crazy and criminal: on those damn books, and why they matter « Sex Geek Plenty of ink has been spilled about E. L. James’s erotic BDSM romance trilogy, Fifty Shades of Grey. I swore I wouldn’t do the same, but then the nice folks at Carleton University asked me to keynote their very cool Consent Is Sexy week on the topic of consent and Fifty Shades, and my book club, the Leather Bindings Society, had just finished reading the trilogy for one of our meetings, so it was fresh in my mind. As well, in the last few months I’ve gotten a ton of requests for my thoughts on the series. So I decided that as a pervy scholar and a critic of sexual culture, I should do my homework and say my piece so that we can then return to your regularly scheduled programming. Three reasons people hate Fifty Shades Anytime heterosexual representations of sadomasochism show up in the mainstream, perverts get up in arms, and with good reason. First, people who care about writing criticize Fifty Shades for its shitty writing. On coolness and community On kink and consumerism
100 Very Cool Facts About The Human Body The Brain The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Hair and Nails While they’re not a living part of your body, most people spend a good amount of time caring for their hair and nails. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. Internal Organs Though we may not give them much thought unless they’re bothering us, our internal organs are what allow us to go on eating, breathing and walking around. The largest internal organ is the small intestine. Bodily Functions We may not always like to talk about them, but everyone has to deal with bodily functions on a daily basis. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. Sex and Reproduction As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is an important part of human life as a facet of relationships and the means to reproduce. Senses
Divided by language, united by gut bacteria – people have three common gut types - Not Exactly Rocket Science Europe is a divided land. For such a relatively small continent, it is split into 50 different countries and its people speak hundreds of languages. But within their guts, there is common ground. The intestines of Europeans, like those of all humans, harbour massive communities of bacteria. According to a new study, these microscopic worlds fall into just three different groups, which transcend the borders of geography and politics. In gut bacteria, we are united. Our gut contains trillions of bacteria, known collectively as the microbiome. But this variation isn’t infinite. The duo collected stool samples from 22 Europeans from Denmark, France, Spain and Italy, sequenced all the DNA within them, and compared them to 13 similar samples from Japan. The enterotypes transcend boundaries of countries and continents. Enterotypes aren’t quite as well-defined as, say, blood groups, but they could have similar uses as medical markers. It’s clear that this line of research is just beginning.
Here's a Mind-Melting, Mailable Skull Sculpture That’s twisted. Beijing artist Li Hongbo creates sculptures that look smooth and porcelain until you stretch them, lengthening in endless layers of soft white paper with almost invisible crevices, like some kind of psychedelic accordion, aaaaah. See busts, faces, skulls stretched and twisted with the mailability of a digital entity. Then see a backbone unfold in connected vertebrae. Li Hongbo is an artist and a book editor/designer by trade, so that’s where the paper kick stems from.
collective intelligence course aims to improve responses to COVID-19, other crises The GovLab at NYU Tandon teams with 11 global institutions to offer free classes on effective disaster response BROOKLYN, New York, April 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Working with 11 partner institutions around the world, The Governance Lab (The GovLab) at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering today launches a massive open online course (MOOC) on “Collective Crisis Intelligence.” The course is free, open to anyone, and designed to help institutions improve disaster response through the use of data and volunteer participation. Thirteen modules have been created by leading global experts in major disasters such as the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008, the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011, the Ebola crisis in 2014, the Zika outbreak in 2016, and the current coronavirus. More information on the courses is available at About The Governance Lab at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering
The Microbiome Everyone’s got a personal collection of microbiota. You could think of yours as your unique internal pet—at up to 3 percent of your body mass, it’s as hefty as a teacup Yorkie or a large guinea pig—requiring care and feeding. In turn, your microbiota provide essential services: extracting energy from food, absorbing and generating vitamins and amino acids and forming barriers against infective invaders. If researchers are correct, your microbiota might also fight diabetes, obesity and cancer; stimulate your immune system; break down toxins; and boost your overall health. So exactly what are microbiota? They are the more than 10,000 species of bacteria, fungi and viruses that inhabit your gut, nose, mouth, throat, skin and urogenital tract. The U.S. government’s $173 million Human Microbiome Project (the microbiome being the collective genes of the microbiota, which outnumber your own human genes 150 to 1) is designed to propel knowledge to a new level. Gut Instincts Andrew S.
