sciencetynan

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NASA's delayed Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's largest moon Titan is on track to launch in July 2028, the space agency confirmed late Tuesday (April 16). The highly anticipated decision greenlights the mission team to proceed to final mission design and testing in preparation for the revised launch date. The car-sized Dragonfly, which is being built by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, will reach Titan in 2034. For the next 2.5 years, the nuclear-powered drone is expected to perform one hop every Titan day — 16 days to us Earthlings — hunting for prebiotic chemical processes at various pre-selected locations on the frigid moon, which is known to contain organic materials. 

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i hate that even self proclaimed radicals think "people shouldnt have to work to survive" is too radical. yes yes advocate for fair wages, but dont forget those wages, even if fair, are just a prize you get for being better at capitalism than ppl like me

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A spectrum of neurodegenerative diseases, including frontotemporal dementia (FTD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and corticobasal degeneration (CBD) are due to the accumulation of abnormal, misfolded tau proteins in the brain. A team of researchers has found potential ways to interrupt this process by targeting “sticky” sites along the long form of mutated tau, preventing the misfolding and spreading of the neurofibrillary tangles.

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You're not just getting older. Song lyrics really are becoming simpler and more repetitive, according to a study published on Thursday. Lyrics have also become angrier and more self-obsessed over the last 40 years, the study found, reinforcing the opinions of cranky ageing music fans everywhere. A team of European researchers analysed the words in more than 12,000 English-language songs across the genres of rap, country, pop, R&B and rock from 1980 to 2020.

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Health Canada is changing its screening criteria for sperm donors, removing previous questions directed at some gay and bisexual men. In a statement to Global News Thursday, the agency confirmed a CTV News report that the rules for men who have sex with men will be updated. “After a review of the latest scientific evidence and feedback received from recent consultations, Health Canada is updating the donor screening criteria for sperm and ova donors to adopt a more inclusive screening approach,” said Mark Johnson, a Health Canada spokesperson. “The new inclusive approach will replace the current men who have sex with men screening questions with gender-neutral, sexual behavior-based donor screening questions.”

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

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Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.  Every year, researchers try to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly. The same is true of COVID vaccines, which have been reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S. This new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus. The vaccine, how it works, and a demonstration of its efficacy in mice is described in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  “What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.”

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Back tattoo by shubeytattoos on Instagram.

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After two decades of biological surveys and over 30 scientific expeditions, groundbreaking research in southern Africa has unearthed a wealth of previously undocumented biodiversity in a newly recognized ecoregion. The research has involved around 100 specialists from around the world, the results of which are published in the Scientific Reports. The findings are so significant that scientists from across the world have officially proposed the area as a new ecoregion—the South East Africa Montane Archipelago (SEAMA). The mountains stretch across northern Mozambique to Mount Mulanje in Malawi, southern Africa's second highest mountain.

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A crowdfunding appeal has been launched to help a 29-year-old Black trans woman who lost both her legs after allegedly being thrown onto NYC subway tracks by her boyfriend. A statement from the New York City District Attorney confirms that the victim and her boyfriend were at the Fulton St. station in Brooklyn when the man is said to have seen the oncoming downtown train coming and “thrown” his girlfriend towards the tracks. “The victim was rushed to the hospital, where both of her legs had to be amputated. She also suffered from fractures to her ribs and a blood clot in her lungs,” the statement continues. When the police arrived, they found the woman under the train, reports Into. The woman has since taken part in an interview with trans activist Hope Giselle, and explains that she was on her way to a gender-affirming appointment when she alleges that she and her boyfriend got into an argument and he “threw” her onto the tracks.

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Donate here:

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Tesla is recalling all 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has shipped to date, due to a problem where the accelerator pedal can get stuck, putting drivers at risk of a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The recall caps a tumultuous week for Tesla. The company laid off more than 10% of its workforce on Monday, and lost two of its highest-ranking executives. A few days later, Tesla asked shareholders to re-vote on CEO Elon Musk’s massive compensation package that was struck down by a judge earlier this year.

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Is Autism Speaks really as bad as people say it is?

Having been forced to deal with them and organizations like them, I can safely say “No.”

It is obscenely worse.

You see, any idiot can look at things like “we need a cure” and their anti-vaccination advocacy and realize how ridiculously stupid that it. 

But that’s not what they sell to children’s hospitals. Instead, they push extremely unconventional medications to “help” autistic children (usually by sedating them into a catatonic state). I mentioned earlier that Risperidol eases overstimulation, but Autism Speaks doesn’t like Risperidol because it’s not controlling enough.

Autism Speaks absolutely loves “treatments” and “counselling” based around controlling everything autistic children do. Stimming, self-coping mechanisms, even strange and oddball quirks like kids who wear gloves everywhere, all of these are taken from them and doled out as privileges. It’s all about turning anything an autistic child likes into something they can control.

