tOo nErdY for aN arTist, too crAzy for a doCtoR

I know these are tough times for all of us but for me its been literal hell. My naracasstic mother and her dysfunctional sisters all tag teamed against me because my mom told them lies about me threatning to harm her when I simply did none of the sort…long story short is an emotional maniupltive person and thinks shes always the victim and whenever I try to say my side of the story, my own so called family members don’t believe me and think i’m the evil person even though they know my mother has always been this way and is getting worse but since she’s the mother, clearly she can’t do any wrong…as she is ALWAYS right. 

I am cutting ties with everyone as I am officially convinced I have no family. 

I’m sorry for not posting recently..it’s mainly because of the endless drama i have at home and not being able to escape it as drove me to escape to animal crossing for 12+ hours a day because i have nowhere else to go. 

If possible, please support me on ko-fi or patreon or even my online store if you have the funds to do so…I understand alot of people are going through tough times so only do so if you’re able so i can save up to find some place to live:

Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/cosmicfunnies

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cosmicfunnies

My Online Store: https://www.cosmicfunnies.com

My portfolio site in case u wish to hire me: https://jackiemoliner.myportfolio.com

I hope your time indoors is better than my situation. I am hoping to find someplace to go but things have been impossible for me..I feel trapped..I hope you’re all doing better than I am..

Thanks for your support. I’m slowly finishing the 2021 planner which is why you guys haven’t seen me. I hope to have it up on the shop by August 1st just in time for your back to school shopping.

(Image caption: Neurons from 19-month-old mice (bottom row) show much higher rates of oxidative stress than neurons from 9-week-old mice (top row). Lipofuscin, a molecule associated with aging-related oxidative stress, appears red. Credit: Hyeseung Lee)

Biologists discover an unusual hallmark of aging in neurons

As we age, neurons in our brains can become damaged by free radicals. MIT biologists have now discovered that this type of damage, known as oxidative stress, produces an unusual pileup of short snippets of RNA in some neurons.

This RNA buildup, which the researchers believe may be a marker of neurodegenerative diseases, can reduce protein production. The researchers observed this phenomenon in both mouse and human brains, especially in a part of the brain called the striatum — a site involved in diseases such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.

“The brain is very metabolically active, and over time, that causes oxidative damage, but it affects some neurons more than others,” says Christopher Burge, an MIT professor of biology. “This phenomenon appears to be a previously unrecognized consequence of oxidative stress, which impacts hundreds of genes and may influence translation and RNA regulation globally.”

Burge and Myriam Heiman, the Latham Family Career Development Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, are the senior authors of the paper, which appears in the Nov. 27 issue of Cell Reports. Peter Sudmant, a former MIT postdoc, is the lead author of the paper, and postdoc Hyeseung Lee and former postdoc Daniel Dominguez are also authors.

A mysterious finding

For this study, the researchers used a technique developed by Heiman that allows them to isolate and sequence messenger RNA from specific types of cells. Messenger RNA carries protein-building instructions to cell organelles called ribosomes, which read the mRNA and translate the instructions into proteins by stringing together amino acids in the correct sequence.

Heiman’s technique involves tagging ribosomes from a specific type of cells with green fluorescent protein, so that when a tissue sample is analyzed, researchers can use the fluorescent tag to isolate and sequence RNA from only those cells. This allows them to determine which proteins are being produced by different types of cells.

“This is particularly useful in the nervous system where you’ve got different types of neurons and glia closely intertwined together, if you want to isolate the mRNAs from one particular cell type,” Burge says.

In separate groups of mice, the researchers tagged ribosomes from either D1 or D2 spiny projection neurons, which make up 95 percent of the neurons found in the striatum. They labeled these cells in younger mice (6 weeks old) and 2-year-old mice, which are roughly equivalent to humans in their 70s or 80s.

