#lung cells

[archiepelago]

bro got blessed by peto’s paradox

[st4rrmii]

Would y'all boo me or agree if I said this is almost what I hc Ben to be built like under his 500lbs of baggy clothes

Not quite as built but like- soft muscle, healthy muscle, beautiful boy

[gardening--tools]

You know what tickles me pink about the Disciples in Nuka World?

Decomposing bodies release toxic gas. They're just sitting in that mountain, breathing in so much hydrogen sulfide.

I'm too lazy to write an essay. What I'm trying to say is all Disciples are asthmatic.

[playingplayer2]

X/Twitter link

[radioactivepeasant]

Free Day Thursday, Part Two

<Prev Next>

(TW for Jak having to get medical treatment. He's unconscious for this, but it's not fun for any of the adults treating him)

This was going to be a 2 parter but I forgot that this segment in my doc is spread across two chapters lol so 3 parter it is.

"Sire, you need to come to Ward 2."

Damas grunted, but continued observing two recruits sparring in the Arena. One was a Marauder. Had been a Marauder. He'd shot his commander in defense of a prisoner, and that made him a marked man. That the older raider had been his father only made the price on his head higher. And the weight on his shoulder heavier.

It wasn't out of pity that Damas was allowing the young man to earn a place in Spargus. Nostalgia, maybe, but not pity. When he looked at this young Marauder, this Moln, he saw echoes of Jak. The Jak from the Other Future.

Older, perhaps, than Jak had been when he'd first found him. Moln was probably just past twenty. But he had that same wounded anger at the world. That same need to prove himself.

Unfortunately, Kleiver had taken a liking to the kid. Which meant Moln was probably going to go from sullen and silent to swearing like a sailor in a very short period of time. But honestly, Kleiver needed young blood around to keep him on his toes. And a reckless kid to stress him out.

Alright, that was mean. Damas knew he shouldn't be punishing the man for a future that didn't exist anymore. Call it preemptive distraction so he wouldn't try to eat Daxter when they did find him.

"Sire!" The doctor repeated urgently.

Damas turned, brows raised. "What's happening in the children's ward?" he asked.

The doctor, a thin, nervous man under Petros's employ, wrung his hands.

"It- it's- there's been an accident. Jak-"

That was all he got out. Immediately, Damas was moving.

"What happened? Who's injured?"

Rezzik gulped and hurried after him.

"We- we don't know, we're still running tests-"

"Tests?!"

Damas forced himself to breathe.

He never went to the Chair. You saved him. You saved him. He doesn't know to fear the needle yet.

"The other kid involved said something about two ecos mixing, or, or contaminating- it's-"

"Dark eco." Damas felt his heart skip a beat.

"Oh gods."

No-! He's not ready for this!

________________________________

The hospital bed dwarfed Jak. He looked so small against the white sheets. Damas pushed past the nurse and two monks.

They'd called monks.

This was bad.

"Sire-"

"Let me see him."

Damas didn't wait for a reply. He touched two fingers to Jak’s throat. The skin was cold, too cold, but his pulse was easy to find.

"Thank the Precursors," he whispered.

"He's breathing on his own," one of the monks cautioned, "but we do not know if he will awaken, my lord. He has been poisoned severely. Preliminary scans are showing a level of dark eco consistent with the payload of a peacemaker."

"Rezzik mentioned another child. Who else was involved?" Damas demanded.

"It-" the monk looked uncomfortable. She cleared her throat. "It was the mason's daughter. He's here with her, if you need to question her."

Flick.

Of course it was Flick.

The part of Damas still able to think rationally wondered whether this had been her idea, or Jak’s. They were alike enough to be a force of chaos when together.

"Send her in."

The nurse cleared his throat. "Er, my lord, wouldn't it be better to-"

Damas met his eyes with a look that left the nurse sweating.

"You suggest that I leave him?"

He nodded towards the boy -- too pale. Black veins standing out against his temples-- and scowled.

"I am perfectly capable of asking questions from right here."

Flick was leaning on her father for support when she came in. It was obvious that the girl had been crying. The second she saw Damas, she burst into tears again.

"I'm sorry! I'm so- it- it- it's all my fault!" Flick sobbed.

"Tell me what happened."

Damas couldn't bring himself to soften his voice, as he might've any other time. Not when it was his child fighting for his life.

Stammered and halting between sobs, Flick tried to explain.

"We- we were playing with eco. On the beach. Ja- Jak said once he channeled f- four ecos at once-!"

"Boasting, child," the other monk said sadly.

"Not boasting," Damas corrected flatly. "Continue.”

Flick flinched.

"We, we wanted to know if it had, had, had to be all four ecos, or if t- two would make something new, too."

It does. Raw dark eco.

Damas refrained from voicing the thought. Obviously the girl knew that now.

"What colors?"

"It was blue, sire," Flick whispered miserably, "And yellow."

"And where did you both get that eco?"

Flick hung her head.

"...stole it from my mother's ammo pouch."

