#//chemist has been infected | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

canis-or-cannotis-lycaon · 11 months ago

Text

We're Off to Find the Bigfoot || Elias, Gael

TIMING: Late January LOCATION: One of the hiking trails SUMMARY: Back from his journey, two WR nerds go hiking together. Gael (@canis-or-cannotis-lycaon thinks they're gonna catch up, while Elias (@eliaskahtri actually has a lead on Bigfoot. CONTENT WARNINGS: None

Despite the constant fear of the unknown that Elias dealt with on a daily basis, it was nice to have consistent friends in his life. Gael was one of those friends. It was funny how similarly they disappeared only to return, and Elias supposed there was a story to tell there. They’d decided to meet up to hike in one of the many trails of The Pines, and Elias was there with a untold goal; Find Bigfoot Again. He didn’t tell Gael that he had a secret motive, but Elias was deadset on getting a higher quality photo of his favorite Sasquatch. The people of Wicked’s Rest seemed intent on calling him Bigfeet, since what, he’s got two feet? Elias didn’t like it.

The telltale slam of a car door jolted Elias out of his thoughts, and he turned to see the familiar figure of Gael approaching. “Oh, hey!” He called out with a bright smile on his face. “I’m surprised you said yes to a hike, seeing as how it’s winter.” Elias noted, but quickly set off toward the trailhead before Gael could change his mind. He was finding Bigfoot, dammit. “So how was your time away from good ol’ Wickeds Rest?” Elias asked, deciding to not jump straight into ‘hey man, we’re off to find Bigfoot, hey! Stop running away!’

—— If you had asked Gael what one of the first things he was gonna do upon his victorious return as the successful chemist, ‘going hiking in the middle of winter with his good buddy Elias’ wasn’t at the bottom of the list. Indeed, it felt nice to return to some semblance of normalcy after his journey down to Arizona and back. He felt like he’d learned so much, yet simultaneously nothing at all. Questions had answers but those just had more questions and those didn’t have answers and everything looped back around on itself and suddenly Gael felt similar to the ouroboros, only in this case, it was an unpleasant image of… a dog chasing its tail. But this would be a nice distraction. He could ask more about what Elias had been up to, if anything had changed, and hopefully successfully smother the small part of him that felt like he should’ve told Elias that he was… different. Even moreso than before, and more than before that. The knowledge that Elias had never known Gael before the latter was infected with the strain of lycanthropy was a strange one, and one that Gael had done some serious self-therapeutic training for after his– after Lycaon had murdered… a hiker. Similar to Elias, who was enthusiastically waiting around the bend for the tired, but enthusiastic scientist as the latter shuffled out of his little blue mini-cooper. The taller man, with his smile just as wide as it had ever been, peered down at Gael from under weather-appropriate winter gear and the latter offered his own crooked grin in response. “Psht, the cold never bothered me anyway.” He said, purposefully quoting the damn song that was everywhere for several years longer than it should’ve and tastefully leaving off the fact that it wasn’t the cold weather that was bothering him nearly as much as it was his skeletal structure still revolting against strenuous activity from the recent full moon. There was little time for standing around, as it seemed, for Elias had started off and Gael trudged after him, telling himself to get over any of the aches and pains now because they were only going to get worse on the way back. “It was… enlightening.” He replied as the two walked, finding himself keeping up much easier with Elias even with the throbbing pains going through his body; those two months had him doing some serious cardio and core-building. “Camped out a lot, got to see mi familia again.” He chuckled. “Christmas was an utter disaster but other than that, I think it went well!” He caught up to Elias and looked up at him expectantly. “What about you, how’ve you been?”

— —

Walking in the woods with Gael made Elias feel as if he’d been transported back in time, a time to when he was more naive and trusting of people. Now he wasn’t sure who he could trust. Hell, he felt like sometimes he couldn’t trust Regan on a good day, and he considered her his closest friend. In truth, the Elias that Gael had seen before he had disappeared from town was a different version of himself, or so he liked to think. Sure, he still got excited over things that were part of his interests, but he was a lot more careful about what he was putting out in the universe. Or at least, now he was.

Elias groaned at the quote that Gael dared to utter and rolled his eyes. “Alright, Elsa. Less Disney, more hiking.” He demanded as he picked up his pace, shaking his head. Upon realizing that Gael was lagging behind slightly, Elias relented and slowed his pace. Not everyone was as excited to hike as he was. “I specifically picked out a short and easy trail, that way there’s more talking less exhaustion.” Elias told the shorter man with a nod of his head.

“I’m glad to hear it, other than the Christmas thing. That blows.” Elias shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve been so busy with work that I didn’t get a chance to go home. My family was pissed, especially because my sister flew in from London.” He rolled his eyes. “They see me all the time, they’ll get over it.” Still, Elias couldn’t help the pang of guilt that rattled through him at the idea of something happening to him here and his family not being able to visit. Maybe he should ease up on the whole working thing… he shook his head, erasing the thought.

Elias thought about being honest with Gael, about how he knew the truth of certain things, but he didn’t know how much Gael knew. “Well, I…” he frowned, not sure how to word it. “Got myself into trouble, got myself back out of trouble. Work-life balance is atrocious, which means I’ve got more of a work life than a personal life.” He frowned, letting out a huff of frustration. “I’m working on it. Or at least, I’m trying to.” He looked over to Gael, a weird look in his eyes for a moment before he forced it away. “And weird shit I can’t explain that keeps me up at night.” He spoke in a rushed manner, then turned to keep walking.

“Hey, I’m keeping up better than I used to.” Gael insisted in response to both noticing that Elias had to slow down for him again and the comment about how he picked an easy trail on purpose. He better have been, anyway, latent soreness from the full moon aside. “And I’m sorry you missed your family for the holidays,” he added genuinely, even if it was out of obligation. With how often Gael tended to just wander around the country, his family had long since grown accustomed to him likely not coming home for the holidays, which almost made what had happened during Christmas feel all the worse. He didn’t want to think about it, so he shook his head and regarded the taller man once more with a quirk of his brow. “Oh, yeah? What kind of weird shit?” The chemist decided to attempt to use this as a gauge - he still didn’t know how much Elias knew, but he also wondered if whatever Elias had exposed himself (or been exposed) to was still worth attempting to take medication for.

— —

Elias nearly stopped dead in his tracks as Gael questioned what he was going through. It was a fair question, what kind of weird shit? He could be honest with Gael right now. He knew the guy wouldn’t judge him. He wasn’t sure he had a judgmental bone in his body if he were, to be honest. He took a deep breath and turned to look at Gael. “That job I had when I first moved here turned out to be a fae hangout.” He spoke, gauging the man’s reaction to his truth. “I was a laughing stock, a court jester.” He frowned, looking at the ground.

“Someone got me out, but it turns out that they’re fae just like them. And… and now I’m learning there’s more out there.” Elias began walking again, a look in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “My best friend is a fae, the guy I’ve been talking to turns into a seal, and who knows! Maybe everyone else is something cool, and I’m just a human left to realize that everything they knew was a lie.” There, he’d spoken his truth. Now it was just a matter of time before Gael asked if he went off his meds.

——

Though his expression naturally grew more empathetic as Elias told him about how he had worked at the bar before only for it to have turned out to be full of fae, Gael couldn’t keep the uncomfortable knot that had settled into his stomach from starting to unwind gently, almost as though in reaction to how he could hear Elias’ heart pounding in his chest. He had liked to think that he did a sufficient job keeping Ren’s identity as a fae hidden from the taller man, carefully combing the house for notes she left behind on what and what not to do around fae, though it wasn’t out of her safety - he knew Elias would have been far from the type to get her in trouble or treat her differently - but for Elias’ mental sanity. He knew how it felt, even if he hadn’t reacted the same way. For Gael, it was something he assumed was a fever dream during one of his benders. It was something he was so sure might’ve existed (he was religious, after all so far be it for him not to believe in things he couldn’t see), but didn’t apply to him. But Elias was decidedly different. Sensitive, excitable. And surrounded by the things he had no idea existed outside of the books and movies he’d consumed. Gael imagined that was a big culture shock for him, though he was thankful that he had someone help get him out. Then came Elias’ resignation, prompting the chemist with the werewolf parasite inside him to glance out into the woods, putting his hands into his pockets as he thought about that briefly. “...I dunno, I think being human’s pretty cool.” Gael gave a casual shrug, though he wasn’t quite sure why he said that first. “I’m friends with some fae, too. Know a couple of zombies. Werewolves.” He looked at Elias again, his expression earnest, nonverbally telling Elias that he believed him. “You got me beat on knowing a seal, though! But, um… No, I think you’re doing great. At least you know now, right?” Another pause, chewing on whether or not to admit that he wasn’t human, either. At least, not half of him. “Is there anything I can do to help? Like… I dunno, ease the weight? I’m still learning about all of it, too, so I'm not perfect but sometimes it’s easier commiserating with someone else.” Not right now. Not unless Elias asked.

— —

As they walked further into the woods, Elias came across the area where he’d seen the Bigfoot last. He looked around, searching for a sign that it had been in this area again lately. That’s when he saw it: footprints! Elias pointed down at the large footprints, then looked to Gael with a large grin on his face. Whatever they were talking about before, it didn’t matter to him. Sure, yeah, he had a friend to talk to about all this stuff that knew where he was coming from, great. But Bigfoot! He had to see it again, had to get a better photo this time.

