autismgavemychildvaccines

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

To every data scientist and Physics Grad..

Please. Stop using simple SIR models to simulate what an epi curve looks like and then posting it. It’s drowning real research into the dynamics of this epidemic. And come on man. SEIR model is where it’s at anyways. The enthusiasm is great, but if you’re so keen on helping, contact your dept of health or Uni and see if they need people to build the core mechanics of stuff we can apply well tuned Epidemiological knowledge onto. Going rogue is just making you look bad, wasting our time, and allowing the public to be pulled into graph overload by a batch of fucking amateurs. 

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Cute. Maybe next time he can use that money to ensure his workers get adequate hazard pay, paid sick leave, and be able to not be crushed under the weight of the machine he runs. 

The Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, is donating $100 million to Feeding America, a nonprofit that helps food banks provide food for families in need. He was inspired to help because the spread of the coronavirus made him feel it was essential to do so. So many people already…

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Okay, so. Epidemiologist who has been working the response to this since late January here. @the-exercist , I want to start by saying I love most of your content, and none of what I am saying should be used to invalidate you. You’re dead on 95% of the time and you rock at sourcing info from good places. I honestly wish I had like 2 dozen of you working for me right now to help spread info; You rock.  That all being said though, the study used above actually doesn’t hold up too well under scrutiny, especially considering the use of cloth masks in previous epidemics with viruses that presented similarly to COVID-19 has historically been shown to increase the likelihood of infection of people who are using them. There is a lot of conflicting info about this, mostly because of two key facets.

 1. We don’t want people panicking, and true, something is (usually) better than nothing at all with some respiratory viruses. Likewise, the illusion of safety here is effective from a public messaging point. “If you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO, then okay sure wear this” is better than “Nothing you can do, yeet.” Though, frankly, the White House’s resident chubby orange bastard saying this to help “save the economy” wouldn’t surprise me at this point. Anyways, sorry, stress ranting.  2. Now, the second reason this is being pushed so hard is shops like Joannes have POURED lobbying money into helping push this, and they’ve done a whole PR campaign about “saving first responders” which have basically ensured their parking lots are packed with people with the best of intentions, but also some of the best infectivity rates out there if we are looking at poor outcomes. Which, having done case investigations at airports recently, you can imagine my pants-shittingly poor reaction to the idea of every Granny in the metro areas rummaging around for the right fabrics to make her cute lil mask to save her daughter’s stepkid who is a nurse from getting sick. Much like an airport, that’s a lot of travel, and a mother fucker to trace. There’s potential for localized clusters here. Of our mortuary staff and providers being flooded. And that’s not even mentioning the need for sufficient filtration medium to be allowed between mask layers to make them effective, anywhere close to what would be useful.  So, all of that out of the way, here’s the problem. As mentioned earlier, there are some cases where these masks can work. In fact, sometimes quite well. HOWEVER, these masks if used as a precaution, even assuming proper ppe usage brings two things to bare: Exposure length, and heat + humidity.  So far, we have seen that SARS-CoV-2 is a hell of a survivor even in warm conditions, with sufficient humidity. In fact, up until about 122F and more than 90% humidity, it can stay for a long time in air, or being collected by the trappings of an ill made mask to then transfer via touch or breathing in particulate matter.. And you’d think people who wear masks wouldn’t touch their face. SADLY THOUGH, IT HAPPENS ALL THE FUCKIN’ TIME. People who aren’t trained (and even some who are!) in donning and doffing, or just the use of ppe in general tend to mess it up to the point contamination is a damned certainty. They’ll adjust the mask, touch their face, not be used to the feel so maybe wipe their eyes, all of which are additional exposure points. And if a mask isn’t properly fit tested ala typical N95 or PAPR fitting, it’s leaving a lot of holes in any protection.

Now, this is not to say panic. This is not to say stockpile Charmin like they just took all 3 bears to the back shed. This is to say, do not have confidence in improper ppe. Please do not go out shopping to “help first responders”. What you can do for firefighters, EMTs, Nurses, Docs, Epidemiologists, Retail and Restaurant Workers (props to y’all by the way, you fuckers need to protest or get a living wage. 100%) ,  and the COUNTLESS others risking their asses and their relationships fighting this thing is to PLEASE stay the fuck home. 

Use delivery services or curbside delivery or anything else if you can, so those who can’t can be at less risk. AND FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, BOYCOTT JOANNES FOR BEING A MASSIVE PIECE OF SHIT WHO WOULD SELL YARN IN A CRISIS, TRY TO SPIN A PROFIT OFF IT, WHILE PUTTING EVERYONE WHO WORKS AND SHOPS THERE AT UNNEEDED RISK. In closing, right now, to protect yourself and others, do not rely on cloth masks. Do not rely on disposable surgical ones either. If your community is affected by this, or you talked to someone or have any memory of encountering someone maybe ill? Stay home, please. We’ll be out here trying to make things right in the mean time. I just really don’t want to see any more deaths show up in my reports. Please. 