The researchers had planned to look for gene expression differences between those two cell types, and to explore how they were affected by age. “These two types of neurons are implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases that are aging-related, so it is important to understand how normal aging changes their cellular and molecular properties,” says Heiman, who is a member of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

To the researchers’ surprise, a mysterious result emerged — in D1 neurons from aged mice (but not neurons from young mice or D2 neurons from aged mice), they found hundreds of genes that expressed only a short fragment of the original mRNA sequence. These snippets, known as 3’ untranslated regions (UTRs), were stuck to ribosomes, preventing the ribosomes from assembling normal proteins. “While these RNAs have been observed before, the magnitude and age-associated cell-type specificity was really unprecedented,” says Sudmant.

The 3’ UTR snippets appeared to originate from about 400 genes with a wide variety of functions. Meanwhile, many other genes were totally unaffected.

“There are some genes that are completely normal, even in aged D1 neurons. There’s a gene-specific aspect to this phenomenon that is quite interesting and mysterious,” Burge says.

The findings led the researchers to explore a possible role for oxidative stress in this 3’ UTR accumulation. Neurons burn a great deal of energy, which can produce free radicals as byproducts. Unlike many other cell types, neurons do not get replaced, so they are believed to be susceptible to accumulated damage from these radicals over time.

The MIT team found that the activation of oxidative stress response pathways was higher in D1 neurons compared to D2 neurons, suggesting that they are indeed undergoing more oxidative damage. The researchers propose a model for the production of isolated 3’ UTRs involving an enzyme called ABCE1, which normally separates ribosomes from mRNA after translation is finished. This enzyme contains iron-sulfur clusters that can be damaged by free radicals, making it less effective at removing ribosomes, which then get stuck on the mRNA. This leads to cleavage of the RNA by a mechanism that operates upstream of stalled ribosomes.

“Sending neural signals takes a lot of energy,” Burge says. “Over time, that causes oxidative damage, and in our model one of the proteins that eventually gets damaged is ABCE1, and that triggers the production of 3’ UTRs.”

RNA buildup

The researchers also found the same accumulation in most parts of the human brain, including the frontal cortex, which is very metabolically active. They did not see it in most other types of human tissue, with the exception of liver tissue, which is exposed to high levels of potentially toxic molecules.

In human brain tissue, the researchers found that the amount of 3’ UTRs gradually increased with age, which fits their proposed model of gradual damage by oxidative stress. The researchers’ findings and model suggest that the production of these 3’ UTRs involves the destruction of normal mRNAs, reducing the amount of protein produced from the affected genes. This buildup of 3’ UTRs with ribosomes stuck to them can also block ribosomes from producing other proteins.

For most, the time spent staring at screens—on computers, phones, iPads—constitutes many hours and can often disrupt sleep. Now, Salk Institute researchers have pinpointed how certain cells in the eye process ambient light and reset our internal clocks, the daily cycles of physiological processes known as the circadian rhythm. When these cells are exposed to artificial light late into the night, our internal clocks can get confused, resulting in a host of health issues.

The results, published November 27, 2018, in Cell Reports, may help lead to new treatments for migraines, insomnia, jet lag and circadian rhythm disorders, which have been tied to cognitive dysfunction, cancer, obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and more.

“We are continuously exposed to artificial light, whether from screen time, spending the day indoors or staying awake late at night,” says Salk Professor Satchidananda Panda, senior author of the study. “This lifestyle causes disruptions to our circadian rhythms and has deleterious consequences on health.”

The backs of our eyes contain a sensory membrane called the retina, whose innermost layer contains a tiny subpopulation of light-sensitive cells that operate like pixels in a digital camera. When these cells are exposed to ongoing light, a protein called melanopsin continually regenerates within them, signaling levels of ambient light directly to the brain to regulate consciousness, sleep and alertness. Melanopsin plays a pivotal role in synchronizing our internal clock after 10 minutes of illumination and, under bright light, suppresses the hormone melatonin, responsible for regulating sleep.

“Compared to other light-sensing cells in the eye, melanopsin cells respond as long as the light lasts, or even a few seconds longer,” says Ludovic Mure, staff scientist and first author of the paper. “That’s critical, because our circadian clocks are designed to respond only to prolonged illumination.”

In the new work, the Salk researchers used molecular tools to turn on production of melanopsin in retinal cells in mice. They discovered that some of these cells have the ability to sustain light responses when exposed to repeated long pulses of light, while others become desensitized.

