nawilla

[nawilla]

Yes, Definitely February

In addition to my annual hydroponics video obsession, I'm being seduced by the Burpee Seed Catalog.

Come to the Dark Side, it says. We have Bare Root Strawberries.

But, I have a small yard, I say. And none of it is flat.

Upgrade your stacked containers. You know it's too big for the measly strawberries that almost certainly died in the polar vortex and that you wanted to use it for bush beans. Look, this one has wheels.

But I don't need 25 strawberry plants.

This one holds 20. That accounts for the ones that will die.

But where will I put that many little pots of strawberries until it's warm enough to plant them outside in a planter instead of the ground?

M the Cat has passed. He will not murder the bare root babies. Be bold!

*Googles suitable companion plants for strawberries.*

Think of the bush beans!

[nawilla]

Went to my college reunion this spring. At the reunion five years ago, the library was less than a shell, with just the front facade standing as the entire rest of the building had been torn down and replaced.

This year the library has reopened and while the spaces were beautiful and the views amazing, my main thoughts were where the hell are the books? Where is the book that was purchased and given a bookplate with my name for my 3 years of working in the library? Where were the stacks to wander through and find things strange and obscure or just fascinating? Where the hell was the circulation desk with the backroom crammed full of carts to go back to the stacks?

The circulation desk was not a room, but a single desk on the ground floor, next to a book drop. One of the current students working the reunion told me her friend had been working circulation during senior week (between the end of the term and graduation), and in one day they received 5 carts of books returned and they were completely overwhelmed. I told her when I worked circulation in the 90s, we regularly got 5 carts of books in during a 2-4 hour shift. Weekdays, weekends. Didn't matter, those books were moving.

All this open space, books are an afterthought.

Where have all the books gone? Off to sleep in some repository, waiting for the electronic apocalypse. Hope someone has the key.

it's kind of crazy how many physical books universities have. like i'm pretty sure a lot of them go just untouched for years at a time. but they're just waiting there for the right obscuritan to come along. like cinderella

[nawilla]

I wish I could speak Cat so N the Cat could tell me what was upsetting her instead of peeing on me when I'm sleeping.

[nawilla]

Luke Skywalker. If Luke is stuck in an elevator, Artoo is probably already on the job fixing it.

Which star wars character would you want to be stuck in an elevator with most?

[nawilla]

Was disappointed this furniture was in SIMS. :(

Everything is functional

You can find all my items by searching “ PV ” in game

Enjoy ☺  

PATREON

[nawilla]

A Fine Day Out Shopping

It was 30 degrees F today (-1 C) and not raining, which constitutes a nice day out in January after a few weeks in a polar vortex.

I stopped at Target #1 (between work and home) to pick up on the online order I put in on Monday because N the Cat keeps peeing on my blankets and I decided I needed another cheap blanket because I have to go to the laundromat to wash them. Also got some throat drops (because if I keep taking an antacid every time I start coughing from reflux I'm going to give myself a damn kidney stone), some instant apple cider (love it) and more baby food for N the Cat who has managed to put some meat on her bones and it's harder to feel her pokey spine. (Good job N! Chonk goals!)

Also had a nice lunch at the good pizza place. The New York style is the pizza of my childhood on Long Island.

I got home from Target #1 just in time to catch a bus to the far shopping center with Target #2 (and Michaels so I could spend my $15 in vouchers that were expiring today). I got quite the nice haul.

There was a lot of cool holiday stuff on clearance. I spent about $15 more than my vouchers and got a lovely Valentine cookie cutter, a miniature Christmas House Kit (80% off, regularly $40), an embroidery kit, a cat stamp, foam brushes, some cotton yarn for some dish towels for the kitchen, though I may do potholders, on the fence, a nice piece of wall art on clearance for $2 and some tree ornament disco balls I will probably send to the Sibling. The round metal things are some very heavy magnetic wreath hangers which I can probably use to hang things at work or in my kitchen. Not sure which yet.

I also stopped in at TJ Maxx. The customer before me was buying the cat shopping bag at checkout and I had to grab one, I was so enchanted. (Good for holding large yarn projects. And giving large yarn projects). And a notebook for more fanfic writing.

Not pictured is the enormous package of gnocchi and some nice tea because the former is in the kitchen and the latter is packed with the apple cider next to the door so I remember to take it to work.

[nawilla]

Um, I'll pass . . .

Just saw this recipe for Ammonia Cookies.

Yes, the key leavening agent is smelling salts.

The chemistry is interesting, but I still think I'll pass.

[nawilla]

A strong woman in science, art and literature.

