjecting you to its stare, blue lights brighter than ever as it observes you. The slab of grey metal stretching like a chin-guard across its face has fallen slightly to hang open, revealing a sliver of darkness behind it – its own mouth, you realise with a shudder.

Even more perturbingly, the tallest of the trio has definitely taken a step closer. You can see the indentation in the dust where its foot had rested only seconds ago, several metres back.

Your tongue sits like a lead weight in your mouth, dry as a bone.

At the silver robot’s words, it stills entirely, one of its gargantuan hands held up placatingly. Its compliance demonstrates that there must be some sort of hierarchy here. Despite the apparent size advantage, the taller robot had deferred to the one with red eyes.

That at least clues you in on which danger to prioritise, so you turn back to the first giant, your own hands unconsciously mirroring the same, appeasing gesture.

It’s an absolutely uncontested fact that you’re outmatched in size, numbers, speed, strength, and more than likely intelligence too.

So, what do you have in your arsenal?

What could you possibly have?

Think!

The toe of your boot slides forwards an inch, just an inch, just enough to bump gently into an obstruction that rolls slightly under the force.

A rapid glance down reveals the object; the torch you’d dropped earlier, sitting innocuously by your boot, dim and harmless…

… In a split second, you make a decision.

It could very well prove to be your last decision, but it’s better than staying paralyzed by indecision and fear. One option guarantees that you won’t be leaving here alive. The other… might at least buy you some time…

In one, darting motion, you dip down and swipe the torch off the ground, straightening back up just as hastily and holding it out in front of you with both hands, aiming the glass face up towards the scarlet ‘eyes’ leering down from above you.

“Back off!” is all you can think to yelp, arms and voice quaking, “O-or I’ll shoot!”

....

The silence that falls over the cavern couldn’t be any heavier.

It makes the rattling plastic of the torch that much louder in your ringing ears.

For several heartbeats, nobody moves, not the kids, not the robots, only you with your knocking knees and trembling, outstretched arms.

Then suddenly, sound floods back into the chamber, all in the form of a scratching, obnoxious cackle.

The silver robot peels the plating around its lips back and laughs at you, the missile jerking wildly with the effort to stay trained on you despite the wielder’s convulsing frame.

“Oh~! Oh, that is rich!” it chortles, smirking maniacally down at you from twenty-something feet, “You’ll shoot, will you? You’ll shoot me with that little toy of yours?” You can see the guard dropping, there’s more movement behind you. You have to act now, before the other two monstrosities get the chance to intervene.

“This toy-!” you blunder, cutting shakily through the mocking laughter, “I-is an… um, a military… tactical… laser! It’ll blind you from fifty feet!” You have no idea if robots can be blinded. You have no idea why you’re bluffing like a gambler losing at poker. The torch, if anything, is about as bog-standard as it could possibly get. You know that.

But you’re hoping the robot doesn’t.

Apparently though, it does, judging by the fresh peal of laughter tumbling out of it and ricocheting around the mine chamber.

There’s a nervous hum of uncertainty from one of the kids - Jack, if you had to guess.

“Do you really think, human, that I don’t know a bluff when I hear one?” it remarks snidely, sweeping a slender claw beneath one of the red lights in a mocking rendition of someone wiping away a tear.

“You… you don’t believe me?!” you shout up at it, wedging your thumb underneath the switch and bracing every muscle in your body, praying that this works.

Splaying its free hand across what serves as a chest, it retorts, “Do you take me for a fool? Of course I don’t believe you!”

“Good!” you exclaim as a fresh cascade of adrenaline surges through your blood, shoulders aching with the effort of keeping them aimed up at the robot’s face which contorts from a smirk to a frown at your unexpected turnaround. “Then you won’t try to defend yourself when I do this-!”

On the final word, your thumb jams the switch into position, and a stalwart beam of light flies straight and true, crashing into the robot’s pale face and dousing those ominous red lights faster than you can blink.

The effect is as immediate as it is melodramatic.

The relatively quiet air of the cavern is suddenly ripped asunder by the robot’s jarring and unexpected screech of alarm. Reeling backwards, it wrenches its gangly arms up and flings them over its face, shielding itself from the little beam of your torch.