That’s when it happened. A loud noise came from further in the trees, and there it was. Real, actual bigfoot. It hadn’t spotted the pair, not yet. But there was still time. Elias pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures. “Gael, are you seeing this?” He hissed out, pointing to the sasquatch in the distance. “That’s Bigfoot!” He practically squealed but was trying to keep his voice down as best as possible. “I mean, actually, Bigfoot!” Twice in under the span of a month, it had to be some kind of record, right? “Please tell me you’re seeing this!” He said again, continuing to take pictures. The Bigfoot stomped toward them but still didn’t seem to be getting territorial. They had time.

——

The smell met him first, an acrid, matted scent that had crept into his senses during the tail end of what he was saying. And of course though Gael had replied with what he hoped was comfort and connection to Elias, it was eventually met with an overly-enthusiastic point to the ground accompanied with an equally-as-overenthusiastic smile. Brown, darkly-circled eyes glanced at the ground where his gaze was met with the large prints, then back to Elias and he managed to keep his mouth from pursing though he couldn’t stop one of his eyebrows from raising as though to say ‘you’re being serious right now?’ Then again, he supposed there were reasons why Elias had been so sheltered from all the supernatural stuff. What Gael had said previously about how Elias was still childlike in a lot of ways still held weight, it seemed. A small exhale made it through his nose in resignation and he started to attempt to return Elias’ wide grin with a smile of his own when a noise sounded through the wood. Before he could stop himself, he tensed, his hands flying to his ears and his head turned sharply in the direction of the source– “...Yeah, I’m seeing it.” The chemist replied rather softly as though to compensate for Elias’ excited yelling as his tired eyes fell on a large, bipedal creature in the distance with thick, shaggy fur covering it. Details were hard to catch, appearing as it did in the old hoax photos that circulated for a while but it did appear to be humanoid in shape. And carrying a stench with it. Gael’s brow twitched with every noise that came from Elias and after the fourth or fifth one, the scientist removed his eyes from the creature just long enough to try to encourage the taller man to calm down. “Yeah, yeah I see it and–” His head swiveled in the direction of the creature again and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as it started to get closer to them. “And I think it knows we’re here.”

— —

Elias was listening to Gael, he swore he was. But he also couldn’t help the need to pull out his phone and start snapping as many pictures as he physically could. Twice now! He’s seen Bigfoot twice! Elias was practically bouncing with excitement, only calming himself to try and take more photos. But no matter how many he took, they all came out blurry.

Cursing under his breath, he snapped a few more before giving up. Gael was right, that thing was coming right for them. “Maybe we could befriend him!” Elias hissed in response to Gael’s comment, eyes alight with excitement and hope. It met Gael’s worried and annoyed expression, and Elias deflated. Gael was right.

“Alright, fine. We’ll dip.” He relented, pocketing his phone before grabbing Gael’s arm and beginning to back up slowly. As they did, the Bigfoot began to advance toward them. Bigfoot was fast. “Alright, time to run!” Elias shouted as he pulled Gael away even faster. “Don’t let him catch you!” He shouted before breaking out into a run.

——

Uneasiness tugged at the scientist’s stomach despite Elias’ apparent enthusiasm, but he stood his ground as the supposed cryptid kept advancing on them. Gael should’ve been excited, shouldn’t he have? After all, this was one of the things that people talked about, one of the great mysteries of the world that people had seen in hallucinatory states and in dreams and discussed in hushed whispers among their peers. But he wasn’t. Gael couldn’t remember that night he had been attacked, having since assumed that it had been locked away as a mechanism to protect his psyche, but something about this interaction inflamed something in his mind and he could feel Lycaon under his skin wanting to… react. Or was it him? Either way, despite his protests, he stayed next to Elias reliably until the latter came to the conclusion on his own that they should maybe not stick around long enough to find out what Bigfoot did to people who saw him. The taller man looked at him and he returned the look with a mixture of anxiety and dryness, to which he relented. But when Elias decided they needed to go, it was expedient, to be sure. The hand on Gael’s arm was unnecessary but the shifter allowed it, taking tentative steps back as Elias did, keeping his dark eyes on the cryptid. Then, as though from a scene out of a horror movie, the furred, smelly mass of muscle advanced. On a dime, Gael turned and took off after Elias as the latter fled. “Catch me??” He shouted ahead at his companion. “You’re the one who wanted to stay and take pictures!” — —

Elias let go of Gael’s arm as soon as he knew the man was following him, peeking behind to see how much the cryptid had advanced. After a minute of running, the Bigfoot lost interest and turned back around. As soon as they reached the parking lot, Elias immediately began to go through the photos that he had taken. Blurry. Blurry. Blurry! All blurry! Letting out a noise of frustration, Elias pocketed his phone away and turned to look at Gael.

“You alright? I… really wasn’t expecting a second encounter.” He spoke, not out of breath from his years of keeping up with his running. He felt bad, watching the expression on Gael’s face. “Uh… welcome back to town?” He spoke more in the form of a question than a definitive statement.

— —

He might not’ve been an experienced hiker still, but if there was one thing that Gael had learned how to do nowadays, it was run. He had too much energy on the days just before the full moon, as he and Ren had unfortunately come to understand, and he had quickly found that the most practical solution was either to work out or to run and they had much easier access to the rural countryside than local gyms open to non-members. So he ran after Elias as the latter led the way as far back as the parking lot where they met up in the first place. As the two came to a stop, realizing that they had run considerably farther than when the cryptid abandoned its pursuit, Gael took deep breaths as he placed his hands on his hips, feeling a furrow on his brow as he returned Elias’ gaze with something sterner than how his expression usually rested. “I’m alright, yeah.” He said, not meaning for his tone to sound so biting but his being relatively out of breath coupled with how he was correct before in that the residual aches and pains from the full moon a couple of days ago would’ve been back and more annoying after their hike made for a combination that shortened his patience. “And I’m guessing that you didn’t get any worthwhile photos.” He gestured to the pocket that Elias put the phone into once the exasperated grunt escaped the taller man. “But hey, I hope whatever you did get was worth derailing our conversation and just running off to go see.” Gael’s gaze was lowered from Elias and his frown was pointed in the direction of the woods now. “I thought we were going hiking to catch up. You should’ve told me that it was really just so you could see Bigfoot or whatever else.” He definitely wasn’t a little sore that their conversation had been abruptly abandoned. He definitely wasn’t a little frustrated that Elias knew more about the supernatural now and he still thought it was somehow a good idea to linger in an obvious place and try to get pictures of things that could be more dangerous than either of them knew.

— —

As soon as they were safe, Elias instantly deflated at the quality of the photos. Same as the last. Clearly, there was something about the bigfoot that led to these pictures. Was it some kind of signal it gave off? Was the bigfoot emitting some strange radio waves that interfered with something? He didn’t understand that kind of stuff, but he sure wanted to now that it had a possibility to explain why Bigfoot had never been successfully photographed. His own thoughts were quickly interrupted as he realized how angry Gael looked. His face fell and the phone was thrown into his pocket. He felt bad.

“I…” He trailed off, realizing that he was definitely the asshole in this situation. “Yeah, alright. I fucked up. But I did want to catch up, and I really didn’t expect to actually run into Bigfoot again.” Elias frowned, feeling like a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Even worse, it was Gael. He was a good guy, and Elias had already slighted him once before by leaving without a word.

“I’m sorry.” He finally said, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “I’m a shitty friend for that. But I really do want to catch up. I think I’m just… bad at it.” He admitted. “The last time I caught up with someone after leaving, they tried to get me to eat something called peascake. The hell is…?” He looked to Gael, then quickly dropped it. “Never mind.” He muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

——

It was one of Gael’s weaknesses, depending on how someone chose to perceive it. As the emotions he expressed on his gaunt face were communicated to Elias, the latter reacting appropriately in turn, they began to fade. His brow unfurrowed, the creases in his forehead held less shadow. He didn’t like being upset, despite how easy it came to him nowadays. Elias obviously felt bad about it, and of course Gael couldn’t help but think that he should’ve worded something differently, been kinder, more like how he was before. After exhaling softly and glancing down at the ground for a moment in contemplation, he lifted his gaze again and managed a scoff with a half-smile. “You didn’t– you didn’t fuck anything up.” He stepped closer to the taller man, folding his arms across his chest tenderly. “I just like the transparency. Or to know when the plan changes or that there’s a different one, y’know? I want to help you hunt cryptids. I love your enthusiasm, I really do. We’re friends, and you’re not even a shitty one.” He chuckled now. “Trust me. Maybe we can work something out? Like, for every three high-stakes outings trying to take pictures of Bigfoot, we can have one calmer, more normal meeting. Like over coffee or we can, I dunno, go to the amusement park again.” There was a pause accompanied with a deep inhale. “I have no idea what peascake is, either. Last I checked, you’re the weird one out of the two of us.” The parasite, responsible for his aching body that day, caught his breath in his throat for a moment but Gael swallowed it. “I’m just a guy. A guy who’s still learning about all this supernatural stuff too but just a guy nonetheless.”

— —

From worried to amused, Elias nodded in agreement with Gael’s suggestion. “Yeah, you’re right. And I can agree to that.” He relented with a soft chuckle. At least Gael didn’t swear him off forever like he probably deserved. “Though I don’t know about the amusement park. I think I may be a bit old for those. And that roller coaster.” He shuddered. “I don’t do high speeds like I used to.” He felt old just saying it aloud, but it was the truth.

Elias pulled his phone back out of his pocket and began going through the blurry photos of the bigfoot. “I know this is a serious conversation, but… I’m a good photographer!” He spoke, showing blurry photo after blurry photo to the other. “Do you think a supernatural creature can emit a certain frequency that causes them to appear blurry on camera?” He asked, genuinely curious about Gael’s input.