Conventional wisdom has held that proteins called arrestins, which stop the activity of certain receptors, should halt cells’ photosensitive response within seconds of lights coming on. The researchers were surprised to find that arrestins are in fact necessary for melanopsin to continue responding to prolonged illumination.

In mice lacking either version of the arrestin protein (beta arrestin 1 and beta arrestin 2), the melanopsin-producing retinal cells failed to sustain their sensitivity to light under prolonged illumination. The reason, it turns out, is that arrestin helps melanopsin regenerate in the retinal cells.

“Our study suggests the two arrestins accomplish regeneration of melanopsin in a peculiar way,” Panda says. “One arrestin does its conventional job of arresting the response, and the other helps the melanopsin protein reload its retinal light-sensing co-factor. When these two steps are done in quick succession, the cell appears to respond continuously to light.”

On July 23, 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center carrying the Chandra X-ray Observatory. In the two decades that have passed, Chandra’s powerful and unique X-ray eyes have contributed to a revolution in our understanding of the cosmos.

Since its launch 20 years ago, Chandra’s unrivaled X-ray vision has changed the way we see the universe.

Chandra has captured galaxy clusters – the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe – in the process of merging.

Chandra has shown us the powerful wind and shock fronts that rumble through star-forming systems.

And a star school, so to speak – home to thousands of the Milky Way’s biggest and brightest.

Carl Sagan said, “We are made of star-stuff.“ It’s true. Most of the elements necessary for life are forged inside stars and blasted into interstellar space by supernovas. Chandra has tracked them.

Thank you Chandra X-Ray! To more adventures with you!

Check out Chandra’s 20th anniversary page to see how they are celebrating.

I'm not saying her name because there is literally a publication ban, but I've seen a flare of activity around a Canadian trans woman being accused of some horrendous shit.

As far as I can tell, no credible source has mentioned any recent developments in this case. No credible source is mentioning anything about any victim, or a change in the status of that publication ban.

The ban was enacted because TERFs have been actively trying to destroy this woman's life by making sure these accusations are the top association with her name.

Please, please, please tread very carefully around this. Please think twice before publishing her name in connection with these accusations.

Heres what I need in terms of supplies:

Money (prolly not until I get to the point that more people have signed up tho)

3 megaphones

Defense items for the front line

Toothpaste toothbrushes and soap

Kids books (spanish and english)

Places where these kids can temporarily stay until we get in touch with their parents

Obviously not all of these are 100% necessary but it would all make our goals a lot easier

Heres what you can do if you cant provide resources:

Show up!

Reblog or spread the Facebook event

Tell your friends and family

Join the discord

Become a co-organizer (DM me)

Send emails to different left wing organizations, protest organizations, and/or immigration focused organizations (DM me first)

Drive, offer carpools (DM me)

Spanish translators (DM me)

Help me contact parents (DM me)

Help fundraise (DM me)

Offer whatever forms of help you can think of (DM me)

Bring the weed for your car. I'm just kidding obviously... unless... lmao nah... or??? 😏🤨🤔😎

A new study puts a fresh spin on what it means to “go with your gut.” The findings, published in Nature, suggest that gut bacteria may control movement in fruit flies and identify the neurons involved in this response. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health.

“This study provides additional evidence for a connection between the gut and the brain, and in particular outlines how gut bacteria may influence behavior, including movement,” said Margaret Sutherland, Ph.D., program director at NINDS.

Researchers led by Sarkis K. Mazmanian, Ph.D., professor of microbiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and graduate student Catherine E. Schretter, observed that germ-free flies, which did not carry bacteria, were hyperactive. For instance, they walked faster, over greater distances, and took shorter rests than flies that had normal levels of microbes. Dr. Mazmanian and his team investigated ways in which gut bacteria may affect behavior in fruit flies.

“Locomotion is important for a number of activities such as mating and searching for food. It turns out that gut bacteria may be critical for fundamental behaviors in animals,” said Dr. Mazmanian.