They treat these children like fucking animals and really enjoy forced isolation as a punishment. The IWK has several “Secure Isolation Rooms” that they will place autistic children in their care into for hours at a time unsupervised when they start acting out. And not “having a meltdown and might accidentally hurt someone” kind of acting out, even just mouthing off or getting lippy with a nurse.

I am personally convinced that the whole “cure” motto is a sham, because studies into Autism long ago disproved the theory that it was something that needed curing. Autism Speaks behaves more like a eugenics organization. And they are slippery bastards about it too. 

I’ve had the displeasure of having to interact with them directly because they have such a stranglehold on Nova Scotia’s youth mental health that any counseling group inevitably gets calls from them. Speaking to them and hearing the tone with which they spoke about these poor kids made my fucking skin crawl.

If you’re an autistic child and they’re talking to your parents or counselor about you, they won’t even use your name. The Child, The Patient, and The Boy/Girl are all common ways to refer to these kids. On several occasions they’ve referred to some kid as “it.”

I’ve said before that Tumblr especially doesn’t quit know what Autism Speaks is, and that’s because their public persona is very carefully crafted. Their reputation is so cartoonish that doctors who don’t know better won’t believe it, and so they swoop in with a lot of pretty language and faux-politeness. The skeezy, contemptuous way they behave when they think they’re doing business is enough to make you fucking vomit.

You quickly learn why so many hospitals willingly work with them. They are very good at getting their claws into health care organizations because they have this almost sinister “Friendliness” to them, and when you combine this with the fact that a lot of child psychologists have absolutely no concern for the actual well-being of children (just making the parents happy so they continue footing the bill) you have a recipe for a truly horrifying experience.

I can’t fully articulate just how sickening they are. Take however bad you THINK they are, multiply it by a hundred, and then think about how Quentin Tarantino would inflate that to make a movie out of it.

That’s how fucking gross and vile they really are when they think nobody is watching.

~Lily

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A Canadian humanitarian organization says its key water-aid truck was bombed in Gaza this week, and the federal government now says it has contacted the Israeli government for "more information" on the incident.

Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday evening that the government reached out to Israel after hearing that the truck operated by the International Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF) had been bombed.

"The rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for Palestinian people is critical. Upon hearing that IDRF Canada's water truck had been bombed, my office reached out to them and we have contacted the Israeli government for more information on the incident," Hussen said, calling attacks on humanitarian aid workers and operations "unacceptable."

The response comes after the aid agency called on Ottawa to mount a full investigation into what it believes was a "targeted" incident. The IDRF, a registered non-profit based in Toronto, told CBC News that the incident is believed to be the first bombing of a Canadian aid truck during the current war in Gaza. [...]

"The basics of humanitarian principles are not being upheld and that's a real issue." [...]

As of last week, Canada would not say if it is still pursuing further investigations into the airstrike on the World Central Kitchen convoy. Global Affairs has not responded, nor has it said whether it wishes to involve its own investigators in any probe, or to have direct access to the Israeli soldiers involved. [...]

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Tagging: @vague-humanoid, @newsfromstolenland, @fairuzfan

Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: The settler colony known as "Canada" is refusing another to investage another settler colony for murdering one of its settlers. What a fucking joke this gaggle of states is.

[sciencetynan]

A little something I found on Twitter. Pls share

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Submitted by @iceyfoxsblog​

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hey white leftists

[sciencetynan]

Can anyone recommend me an ergonomic grip for an iphone?

I've been dealing with inflammation of the joints of the my middle finger of my right hand for the past year or so, and I've made a lot of adjustments as not to cause it to flare up, but the one thing that causes me pain and inflammation more than anything else is the claw grip I tend to use when I use my iphone.

I use my iphone a lot, so its just inevitable that it'll cause me pain eventually, and I think if I address this it might actually heal, and I won't have to worry about this at all.

I've seen people with attachments for their phones where you don't have to use a grip motion to hold the phone, and I think that would be helpful, but not sure which ones are the best or if these can be bought in stores, or only online.

#me

[sciencetynan]

The Ontario government says it’s taking swift action against a chemical plant following a spike in benzene readings and after members of Aamjiwnaang First Nation fell ill and were hospitalized.

While the Chief of the community says the government needs to shut down the Sarnia-area plant immediately and hinted at potential legal action, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks issued a provincial order on Thursday against the plant in question INEOS Styrolution:

- It gives the chemical manufacturer one week to create a written plan to address the high levels of the cancer-causing chemical the government says its site is emitting.

- A copy of the report, obtained exclusively by Global News, shows INEOS also has roughly two weeks to implement new procedures to notify the public when levels of the carcinogen reach a certain hourly or daily threshold that can be toxic.

- The company has less than a month to complete an investigation into the apparent source of the chemical leak after dozens of residents in the small First Nation community of 900 in southwestern Ontario became sick. [...]

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

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Adda