“Next time, I’ll tell you all about what I’ve been up to over a cup of coffee, no hiking.” He held a hand up as if swearing to it. “And you’ll tell me all about your family adventures.” He shifted his weight back and forth, trying to think if there was truly anything worth mentioning. “I guess I’m just not good at talking about myself to people, even if they’re genuinely interested.”

——

“Yeah, I just recommended the amusement park because it’s got Cryptid merch.” Gael spoke through a purposefully-exaggerated groan, indicating that he wasn’t really big on the roller coasters, either. And it wasn’t about the rides, but he hoped Elias knew that. For all his flaws (and he was more aware of them nowadays than ever), he still wanted to show Elias that he was invested and certainly not the type to give up on a friendship just because there was some miscommunication.

If he did that, he’d be both a hypocrite and friendless. He didn’t like being either of those, either.

…Why was he thinking about that? The scientist craned his neck to get a look at the pictures Elias had snapped, scratching at his jawline absently in thought. “Well… the thing was moving pretty fast but I wouldn’t think it would cause that much blur.” He mused. “And it smelled pretty bad but–” The sentence got caught in his throat before he had a chance to admit that if there was some high frequency that was emitted, he might’ve been able to hear it whether he wanted to or not. Human. Gael was a human infected with a parasite. And Elias didn’t know that, nor did he need to know that. Gael had it under control. “Y’know? Maybe! Like uhhh a filter or something it surrounds itself with to give it a hazy appearance? Smudging the camera footage?” Nailed it. He followed up with a nod in response to Elias’ suggestion after that. “Alright, deal. I mean–” He shrugged. “I know we aren’t supposed to make deals but I’m not a fae, you’re not a fae, it’s all good, right? Not that my family adventures were all that… exciting.” A pause. “And that’s okay, you don’t have to be. But at least you know that doesn’t change people’s interest in what you do and like, right?”

——

Elias stared down at his phone, scrutinizing the photographs as Gael offered explanations, and they were better than Elias could come up with. Finally, he shrugged and pocketed his phone. It wasn’t important right now anyway. He’d have time to research a little bit into it later, if there was even anything to research on.

The man held up his hands with wide eyes at the mention of a deal or being fae. “I’m decidedly wingless,” he responded with a lopsided smile. “I think for our own benefit, it’s better to just erase that word from our vocabulary for our own benefit.” He advised, scrunching up his face at the idea of being stuck in a fae deal. He didn’t want to experience it.

“Tell you what, next time you get coffee, give me a buzz, I’ll go along with you. No cryptids.” Elias spoke with a friendly smile. “And if something weird happens, it wasn’t my fault.” He quickly tacked on, not wanting to be held liable if something did happen. It was nice to reconnect with someone, even if it did go a bit awry towards the end there.

“But I’m not going back to the theme park. I’m done with places that could be possible traps for humans.” He pulled a face, then shuddered. He didn’t trust anything anymore.

——

Man, he really was bad at talking about himself. Gael, momentarily bewildered by the other man’s ability to just glaze over questions if they were about him, shook his head and recovered from his stupor easily enough, giving the taller man a smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Took a long time for me to grow out of saying “thank you”...” He rubbed the back of his head, his brow furrowing slightly. But even pushing all the stuff about fae he’d had several crash courses in out of his head, he nodded in agreement when Elias offered to take him up on coffee. The scientist did love his coffee. And, y’know, just chilling out sometimes. Pretending that for just a day, or even an hour, he was a human. “Sounds good.” Gael smiled again before adding “aaand if something weird happens, it won’t be your fault.” He just hoped it wasn’t his fault. The battle for normalcy was persistent.

But when Elias mentioned places that acted as possible traps for humans, his expression fell. He didn’t have an explanation for that one. He wanted to say that he was concerned that the entirety of Wicked’s Rest might itself be a trap for humans. With how it seemed to be such a supernatural hotspot, he found himself almost surprised that there were so few people in it that knew about the supernatural in general. But who was Gael to protest? Elias wasn’t incorrect in his suspicion involving the town and the secrets that burst at the seams from every corner. At least the man had connections now, whether it was from his acquaintanceship with Regan or the guy who could turn into a seal (which still rose a bunch of curiosity in the scientist). “I think you’ll be alright.” Gael encouraged rather lightly. “You aren’t like how you were before. You have the power of “knowing things” and “friends who know things” on your side now.” He reached over and gave Elias a pat on the back, indicating that the intensity of their conversation was at a willing end. “Now, are there any more cryptids you’d wanna go find today or are you done for the day?”

All things in time, he supposed, swallowing the fact that he could hear Elias’ heartbeat.

#wickedswriting #writing || We're Off to Find the Bigfoot #writing with || Elias

5 notes · View notes

jcmarchi · 1 year ago

Text

Shedding new light on sugars, the “dark matter” of cellular biology - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/shedding-new-light-on-sugars-the-dark-matter-of-cellular-biology-technology-org/

Shedding new light on sugars, the “dark matter” of cellular biology - Technology Org

Scientists at Université de Montréal’s Department of Chemistry have developed a new fluorogenic probe that can be used to detect and study interactions between two families of biomolecules essential to life: sugars and proteins.

Our idea was to label sugar molecules with a chromophore, a chemical that gives a molecule its colour,” explained Cecioni. “The chromophore is actually fluorogenic, which means that it can become fluorescent if the binding of sugar with the lectin is efficiently captured. Image credit: Cecioni Lab

The findings by professor Samy Cecioni and his students, which open the door to a wide range of applications, were published in mid-October in the prestigious European journal Angewandte Chemie.

Found in all living cells

Sugar is omnipresent in our lives, present in almost all the foods we eat. But the importance of these simple carbohydrates extends far beyond tasty desserts. Sugars are vital to virtually all biological processes in living organisms and there is a vast diversity of naturally occurring sugar molecules.

“All of the cells that make up living organisms are covered in a layer of sugar-based molecules known as glycans,” said Cecioni. “Sugars are therefore on the front line of almost all physiological processes and play a fundamental role in maintaining health and preventing disease.”

“For a long time,” he added, “scientists believed that the complex sugars found on the surface of cells were simply decorative. But we now know that these sugars interact with many other types of molecules, particularly lectins, a large family of proteins.”

Driving disease, from flu to cancer

Like sugars, lectins are found in all living organisms. These proteins have the unique ability to recognize and temporarily attach themselves to sugars. Such interactions occur in many biological processes, such as during the immune response triggered by an infection.

Lectins are attracting a lot of attention these days. This is because scientists have discovered that the phenomenon of lectins “sticking” to sugars plays a key role in the appearance of numerous diseases.

“The more we study the interactions between sugars and lectins, the more we realize how important they are in disease processes,” said Cecioni. “Studies have shown how such interactions are involved in bacteria colonizing our lungs, viruses invading our cells, even cancer cells tricking our immune system into thinking they’re healthy cells.”

Difficult to detect…until now

There are still many missing pieces in the puzzle of how interactions between sugars and lectins unfold because they are so difficult to study. This is because these interactions are transient and weak, making detection a real challenge.

Two of Cecioni’s students, master’s candidate Cécile Bousch and Ph.D. candidate Brandon Vreulz, had the idea of using light to detect these interactions. The three researchers set to work to create a sort of chemical probe capable of “freezing” the meeting between sugar and lectin and making it visible through fluorescence.

The interaction between sugar and lectin can be described using a “lock and key” relationship, where the “key” is the sugar and the “lock” is the lectin. Chemists have already created molecules capable of blocking this lock-and-key interaction, and can now to identify exactly what sugars are binding to lectins of high interest to human health.

“Our idea was to label sugar molecules with a chromophore, a chemical that gives a molecule its colour,” explained Cecioni. “The chromophore is actually fluorogenic, which means that it can become fluorescent if the binding of sugar with the lectin is efficiently captured. Scientists can then study the mechanisms underlying these interactions and the disturbances that can arise.”

Cecioni and his students are confident their technique can be used with other types of molecules. It may even be possible to control the colour of new fluorescently labelled probes that are created.

By making it possible to visualize interactions between molecules, this discovery is giving researchers a valuable new tool for studying biological interactions, many of which are critical to human health.