Beatrix Potter

Writer, illustrator, conservationist, natural scientist

For the inaugural Arcade Feature, I'm excited to tell you about Beatrix Potter. Most people (including me) know her best for her picture books-

-which have sold over 250 million copies since they were published in the early 1900s.

Fun fact: In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.

But what really caught my attention is the work she was doing before Peter Rabbit came along.

Beatrix Potter had a scientific eye for detail, and was able to faithfully depict the world around her. In particular, she was interested in mycology.

In 1897, she put forward a paper to the Linnean Society in London... but as a woman was not allowed to be a member of the society nor attend the meeting when her paper was read. When the society's members did not pay much attention to her work, and fearing her samples to be contaminated, Potter withdrew her paper, which became lost. Only after Potter left hundreds of mycological artworks to a museum in the Lake District, UK, on her death in 1943, were her scientific talents recognized... Potter's precise and beautiful paintings and drawings of fungi are now helping modern mycologists in their efforts to identify species.*

Potter eventually moved away from books in favor of land management and farming. She was a prize-winning sheep breeder and a prosperous farmer, and bought several farms surrounding her own to preserve the unique hill country landscape. Much of that land now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

Keep an eye out for more Beatrix Potter throughout the month of February.

All Arcade Feature Posts

* Fry, C., & Wayland, E. (2024). Introduction. In The Botanists’ Library, The Most Important Botanical Books in History (1st ed., pp. 9–10). introduction, Ivy Press.

[nawilla]

Laughs hysterically at my meandering long stories.

When reading fanfic keep in mind that for professional literature: 

Short story: under 7,500

Novelette: between 7,500 and 17,500

Novella: between 17,500 and 40,000

Novel: over 40,000

Fics over 40k are literally a novel written and shared for free.  If you have written a 40k+ fic, you have literally written a novel.

[nawilla]

The cusp of February

I know it's nearly February because I'm drawn into YouTube hydroponic videos, wondering if I could have a farm in my basement.

Then I remember I have a job and no construction abilities.

[nawilla]

@joalst might be an easy pattern to aim for in beginning knitting, would have to read it over to be sure. (Obviously rectangles should be first).

Get The Pattern To Knit An Easy and Squishy Sherbet Cardi: 👉 https://buff.ly/42Sfpd1 💜

[nawilla]

Not to offend, because I understand the difference between vision and execution, (and it's not glazed yet) but that cat looks like it was just chipped out of the melting Siberian permafrost and hasn't thawed out yet.

(That's mostly just the clay color and the strange expression, but since I have biology blogs I follow, I had to do a double take to realize what it actually was).

(We will also not discuss my own drawings that have gone painfully awry, but as a biologist, that's what I thought of).

Hey so our turns out I don't know what cats look like

But this is for you, fountain-Anons: the first step of the Fountain of Perpetual Hairball.

[nawilla]

The only addition I'd make to this is that YES, the rabies vaccine is still preventative, even though it is administered AFTER exposure (ie. a bite). This is because rabies travels quite slowly through your nerves to reach your brain, (the incubation period can be weeks, months, even years) so the vaccine can be effective when started as quickly as possible after exposure. The virus's slow course gives the body enough time to react to the vaccine and mount an immune response before the virus reaches the brain. (If I recall correctly, the nerves also shield the native virus from immune exposure, but I'm sure dosing also plays a role).

One of the very rare cases where someone developed rabies even after getting immediately vaccinated was a child who was mauled in the face by a rabid dog. Nerves in the face are VERY close to the brain and there just wasn't enough time for the vaccine to be effective.

I understand that vaccines are proven to work and are a great advancement in our medicine, and also that homeopathic remedies don't work, but don't they work on the same principal? Why does one work and the other doesnt?

They do not work on the same principle.

I can see how vaccines look like a "like treats like" situation, but in homeopathy "like treats like" is a kind of magical thinking.

Let's take an example from Chicken Pox, a virus for which there is an effective vaccine and for which there is a common homeopathic treatment.

Chicken pox infects people once, and it is extremely rare to get a second case because once you have had it, your body forms persistent antibodies against the varicella-zoster virus. When I was a kid, they didn't have a vaccine for this, so kids mostly got chicken pox once and it ran around whole schools and that was it. It's a virus that is fairly minor in children, though it can cause dangerously high fevers. Adults who get chicken pox typically get much sicker than children who get it, and it can lead to permanent harms like infertility in adults who get it. Because it can be so dangerous, we don't want people to risk getting it, so we vaccinate.

