Beautiful Pit Viper (Trimeresurus Venustis), Family Viperidae, Thailand

Just read about the port strike attempt. Yeah, why not simply automate the ports? Bring in the robots.

It has just occurred to me that data hoarding is the 21st century version of bibliomania.

Desert Pixie (Melanis leucophlegma), family Riodinidae, Peru

photograph by Cler Drive

(smirking while handing you a hard shell crab) have a big bite dude. of course it's a soft shell crab

Macrophage Defector

Natural killer cells are a type of immune cell that protects the body against not only invading pathogens but also cancer, providing an innate defence against these rogue cells. Some tumours, however, keep natural kill cells at bay and thereby avoid destruction. And recent research in lung tumours reveals this natural killer cell exclusion is achieved with the help of another immune cell – the macrophage. The particular culprit is a type of macrophage covered in a protein called TREM2 – an anti-inflammatory factor. Shown above is a lung tumour (green) packed with TREM2-expressing macrophages (red) that are protecting the cancer from attack. Why these macrophages switch allegiance and side with enemy is unclear, but blocking TREM2 while boosting natural killer cell activity was shown to reduce lung tumour growth in mice suggesting a similar approach might be effective in promoting tumour regression in humans too.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by Matthew D. Park and Ivan Reyes-Torres, and colleagues

Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

Image copyright held by the original authors

Research published in Nature Immunology, April 2023

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Mosquitoes exist. Yet so do things that are metaphorically mosquito-like. I'm not really a fan of this at all.

people should learn more history so that when it comes time to make comparisons it’s not Everything Is Transatlantic Slavery Or The Holocaust

My spiraea bushes are having their last hurrah. They are starting to drop their tiny flower petals. See you next year.

during summer: i can't wait for winter

during winter: i can't wait for summer

do you know how some dogs go insane if you leave them in silence for too long? i think sometimes people are sort of like that