Source: University of Montreal

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

2 notes · View notes

cleverhottubmiracle · 1 month ago

Photo

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. Any products or services put forward appear in no particular order. if you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. If there’s one style ‘hack’ that never fails, it’s confidence. Whether it’s a cobalt blue suit or a Cuban heel, a healthy dose of self-belief gives even the most out-there looks a fair chance at success. So the last thing any man needs is a niggling body issue putting up roadblocks. Sweaty palms and breath that pongs are public enemies number one and two when it comes to feeling good. So we consulted the experts to find out about the most common conditions plaguing men’s confidence, and what to do to beat them. Jock Itch What Is It? Got an urge to scratch south of the border? Good news: it might not be crabs. Bad news: it might be jock itch. Otherwise known as tinea cruris, this is a fungal infection of the skin around the groin. About as much fun as it sounds, it’s caused by dermatophytes – the same family of fungi that cause athlete’s foot – and has symptoms which include persistent itchiness, a burning sensation and flaking or cracked skin. “Jock itch is caused when the normal fungus found on the skin overgrows,” says skincare specialist Debbie Thomas. “Although anyone can get it, it’s common in sportsmen who sweat a lot as the fungus loves a warm, damp environment.” How Do I Beat It? Don’t worry about accusatory stares from people who think you’re playing with yourself, rest assured you can cure jock itch within a couple of weeks. “Wash the affected area with soap and water, and dry thoroughly, especially after exercising,” says Thomas. “Wear clean underwear and loose-fitting cotton clothes, and ask your chemist for an anti-fungal cream or powder.” Jock itch is also very contagious so be careful of sharing towels, clothes and bedding until you’ve had it treated. Stretch Marks What Is It? They may be battle scars nobly earned for bodybuilders, but for the rest of us, stretch marks are an unsightly set of stripes that we can’t unbutton at the end of the day. Often found on the abdomen, chest, upper arms, underarms, back and thighs, these marks are the result of the skin stretching due to sudden weight gain (whether fat or muscle) or a growth spurt. “Stretch marks appear differently coloured because they’re actually tears in the skin that reveal a deeper skin layer,” explains Thomas. “Although initially red – due to tears in the dermis allowing blood vessels to show through – they eventually fade to a silvery colour once the blood vessels have contracted.” How Can I Beat It? Prevention is always better than cure. As well as avoiding rapid weight or muscle gain, look for products rich in vitamin E, which has been found to mitigate marks during body changes. But if you’ve already been pulled like Stretch Armstrong, there is a way to minimise the appearance of lines. “Aloe vera, for example, is an anti-inflammatory ingredient that’s known to lighten scar tissue,” says Thomas. In addition to topical products, check the bottle next time you’re shopping for a body moisturiser. Erectile Dysfunction What Is It? One of the most persistently annoying male body problems, erectile dysfunction (often simply referred to as ED) spoils fun like no other. “Erectile dysfunction is caused by reduced blood flow to the penis,” says LloydsPharmacy online consultant Dr Tom Brett. “This reduced flow is caused by calcification of the blood vessels brought about by smoking, being overweight and medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.” In younger men, however, the cause is often psychological rather than physical. Known as performance anxiety, this instance of ED is caused by a fear of not being up to the job, as it were, and isn’t to be confused with the physical inability to get an erection. How Do I Beat It? While many ED sufferers turn to medicines like Viagra, there are several lifestyle changes that can temporarily alleviate the issue, and tackle the cause. “Quitting smoking, improving your diet and increasing exercise, as well as getting screened for diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol are very important,” says Brett. To stop performance anxiety shafting your love life, Brett recommends counselling and relationship therapy as the best options for unpicking the psychological reasons behind the condition. In any case, it’s best to book some time with your GP, who may even suggest more extreme fixes such as penile injection therapy, vacuum pumps or a surgical re-routing of the blood flow. Halitosis What Is It? Commonly known as bad breath, halitosis will win you no friends. At best, it’s mildly off-putting to your partner, at worst it’s the reason your colleagues give you a wide berth in the morning. “Halitosis is caused when bacteria break down certain food substances in the mouth, resulting in the formation of foul-smelling gases,” says orthodontist Dr Patrick Grossmann. “The most common cause – as much as 90 per cent – is the collection of bacteria inside the mouth, particularly areas around the gum margins of the teeth and the surface of the tongue.” To make matters worse, there are certain factors which could be aggravating your halitosis even further, says Grossmann. “Ill-fitting crowns, partially erupted wisdom teeth, root fragments and ill-fitting dentures are all associated with bacterial deposits.” How Do I Beat It? Nix the bacteria, nix the nose-wrinkling breath. “Maintain a meticulous oral hygiene regime including brushing your teeth, flossing and scraping the surface of your tongue with a scraper,” says Grossmann. It’s also worth pinpointing what causes your halitosis as solving the problem could be as simple as subtracting something from your diet. Foods like onions, cheese, garlic and curry, as well as drinks like coffee and alcohol can all aggravate the issue. Failing that, book in with your GP or dentist who will be able to investigate the problem further and identify the underlying cause. Excessive Sweating What Is It? Although sweating is for many of us a mere seasonal annoyance, for around five per cent of men worldwide, it’s a seriously confidence-crushing problem. “Hyperhidrosis is the excessive production of sweat in areas such as the head, hands, armpits, feet and occasionally the groin, back and chest,” says consultant vascular surgeon Professor Mark Whiteley of The Whiteley Clinic. Although hyperhidrosis is controlled by the same automatic part of the nervous system as breathing rate and pupil size, it can also be influenced by external factors, “particularly psychological effects like embarrassment or fear, hormones, drugs and certain [spicy] foods,” adds Whiteley. How Do I Beat It? While avoiding or minimising the effects of factors like heat and spicy foods can help, wearing fewer layers or skipping a curry will do little to stem the tide of severe hyperhidrosis. “Speak with a hyperhidrosis expert, as it may be that you have a medical condition like hyperthyroidism or carcinoid syndrome,” says Whiteley. Once those are ruled out, you can elect for treatments such as Botox injections, which block signals between the brain and sweat glands. Or, for an over-the-counter solution, a heavy-duty deodorant designed to turn the leaky tap off. Man Boobs What Is It? You know exactly what these are. Moobs. Boobs, but on a man. You might have them already, or could have soon in years to come, so it pays to be clued up. According to Dr Dennis Wolf at The Private Clinic of Harley Street, a sudden swelling in the chest is the result of two different conditions: gynaecomastia and pseudogynecomastia. “All males have some degree of breast tissue which can sometimes grow due to fluctuations in hormones (gynaecomastia) and weight (pseudogynecomastia).” How Do I Beat It? The exact cause of your increased cup size will determine the treatment. Fortunately, there are plenty of options available for both. For breasts caused by an increase in estrogen levels, Wolf explains that there is medication to address the balance as well as surgery ranging from liposuction and surgical excision to remove the tissue. Meanwhile, a ballooning bosom as the result of weight gain can be reduced by small lifestyle changes and regular exercise that focuses on heavy lifting. In either case, it’s possible to disguise man boobs using clever style tactics such as wearing thicker materials, looking for details such as patch pockets and deploying pattern. Flaky Skin What Is It? Dry, cracked, crusty skin that flakes off. Some people get it on their hands and arms, others on their back or even their face. Either way, no one likes leaving little piles their own dead tissue all over the place. Even if you’ve never suffered from flaky skin, it’s worth being aware of the cause and treatment, because it isn’t just about having a certain skin type. “Dry and flaky skin can affect anyone,” says dermatologist Dr Anton Alexandroff. “The main causes are dermatitis – which can be either atopic (eczema) or seborrheic (fungal) – and psoriasis.” How Do I Beat It? Unlike generally dry, oily or combination skin, which is a part of an individual’s genetic makeup, it is possible to rid flaky skin. “If it’s atopic, it’s important to moisturise the skin frequently and avoid soaps and detergents,” says Alexandroff. “If it’s seborrheic, anti-fungal shampoos can be very effective and are available over the counter. For more extreme cases [of psoriasis], medicated topical treatments with vitamin D are needed on prescription.” In any case, avoid using harsh soaps or other products containing alcohol, which can strip the skin of its natural oils, while remembering to wash with and use moisturising products on a regular basis. Dandruff What Is It? Forever looking like you got caught in a snowstorm, even in July? Or spend your days trying to resist the urge to scratch your head? It’s probably time to sort out your scalp. A fairly common (but no less embarrassing) complaint that affects around one in five, dandruff occurs when skin cells shed at a faster rate than normal, usually as a result of dry skin, sensitivity to hair products or an overgrowth of yeast. “It can also be the result of seborrheic dermatitis or psoriasis,” adds Alexandroff, making the telltale flakes able to appear on your beard as well as your bonce. How Do I Beat It? Fortunately for most sufferers, simple over-the-counter shampoos packed with dandruff-fighting agents like zinc carbonate and other ingredients designed to cleanse and moisturise the skin are often enough. “If these don’t work, there are scalp applications and shampoos available on prescription, and even powerful oral medications,” says Alexandroff. In the meanwhile, avoid loading your hair up with styling products and swerve the black T-shirt rail until you get the problem under control. Source link

0 notes

norajworld · 1 month ago

Photo

0 notes

ellajme0 · 1 month ago

Photo

0 notes

chilimili212 · 1 month ago

Photo

0 notes

oliviajoyice21 · 1 month ago

Photo

0 notes

dickens-daily · 2 months ago

Text

CHAPTER XXII—GIN-SHOPS

It is a remarkable circumstance, that different trades appear to partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are especially liable, and to run stark, staring, raving mad, periodically. The great distinction between the animals and the trades, is, that the former run mad with a certain degree of propriety—they are very regular in their irregularities. We know the period at which the emergency will arise, and provide against it accordingly. If an elephant run mad, we are all ready for him—kill or cure—pills or bullets, calomel in conserve of roses, or lead in a musket-barrel. If a dog happen to look unpleasantly warm in the summer months, and to trot about the shady side of the streets with a quarter of a yard of tongue hanging out of his mouth, a thick leather muzzle, which has been previously prepared in compliance with the thoughtful injunctions of the Legislature, is instantly clapped over his head, by way of making him cooler, and he either looks remarkably unhappy for the next six weeks, or becomes legally insane, and goes mad, as it were, by Act of Parliament. But these trades are as eccentric as comets; nay, worse, for no one can calculate on the recurrence of the strange appearances which betoken the disease. Moreover, the contagion is general, and the quickness with which it diffuses itself, almost incredible.