Fruit flies carry between five and 20 different species of bacteria and Dr. Mazmanian’s team treated the germ-free animals with individual strains of those microbes. When the flies received Lactobacillus brevis, their movements slowed down to normal speed. L. brevis was one of only two species of bacteria that restored normal behavior in the germ-free flies.

Dr. Mazmanian’s group also discovered that the molecule xylose isomerase (Xi), a protein that breaks down sugar and is found in L. brevis, may be critical to this process. Isolating the molecule and treating germ-free flies with it was sufficient to slow down the speedwalkers.

Additional experiments showed that Xi may regulate movement by fine-tuning levels of certain carbohydrates, such as trehalose, which is the main sugar found in flies and is similar to mammalian glucose. Flies that were given Xi had lower levels of trehalose than did untreated germ-free flies. When Xi-treated flies, which showed normal behavior, were given trehalose alone, they resumed fast movements suggesting that the sugar was able to reverse the effects of Xi.

Next, the researchers looked into the flies’ nervous system to see what cells were involved in bacteria-directed movement. When Dr. Mazmanian’s team turned on neurons that produce the chemical octopamine, that activation canceled out the effect of L. brevis on the germ-free flies. As a result, the flies, which had previously slowed down after receiving the bacterium or Xi, resumed their speedwalking behavior. Turning on octopamine-producing nerve cells in flies with normal levels of bacteria also caused them to move faster. However, activating neurons that produce other brain chemicals did not influence the flies’ movements.

According to Dr. Mazmanian, Schretter and their colleagues, Xi may be monitoring the flies’ metabolic state, including levels of nutrients, and then signaling to octopamine neurons whether they should turn on or off, resulting in changes in behavior.

Instead of octopamine, mammals produce a comparable chemical called noradrenaline, which has been shown to control movement.

“Gut bacteria may play a similar role in mammalian locomotion, and even in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease,” said Dr. Mazmanian.

One thing I haven’t mentioned to you all is that I have an abusive mother that I live with because I have no income. However, because I don’t have a job she becomes very aggresive, says horrible things to me and calls me stupid and slow and that I can’t hear right. Then when I defend myself, she punishes me for standing up to myself…in the form not cooking any dinner tomorrow knowing very well I have no money on me. 

So basically I’m going to starve today. So I broke down crying and wondering if I should just end it because I am tired of bad things happening to me left and right each day is getting worse whenever I start to feel hopeful. I just don’t know what to do..

If anyone can help me buy something to eat tommrow, that will be great since I only have a few dollars in my bank account which isn’t enough to even buy one meal. 

https://ko-fi.com/cosmicfunnies - For anyone who just wants to help and not buy. 

https://cosmicstickies.bigcartel.com

https://www.cosmicfunnies.com/starry-shop/natural-earth-foil-planner-sticker-set

https://www.cosmicfunnies.com/starry-shop

If you do buy something, please use PayPal instead of stripe. Stripe takes over a week for me to get funds and it won’t help me since I’m in dire need at this moment. 

I don’t like asking for help because I don’t want to seem needy but I can’t be proud. Sometimes you have to be humble. 

The use of minute doses of magic mushrooms and truffles containing psychedelic substances could induce a state of unconstrained thought that may produce more new, creative ideas. “Microdosing” in this way may allow people to experience the creative benefits of psychedelic drugs without the risk of the so-called “bad trips” that often come with high doses of such substances. This is according to a new study in the Springer-branded journal Psychopharmacology which is the official journal of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society (EBPS). The research was led by Luisa Prochazkova of Leiden University in The Netherlands and is the first study of its kind to experimentally investigate the cognitive-enhancing effects of microdosing on a person’s brain function within a natural setting.

Taking a tiny fraction of a normal dose of psychedelic substances is becoming a trend in some professional circles because this is thought to stimulate brain function and enhance mental flexibility and creativity. However, experimental research that moves away from anecdotal evidence is still rare.