She's just a child. She's just a child, like Jak.

Damas closed his eyes and willed himself to breathe slowly.

Jak did no better when he got Daxter transformed- gods, if I'd known him then I'd have been furious with him- they're just children. Only children.

"What you did," Damas said with deliberate slowness, "Was wrong."

Eli tightened his arm around his daughter's shoulders.

"Please, forgive her. She didn't know-"

"I know." Damas opened his eyes to meet Eli's gaze. "I speak of the theft. What has happened to- to my son was an accident. An accident caused by someone's wrongdoing, but still an accident."

Merely pronouncing the words "my son" seemed to take all the oxygen from the room. There were rumors all over the tower, but outside, no one had really given it much thought. Kids played in the tower all the time, why would they assume Jak lived there?

"She will be punished for the theft," Eli said heavily.

He seemed to understand the gravity of the situation even more than the doctors.

Of course he did: he was a father.

Damas shook his head. "There is no need. Whatever happens to Jak-" he swallowed down worry and whispers of a broken future- "That will live with them both for the rest of their lives. Your daughter can't erase that knowledge from her mind, Eli. You could not devise a punishment more severe than what she is already inflicting on herself."

Flick covered her face with her hands.

"I'm so sorry-!"

"Go home, child," Damas said. A bone-deep weariness was already setting in. "You can do nothing for Jak right now.”

Eli apologized on his daughter's behalf one more time before hurrying Flick out of Ward 2. The silence that followed was oppressive. Damas was deep in thought, frantically trying to account for every possible turn this event might take. Kana and Yan, the monks, were signing just as frantically together about the viability of light eco as an antidote. And Rezzik and the nurse looked like they'd just had a blade held to their throats with the realization that their patient wasn't just a ward somewhere in Damas’s household. They were treating one of Damas’s sons.

Nurse Brooks regained his composure first. He took a deep breath, then squared his shoulders.

"Lord Damas," he said firmly, startling everyone out of their thoughts, "We need to know for the purposes of treating him: is it true that Jak is able to channel more than one kind of eco?"

When the king looked up, his eyes were lifeless. Resigned.

"It is," he confirmed, "And it is the only reason I know he's going to survive."

"Then will adding green eco have any adverse effects?" the nurse pressed.

Damas paused.

Jak had two ecos. Daxter said something once about the Baron trying to combine speed and strength. Green eco was only given if subjects passed agility tests to the KG's satisfaction, or if the subject started coding in the Chair. All it did was more evenly distribute the unbalanced eco out of the heart and into the limbs.

"Give-"

Oh gods. Forgive me, Jak, forgive me!

"Give him controlled doses. Combined- combined with red."

Rezzik gasped. "But that will also form contamination!"

Damas laid his hand over Jak's chest, feeling it rise and fall. Unlike the rest of his body, the skin there burned as if with fever. If he left it unchecked-!

"It must be balanced." He ignored the cracks in his voice. Let them hear his pain. Let them understand that he didn't want this, either.

"It will hurt him. But if it means that he lives-!"

It was a long shot. A desperate bid to add the other two ecos in the same concentration as the initial imbalance. Damas felt like a monster.

Before they'd even begun, they had to turn Jak to his side so the child didn't choke on his own vomit. The black veins faded and stood out again in turns as his skin heated and cooled. His body was fighting for its life against something it couldn't quite grasp.

Damas couldn't bring himself to watch the first needle enter Jak's chest, just over his eco core. He cursed himself for a coward and squeezed the boy's hand tightly.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Jak," he whispered.

The addition of the red had an immediate reaction. Brooks had to hold down Jak's right arm and shoulder, while Damas held his left. The boy's back arched, lifting him almost completely off the cot with a grating cry. He wasn't even conscious, yet he was still processing the pain.

He was pale. Too pale, breathing too rapidly. His gums were the same- no anemia. Too pale.

Rezzik barely waited for them to wrestle the child back onto the cot before administering the green eco.

Jak went limp.

His pulse hammered rapidly, but he was almost completely unresponsive. The dark veins snaked down, fading from his temples to his jaw. Then from his jaw to his throat. Then to his chest.

"We'll have to monitor him closely," Rezzik said grimly. "If we messed up the concentration at all, we'll have to keep compensating, and the dark eco will keep building in his system."

"No." Damas shook his head and looked to the monks.

"Brother Kana. Sister Yan. How quickly can you bring a flask of light eco from the temple?"

The monks didn't look like they found the answer any more favorable than he did.

"A day, sire. Provided no Marauders stop us."

"Go." Damas waved them away. "Take any warriors you wish as escorts. Just get me that light eco."

If this didn't work, it was his only hope for keeping this misadventure from permanently damaging his son's nervous system.

<Prev Next>

[riverkingmarley]

People who haven’t read worm have no idea what they are missing out on. They think they get it because they read up to leviathan and know the broad strokes. Fools!

