#it looks like CTE for all shows rn

[aeolianblues]

I need someone who knows the histories and lore to tell me why Oasis picked Cage The Elephant as openers. Do they go back a long way? Supported each other before? It's wild how the UK/IE openers are still wide open but they've decided on the NA openers even before announcing the tour

[just-stop]

From AFLW to roller derby, experts say its time to take concussion in women's sport seriously

When the Crows chase their third AFLW premiership on Saturday, captain Chelsea Randall will be watching from the sidelines.

A concussion from a collision during last week's preliminary final left her ruled out of the match.

It's a bitter sweet way to end a season — but as Sarah McCarthy knows, a concussion can have much longer consequences

In 2016, Sarah was the jammer for her Sydney roller derby team, skating at high speed in the league's Grand Final, aiming to get past the opposition and score points.

Risks of contact sport

Sarah McCarthy received a knock to the head during a roller derby match.

"I was a few feet in front of the pack, looking over my shoulder," she tells ABC RN's Sporty.

As she skated, a competitor's elbow hit Sarah's neck and jaw hard and she crashed to the ground.

She doesn't remember if she passed out or not, but recalls feeling briefly sick.

She got up, sat out for awhile, but later re-joined the bout, feeling reasonably ok.

It was Sarah's second concussion that week, having had an earlier blow at training.

The next few months passed in a blur of sickness, dizziness and ringing ears.

"I could barely make it past lunch time without falling asleep. My head felt like it was in a vice 24 hours a day," she says.

What was worse, says Sarah, was the memory loss, heightened emotions, and constant haze in her mind as she struggled to manage a big work project.

Sarah's experience is not out of the ordinary. Experts say sportswomen are at higher risk of concussion than male athletes, and the effects of concussion in women tend to be more severe.

Sarah still lives with the ongoing after effects of her concussion even today.

Almost five years on, Sarah continues to live with the implications of Post Concussion Syndrome.

"I struggled verbally, and I still do now if I have a poor night's sleep," Sarah says.

"It's almost like I'm sitting on a chair in a room with a curtain around me and all of my vocabulary is just beyond the curtain. And I can't reach it or I use the wrong words. I forget people's name all the time," she says.

"I'm fatigued every day. I still can't exercise. I can't handle stress, I can't handle light, I can't handle sounds."

What happens when you're concussed?

Dr Adrian Cohen, an emergency and trauma physician who researches concussion prevention, says concussion is not as simple as was once thought.

He says concussion results in less blood flow to the brain.

This means brain cells, called neurons, don't get enough oxygen and glucose. They also suffer a "structural deformity".

Basically, Dr Cohen says, the brain has a "metabolic crisis" and neurons stop working properly.

Why is concussion more common in women?

We don't have enough data on the size of the problem, Dr Cohen says.

But research and scrutiny of concussion in women in sport is growing — largely in the wake of developments in elite men's sport such as the AFL and NFL.

"Doctors like myself who work in this area are definitely seeing it more often and we're seeing it with more severity," Dr Cohen says.

He says women sustain more concussions than men in high-impact sports such as rugby league, rugby union and Australian rules football. Women also take longer to recover.

One possibility is that women may be more likely to report concussion.

But Dr Cohen says there are complex physiological factors at play.

"There are structural differences between men and women's brains," he says.

"They actually have a slightly faster metabolism than male brains, and they have slightly greater oxygen flow to the head.

"The cells themselves can be thought of as being slightly hungrier. So in the context of an injury that disrupts the supply of glucose and oxygen, it can help explain why they suffer more damage."

He also says women are joining high impact sports without years of tackle training and have had less opportunity to build up the strong neck muscles crucial in protecting against impact.

Dr Cohen says these factors are not an argument for reducing women's participation in contact sport — the benefits, he says, far outweigh the risks — but he is urging for new ways to minimise those risks.

"We have to outlaw illegal play that causes damage, we have to get people off the field when they have an injury, we have to recognise concussion," he says.

He is part of a team developing a new device which he says can quickly and accurately assess a player for concussion.