The way the vaccine works is that it takes a weakened form of the virus and introduces that into the body of a person with a healthy immune system. The immune system responds and the person who got the vaccine may get some minor symptoms, like a headache or a slight fever, but it will be nowhere near as severe as getting actual chicken pox would be. Because the immune system was exposed to the virus and responded, it now has antibodies against the virus that recognize the virus and respond immediately before it can start replicating in the body. If a person who has either previously had chicken pox or who has been vaccinated against it is exposed to the chicken pox virus, their body uses those antibodies to react to the virus and protect against a systemic infection.

Are you familiar with Star Trek? It's kind of like the Borg. You can't use the same attack pattern against the Borg multiple times because if you do, they'll recognize the pattern and will be able to defend against it. The virus is the attacker, and your immune system is the Borg. It knows what it's looking for and won't let anything get through its defenses.

Homeopathic remedies don't seek to prevent illness or provoke an immune response, they seek to cancel out something that is happening in the body.

For chicken pox, which produces itchy red bumps, homeopaths use Rhus Tox - a dilution of poison ivy, a plant that causes itchy red bumps if you encounter it in nature. The Rhus Tox didn't cause the chicken pox, it's not given to prevent the virus, it's from a plant that is completely unrelated to the virus that happens to produce some of the same symptoms as the virus when you touch it.

They don't even think that the Rhus Tox will provoke an immune response from your body like actually touching poison ivy would, they're attempting to use an unrelated compound (that is so diluted that it isn't even present in the preparation) in place of your immune system to attack the itchy red bumps.

So I'm going to go over this in a few brief points:

Vaccines are preventative ONLY, they are not a treatment for illness or symptoms of an illness

Vaccines work by introducing your immune system to a partial, weakened, or dead virus so that your immune system can form antibodies against that virus and prevent that virus from replicating in your body when it is later exposed to a whole/strong/live virus.

Different vaccines have different levels of effectiveness and produce different lengths of immunity; this is for a number of reasons, but if you get a measles shot as a kid you may only ever need one booster, while you need a flu shot every year and a tetanus shot every decade. All of them work the same way, though: they show your immune system what a virus looks like so that your immune system can kill the virus.

That is why immune compromised people sometimes can't be vaccinated, or why vaccines don't work as well for them or may need higher doses or more boosters. Because they don't have a healthy immune system, weakened viruses like the ones in the chickenpox virus might be too strong for their immune system to fight, and even if it doesn't get them sick, their bodies may not be able to produce enough effective antibodies to protect them from the virus in the future. That's part of why it's important for as many people to be vaccinated as possible; the more people who are vaccinated, the harder it is for viruses to spread, and vulnerable people like immune compromised people or babies too young for vaccination won't be exposed to deadly viruses.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, aims to treat symptoms of an illness that a person is already experiencing.

Homeopathic treatments do not aim to provoke an immune response, they aim to cancel out a symptom with a cure.

Dilution is a very important part of homeopathy, with homeopaths claiming that the more diluted a preparation is the stronger it is. This is simply incorrect; I don't know how to make a more logical explanation of that, it is just wrong that less of a substance causes more of a response.

Homeopathy says "like treats like" and that may seem like using a vaccine with a weak virus to prevent infection from a strong virus, but their version of "like" is different - Rhus Tox (poison ivy) is supposed to be "like" chicken pox because both cause itching. Rhus tox is also supposed to treat PCOS, erectile dysfunction, uterine prolapse, sunken eyes, nausea, and backache. "Like" can have an extremely broad meaning in homeopathy, which should be cause for suspicion.

Here's a paper that compared the immune response of college students given homeopathic "vaccines" against a control group and against a group of students who were given standard medical vaccines. The control group and the homeopathic group both did not have an immune response in titer tests, while the vaccination group did have an immune response, demonstrating that they had protection from the vaccinated viruses. It's a pretty good demonstration both of how effective homeopathy is (not at all) as well as how to set up a fair and ethical study to look at the effectiveness of different kinds of treatments.

[nawilla]

Since I work in research science (and the president has mandated all funding is frozen, hopefully forever) I try to daydream about alternate careers I could get into in my late forties with a science PhD.

And I've been doing diamond painting.

[nawilla]

Crafty Dilemmas

I have $15 in Michaels vouchers expiring on February 1st. Trying to figure out what to put it toward.

Craft supplies? Decor? Storage? (I just stocked up on storage containers, hence the $10 voucher).

Ideas welcome.

[nawilla]

Sparkly Snowflakes:

These are backed with magnets. I plan to put them on my office door frame, which currently has the cat butt magnets on it.

I also have purchased a bed desk which was a game changer, much more comfortable to work on.

[nawilla]

Christmas Dragon of Awesomeness.