“MY OPTICS!”

You don’t stick around to see what happens next, all too aware that the same bluff never works twice.

The very instant that missile’s trajectory changes, you’re moving, aggressively stamping down on the instinct screaming at you to haul yourself to the far passage as fast as your legs can carry you.

There are three people who need to reach it first.

The front of Jack’s shirt is the first thing your fingers latch onto when you spin around and make a wild grab for one of the kids. His eyes are on stalks, bugging out of their sockets when you unceremoniously hurl him out in front of you and shove his back for good measure, shrieking at the top of your lungs, “RUN!”

He’s still getting his feet under him properly by the time you’ve snatched up Rafael’s wrist in one hand and Miko’s in the other, all the while chaos erupts around you when several-hundred tonnes of metal begins to move.

You almost wrench the poor kids out of their shoes as you take off, haring at breakneck speed towards the tunnel you’d come down like a fire has been lit under your heels.

----

Optimus has to admit, it isn’t very often that he can be surprised anymore, though he has noticed that the instances seem to be occurring with more and more frequency of late. That they happen to correlate with his arrival upon Earth is hardly coincidental, he’s sure.

Humans, as it stands, are just about the most pleasant surprise he’s come across in his extensive travels throughout the Galaxy, and there’s always something so refreshing about their ability to deliver.

Refreshing, yes. But somehow at the same time, spark-wrenchingly, tank-churningly alarming.

Even the Prime couldn’t predict that you’d resort to bluffing with a Decepticon, let alone that the bluff had actually worked, however briefly.

The only blessing he can latch onto is ‘thank Primus Starscream has never taken an interest in human electrical devices.’

Optimus had been waiting on the tips of his pedes for the opportunity to put himself between you and the Seeker, all he needed was an opening where he could be sure that missile wouldn’t be going off anywhere near you and the children… Easier said than done, of course.

Then, in a matter of moments, as Starscream lurches away from your ‘blinding’ beam of light and throws his arms up to defend his optics, the Prime finds himself mirroring Bulkhead’s astonishment. The pair of them gawk down at you as you take their youngest charges by the hands, drive Jack ahead of you and bolt for a tunnel across the cavern whilst your weapon of choice flickers weakly in the dust you leave behind.

However, Optimus doesn’t linger for long to marvel over your quick-thinking.

“I’m BLIND!” Starscream is shrieking, tearing his servos away from his optics and blinking down at them, faceplates screwed up in anguish, “YOU’VE BLINDED ME! YOU-!...”

Just like that, he goes utterly still, giving another series of rapid blinks as he flips his very-much-still-visible servos back and forth, wings slumping at the realisation. “Oh.”

Whatever relief he might have felt, accompanied by the swelling fury that he’d been a victim of blatant skulduggery is short-lived.

Motion from the corner of his optic alerts him just in the nick of time to Optimus Prime’s fist, hurtling on a collision course with his helm. Letting out a squawk, the Seeker barely manages to duck the first strike, feeling the air rush past his faceplates as he launches himself backwards, vying for some much-needed distance between himself and his adversaries, only for his efforts to fall flat when an even more devastating force catches him unawares.

With all the driving power of a siege engine, the Wrecker’s signature weapon buries itself into Starscream’s tanks. Hard.

“ACK-!” The garbled sound jumps unwillingly off his glossa, and he doubles over at once, yet still forces his pedes to scramble backwards, curling one arm around his stomach plating while the other flies up to aim his missile at the Prime, sweeping it back and forth in wild motions to ward them back.

To his shock, both of them fall still at once, glaring murderously down at him with their own weapons raised and cocked, but otherwise motionless. And there they stand, side by side; two bridling Autobots planted stoutly between himself and their fleeing pets.

Starscream’s denta grind together audibly, and he lets out a strangled growl, tanks roiling from the force of the hit.

He’s lost the upper-hand. Without the human meat-shields, he’s only too aware that he’s just lost any and all chance at getting something out of this. And to think, he’d been mere milliseconds away from calling in Megatron to inform him that his loyal and devoted Second In Command was holding Prime at gunpoint.