In this study, Prochazkova and her colleagues investigated how a microdose of a psychedelic substance affected the cognitive brain function of 36 people who were present at an event organized by the Psychedelic Society of The Netherlands. During the experimental phase, participants were set three tasks before and after they consumed on average 0.37 grams of dried truffles. The tests assessed their convergent thinking (the identification of a single solution to a problem), their fluid intelligence (the capacity to reason and solve new problems) and their divergent thinking (the ability to recognize many possible solutions). Afterwards, the researchers analyzed the active substances present in the truffles consumed by participants.

After taking the microdose of truffles, the researchers found that participants’ convergent thinking abilities were improved. Participants also had more ideas about how to solve a presented task, and were more fluent, flexible and original in the possibilities they came up with. Microdosing with psychedelic substances therefore improved both the divergent and convergent thinking of participants.

These findings are in line with earlier studies that found high doses of psychedelics can enhance creative performance. The fact that participants’ intelligence scores and general analytical abilities did not change suggests that the effect of the truffles is rather selective, and more to the benefit of a person’s creative domain.

“Taken together, our results suggest that consuming a microdose of truffles allowed participants to create more out-of-the-box alternative solutions for a problem, thus providing preliminary support for the assumption that microdosing improves divergent thinking,” explains Prochazkova. “Moreover, we also observed an improvement in convergent thinking, that is, increased performance on a task that requires the convergence on one single correct or best solution.”

2019 June 14

NGC 4676: The Mighty Mice Image Credit & Copyright: Bruce Waddington

Explanation: These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as The Mice because they have such long tails, each large spiral galaxy has actually passed through the other. Their long tails are drawn out by strong gravitational tides rather than collisions of their individual stars. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion – over hundreds of millions of years. They will probably collide again and again over the next billion years until they coalesce to form a single galaxy. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice’s Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. Not often imaged in small telescopes, this wide field of view catches the faint tidal tails several hundred thousand light-years long.

Hundreds of innocent people are dying and being raped every day, stop doing whatever you are doing right now and inform yourself. Talk with others about it and share.

Imagine your sister/mother/aunt and possibly even you was being raped by multiple adult men, DISGUSTING

And it goes on every single fucking day. This sounds like pure hell. People are hiding everywhere they can, probably not getting out and getting enough food. There is so much shit wrong with that.

And lastly, it doesn’t matter how much influence you have on social media or what your status is as long as you post just one single thing about what is happening right now. You are helping. Look, I for example have 20 followers, but do I care? No, maybe only 5 of my followers will see this, but that’s better than 0.

This image combines data from four space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of RCW 86, the oldest documented example of a supernova. Chinese astronomers witnessed the event in 185 A.D., documenting a mysterious “guest star” that remained in the sky for eight months. X-ray images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton Observatory were combined to form the blue and green colors in the image. The X-rays show the interstellar gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by the passage of the shock wave from the supernova. Infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and WISE, Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, shown in yellow and red, reveal dust radiating at a temperature of several hundred degrees below zero, warm by comparison to normal dust in our Milky Way galaxy. By studying the X-ray and infrared data, astronomers were able to determine that the cause of the explosion was a Type Ia supernova, in which an otherwise-stable white dwarf, or dead star, was pushed beyond the brink of stability when a companion star dumped material onto it. Furthermore, scientists used the data to solve another mystery surrounding the remnant - how it got to be so large in such a short amount of time. By blowing away wind prior to exploding, the white dwarf was able to clear out a huge “cavity,” a region of very low-density surrounding the system. The explosion into this cavity was able to expand much faster than it otherwise would have. This is the first time that this type of cavity has been seen around a white dwarf system prior to explosion. Scientists say the results may have significant implications for theories of white-dwarf binary systems and Type Ia supernovae. RCW 86 is approximately 8,000 light-years away. At about 85 light-years in diameter, it occupies a region of the sky in the southern constellation of Circinus that is slightly larger than the full moon. This image was compiled in October 2011. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO & ESA; Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Williams (NCSU)

Here’s how you can help:

Donate to the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees: https://donate.unhcr.org/int/south-sudan/~my-donation

Donate to the Sudan Relief Fund: https://sdnrlf.com/campaign-cat/featured/ 

Donate to the International Medical Corps for Sudanese Medical Aid: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sudanese-medical-aid

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