We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our meaning. Six or eight years ago, the epidemic began to display itself among the linen-drapers and haberdashers. The primary symptoms were an inordinate love of plate-glass, and a passion for gas-lights and gilding. The disease gradually progressed, and at last attained a fearful height. Quiet, dusty old shops in different parts of town, were pulled down; spacious premises with stuccoed fronts and gold letters, were erected instead; floors were covered with Turkey carpets; roofs supported by massive pillars; doors knocked into windows; a dozen squares of glass into one; one shopman into a dozen; and there is no knowing what would have been done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in time, that the Commissioners of Bankruptcy were as competent to decide such cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little confinement and gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated. It died away. A year or two of comparative tranquillity ensued. Suddenly it burst out again amongst the chemists; the symptoms were the same, with the addition of a strong desire to stick the royal arms over the shop-door, and a great rage for mahogany, varnish, and expensive floor-cloth. Then, the hosiers were infected, and began to pull down their shop-fronts with frantic recklessness. The mania again died away, and the public began to congratulate themselves on its entire disappearance, when it burst forth with tenfold violence among the publicans, and keepers of ‘wine vaults.’ From that moment it has spread among them with unprecedented rapidity, exhibiting a concatenation of all the previous symptoms; onward it has rushed to every part of town, knocking down all the old public-houses, and depositing splendid mansions, stone balustrades, rosewood fittings, immense lamps, and illuminated clocks, at the corner of every street.

The extensive scale on which these places are established, and the ostentatious manner in which the business of even the smallest among them is divided into branches, is amusing. A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you ‘To the Counting-house;’ another to the ‘Bottle Department; a third to the ‘Wholesale Department;’ a fourth to ‘The Wine Promenade;’ and so forth, until we are in daily expectation of meeting with a ‘Brandy Bell,’ or a ‘Whiskey Entrance.’ Then, ingenuity is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different descriptions of gin; and the dram-drinking portion of the community as they gaze upon the gigantic black and white announcements, which are only to be equalled in size by the figures beneath them, are left in a state of pleasing hesitation between ‘The Cream of the Valley,’ ‘The Out and Out,’ ‘The No Mistake,’ ‘The Good for Mixing,’ ‘The real Knock-me-down,’ ‘The celebrated Butter Gin,’ ‘The regular Flare-up,’ and a dozen other, equally inviting and wholesome liqueurs. Although places of this description are to be met with in every second street, they are invariably numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the dirt and poverty of the surrounding neighbourhood. The gin-shops in and near Drury-Lane, Holborn, St. Giles’s, Covent-garden, and Clare-market, are the handsomest in London. There is more of filth and squalid misery near those great thorough-fares than in any part of this mighty city.

We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and its ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers as may not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and on the chance of finding one well suited to our purpose, we will make for Drury-Lane, through the narrow streets and dirty courts which divide it from Oxford-street, and that classical spot adjoining the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham-court-road, best known to the initiated as the ‘Rookery.’

The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London can hardly be imagined by those (and there are many such) who have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper: every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three—fruit and ‘sweet-stuff’ manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a ‘musician’ in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one—filth everywhere—a gutter before the houses and a drain behind—clothes drying and slops emptying, from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen, with matted hair, walking about barefoot, and in white great-coats, almost their only covering; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes and no coats at all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing.

You turn the corner. What a change! All is light and brilliancy. The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite; and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left. The interior is even gayer than the exterior. A bar of French-polished mahogany, elegantly carved, extends the whole width of the place; and there are two side-aisles of great casks, painted green and gold, enclosed within a light brass rail, and bearing such inscriptions, as ‘Old Tom, 549;’ ‘Young Tom, 360;’ ‘Samson, 1421’—the figures agreeing, we presume, with ‘gallons,’ understood. Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running round it, equally well furnished. On the counter, in addition to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little baskets of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured at top with wicker-work, to prevent their contents being unlawfully abstracted. Behind it, are two showily-dressed damsels with large necklaces, dispensing the spirits and ‘compounds.’ They are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern, a stout, coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one side to give him a knowing air, and to display his sandy whiskers to the best advantage.

The two old washerwomen, who are seated on the little bench to the left of the bar, are rather overcome by the head-dresses and haughty demeanour of the young ladies who officiate. They receive their half-quartern of gin and peppermint, with considerable deference, prefacing a request for ‘one of them soft biscuits,’ with a ‘Jist be good enough, ma’am.’ They are quite astonished at the impudent air of the young fellow in a brown coat and bright buttons, who, ushering in his two companions, and walking up to the bar in as careless a manner as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments all his life, winks at one of the young ladies with singular coolness, and calls for a ‘kervorten and a three-out-glass,’ just as if the place were his own. ‘Gin for you, sir?’ says the young lady when she has drawn it: carefully looking every way but the right one, to show that the wink had no effect upon her. ‘For me, Mary, my dear,’ replies the gentleman in brown. ‘My name an’t Mary as it happens,’ says the young girl, rather relaxing as she delivers the change. ‘Well, if it an’t, it ought to be,’ responds the irresistible one; ‘all the Marys as ever I see, was handsome gals.’ Here the young lady, not precisely remembering how blushes are managed in such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation by addressing the female in the faded feathers who has just entered, and who, after stating explicitly, to prevent any subsequent misunderstanding, that ‘this gentleman pays,’ calls for ‘a glass of port wine and a bit of sugar.’

Those two old men who came in ‘just to have a drain,’ finished their third quartern a few seconds ago; they have made themselves crying drunk; and the fat comfortable-looking elderly women, who had ‘a glass of rum-srub’ each, having chimed in with their complaints on the hardness of the times, one of the women has agreed to stand a glass round, jocularly observing that ‘grief never mended no broken bones, and as good people’s wery scarce, what I says is, make the most on ’em, and that’s all about it!’ a sentiment which appears to afford unlimited satisfaction to those who have nothing to pay.

It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and children, who have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down to two or three occasional stragglers—cold, wretched-looking creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease. The knot of Irish labourers at the lower end of the place, who have been alternately shaking hands with, and threatening the life of each other, for the last hour, become furious in their disputes, and finding it impossible to silence one man, who is particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort to the expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards. The man in the fur cap, and the potboy rush out; a scene of riot and confusion ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the other half get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs in no time; the landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord; the barmaids scream; the police come in; the rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and struggling. Some of the party are borne off to the station-house, and the remainder slink home to beat their wives for complaining, and kick the children for daring to be hungry.

We have sketched this subject very slightly, not only because our limits compel us to do so, but because, if it were pursued farther, it would be painful and repulsive. Well-disposed gentlemen, and charitable ladies, would alike turn with coldness and disgust from a description of the drunken besotted men, and wretched broken-down miserable women, who form no inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of these haunts; forgetting, in the pleasant consciousness of their own rectitude, the poverty of the one, and the temptation of the other. Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. If Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against hunger, filth, and foul air, or could establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of bottles of Lethe-water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things that were.

_____

Title | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter |

#sketches by boz #sbb #charles dickens

0 notes

rabbitcruiser · 5 months ago

Text

Pierce Your Ears Day

We celebrate Pierce Your Ears Day on September 2 every year. This holiday spreads awareness about ear piercing, including the ritual and historical aspects of this body modification. It is one of the things practiced by people worldwide for various reasons. Some do it as a fashion statement; others do it to honor their ancestors. Many do it on a whim because it sounded like a clever idea at the time. Regardless of the motivation, ear piercing has been part of human history for a long time. People of different races, backgrounds, and genders have pierced their ears for millennia.

HISTORY OF PIERCE YOUR EARS DAY

Pierce Your Ears Day is celebrated on September 2 each year. This is the day to remember where ear piercing comes from and maybe even get your ears pierced! For thousands of years, human beings have practiced ear piercing. The Samburu warriors of Kenya pierced their ears with large ivory plugs to signify their toughness and bravery. The Egyptians and Romans wore gold earrings as a status symbol to display their wealth. Ancient murals in Persia depict warriors with pierced ears. Native American people often wore earrings made of bone, glass beads, and colorful feathers.

Earrings have always been popular for various reasons. Some civilizations wore them as mere decorations, while others reserved them for spiritual leaders who used them as charms. Sailors wore earrings in one or both ears as a sign that they had traveled far and wide on the high seas. In 16th Century Europe, noblemen who served in the King’s court had pierced ears. The punk movement that gripped the Western world in the 1960s and 1970s led to many youths getting ear piercings, much to the dismay of their conservative parents. Today it is highly fashionable to have your ears pierced; parents even have their babies’ ears pierced at six months or younger. It is unlikely that there is any country where ear piercings are not commonplace.

Ear piercing techniques have come a long way from the old, rudimentary methods. The process is much safer and healthier now. There is little risk of infection or mutilation. That is if you go to a competent, qualified professional. Almost every tattoo parlor offers ear piercing services, and many chemists do it too. It is quick and completely harmless when performed in a sterile environment.

PIERCE YOUR EARS DAY TIMELINE

3000 B.C. Earliest Known Occurrence of Ear Piercing

The mummy of Ötzi the Iceman, a man who lived around 3000 B.C., is found with ear piercings.

1300 B.C. Egyptian Ear Piercings

Evidence of Egyptians piercing their ears is shown in King Tut’s mummy, which had elaborate gold earrings.

44 B.C. Roman Men and Women Pierce Their Ears

Julius Caesar makes gold earrings popular again.

1500 A.D. Ear Piercing in the Renaissance Era

Upper-class gentlemen in Renaissance-era England sport earrings made of gold, pearl, or stone.

PIERCE YOUR EARS DAY FAQS

When can you pierce your baby’s ears?

Although you can pierce your baby’s ears anytime, research shows that the best age is at two months, which coincides with the baby getting their first round of vaccinations.

Can you shower after getting pierced?

If the piercings are recent, you won’t have to take them out when showering. Showers clean out any crust or debris, which helps the healing process.

Should you rotate your ear piercing?

There is no need to do this. It could damage healing spots and may even lead to scarring or infection. However, if the professional who did your piercing recommends it, it may be a good idea to listen to their advice.