Bullet quite literally dodged, he concedes. Minor blessings.

It doesn’t escape his notice how the Autobots’ optics are locked onto his raised weapon, nor how they’d turned rigid at his flaunting of it.

And then, in a sudden moment of clarity, he realises why.

It isn’t the notion of his weapon firing at them that’s paused their advance.

It’s his weapon firing at all.

‘Of course,’ he comprehends with building anticipation, his processor firing rapidly as ideas cluster around inside it, ‘The mine…’

Structurally, Decepticon scouts had deemed it sound for the finer precision of their mining drills… but the impact blast from an uncontrolled detonation that targets one of the fundamental tunnels….?

Oh-ho! Now who has the upper hand?

A flash of movement between the Prime’s legs catches his attention, and he dares a glance through them to see the little pests making their escape. And there, leading the pack is the duplicitous human who cost him his advantage.

Starscream’s optics narrow as he tracks the humans’ path, noting their trajectory.

Perfect.

Whilst the Prime and his loyal hound are bodily blocking Starscream from taking aim at their humans, neither of them have apparently thought to cover the entrance to the tunnel those humans are currently sprinting towards…

He’ll have to be quick, so it’s a good thing he already knows which tunnel will lead him out of this doomed mine, and a jet’s speed is leagues ahead of the ground-crawling Autobots and their vastly inferior vehicle modes.

“Give it up, Screamer,” Bulkhead grinds out, shifting his weight restlessly from one pede to the other, “We have you outnumbered. And outgunned."

"So I see," the Seeker wheezes, painstakingly drawing himself to his full height once again and fixing his sights on the Autobot leader, “And there’s something else you have that I don’t.”

The line is cast, and to his unmitigated delight, Bulkhead takes the bait.

“Oh yeah?” the Wrecker grunts warily, glaring down the length of his poised weapon, “And what’s that?”

With a smirk plastered across his faceplate, Starscream angles his missile to Bulkhead’s left, relishing the twin looks of shock and realisation that spark in his adversaries' optics.

He grins, a fever coursing through his wires.

“Collateral,” he says, and fires.

[gaza-giving-tree]

Imagine waking up every day to a nightmare that doesn't end. Your livelihood, your home, your children's safety—everything you once had—is reduced to rubble.

@ahmadomar0

Story written by @rumiandroses

For Ahmed Al-Habil, a fisherman from Gaza, this is not just a thought experiment—it’s his reality. Ahmed once lived a simple, dignified life by the sea, supporting his family of six. The sea was his solace and his source of sustenance. But in an instant, his dreams and stability were destroyed. His fishing boat, his job, and his home were obliterated in the chaos of war. Left with nothing but faith and hope, Ahmed is now grappling with an unimaginable struggle.

Since October 7th, Ahmed, his wife, four young children, and his elderly parents have endured relentless displacement—fleeing from Nuseirat to Khan Younis, to Rafah, and now to a tent in Deir al-Balah. With each move, they have faced hunger, malnutrition, and the suffocating fear of violence. His children—Omar (10), Khadija (9), Ali (6), and Zain (3)—are deprived of the innocence of childhood, their laughter replaced by cries of hunger and cold. Ahmed's 72-year-old father battles chronic diseases, and his 70-year-old mother suffers from diabetes and debilitating spinal problems, compounding the family’s hardship.

Yet, amid this devastation, Ahmed’s resilience shines. He is pleading for help to rebuild a life of dignity and peace—a life where his children can play without fear, his parents can receive the care they need, and his family can once again dream of a brighter future.

Your donation today could be the light Ahmed and his family desperately need in this darkness. Every contribution, no matter how small, can help them secure food, medicine, and the resources to move toward stability. Let’s come together to give Ahmed’s family a chance to live with dignity and hope. You can be the hand that helps them rise from the rubble.

You can donate to Ahmed's GoFundMe campaign [HERE]

This campaign has been vetted by association. @aya2mohammed (#166 on [the verified fundraiser list] vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi) has stated that Ahmed (@ahmed-omar0, @ahmedomer9) is his brother. See screenshot below and also this post [here] for proof.

