Marry me

apparently, cats' kidneys tend to be the thing that takes them down, something about their bodies being unable to self-clean their kidneys, and the vaccine is supposed revitalize the body's ability to do just that. It would be very VERY fucking cool to have cats suddenly reaching 30 years of age be the normal thing.

dude cracked the case about WHY kidneys fail, across the board as far as i can tell. turns out there's a specific molecule whose job it is to attach to waste and signal macrophages to come eat it. it remains inactive in cats for some reason, but the molecule is still there. basically what he's done is found the switch to activate them. this will be profound not only for our domestic babies, but for big cats too - especially cheetahs!

although his research was focused on cats, it's already being used to develop drugs for humans too!

on top of that, since these molecules are tags for waste, this could also dramatically lower the rate of fatty liver disease, liver cancer, urinary crystals, rheumatoid arthritis, and even some neurological cases! like, they're hoping it may have an impact on parkinson's and alzheimers, but it DOES have an impact on stroke recovery. like. holy shit.

furthermore, he's insisting that the feline drug be affordable if and when it rolls out onto the market. he wants this to be something anyone can get for their cat!! idk how much sway he'll have over the human drug, but hopefully enough that it, too, won't be that expensive.

annnnnd in his research that he's still doing for the human side of things, he's found a potential link between this molecule and estrogen. in the 20,000 samples he's tested, women between ages 10 and 29 had the highest amount of this molecule present in their blood (a higher amount means Something Fucky is going on, essentially. There's a higher amount of waste the body is trying to clean out) but it drops down to be almost equal amongst men and women after menopause. it hasn't been looked into yet, but fuck, just the fact it's noted and known and probably WILL be looked into soon??? imagine if this is what leads to figuring out all the various ways the ovaries and uterus fucks with people and how to fix it. or even like, maybe there's something about estrogen that makes it work better. who knows! but it's rad the link is there to be researched :D

As for the study itself, the 360 day follow up on stage 3 kidney failure kitties showed that the control had a survival rate of about 20%, while the test group had a survival rate of 80%

> game you wishlisted is on sale!

> wow, 30% off!

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Guess what

i wanted to try traditional animation for a while and heres a cute little guy inspod by sonnyelim ; 3 and here are the seperate frames as well

I'm still Big Mad from the animation industry AI news, and I had some thoughts I needed to get out. There are lots of more important reasons why artists shouldn't use AI, but here is my philosophical take on it.

as my studio friend Fire & Grace says, mugs are one of the most intimate pieces of pottery that we own. we hold them close. we handle them a lot more than a plate or bowl, and we bring them to our lips.

and hopefully we find moments to relax with them

so it doesn’t matter what kind, or where you got it, so long as you love it. reblog this, or make your own post and tag me in it, either way!

here's my favourite mug

it was wheel thrown for me by Fire & Grace and given to me as greenware, so I could paint and carve it, with a poem by Aaron O’Hanlon. I originally intended this mug to be for @subpar-lemon-bar but it turned into my favourite lol

(and here's the back)

I didn't know how to pull handles yet. The rim isn't smooth. The foot is shallow almost to the point of being non-existent. The kiln didn't reduce properly so the glaze ("purple haze") came out blue instead of purple.

But a potter's very first mug is always a special thing. Nothing beats drinking something from a mug you made yourself. Every sip reminds you that this is something you made. Where there was nothing before, now there is something; and it's currently full of tea; and you're using it. It is both a beautiful piece of artwork and a functional part of your daily life. And a tangible tie back to all the people from the past 30,000 years who also took raw clay out of the ground and formed it into something that made their lives better.

I can't believe this mug is nearly 20 years old now.