1ucasvb's lab 79629813053 305 1394863200 mrfb asked: What are your thoughts on the pi v. tau debate? (For those unaware of the Pi. vs. Tau debate, read the Tau Manifesto and then the Pi Manifesto). I’m actually extremely pro-tau, but only under certain conditions. I’ll explain. Warning: The following is my personal take on these subjects. On the merits of the debate Mathematics thrives on conventions. The use of the Greek lower-case letter pi (π) to denote a particular irrational number is one of such conventions developed in mathematics. In this respect, the tau vs. pi debate is a waste of time in my view. However, conceptual differences are important. Pi You see, π shows up everywhere in math by itself, no factors of 2 attached at all. But whenever tau (τ = 2π) shows up, people like to talk about circles. The most mathematically natural way of measuring angles is in units of radians. “Dimensions” vs. Radians No.
Homemade Bandages You may need to make a homemade bandage in an emergency situation when you have no ready-made first aid materials available. Some people also like to make their own bandages for cost or environmental reasons. Homemade bandages are much cheaper than over-the-counter alternatives, and allow you to use materials that would otherwise be thrown away. Making an Emergency Bandage Find some gauze to use as a dressing for the wound. If gauze is not available, use a paper towel. How to Make a Roomy Slingback Fit Better Find some sticky tape. Cut or tear the gauze or paper towel into the right shape and size for the wound you are dressing. How to Tape a Hurt Toe Stick tape firmly over the dressing to hold it in position. Bandages for Your Medicine Cabinet Make a compress or rolled bandage out of an old white cotton sheet. Make a triangular bandage out of any strong cotton material. Cut a variety of widths from the legs of some old stretch jeans to make elastic bandages. Tips Warnings The Wrap Up
New Catalog of Human Gut Microbes An updated analysis of the gut microbiome extends the list of known bacterial genes to 9.8 million. WIKIMEDIA, MATTOSAURUSAn expanded catalog of nearly 9.8 million genes from the human gut microbiome spans a cohort of bacteria three times larger than that used to create previous gene lists. The results, published this week (July 6) in Nature Biotechnology, integrate data from newly sequenced samples and previous studies to provide near-complete gene sets for most gut microbes. Led by a team from BGI in Shenzhen, China, the researchers sequenced 249 new fecal samples taken from adults in Denmark and Spain. The study also found country-specific differences in gut microbes from healthy Danish and Chinese adults. The authors estimate that the integrated gene catalog spans 94.5 percent of genes discovered in the gut microbiome so far.
Peter Root – City Made Out of Staples 100,000 staples have been intricately arranged to create a city over the span of 40 hours by Peter Root. AMAZING! (Source: fubiz.net) It’s in the Genes Immune cells surrounding hair follicles in mouse skin. These hair follicles are home to a diverse array of commensal bacteria.FLICKR, NIAIDScouring the genomes and body-wide microbial communities of 93 people, researchers have discovered a link between the composition of the microbiome and genetic variation in innate immunity, phagocyte function, and other immune pathways. The research was presented by University of Minnesota population geneticist Ran Blekhman today (October 24) at the American Society of Human Genetics 2013 annual meeting in Boston. “This is cool stuff,” Lita Proctor from the National Human Genome Research Institute wrote in an e-mail to The Scientist. Other researchers have linked specific gene variants to alterations in the human microbiome, noted George Weinstock of The Genome Institute at Washington University, whose own work has shown that host-microbe interactions are influenced by genes involved in drug metabolism.
Oceanographic - Schools of baby stingrays (by jake.pang) There is no such thing as a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ microbe | Aeon Essays In the 1870s, German physician Robert Koch was trying to curtail an epidemic of anthrax that was sweeping local farm animals. Other scientists had seen a bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, in the victims’ tissues. Koch injected this microbe into a mouse – which died. He recovered it from the dead rodent and injected it into another one – which also died. Doggedly, he repeated this grim process for over 20 generations and the same thing happened every time. This experiment, and those of contemporaries like Louis Pasteur, confirmed that many diseases are caused by microscopic organisms. Today, we know this view is wrong – as I explain in my new book I Contain Multitudes. The problem is that the latter view is just as wrong as the former. In reality, bacteria exist along a continuum of lifestyles. Other microbes can be pathogen and mutualist at the exact same time. All of this means that labels like mutualist, commensal, pathogen or parasite don’t work as definitive badges of identity.