Things I didn’t know/ didn’t understand the gravity of despite being far more spoiled than the average worm fanfic reader:

Rachel’s interlude (I can tell who got this far in the book based on how Rachel is written in fanfic. If you aren’t obsessed with Rachel you simply didn’t read it).

Mannequin and crawlers statues

Bonesaw swearing in blastos interlude.

Arc 16 from the moment taylor gets teleported onward. (I almost got in trouble at work because I couldn’t put it down).

Arc 17

Trickster betraying everyone for Noelle.

The triumvirate clones

Noelles death

Cody in the behmoth fight.

Taylor’s attack on bohemoth.

Alec’s statue

“My life, always in the hands of greater powers.”

All the great Sophia stuff post s9000

Brian, the character (dlc only) :(

Alec, the character (seriously there is so much great Alec stuff even after behemoth. I’ve never seen it brought up outside the premier Alec enjoyer of wormblr)

Aisha, the character

When lab rat calls taylor an angel

Scion getting more violent

The simurgh stuff

The Las Vegas group

Lung being funny

The very sudden khepri decision

Contessa vs eden

Marquis vs Taylor

Taylor vs dragon (this part went crazy)

Taylor vs everyone post scion’s death

A thousand more, I read some of these parts over 6 months ago and they are unforgettable. How are you not reading worm right now.

[gay-jesus-probably]

it's fun when a hell plague is going around your household and you happen to be the final victim, cause like. You don't have to worry about infecting anyone else, everyone understands exactly how miserable you feel and can sympathize, and on top of that if you were taking care of them while you were still healthy, now you get that paid back in interest, because they're grateful for the care you gave and feel bad about infecting you.

The only downside is you're the last one to get sick, so you get to watch those motherfuckers recovering while you're still in the downwards spiral, they've already had all the soup in the house, and you're probably almost out of kleenex. So that's a real downside.

Anyways, I'm dying, so that's fun.

[bananaede]

I'm sick of complexity lemme go back to being a single cell organism goddammit>:(

[astrum-aetherium]

I have a huge lipstick obsession, so naturally your post about leaving lipstick on henry in more way than one 😝 slaughtered me!!! I’m specifically in love with Charlotte Tilbury lip products because they’re so beautiful, elegant, and luxurious, and I definitely could see Henry buying her lipsticks for his beloved 🤤

Her classic packaging is amazing, but there’s something extra special about her collectible cases that can be refilled with any color, and I think Henry would go for those more 😩

Dear Henry, buy me lipstick and tell me I’m pretty in Latin !

GAHHH!!! thank you so, so much for this submission!!! i, too, cannot get enough of lipstick. i wear it religiously, feel naked without it — in fact, one of my friends made a comment that i wear lipstick like a statement. i have never forgotten that.

anyhow!

i want everyone to look at these marvelous, lustrous, gorgeous lipsticks righttttt now. admittedly, i love everything silver and gold, which is why this is simply a dream to me. plus, the thought of henry gifting you something like that... packaged all luxuriously, bound in a sheer maroon ribbon, presented to you in a neat, little gift bag... god. god!

oh, and as for henry calling you pretty in latin, i can offer a small taste of that: "pulcherrima es."

[chicago-geniza]

>hung out with cousin

>cousin had cold

>caught cold

>now developing bronchitis + asthma is acting up

>probably going on prednisone again next week lmfao

[bbcphile]

Thanks, immune system, but I really didn't need the reminder of how much I dislike anaphylaxis.

Can I stop being allergic to my narcolepsy meds now?

Brought to you by MCAS, the bane of my existence

[bpod-bpod]

Targeting Zombie Cells

Senescent cells are those that have stopped multiplying but not yet died. Sometimes referred to as ‘zombie cells’, they accumulate with age and can release chemicals that can cause cancer. To better understand how senescent cells might be involved in the initiation and development of lung tumours, researchers have a developed a mouse model allowing examination of senescent cells within the tumour microenvironment. The team discovered that senescent macrophages – a type of white blood cell of the immune system – release pro-tumour factors creating an environment that fosters lung tumour growth. However, when the researchers treated mice with lung tumours with a drug that specifically destroys these ‘zombie’ macrophages, the size of the tumours (highlighted in green in these lung sections) reduced dramatically (right) compared to those without treatment (left). Excitingly, this shows that targeting senescent macrophages could be an effective new way to treat or even prevent these tumours.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image from work by Scott Haston and colleagues

Developmental Biology and Cancer Programme, Birth Defects Research Centre, UCL Institute of Child Health, London & Early Cancer Institute, Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Cancer Cell, June 2023

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

doctors are like “look out for symptoms” and im like “but which ones and how do i know they’re not caused by one of my other issues” and there’s no answer

[helenapsent]

Frederick reeks very wildly of gemini vibes I checked it out a little later (and had some help from a friend), so yes, my assumption was confirmed, Frederick is a Gemini in the zodiac sign

[dreamertrilogys]

we’re doing internal systems in bio rn & i honestly think this might be my fav unit yet. every single day i’m filled w/ more and more appreciation for my wonderful beautiful body that loves keeping me alive