PIERCE YOUR EARS DAY ACTIVITIES

Get your ears pierced

What better way to celebrate Pierce Your Ears Day than getting your ears pierced? You can go for a modest stud or a more eye-catching design. The options are limitless.

Educate others on ear piercing

Pierce Your Ears Day is the perfect time to spread awareness about ear piercing. Teach others about the history of ear piercing and how to do it safely.

Learn about ear piercings in different cultures

The details we’ve mentioned in this article are a good start, but there’s so much more to learn about piercings through different periods and across different cultures. Pierce Your Ears Day is a great time to start.

5 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT EAR PIERCINGS

Ear piercings were good luck charms

Sailors believed ear piercings were good luck charms and kept them safe while at sea.

William Shakespeare wore earrings

Shakespeare wore gold earrings, as did Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.

Ear piercing wasn’t popular in the West

It wasn’t until the 1900s that ear piercings became widely popular in the Western world.

Clip-on earrings were more popular

During the 1920s and up to the 1950s, Americans preferred clip-on earrings to traditional ones.

Ear piercings weren’t always considered effeminate

Many patriarchal warrior communities had men who pierced their ears.

WHY WE LOVE PIERCE YOUR EARS DAY

It celebrates body modification

Ear piercing is a long-standing tradition of body modification in cultures worldwide. Pierce Your Ears Day commemorates this history.

It shows pride for piercings

Pierced ears are a fashion statement that we can feel proud of on this day. And we get to share this experience with others who also like to get their ears pierced.

It demystifies ear piercing

Many people still have reservations about ear piercings. Holidays like this one help spread awareness about the origins of ear piercing and its role in different cultures.

Source

1 note · View note

xtruss · 7 months ago

Text

An Inhaler For The Administration of Chloroform or Ether, Circa 1848. Photograph: World History Archive/Alamy/Guardian Design

Revolution In The Air: How Laughing Gas Changed The World

Since Its Discovery in the 18th Century, Nitrous Oxide Has Gone From Vaudeville Gimmick to Pioneering Anaesthetic to Modern Party Drug

— By Mark Miodownik | Thursday 4 July 2024

1. Dancing Around The Pneumatic Institute

Playing rugby one day, I mistimed a tackle and dislocated one of my fingers. I felt a stab of pain and sat in the mud staring in disbelief at my hand. One of my fingers was now bent at an unnatural angle. My teammates gathered round, grinning. They made it clear that they expected me to snap my finger back into place. Several of them mimed the action and excitedly made the cracking sound they wanted to hear. This was a test of my toughness, one of many that I have failed in my life.

Instead, I took myself to hospital and sat for hours in a blaze of fluorescent lights in the A&E department, feeling self-conscious with my shorts, muddy legs and odd-looking finger. Later that evening, I was shown into a booth and blue paper curtains were drawn around me for privacy. A young male doctor came in. He seemed distracted, but asked a few questions while consulting a clipboard containing my patient info. “Dislocated finger?” he said. I nodded. He put the clipboard down, took the dislocated finger in his hand and then, with no warning, he yanked it violently. There is an absurd moment from this scene that is freeze-framed in my memory. I am screaming in pain and his face is very close to mine. He is red from the effort of trying to pull my finger back into its socket, but he has failed, and instead has managed to pull me out of my seat and right up close to him. We both fall back towards the wall, like two drunks fighting.

Afterwards, calming me down with a cup of tea, he explained that he was sorry, and that he had been trying to catch me off guard in order to snap the finger back into place – a manoeuvre that had always worked in the past, he said. He then fetched a canister of laughing gas, attached to which were a tube and a mask. He fitted the mask over my nose and mouth, and began fiddling with the valves on the canister. He then asked me to take a deep breath. I did so and felt nothing. The doctor fiddled with the valves some more and asked me to have another go. It felt good, very good. I took another deep breath and soon found myself out of my mind and on a golf course, unable to find my ball.

The story of how a gas that creates delusions became a method of standard pain relief begins in industrial Britain. The air in cities and towns was full of coal smoke and the foul smell of human and animal waste. It was widely believed that bad air could cause disease. This was the miasma theory. It seemed like common sense, because where bad smells were most concentrated, there was the most disease. Outbreaks of cholera, Black Death and other contagious diseases were thought to be caused by clouds of miasma carried in the stench. People died in their millions of respiratory diseases such as consumption (tuberculosis). For thousands of years, it affected rich and poor alike, although because it was an airborne infection, the poor – who lived in crowded conditions – contracted it more often.

If air could carry disease, then perhaps gas could cure them, too. So went the reasoning of Thomas Beddoes, who set up the Pneumatic Institution in 1799 in the city of Bristol. The idea was to find specific gases that could cure specific diseases. Beddoes hired a young chemist called Humphry Davy to carry out the research in gas therapy. Davy tried many gases, none of which seemed to be much help – in fact, quite the opposite: when he tried a new gas called carbon monoxide on himself, he almost died.

Undeterred in his zeal to make great discoveries and help humankind, Davy then inhaled another newly discovered gas, nitrous oxide. The gas tasted slightly sweet and had a very strange effect on him. He started dancing round his laboratory “like a madman”, as he noted later. He laughed. He giggled. It was highly inappropriate, given that he was working in a medical institute, but he couldn’t stop.

A Satirical Cartoon Showing a Royal Institution Demonstration of Laughing Gas with Humphry Davy, Circa 1830. Photograph: Alamy

The effects did wear off after an hour. But how miraculous, how strange, he reflected. He tried it again, sometimes with the same ludicrous effects, and sometimes he was taken out of his mind in a more transcendental way. After one session, he wrote “nothing exists but thoughts”. Davy described breathing nitrous oxide as a sublime experience, an experience that was beyond language, although he did try to capture the feeling in his poetry, describing his limbs as “clad with new-born mightiness”.

Davy thought he would try the gas out on the institute’s patients to assess if it had any therapeutic value for curing diseases such as consumption. It didn’t. But it did make them laugh. He himself found it so delightful that he could not resist carrying on experimenting with nitrous oxide at night. Davy found that breathing the gas heightened his senses – he felt he could see and hear more vividly. He invited friends, writers and poets, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to his laboratory to inhale the gas. They breathed it in and fell into fits of laughter, too, singing and dancing. The poet Robert Southey grandly declared that Davy had invented a new type of pleasure, which gave “delightful sensation in every limb – in every part of the body – to the very teeth”. More and more people came to try this remarkable laughing gas, including the radical poet Anna Barbauld. These laughing gas gatherings gave the Pneumatic Institution a revolutionary air.

During all the partying and dancing, Humphry Davy still had the acumen to deduce something scientifically important about laughing gas: it was not just funny and distracting – it could eliminate pain.

2. Hysteria on Demand

Up until this point, surgery and dentistry had been largely carried out without anaesthetic. For most people, this meant living with the agony of toothache until they could stand the pain no more. They would then reluctantly go to a dentist or doctor, who would remove the tooth by kneeling on their chest and tugging it out with a pair of pliers. Similarly, those with the excruciating pain of gallstones often preferred to live with the pain rather than go for surgery to remove them. Alcohol and herbal concoctions containing opium and henbane (psychoactive substances derived from plants) were offered as sedatives, but patients still felt excruciating pain and writhed in agony because these substances didn’t effectively block pain receptors. To carry out surgery or amputations, the patients were tied down, with a piece of wood or leather in their mouth to stop them screaming.

There was also a belief among western surgeons that pain might be important to the success of the surgery. They thought it might be required for nature’s healing powers to be triggered. Thus there was no obvious demand from medical doctors for the development of anaesthetics. So although Davy discovered nitrous oxide to be a fast-acting anaesthetic, the medical profession wasn’t interested.

A self-taught engineer, Samuel Colt, spotted the potential of Davy’s laughing gas. He had an idea for a new type of gun, but needed money to develop it. In 1832, he decided to tour the US performing laughing gas demonstrations on stage. It wasn’t hard for Colt to learn how to make laughing gas. The formula is N₂O, which means it is made of two nitrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Since the air we breathe is mostly made up of nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) you might expect that laughing gas would occur naturally. But although the oxygen in the air is very reactive, the nitrogen is not. It occurs as a molecule, N2, which is to say two nitrogen atoms chemically bound together into a single molecule. This molecule is very stable and reacts with very few things – not even the oxygen in air.

The method Colt used to produce nitrous oxide was to heat up ammonium nitrate, which decomposes to produce N₂O gas. But he needed to be careful. Heating it too fast causes a different reaction, creating enormous amounts of nitrogen and nitrogen dioxide gas very quickly. When large amounts of gas are produced, it has to go somewhere, and so it expands outwards. This creates a pressure wave, destroying objects in its path and carrying the smashed pieces along with it. In other words, an explosion.

To avoid blowing himself up, Colt carefully heated ammonium nitrate, keeping the temperature below 300C, and collected the gas that was created in a fine silk bag, which gradually expanded into a balloon. In his stage shows, he would invite volunteers on to the stage to inhale the gas, whereupon they would fall into hysterics, sing and dance. The spectacle of a prim middle-aged nurse suddenly bursting into song, or a shy gentleman transforming into a comedian, provided entertainment to the paying audience.

Keeping the spectacle in the realms of good family entertainment was a priority given the dubious reputation of laughing gas, and so Colt pretended to be a doctor. He stopped doing the shows once he had raised enough cash for his real passion, the development of a hand held pistol with a rotating cylinder: the Colt revolver.

3. The Birth of Anaesthesia

In 1844, a dentist called Horace Wells attended a laughing gas show and wondered whether it might work as pain relief during teeth extraction. He tried it on himself while having a wisdom tooth extracted. He giggled while spitting blood, and realised laughing gas really did block pain.