Some takeaways from the research:

1. You can have and transmit Coronavirus without symptoms.

2. A person can be asymptomatic– i.e. carrying Coronavirus but never fall ill, or presymptomatic– i.e. someone who is infected with Coronavirus but has not yet started to show symptoms.

3. Average symptom onset is around 5 days, though it can be as long as 14 days.

4. !!!Carriers of Coronavirus shed viral particles MOST AGGRESSIVELY BEFORE THEY FALL ILL!!. It is not just the ‘sick’ who are contagious! In the 72-48 hours before a presymptomatic carrier falls ill they are MOST contagious, with viral shed lessening as a person becomes sicker.

5. Therefore, plenty of ‘healthy’ people may be some of the most contagious.

6. This is why the wearing of masks is being pushed again and more strongly: Not to keep you from getting Covid– but to keep you from SPREADING it.

Please, if you must go out, WEAR A MASK WEAR A MASK WEAR A MASK. THE CDC IS NOW EMPLORING ALL WHO DO GO OUT OF THEIR HOMES TO WEAR A CLOTH MASK TO REDUCE TRANSMISSION.

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Warm blooded creature: wow I’m chilly

Warm blooded creature: *vibrates*

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Whenever someone tries to claim that evolution is a lie, I send them a picture of platybelodon.

1. It’s an excellent example of transitional evolution.

2. It’s a mess who would intentionally do this and why

3. It makes them piss themselves a little.

“Evolution is just a theory-”

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Nudibranchs (sea slugs)

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Bonus fact: We as humans often assume XY indicates male, and XX indicates female. Even fucking ducks have that shit reversed. 

fucking lol

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

H.O.N.K

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Recently, I was asked a really interesting question: What’s more dangerous to be in the United States? A female teacher, or female soldier? (Thank you @punkrockmxfrizzle for the question and @inandoutofspaceandtime for suggestions on colours for the graph)

After digging through nearly 70 years of data on both, it seems the answer is a bit mixed.

But first, a quick series of caveats:

It’s worth noting that on average, year over year, there are 10x as many female teachers as servicewomen.

In this case, Soldier/Servicewoman is defined as any individual born as female, who entered into the uniformed service. Since laws around allowing women to be in “front-line” operations have varied over the decades, it makes it an impractical comparison. Therefore, any woman who died as a result of enemy fire from the Korean War to Syria are being counted, with suicides or “blue-on-blue” being excluded. 

Similarly for teachers, suicides are not being counted, and school shootings are defined as any act of violence, involving a firearm, within school hours or during school sponsored events that resulted in a fatality, whether accidental or by design. That being said, shootings that immediately preceded a school shooting that was not directly connected did not count. For example, if a female teacher was shot on the way to school, but no other action occured, that death was excluded. However, if an individual shot a female school teacher and killed her, and then proceeded to shoot up the school she taught at, she would be considered part of that fatality cohort. Okay, so with that out of the way, here’s the stats: 

Year over year until the War on Terror Trilogy (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria), Teachers suffered the most absolute fatalities, as well as year-by-year comparative fatalities per ratio.

 That being said, this is mostly because servicewomen, most years, did not suffer a fatality.However, taken as a cohort (year-over-year risk ratio), Servicewomen on average had around a 12x higher risk of fatality than female teachers

Not fun fact: During the period of 2001-2014, Female Soldiers by percentage had a higher risk of being a causality (14.5%) than their male counterparts (12.5%). 

In terms of school shootings, Female Teachers are actually in the lowest fatality bracket, with Male Teachers, Female Students, Male Students and then Female Teachers being the order of victims by number. Until roughly the 1980′s, the perpetrators were roughly tied as male and female students, then male teachers, then female teachers. After the 1980′s, this shifted to primarily male students, with the other three cohorts roughly remaining tied. 

IT WAS HARD AS FUCK TO FIND FEMALE SOLDIER FATALITY STATISTICS. It is an ABSOLUTE dishonor to their memories that their names, stories, and numbers are so hard to find. In many cases, their deaths were due to enemy fire (or IED) while these people were trying to save others or prevent them harm. Stitching together personal web-pages and some vague congressional statistics data is not the way we should have to try to remember these soldiers. They died in service to their country. We should act like it. 

  It’s some bullshit this even has to be a comparative question. We’re talking people in fucking WAR ZONES and people who are trusted to teach our kids. And yet, and YET, that’s not a terribly disproportionate graph. 

This graph and analysis was performed using R, ggplot2 and the Wes Anderson Color Pallete package. If there are any follow-up questions, source requests, or ideas on what should be analyzed next, please feel free to toss it in the notes or PM me. 

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

An Open Letter to the Jackass that made a bomb threat.