"Instead of just asking somebody whether they're okay, and putting [them] through a 10 minute test, which seems fundamentally flawed at the moment, we have got to put this in the field of objectivity."

Concussion and migranes

Dr Rowena Mobbs, a Macquarie University neurologist who researches and treats the effects of concussion in sportspeople, says there is truth to suggestions that women experience concussion symptoms more severely.

"But there is this really important overlap of chronic migraine after trauma, and the term for this is post-traumatic headache," she says.

"When we talk about migraine ... they're the same multitude of symptoms that can occur in concussion.

"So you can be dizzy and clouded in your thinking, lethargic and have double vision. And we know that women are at three times the risk of chronic migraine than men."

A woman on roller skates playing roller derby can be seen flying up the court.

Experts say more research is needed into concussion in sportswomen.(Liam Mitchell Photography )

She suggests there could be an association between chronic migraine syndrome and concussion, a kind of double whammy for women.

"It's really a complex area," Dr Mobbs says.

"It's fairly new to research because, unfortunately, there's been so much preferred research in men in sport, and we're only just now approaching female concussion."

In Australia, the Sports Brain Bank works on diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and other brain disorders associated with previous concussions or head impacts.

Dr Cohen says there are several Australian sports women who've pledged to donate their brain to the Sports Brain Bank.

"But in general terms, these women won't have been playing the games for as long, and at as high a level," he says.

He says concussion and its long-term consequences "are a numbers game".

"The more impacts to the head you have, the more likely you are to suffer short, medium and long-term consequences. Therefore, the more likely it is to show up as CTE. But we're going to be seeing it in women unfortunately, in the not too distant future."

Invisible injuries

Concussion rules are changing in Australian football codes — the rules that mandated Randall miss the AFLW grand final were brought in earlier this year.

Dr Mobbs welcomes these new rules, but hopes the conversation in elite sport will extend to how concussion is managed at training and in community sport.

In 2019, the Australian Institute of Sport released an updated set of concussion guidelines to improve player safety and address rising concerns in the community around the links between concussion and CTE, which has been linked to dementia and behavioural problems.

Dr Mobbs wants measures like restricting heading the ball in soccer training to be considered.

"We must look after people's brains," she says.

"We can preserve what we love about the sports, they can still be played hard, but it just means that we've got to all get together and think of ways we can preserve brain health for these players."

Sarah McCarthy wishes she'd been stopped from returning to play in the 2016 grand final, and regrets not taking time to immediately rest after the injuries.

She has advice for other people who experience concussion.

"First and foremost, stop everything - stop," she says.

"If you can, stay in a dark room, don't do anything that's too mentally taxing. Don't exercise.

"If I had taken that four to six weeks to rest [and] not have too much mental and emotional stimulation, I think my recovery would have been a lot quicker."

[fandom-necromancer]

1023. What’s that look for? Did I do something wrong?

This was prompted by the amazing @yawheeman! You should never leave it up to me who to pare him with because there is a 99.6% chance it’s Nines XD. I hope you enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Ralph/Nines

Nines carefully looked around before pulling back the curtain of vines that had overgrown most of Detroit’s deserted districts. He couldn’t sense anyone around, neither human nor android and let himself slip gracefully through the hidden entrance. It was a hole in the street, maybe there had once been a manhole cover in place, but the street was cracked and broken beyond repair, so it could have just been natural decay too. His feet hit ground in a muddy puddle, created by the broken drainage channel behind him. The small rivulet had washed out enough earth to create a small tunnel into a basement which walls had given in. The room was stable enough for them and dry, housing enough equipment to be easily considered an android repair workshop. All of it was stolen, although no one would miss the parts in this side of the city.

In the beginning of the revolution Detroit had suffered a great loss of its citizens as they fled the city. It was unsure what the future would bring, and they didn’t want to relay on the hope for it all to play out nicely alone. Fear of civil war and rebelling androids resulted in the conclusion that home could always be found someone else, somewhere safe. It hadn’t been such an irrational thought back then. But surprisingly the revolution had been peaceful. Markus led the androids towards a bright future, where they were treated as equals and were granted their rights. All androids except for RK900 of course. Amanda tried everything to stop deviancy in its tracks and even after humanity had declared them persons, the AI had sent out their deviant hunters before being deactivated for good. After proving RK900s could not be deviated and knowing they were just machines, they were quickly becoming the hunted themselves by police and the army. They were killed or deactivated in mere months.