After trying it on more than 10 other patients, he decided to go public, and performed a tooth extraction in Massachusetts general hospital, before a small audience. Unfortunately for Wells, the patient let out a small cry during the procedure, and although afterwards he said he felt very little pain, the conservative medical establishment who had been in attendance pounced on this as proof of frivolous fairground trickery. They dismissed nitrous oxide and ridiculed Wells. He would later fall into addiction, and killed himself in 1848, but he had ignited an interest in anaesthesia.

Two years after his demonstration, another dentist, William Morton, used a different substance to anaesthetise a patient in the same hospital. The gas was a vapour of a mysterious liquid called ether.

Ether is a clear but very powerful liquid. If you sniff a bottle of ether you will immediately feel woozy. Like ethanol, the alcohol in beer and wine, it is made of two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. But the two molecules differ in the way the atoms are bonded together, which has a big impact on their properties. For instance, their boiling points, the temperatures at which they change from liquid into a gas, are very different. The boiling point of ether is 35C, while the boiling point of ethanol is 78C.

A painting symbolising the effects of chloroform on the human body. Photograph: R Cooper/Wellcome Library

Now, 35C is not a high temperature: a glass of ether will boil in front of you on a very hot summer’s day. Although a bottle of pure alcohol will not boil on that same summer’s day, you will be able to smell it, and that means it is still releasing some of its molecules into the air. In fact, as with all liquids, molecules jump into the air and become a gas even before they reach the boiling point: this is called the vapour of a liquid, and is why you can smell liquids – it is the bouquet of wine, the warming aroma from a bowl of soup, a waft of perfume. The lower the boiling point compared with room temperature, the more vapour you get from it, and generally the smellier it is. Ether is very smelly, and no one would describe it as having a pleasant bouquet. It is not dissimilar to the smell of diesel and petrol – to which it is chemically related – and it will knock you out.

If you breathe ether vapour, it goes straight to your lungs, where it infiltrates the bloodstream and causes rapid intoxication in a matter of minutes. As with alcohol, the effect can be pleasant, but there are differences that make the gas useful for anaesthesia. When surgeons gave alcohol to patients being cut open, patients still felt pain, often babbling incoherently and striking out, arms flailing around. Ether’s molecular structure means it affects different pathways in the brain, causing a patient to lose consciousness rapidly and become insensitive to the pain of being cut open. Crucially, they lie still.

Because the boiling point of ether is so low, it can be easily delivered by getting a patient to breathe in the vapour using a vial of the warmed liquid. The trick, of course, is to get the dose of vapour inhalation right. Too much and the patient is poisoned, causing severe side-effects such as breathing difficulties and heart rate abnormalities. Too little and the patient will wake up while being cut open.

Beyond this, the use of ether as an anaesthetic was effective, but not ideal. For a start, like alcohol, it is addictive. So once there was general acceptance of the idea that the benefits of anaesthetics might outweigh the risks, scientists started to explore the vapours of other substances.

4. A Royal Knockout

One of these experimenters was John Simpson, a Scottish obstetrician living in Edinburgh. Every evening, he and two assistants would gather in his sitting room and sniff chemicals to assess their anaesthetic effect. This was a risky thing to do, because the toxicity of these chemicals was completely unknown. On a dark November evening in 1847, they gathered to inhale a sweet-smelling, volatile liquid called chloroform. At first they found it pleasant and were put “into a good humour”, but then they all collapsed.

When they regained consciousness the next morning, Simpson was elated: had he found a new anaesthetic? Not realising he could have killed himself, he next tried it on his niece, who said she felt happy, began singing “I am an angel” and then dropped to the floor unconscious. She survived, and, deeming it safe, Simpson went on to use chloroform in his medical practice, successfully administering it to mothers in labour to ease their pain. It was a miracle he didn’t kill some of them, as getting the dose wrong, as with ether, can be lethal.

A woman in labour taking gas and air to relieve pain. Photograph: Jonathan Littlejohn/Alamy

Other doctors were outraged, but not about the safety issues. The mostly male medical establishment argued that alleviating the pain of childbirth was morally wrong, and that God had ordained that women should suffer while giving birth. The moral issues around pain relief became a hot public debate until Queen Victoria in 1853 was administered chloroform while giving birth to Prince Leopold, after which it received the royal stamp of approval. The queen later wrote to a friend who had also inhaled chloroform for pain relief: “Very glad to hear Minnie is going on so well & had the inestimable blessing of chloroform w. no one can ever be sufficiently grateful for.”

5. Laughing Gas Goes Legit

By the turn of the 20th century, chloroform’s use as a medical anaesthetic was being phased out. It was too toxic, damaging to the liver and kidneys in high doses, but also caused unexpected deaths in surgery by interfering with the rhythm of the heart – the so-called “sudden sniffing death” – which is a dangerous side-effect associated with inhaling many solvents.

This balance between effective pain relief and the risk of side-effects brought laughing gas back into the picture. No, it didn’t knock you out, but yes, it did allow you to experience less pain with fewer side-effects. However, it was unregulated, and the form of administration – a silk or rubber balloon – was not ideal for dentists or medics because balloons are bulky and leak gas over time into the room where they are stored, which, in the case of nitrous oxide, makes everyone giddy. One person who took up the challenge to solve this engineering problem was George Poe, a cousin of the poet and master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe. He created a factory in New Jersey for the mass manufacturing of nitrous oxide in a liquid form, which he then sold in canisters.

This was a clever choice. Liquids are denser than gases, and so a lot of nitrous oxide could be crammed into a small cylinder. The boiling point of nitrous oxide is –88C, which means that liquid nitrous oxide immediately boils at room temperature. However, pressurising a gas increases its boiling point, allowing it to be kept as a liquid in a pressurised container (such as gas bottles used to store butane for camping). Opening the valve of the canister released the pressure, instantly transforming the liquid into vapour for use in dentists’ practices and hospitals. By 1883, George Poe was supplying 5,000 dentists with medical-grade anaesthetic nitrous oxide in canisters.

Poe was passionate about the power of gases to help people in pain. He patented a respirator as a safe and systematic way of administering gas to a patient. A canister fed gas into brass cylinders and then into a face mask placed over the patient’s nose and mouth. Using this procedure, he claimed it was possible, using pure oxygen, to bring people back from the dead.

Once gases could be compressed cheaply and put in convenient cylinders, they were put to all sorts of unexpected uses throughout the 20th century. For instance, if you add cream to a nitrous oxide gas cylinder, some of the compressed gas dissolves in the fat. If you then open the cylinder, the gas pressure squirts the cream out of the dispenser. As it does this, the gas inside the fat expands rapidly and blows trillions of little bubbles – this instantly whips the cream into a fluffy foam. This delicious messy process was discovered accidentally in the 1930s by a chemistry student who was studying the preservation of dairy cream using compressed gas. He tried other gases too, but nitrous oxide works best for cream because it doesn’t affect the taste. It is also easy and safe to compress into a convenient form called a nitrous oxide whippet, used in commercial kitchens. These look like little bullets that you might load a revolver with, but instead they are designed to fit into a whipped cream gun. Press the trigger and out comes instant and perfect whipped cream: it’s delightful, it’s delicious, it’s a kind of magic.

Discarded laughing gas canisters and balloons. Photograph: Corinne Poleij/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The nitrous oxide used in modern hospitals is stored in cylindrical steel bottles. It was one of those that was used by my doctor on the day I dislocated my finger. I breathed in the gas using a respirator mask, like those pioneered by George Poe. These days it is delivered as a mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide called “gas and air”. If you give birth in hospital, you are very likely to be offered this mixture to relieve the pain. It is a simple and easy to use system, and a much milder painkiller than the epidurals that are the alternative when someone in labour is in extreme agony. This gas really is part of the life support system of modern hospitals.

Young people, in their endless quest for different ways to inhabit their own minds, have rediscovered laughing gas. They buy boxes of whippets online and use them to blow up balloons of nitrous oxide. They then inhale the gas through the necks of the balloons as a recreational drug. I sometimes find tangible evidence of their hilarious, mad, dangerous (illegal in the UK) and life-changing trips. These are clusters of bright silver whippets that shine in the green grass of our local park.

My own nitrous oxide trip occurred that day in hospital during my dislocated-finger episode. I floated completely out of my mind. Hearing a “clack” sound, I mistook it for the sound of a ball being hit, and became puzzled as to why someone was playing golf in the hospital. Returning to consciousness a few seconds (or minutes?) later, I saw the doctor standing in front of me, but there was no sign of his golf clubs. Instead, my finger was back where it should be. I had felt no pain this time. The doctor looked pleased.

On the way home from hospital, and despite my injury, I felt elated. I was sitting on the top deck of a bus. It was a dark night and London’s grimy streets raced by in the orange glow of the sodium street lamps. Every now and again the bus passed a room on the upper floor of a house in which the occupant had not closed their curtains. I saw snapshots of people in their rooms, some sitting in bed reading a book or working on a computer. Then I saw a woman staring out of her window and we locked stares for an instant. I felt as if I was inside her head, momentarily transported into her consciousness, looking out of her window and seeing a young man on the top deck of a doubledecker bus staring at me.

Later I rationally attributed this out-of-body experience to the residual effects of laughing gas inhalation. My subconscious mind hangs on to this memory, returning to it frequently, feeling its strangeness like a tongue exploring the hole left after dental extraction. Once you have experienced moments like this, and had the idea that you have accessed a different realm of consciousness, it is impossible to let go of them.

