Olandten

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

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%

"what do YOU guys call it"

"isn't it [insert time here] over there????"

"GO THE FUCK TO BED"

"good morning" (it's 6pm in your timezone)

"do you have/say [thing] over there"

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

The heat’s been brutal this summer but we still gotta eat! If you’re like me, heat might suppress your appetite, and the last thing any of us want is to sweat over a hot stove and oven when it’s already boiling outside. Here are some of my favorite hot-weather recipes to keep hydrated and fed with when the weather is unbearable! (All recipes should be un-paywalled).

NYT’s best gazpacho (lives up to its name!!)

Persian cold cucumber soup (if you like tzatziki you will like this!)

Eric Kim’s cold noodles with tomato (infinitely riffable Korean flavor profile — for a creamier and less brothy take, try these cold sesame noodles too)

Vietnamese chicken and herb salad (this is an excellent time to get a rotisserie chicken so you don’t have to turn the oven on)

Radish sandwiches with butter and salt (and in a similar vein, if you dig this flavor combo you should try this Polish cottage cheese dip on some good rye bread or even crackers)

It’s still a little early in the season, but you can never go wrong with a BLT (or, if you don’t eat bacon, try this tomato furikake sandwich in its place)

Infinite iterations of pasta salad! You can use anything you got but here is a template I like.

Assorted dense bean salads. This back pocket canned salad is a weird combo of jarred ingredients but it slaps, this hoagie-inspired one is super satisfying, and cowboy caviar is a classic for a reason.

Poke bowls! Canned tuna mixed with some kewpie mayo and sriracha is a budget-friendly riff on the usual ahi and makes everything taste like a spicy tuna roll, but use whatever proteins you like, this is more of a loose template.