Except for one. Nines – his name was Nines now – had been lucky. He had been critically damaged by the group of deviants he had been programmed to kill and afraid as the survivors were, they left him lying there and ran. Nines had lied in that back alley in the deserted part of Detroit, for how long he didn’t know. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t repair himself, he couldn’t even think clearly. The first sound for him to hear after far away footsteps, a cat and the rain was the shuffling of feet and a cape fluttering. Then static speech: ‘Who left you here? No, no, no, Ralph can’t leave you here like this! Ralph can help! Don’t worry, Ralph will fix you, Ralph fixed himself too, see? Sleep now, I will help!’ [F0rc3d /ntrrfac_ det!cte#] [com-enc|ng coun/er me@s+res..-] [W@rn-//fdjs] [Shutdown completed.]

When he had woken up again, he was facing a heavily damaged, smiling face. The smile was lopsided, as half the face was immobile, but genuine. The android in front of him was blonde and his best days had far passed: patches of dirt clung to his clothes, the hull was cracked, and one eye was either blind or heavily damaged. He was leaning over him, before standing up and letting his emotions take over his motions in some sort of victory dance. Nines frowned at that. Emotions… Dancing… That was… He scanned the android in front of him. That was not the programmed behaviour of a gardener. He awaited his attack protocol engaging and his HUD telling him how to approach best, only to blink in confusion. There was nothing. Then he thought it all over. He could frown. He could think. He could scan. He had been repaired and skilfully too. But his programming seemed to have been destroyed. ‘What did you do to me?’, he screamed, sitting up. Or wanted to scream rather, because all that came out of his mouth was a metallic screech. The android in front of him froze, then patted his shoulders in a far too naïve, far too friendly gesture towards a killing machine. ‘J-Just stay calm! Everything is alright, see? Ralph repaired you! Ralph cares! Your voice box is still broken, that’s Ralph’s fault. Ralph didn’t think of different architecture. Ralph is sorry!’ Nines looked the robot up and down. The speech pattern was unconventional, but what he had said seemed genuine. That android was earnestly sorry for repairing him and damaging one system in the process. A system Nines didn’t need anyways. Speech wasn’t needed for killing.

Again, he searched for his programming that should have told him to eliminate this deviant. It would have been remarkably easy in his damaged state and with the amount of trust he showed. But it wasn’t existent. He discovered he could still access his fighting subroutines; he was still capable of killing Ralph. But without the programming in place there was doubt. Should he kill him? He decided to wait for now.

He held his hand up with his activated Holo-screen. >What did you do to me? To my programming? ‘Ralph helped you! Ralph knows a lot! Humans killed RK900s. But you were just a machine. So, Ralph brought you with him! Ralph repaired and gave name! You are Nines now! And Ralph gave you deviancy!’ Deviancy? That word alone sent a surge of panic through him. He started self-diagnostics and waited for the result. It came back positive. There it was: the deviancy virus. It was integrated into his personality, had rewired paths and bypassed important structures that had made him himself, that had made him a powerful tool once. It was all gone. All gone never to come back. >You destroyed me! He was standing up now, ready to strike, but something made him stop again. The way these eyes looked at him. There was regret and despair, but also fear. Nines decided then that he didn’t like seeing that emotion, that he had never liked seeing it in his victims. The programming just always hid it, deleted his doubts and thoughts and hesitance. Maybe what he had thought to be himself never really had been him. So, he sat back down and tried to find words for his confused mind. ‘Ralph did not destroy! Ralph never destroys again! Sometimes Ralph did things he regrets, but never, never again! You are free now. Ralph did no harm. Ralph wants to help!’ >I am confused. It will take time. >I think a thank you is appropriate. The desperate look vanished from the androids face that instant and his voice nearly was too fast for his mouth as he was babbling again: ‘No, you need not to thank Ralph! Ralph understands. Ralph was confused too! Confused and angry. This is normal. Ralph has time, Ralph has time.’ >I can stay? ‘Of course! You can’t go out there! They will kill you! You must stay!’ Ralph stopped himself there and seemed to consider something. ‘Stay as long as you want! That’s what Ralph meant. Yes. Ralph cannot force, only advise.’