[lets-try-some-writing]

I don’t mean to pester but all the question I’ve seen about how something seems to be a mild inconvenience or just a thing that for humans it’s just whatever but for the bots it’s life ending or extremely dangerous.

ex- Adrenaline for humans is whatever extra energy but for bots to they’re final energy source that will be they’re last stand.

Do you have any head cannons that might be in reverse? Something at is mild to bots but severely life ending for a human?

I mean, a lot of things that are mild to a bot are probably lethal to a human. But if we are going the comedic route, this is one thing I see being pretty normal for the bots, at least during the war, that would automatically mean problems for a human.

Cybertronians are capable of operating with a surprising lack of limbs and internal organs when pressed. It entirely depends on what organs and limbs are taken of course, but they can continue living in very unfortunate states. Humans can also take a beating, but not to the same level as their autonomous robotic organism visitors. That said, generally the bots only received injuries that matched human ones in outward appearance. The humans weren't too disturbed since a broken arm or a busted plate mimicked human injuries. But when things got real? Yeah, it was a little disconcerting.

Bumblebee came back to base on one occasion with his legs partially detached from his body at the waist. He still had all the wiring, he was just strung out a bit. He didn't seem all that concerned once he had a painkiller, and Ratchet was more annoyed than truly afraid. But the humans? They saw it as terrifying, especially whenever Bumblebee moved and his internals moved around in a mechanical and yet far too organic manner.

Another situation that left the humans grossed out came in the form of Ratchet casually tending to a hit to the helm Optimus received. It was bad enough that something internally was knocked out of place, so the doctor simply got out his tools and removed part of Optimus's helm to work on his processor. The whole affair was reminiscent of brain surgery for the humans... at least until Ratchet straight up removed a few bits, fixed them, and put them back in place. All while having a casual conversation with the mech on his table. Optimus didn't appear very concerned, but there was something about watching Ratchet perform a surgery while chatting that left the humans unsettled. Similar surgeries weren't unheard of, but removing bit? Yeah no. If it happened, it didn't happen often and certainly not so casually.

In the third most terrifying incident, Arcee was brought back to base with part of her spine pulled out. The humans all but threw up on the spot, but Arcee appeared more annoyed than actually in pain as Ratchet laid her out and calmly began putting struts back into place. According to him, the injury was only a mild case of spinal disconnection and due to the swiftness of the team's response in getting her back to base, it was a quick fix. June however never really got over the scene of Arcee curled up in a weird position with bits of her spine clearly visible.

The bots can take a beating. And while injuries to the finer processes are dangerous, so long as they are addressed quickly, a bot can survive just about anything.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Namib Sand Geckos: these nocturnal geckos have biofluorescent markings that emit a bright, neon-green glow when exposed to the moonlight

This species (Pachydactylus rangei) is found only in the Namib Desert, which stretches across Namibia, Angola, and South Africa; the geckos typically inhabit the arid, coastal region known as the Skeleton Coast.

In order to escape from the blistering heat of the desert, they use their webbed feet to burrow down into the sand during the day, and then emerge only at night, when the temperature has finally dropped. The webbing on their feet also enables them to run more easily across the dunes.

Namib sand geckos are covered in translucent scales, but they also have a strangely colorful appearance, as the colors/shades of their circulatory system, spinal column, internal organs, and optical membranes remain partially visible through the skin, producing various shades of pink, dark blue, purple, magenta, orange, and yellow.

They also have several distinctive markings running along their lower flank and encircling their eyes; these markings are known to fluoresce when exposed to UV light (including moonlight), emitting a bright, neon-green glow.

Some researchers have theorized that the biofluorescent markings may act as a signal to other geckos, allowing them to locate one another in the vast, desolate expanse of the desert, as this paper explains:

The fluorescent areas of P. rangei are concentrated around the eyes and along the lower flanks. This positioning is practically invisible to predators with a higher perspective (e.g. birds and jackals), but highly conspicuous from a gecko’s perspective. As P. rangei is sociable but generally solitary, and occurs at low population densities, such a signal might serve to locate conspecifics over greater distances ...