— This is an edited extract from It’s a Gas: The Magnificent and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World by Mark Miodownik, published by Viking and available at guardianbookshop.com

#The Long Read #Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas)#Hospitals #Health #Health & Well Being #Drugs (Society)#Drugs (Science)#Features #The Guardian USA 🇺🇸#The Revolution #Vaudeville Gimmick | Pioneering Anaesthetic | Modern Party Drug #18th Century Revolution #Chloroform or Ether

1 note · View note

i-create-chaos · 9 months ago

Note

ime there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort which could only be broken by love's first kiss. She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire-breathing dragon. Many brave knigts had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison, but non prevailed. She waited in the dragon's keep in the highest room of the tallest tower for her true love and true love's first kiss. {Laughing} Like that's ever gonna happen. {Paper Rusting, Toilet Flushes} What a load of - Somebody once told me th

How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I'm just doing what comes naturally How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I'm just following my destiny How ba-a

se been known to devastate ant colonies.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis and related species are known to engage in an active secondary metabolism for, among other reasons, the production of subst

I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city.

"Bella," my mom said to me — the last of a thousand times — before I got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."

My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still…

"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I'd been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.

-a-ad can I be? I'm just doing what comes naturally How ba-a-a-ad can I be? How bad can I possibly be?

Well there's a principle of nature (Principle of nature) That almost every creature knows Called survival of the fittest (Survival of the fittest) And check it this is how it goes The animal that eats gotta scratch And fight and claw and bite and punch And the animal that doesn't Well the animal that doesn't Winds up someone else's lu-lu-lu-lu-lunch (Munch, munch, munch, munch, munch) I'm just sayin'

How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I'm just doing what comes naturally How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I'm just following my destiny How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I'm just doing what comes naturally How ba-a-a-ad can I be? How bad

e been searching for a man All across Japan Just to find, to find my samurai Someone who is strong But still a little shy Yes I need, I need my samurai

Ay, ay, ay I'm your little butterfly Green, black and blue Make the colours in the sky Ay, ay, ay,

se been known to devastate ant colonies.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis and related species are known to engage in an active secondary metabolism for, among other reasons, the production of substances active as antibacterial agents that protect the fungus-host ecosystem against further pathogenesis during fungal reproduction. Because of this secondary metabolism, an interest in the species has been taken by natural products chemists, with corresponding discovery of small molecule agents (e.g. of the polyketide family) of potential interest for use as human immunomodulatory, anti-infective, and anticancer agents.

Systematics

I'm your little butterfly Green, black and blue Make the colours in the sky

can I possibly be?

There's a principle in business (Principle in business) That everybody knows is sound It says the people with the money (People with the money) Make this ever-loving world go 'round So I'm biggering my company I'm biggering my factory I'm biggering my corporate sign Everybody out there, take care of yours And me? I'll take care of Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine (Shake that bottom line)

Let me hear you say Smogulous smoke (Smogulous smoke) Schloppity schlop (Schloppity schlop) Complain all you want, it's never ever, ever, ever gonna stop Come on how bad can I possibly be?

How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I'm just building an economy How ba-a-a-ad can I be? Just look at me pettin' this puppy How ba-a-a-ad can I be? A portion of proceeds goes to charity How ba-a-a-ad can I be? How bad

寄り添ってただそばにいて時計の針が進んでゆく温かなその幸せをわたしの身体が受けつけない

あぁあぁ空の空の空に空いた穴のよう空の身体脆いはずの心は古傷だらけの歪な形

歪んでいるのです

can I possibly be? Let's see (How ba-a-a-ad can I be?) All the customers are buying (How ba-a-a-ad can I be?) And the money's multiplying (How ba-a-a-ad can I be?) And the PR people are lying (How ba-a-a-ad can I be?) And the lawyers are denying (How ba-a-a-ad can I be?) Who cares if a few trees are dying? (How ba-a-a-ad can I be?) This is all so gratifying How bad... How bad can this possibly be?

e world is gonna roll me I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed She was lookin' kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb In the shape of an "L" on her forehead The years start comin' and they don't stop comin' Fed to the rules and hit the ground runnin' Didn't make sense not to live for fun Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb So much to do so much to see So what's wrong with takin' the backstreets You'll never know if you don't go You'll never shine if you don't glow Hey, now You're an all-star Get your game on, go play Hey, now You're a rock star Get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shootin' stars break the mold It's a cool place and they say it gets colder You're bundled up now but wait till you get older But the m

いつまでも続いて欲しいささやかなこの幸せをわたしの心は受け容れない

ひねくれているのです仕方がないのです我慢して我慢

eteor men beg to differ Judging by the hole in the satellite picture The ice we skate is gettin' pretty thi

ei: I fear that I will disappear Shinji: I can disappear because I am unworthy of existing Rei: Why do you think so? Asuka: Because I am worthless Shinji: I am unwanted; a useless child! *to Misato* You don’t care about me, do you?! Misato: Using that as an excuse is no different than running away! What you truly fear is failure, isn’t it? You fear that you may be hated by others. You fear acknowledging that weakness, even to yourself Shinji:

We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I (do I) A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

We've known each other for so long Your heart's been aching, but you're too shy to say it (say it) Inside, we both know what's been going on (going on) We know the game and we're gonna play it

And if you ask me how I'm feeling Don't tell me you're too blind to see

Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

We've known each other for so long Your heart's been aching, but you're too shy to say it (to say it) Inside, we both know what's been going on (going on) We know the game and we're gonna play it

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

y can be painful Rei: Even though you’re running from something more painful? Shinji: e pain Asuka: That’s because running away can be far worse Rei: That is why you do not wish to run away Shinji: Becauseing hurt. You try to make yourself believe that you are hated, don’t you? Kensuke: You’re n

Prayer of invocation to the Holy Spirit for an ecclesial assembly of governance or discernment (thus synodal)Every session of the Second Vatican Council began with the prayer Adsumus Sancte Spiritus, the first word of the Latin original meaning, “We stand before You, Holy Spirit,” which has been historically used at Councils, Synods and other Church gatherings for hundreds of years, being attributed to Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560 - 4 April 636). As we are called to embrace this synodal path of the Synod 2021-2023, this prayer invites the Holy Spirit to operate within us so that we may be a community and a people of grace. For the Synod 2021-2023, we propose to use this simplified version, so that any group or liturgical assembly can pray more easily.

We stand before You, Holy Spirit,

as we gather together in Your name.

With You alone to guide us,

make Yourself at home in our hearts;

Teach us the way we must go

and how we are to pursue it.

We are weak and sinful;

do not let us promote disorder.

Do not let ignorance lead us down the wrong path

nor partiality influence our actions.

Let us find in You our unity

so that we may journey together to eternal life

and not stray from the way of truth

and what is right.

All this we ask of You,

who are at work in every place and time,

in the communion of the Father and the Son,

forever and ever.

The Holy Rosary

Start by making the sign of the Cross: In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Then recite the Creed: I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

Then say 1 "Our Father", 3 "Hail Mary's" for the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity; and then 1 "Glory Be": Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.

Glory Be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

The Rosary is divided into three parts, each having five mysteries. While meditating on the Mysteries, recite for each Mystery: 1 "Our Father" 10 "Hail Mary's" and 1 "Glory Be"

After each Mystery the "Fatima Prayer" is said. O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy.

All together this makes up one decade.

After the completion of the five mysteries (five decades), the "Hail Holy Queen" is said: Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Magnificat

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.

The Angelus

The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary: And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Behold the handmaid of the L

ot the only one who gets hurt, Shinji Toji: Everybody feels pain. You aren’t the only one Hikari: It’s just easier to think that it’s true, isn’t it? Shinji: Shut up! I don’t care! Why should I? Nobody cares about me! Misato: Once again you’ve abandoned all sense of self-value Rei: I have nothing Asuka: There you go again, saying that you have no worth at all Ritsuko: Do you think that by not expecting anything you won’t get hurt either? Asuka: Is that how you sustain your pathetic ego? by asking others to praise you? Shinji: NoboYou don't need a fursona or fursuit to be a furry. Anyone can be a furry as long as they like anthropomorphic animals! The furry community is generally very accepting and diverse, and there is a large population of LGBTQ+ individuals within the fandom.dy accepts me Misato: That’s not true. You just believe it. You were trying to convince yourself that you’re worthless from the beginning Shinji: But I have to! I’ve got to do it! Kensuke: No, that’s not true. You don’t have to Kaji: No, you just think you do Shinji: No, you’re wrong. My life is pointless otherwise Asuka: I have no other value Rei: I have no other value Shinji: I have no other value. No other value at all Value? Shinji: I perceive no value in myself Thus… Shinji: I hate myself! Random People: I hate you! I hate you! I hate you, Shinji! You coward! I hate you! I HATE YOU!!! Shinji: See? Everyone hates me. Everyone person in existence must hate me Rei: No, that’s just what you imagine Shinji: Yes, then that must be –that’s gotta be it. It’s because I hate myself Rei: Because you hate yourself, no one respects you I HATE YOU! Asuka: I hate you! I hate everything! Shinji: But they praise me, they’re nice to me. So, were you happy? Shinji: Other people were being nice to me for the first time! But were you happy? Rei: What are your true feelings? Shinji: I don’t know…or is it perhaps that both are my true feelings?

n The water's getting warm so you might as well swim My world's on fire How 'bout yours That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored Hey, now, you're an all-star {Shouting} Get your game on, go play Hey, now You're a rock star Get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shootin' stars break the mold {Belches} Go! Go! {Record Scratching} Go. Go.Go. Hey, now, you're an all-star Get your game on, go play Hey, now You're a rock star Get the show on, get paid

I learned alot more about Catholicism so thank you?

#i indeed create obvious chaos.#Reina Rules

0 notes