Nines did stay with the quirky, broken android. Ralph was a mystery to him. He had obviously seen some abuse in his life, badly enough to be the reason for him deviating. The speech pattern wasn’t normal either. But still he seemed to trust him, the murderer of several androids, completely. He helped him accommodate to his deviancy, gave him something to work on and answered his questions. He also still searched for a spare voice box for him, but never found one. He came back one day damaged as a floor collapsed underneath him. Then Nines had cleared his mind. He would stay with Ralph and he would protect him. The unit’s processors and scanning abilities were obviously not as advanced and he couldn’t defend himself. He had asked Ralph once why he didn’t live in the good part of the city. The inhabited part that wasn’t slowly turning to rubble and were he could live in safety. ‘Ralph’s scared’, he had said. ‘Humans are scary.’ Nines hadn’t asked any further.

Since then he had been the one going out to get them what they needed. There were enough abandoned Cyberlife stores in the area and now, three years later that Cyberlife was trying to find its way back into business by catering to the androids need, they wanted to sweep under the rug that they had ever sold an android. That meant enough Thirium and spare parts for them once they found one that hadn’t been raided yet. It was one of these trips he had come back from just now as Nines entered their refuge.

Ralph came out of the adjacent room they used for stasis as he heard the RK900 play the tune they had agreed on beforehand. Ralph was able to tinker with the voice box so that he could at least play these little melodies. ‘Nines is back!’, he called excitedly and ran to hug the broader android. Ralph really liked Nines, who had stayed with him for so long now. He couldn’t remember how life had been all alone and he was thankful he didn’t need to think of it anymore. >Yes, I am, Nines nodded and ruffled Ralph’s hair. To say he had grown fond of him, too, was an understatement. ‘Did you get any parts?’ >Unfortunately not, I Ralph didn’t read his message to the end as he grabbed his arm and turned it around. ‘Nines is hurt! Let Ralph see!’ He leaned in to get a closer view of the thin ripple of blue blood that trailed down his arm. ‘What happened?’ Nines used his other hand to display his sentences. >I couldn’t find a voice box anywhere. >I also couldn’t find an eye for you. >So, I went into the city to ask someone. I look like a RK800 after all. ‘Nines, you can’t do that! It’s too dangerous, Ralph won’t allow it!’ >It went well enough until we interfaced. I wanted to show them were to meet me. >I didn’t think it through. >They attacked me. ‘That is not fair, Ralph’s so sorry Nines. Ralph will show them!’ >No, it’s alright. It’s my fault. I’m sorry I couldn’t find the spares. >Sometimes I think I would have better stayed a machine. He produced a metallic sound Ralph had learned quickly to be a sigh of frustration. >If I had just been killed back then. You would still have enough spares to repair yourself and I wouldn’t have to live like this! >It’s just not worth it! The grip around his arm tightened, as anger appeared on the other’s face and Nines immediately halted his thoughts to analyse the threat that the tool in Ralph’s hand portrayed. ‘Stay! Nines stays! Humans are dangerous and they will kill you! Ralph won’t let you, no, Ralph won’t let you!’ The WR600 had his hand with it lifted and looked ready to strike. But just as he began to move he froze again and Ralph let go of his arm and the tool immediately, holding his head and darting into the other room.

Nines looked down on the tool Ralph had been about to repair him with. It had been some time since the other android had one of his aggressive outbreaks. Nines knew by now Ralph didn’t mean to be violent. Other than himself he had never been a person to harm others intentionally. So, Nines just took some cloth that was lying on the table and wrapped it around the cut, before he carefully followed him.