Hey.  So, uh.. I suppose you’re feeling pretty vindicated right now, huh? Had me and a few pals have to escort people, one by one off the fucking campus and to their cars, so in case something was set off, only 2 or 3 of us would die. Had us scanning the floors for wire, or odd lights, or sounds, anything like that. Had a bunch of people go home.  Well, joke’s on you, asshole. Within 45 minutes, we were all working from home. Do you not think we have plans for this? That we, as an agency, haven’t been down this road before? And you had to do it on 9/11. Hah. The balls on you. We were raised in the shadows of a terrorist attack. We’ve grown up watching war and executions, of seeing those we know die by the hands of idiots like you. You don’t scare us. You can’t scare us. Not like that. Next time try calling and saying my student loan interest rates are going up, that’ll give me a good chill down my spine, you cunt.  We’ve had 2 threats just like yours. We’ve dealt with your kind before, and at this point, I’m more afraid of my co-workers Zucchini Bread than I am of any bombs. Like really? A bomb? Hooow fucking original. I have emails set to send in case I get turned into a red paste. I have documents that show how to do my job, and I have a fucking excellent life insurance policy. And if the worst should happen, and I die, I’ll ultimately be replaced. In fact, I may well be forgotten. And my death, a lot like my life, won’t have mattered too much. That’s the thing about people who want to do good, they’ll fill in the gaps given time.   End of the day, all you did was gave us the chance to work from home, where no one truly knows who has pants on. But one things for sure, we won’t be shitting ours because of you.  Get fucked. 

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

crazy....how what’s happening in America today.......with ICE and immigrants....sounds very familiar to this......strange

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

For part of the reason why this extinction is going on, please give a listen to This Podcast Will Kill You’s episode on Chritrid. 

Hundreds of species of frogs are going extinct around the world right now! Please help me at https://patreon.com/MyFrogCroaked to fight this global crisis! Even just a few dollars a month would let me do more at my frog hospital and with public education and awareness 👍🐸

Source: https://www.patreon.com/MyFrogCroaked

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Irene

Asian Fairy-Bluebird by Greg Hume, CC BY-SA 4.0

Etymology: For the Goddess of Peace and Plenty

First Described By: Jerdon, 1863

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Maniraptoromorpha, Maniraptoriformes, Maniraptora, Pennaraptora, Paraves, Eumaniraptora, Averaptora, Avialae, Euavialae, Avebrevicauda, Pygostaylia, Ornithothoraces, Euornithes, Ornithuromorpha, Ornithurae, Neornithes, Neognathae, Neoaves, Inopinaves, Telluraves, Australaves, Eufalconimorphae, Psittacopasserae, Passeriformes, Eupasseres, Passeri, Euoscines, Passerides, Core Passerides Passerida, Irenidae

Referred Species: I. puella (Asian Fairy-Bluebird), I. cyanogaster (Philippine Fairy-Bluebird)

Status: Extant, Near Threatened - Least Concern

Time and Place: Since 10,000 years ago, in the Holocene of the Quaternary 

Fairy-Bluebirds are known from Southeast Asia, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines 

Physical Description: Fairy-Bluebirds are medium sized passerines, ranging between 21 and 27 centimeters in length. They are distinctive birds - with short tails, round bodies, and large sharp beaks, their coloration and patterning makes them iconic and beautiful birds. The males have dark blue bodies with light blue tail feathers, and stripes of black and lighter blue on the wings; they have light blue patches on the tops of their heads, and black heads in general, with red eyes. The Philippine species has noticeable stripes on the wings, while the Asian species is more blocky in color. Female Philippine birds resemble the males, except duller; the females of the Asian species, however, are turquoise all over, with black patches on the tails. The two species mainly differ from each other in how the blue and black on the wings and bodies pattern with each other. The juveniles tend to be like the females, except brown instead of black. 

Philippine Fairy-Bluebird by Stijn De Win 

Diet: Fairy-Bluebirds feed mainly on fruit, including small berries and figs, as well as nectar and some termites.

Behavior: Fairy-Bluebirds will wander around branches, searching for fruit while perched or in quick flights in the middle of the canopy. They’ll generally join mixed-species flocks to forage, all gathering food together in large groups - especially if a lot of food is present. They make very whistling and fluid calls to each other when finding each other, often with a variety of different trilling and chirping syllables. The males make a variety of songs as well, including ones with oddly scale-like syllables as well as more titillating vocals. Mated pairs will also make harsh, croaking sounds to one another. The Philippine Fairy-Bluebird also will imitate contact calls of other species. These birds do not migrate much, though they may move in response to water availability. 