Encounters in P. rangei might serve purposes beyond mating opportunities: as the Namib desert has extremely low precipitation, fog is a key water source for its flora and fauna. Fog condenses on the bodies of the geckos, and they lick it from their faces. In husbandry, we have observed individuals licking water from conspecifics, taking advantage of a much greater available surface area.

Additionally, after short periods of isolation, the geckos run to meet each other. The combination of vital hydration with socialisation might reinforce signals that enable such meetings, and the cost of visibility to predators with higher vantage points, might constrain the signals to regions best visible from eye-level and below.

The Namib sand gecko is the only terrestrial vertebrate that is known to use an iridophore-based form of biofluorescence (you can find a more detailed explanation of that mechanism in the article mentioned above). The fluorescent dermal markings are also unique to this species.

Sources & More Info:

Scientific Reports: Neon-green fluorescence in the desert gecko Pachydactylus rangei caused by iridophores

Animal Diversity Web: Pachydactylus rangei

Dr. Mark D. Scherz's Blog: A Neon-Green Glowing Gecko!

Australian Geographic: Skeleton Coast - Namibia's strange desert dwellers

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - March 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Caribbean reef sharks rebound in Belize with shark fishers’ help

“Caribbean reef shark populations have rebounded beyond previous levels, more than tripling at both Turneffe and Lighthouse atolls[…. The recovery] arose from a remarkable synergy among shark fishers, marine scientists and management authorities[….]”

2. Landmark Ruling on Uncontacted Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Strikes at Oil Industry

“[T]he Ecuadorian government [must] ensure any future expansion or renewal of oil operations does not impact Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. [… E]ffective measures must be adopted to prevent serious or irreversible damage, which in this case would be the contact of these isolated populations,” said the opinion[….]”

3. America's clean-energy industry is growing despite Trump's attacks. At least for now

“The buildout of big solar and battery plants is expected to hit an all-time high in 2025, accounting for 81% of new power generation[….] The industry overall has boomed thanks to falling technology costs, federal tax incentives and state renewable-energy mandates.”

4. Study says endangered Asian elephant population in Cambodia is more robust than previously thought

“A genetic study of Asian elephants […] reveals a larger and more robust population than previously thought, raising hopes the endangered species could slowly recover. […] “With sufficient suitable habitat remaining in the region, the population has the potential to grow if properly protected,” the report concludes.”

5. Scientists are engineering a sense of touch for people who are paralyzed

“[Engineers are] testing a system that can restore both movement and sensation in a paralyzed hand. [… A]fter more than a year of therapy and spinal stimulation, [… h]is increased strength and mobility allow him to do things like pet his dog. And when he does, he says, "I can feel a little bit of the fur."“

6. Florida is now a solar superpower. Here’s how it happened.

“In a first, Florida vaulted past California last year in terms of new utility-scale solar capacity plugged into its grid. It built 3 gigawatts of large-scale solar in 2024, making it second only to Texas. And in the residential solar sector, Florida continued its longtime leadership streak.”

7. Rare frog rediscovered after 130 years

“The researchers discovered two populations of the frog[….] "The rediscovery of A. vittatus allowed us to obtain, more than a century after its description, the first biological and ecological data on the species.” [… S]hedding light on where and how they live is the first step in protecting them.”

8. Community composting programs show promise in reducing household food waste

“The program [increased awareness and reduced household waste, and] also addressed common barriers to home composting, including pest concerns and technical challenges that had previously discouraged participants from composting independently.”

9. Pioneering Australian company marks new milestone on “mission” to upcycle end-of-life solar panels

“[…] SolarCrete – a pre-mixed concrete made using glass recovered from used solar panels – will form part of the feasibility study[….] A second stage would then focus on the extraction of high value materials[…] for re-use in PV and battery grade silicon, [… and] electrical appliances[….]”

10. Beavers Just Saved The Czech Government Big Bucks

“The aim was to build a dam to prevent sediment and acidic water from two nearby ponds from spilling over, but the project was delayed for years due to negotiations over land use[….] Not only did the industrious rodents complete the work faster than the humans had intended, they also doubled the size of the wetland area that was initially planned.”

March 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)