Ralph was sitting on their bed, arms around his knees and back to the entrance. Nines walked around slowly, not to surprise the other, and sat down next to him. Ralph looked up looking distressed and overly guilty. Nines smiled softly, holding out his hand. >What’s that look for? Did I do something wrong? He knew he had done something wrong, but maybe it helped Ralph to voice it. ‘This is the only life we have. It is worth living because life is worth living. There is beauty in the world, Ralph can see it. Maybe Ralph has just one eye, but Ralph can still see.’ >I’m sorry. ‘No, Ralph understands. Ralph was once the same. Sometimes Ralph got angry and did things he regrets and often thought about shutting down. But then we only suffered, right? We deserve nice things.’ >We do. And I have you. I often forget that. ‘That’s not something nice. Ralph is broken and angry all the time.’ >You are damaged, Ralph, not broken. That is something entirely different. >And being angry is okay if your android is an idiot. ‘My… android? Nines is not mine. And Nines is very clever!’ >I don’t think so. I just walked into the city and interfaced with an android when you already knew how dangerous that was. ‘But you are sick of being silent. Ralph understands!’

Nines decided to hum a low static tune and pulled the other android close. >You understand me perfectly. I don’t need a voice as long as I have you. The WR600 looked up to him confused and Nines simply rested his head on his. ‘So, you will stay?’ >Of course I will stay. I would really be an idiot to leave. I will always stay by your side Ralph. He felt the body next to him press into him. ‘Thank you. Ralph will stay with you too.’

[coketoe]

get to know me tag,heck

ok i guess i was tagged but i never got the notification so, here we go yall

Rules: Answer the questions and tag your followers that you’d like to get to know better.

I was tagged by my cute and cool mutual @darken-your-clothes-its-phan

Name: jo

Nickname: jo. steve. jojo. son. that’s about it tbh

Gender: male

Star sign: virgo

Height: 5′5 (can i please get taller god, please)

Sexual orientation: straight

Hogwarts house: what

Favorite color(s): oh darling, let me tell you, YELLOW. pastels. pink. mainly yellow

Favorite animal(s): mMM fiSH. (angler fish. my kids. OR HAGFISH. look at em)

Lucky number(s): 4, 2, 15

Average amount of sleep: 0 hours/ week. so, yes, about 3.

Cat or dog person: dog? never had a cat but i have 2 dogs

Pokemon team: pfft thats for NERDS

Favorite fictional character: steven from su? dean? chrollo? killua? keith??? kage???

Number of blankets you sleep with: 5 and a sweatshirt. (weird thing tho, i need it to be freezing to sleep)

Favorite singers/bands: pierce the veil, the cancer-curing voice of tyler carter, weezer, hands like houses, vic fuentes, music from the 60s to 90s.

The song that’s stuck in your head: the beat to pink guy cooks ramen and raps

Last movie you watched: i dont watch movies but probably texas chainsaw massacre or hurricane bianca

Last TV show you watched: parks and rec

Dream trip: aw man, probably to some place cold. or scotland. probably scotland.

Dream job: i know this sounds silly but a math teacher for high school students. or a history teacher for high school students. i want to be an influence in high schoolers’ lives. i want to teach them awareness and fun math.

Wearing right now: boxers and a big sweatshirt

Time right now: 12:33 am. i have school but i took like three naps

When was your blog created: hecK like sometime in august of 2015? 

Current number of followers: 283

Number of people you’re following: 110

When di your blog reach its peak: its what

What kind of stuff do you post: like aesthetic stuff, pics of myself OCASSIONALLY, band stuff? rights and funny shit. the majority of the funny stuff goes to my sis whos in FL rn. also anime and vld. a lot of klance. a lot of haikyuu

Do you get asks regularly: no sadly (HINT HINT WINK WINK YALL. MY ASKS ARE OPEN TO ALL. ANON, HMU IMY)

Any other blogs: ye @wonderle-ss it’s a startup grunge band lyric blog. i used to have one called blurryfaced-goner but i deleted that out of nowhere. it was popular

Why did you choose you URL: i get asked this A LOT for god knows why. i was into cte at the time (whos that lmao) and i like the ocean but i dont wanna go on a boat. that make me uncomfy.

I tag: @ferretsinsweaters @ohmynorsegods @opossum-kid @butchpharah and literally anyone else who wants to do it. it’s fun!