Asian Fairy-Bluebird by Gran Hume, CC BY-SA 4.0 

In terms of nesting, the birds breed mainly in the first half of the Gregorian Year, and the male has a very elaborate courtship display - including vocalizations that are responded to by the female doing most of the nest building. They build a small, shallow cup of twigs, placed a few meters up in a tree. Two or three eggs are laid and incubated by the mother for two weeks. Both parents will help care for the brood another two weeks. The Philippine Fairy-Bluebird begins nest building a little later, more of the middle of the year.

Ecosystem: Fairy-Bluebirds mainly live in tropical to subtropical rainforest and evergreen forest, as well as montane forests. They tend to avoid more deciduous forests, though they can be found in such locations in response to flowering events. They may also be found in low-growth forests. They tend to be victims of brood parasitism by Cuckoos. 

Asian Fairy-Bluebird by Ano001, CC BY-SA 4.0 

Other: Fairy-Bluebirds are not considered threatened with extinction at this time. The Philippine Species, though common in its range, has declined in population due to extensive habitat loss. As such, it is classified as near-threatened. The Asian Species is common in most of its range, though some populations are more uncommon and, due to habitat loss, populations are on the decline. It is also caught for the cagebird trade, greatly affecting populations.

Species Differences: The Asian Fairy-Bluebird is found across Southeastern Asia, on the coasts of India, and in some parts of Indonesia. The Philippine Fairy-Bluebird, meanwhile, is only known in the Philippines, as its name would suggest. The Philippine species is also somewhat larger. In the Asian species, females are blue all over, while the Philippine females resemble the males except they are duller in color.

~ By Meig Dickson

Sources Under the Cut 

Keep reading

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Things I’ve learned looking for corpses.

So, as you may have seen, Abaco is fucked right now. Basically if there was a building on that island, the money is not on it being there anymore. And while I want with all of my soul to be down there on a medical mission, my circumstances do not currently allow for that. That being said, I have been able to work with an organization I have previously been affiliated with to take my breaks, lunches, etc, to donate my time to scan through satellite data to try to help find bodies.  It’s not a fun job. It’s not even necessarily something I would recommend others do. Sure, it’s images on a screen, but it’s still devastation. It’s still someone’s wife or husband or kid or cousin or whatever, beneath the rubble or on top of the water. To get through it, I sometimes listen to the hardest metal I can find. The more visceral, the more violent it is, the more I can project out those negative emotions, that pain, and the more I can focus on the job, perhaps having the honor of being part of the reason why a family receives closure. But sometimes, doing this sticks beyond that 15 minute or 1 hour break. And in those moments, in those times where I am in essentially an empty office, it gives me time to think. About, for better or worse, after I am like them, what will I be remembered by.  I used to think it’d be by my great accomplishments in my career. About whatever good I did in the world, some idealist bullshit like that. Nah. Not anymore. I recognize now that it’s been very unhealthy for me to depend on my career to define me. It’s made me less connected to people; I can’t talk to others very well who I either don’t constantly see, or work with directly. And even then, any deep social connection? It just hasn’t happened anymore. I get stuck. I feel awkward talking about anything. And eventually, I just don’t really talk anymore outside of the bare basics that really don’t stimulate much. 

Like I said, that’s not healthy, and if I’m remembered only for being a good worker... Well, best not to remember me at all. But then that starts me down a path of outside work (or volunteer work), what do I have to show for my time here? Have I done the things outside of work I wanted to do? Not things that essentially burn time until I’m dead, or keep me from thinking about that great dark abyss awaiting me, but things I actually want to do? No, mostly because I’ve lost touch with what that is. And now that I’ve discovered that, it’s fucking terrifying. It’s put me into a deep depression, truth be told. I’ve tried so hard for so long to have skills instead of hobbies (outside of aforementioned burners). To offer to do for others, without perhaps appreciation for how they would see it. And that’s something I need to change. That is something I will actively work on changing. Because one day, I’ll be like them. And I don’t want to be afraid of that anymore, despite being willing to rush headlong into it day to day.    So what I’ve learned, in summary, from trying to find bodies in disaster zones, is I don’t want to die mentally and emotionally, long before I die physically. And I’ve been sick in that way for a while. I’ve acquiesced to those symptoms by being more shallow than I really recognized. By being perhaps too far away, or being unwilling to be as upfront as I should have been, or as considerate to my own feelings and wants, as well as those of others. And for all this, I will try to find a way to be remembered other than by what my job title or salary was.  Don’t be like me. I’m trying to not be like me.  

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Fun Fact:

Scotland joining with England in the United Kingdom America winning the Revolutionary War AND The Louisiana Purchase Can all be directly attributed to the effects of Mosquito populations in the Americas, and them carrying either Malaria or Yellow Fever. 

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Soviet Map of Seattle, 1980.

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Wow. I’m actually a bit surprised that didn’t mix with the “The Lord is My Shepherd” crowd and we didn’t get Furries-Fucking-Jesus yet. 

when u have so many things u want to draw that it becomes overwhelming so u just do nothing