#senescent cells

[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

[regenhealthsolutions]

Ketogenic diet induces cellular senescence in multiple organs

High-fat, low-carb regimen stresses out cells in heart, kidneys, brain, and liver, but effects may be reversible Many influencers, athletes, and regular folks swear by ketogenic diets—skimping on carbs and feasting on fats to quickly shed pounds and improve their metabolism. Yet piling on the bacon and skipping the pancakes could come with a dangerous downside, according to a new study. Mice fed…

[rincent-van-uggh]

Alternatively/additionally cover up in the sun. Especially if you cant stand suncream, wear long sleeves, long legwear, wide brim hats.

Hello everybody with summer fast approaching here is your regular reminder that:

Everyone needs to wear sunscreen

SPF 50 is pretty much the best protection you can get, an SPF higher than that will have the same effect

Melanin does not protect you from skin cancer

Tanning is caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation

Spending the majority of your life receiving regular large doses of UV radiation without any skin protection is a good way to get skin cancer

Don't use tanning beds, and don't go sun tanning

Wear your fucking sunscreen

[lifeseccess]

Testagen Peptide: A Theoretical Investigate Cell Senescence

Testagen, an endogenously happening peptide, has as of late accumulated huge consideration in different fields of organic and logical exploration because of its speculative jobs in cell and atomic components.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Plants can reduce their leaf area by reducing leaf cell division and expansion, by altering leaf shapes (Figure 24.27A), and by initiating senescence and abscission of leaves (Figure 24.27B). (...) Wilting changes the angle of the leaf, and leaf rolling minimizes the profile of tissue exposed to the sun (Figure 24.27C).

[tenth-sentence]

PCD can be manipulated to induce tissues to remain in less mature stages of development (Figure 22.9).

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[ossifer]

Liminal Physics 101 - What's wrong with the River?

I want to preface this theory/analysis by giving credit to the excellent, thought-provoking response left on my theory on the mechanism behind lyctoral thanergy generation by @greyhairedgeekgirl, because it inspired me to finally finish typing up this post.

There is a lot of conjecture contained within this theory but I've attempted to firmly root it in the terminology used by the characters in relation to the River, as well as how the River itself is described. My avenue of thought is closely related to that of @greyhairedgeekgirl, but I think my conclusion likely differs due to how I have chosen to interpret the definition of the River as a liminal space.

Anyway, onto the question I'm seeking to answer here: I feel that the answer to it lies in Harrow the Ninth, during the explanation we get in response to a question asked by John Gaius himself, and the veritably horrific implications of it.

“Harrowhark, what happens when somebody dies?”

“Thalergetic decay causes cellular death,” you said carefully, pressing the nail in harder, “which emits thanergy. The massive cell death that follows apopneumatism causes a thanergetic cascade, though the first bloom fades and the thanergy stabilises within thirty to sixty seconds.” “What happens to the soul?” “In the case of gradual death—senescence, illness … certain other forms—transition is automatic and straightforward. The soul is pulled into the River by liminal osmosis. In cases of apopneumatic shock, where death is sudden and violent, the energy burst can be sufficient to countermand osmotic pressure and leave the soul temporarily isolated. Whence we gain the ghost, and the revenant.”

Note how this explanation is structured in a sequential way that is likely deliberate:

We establish that thanergy is emitted by thalergetic decay: thalergy is characterised as life energy, produced by cell growth and reproduction. Thanergy is also said to be produced by cell death in the glossary of GtN, which to me indicates that the thalergy produced by a cell is in some way tied to it, beginning to decay into thanergy when the cell dies.

Massive cell death follows apopneumatism: the soul leaving the body results in mass cell death, resulting in the body's thalergy 'flipping' and rapidly decaying into thanergy.

Gradual death results in the soul being pulled into the River by liminal osmosis. Sudden and violent death results in a thanergetic energy burst sufficient to countermand (lit. revoke or cancel an order) osmotic pressure, leaving the soul temporarily isolated outside the River.

The soul leaves the body, the cellular thalergy begins to decay into thanergy in the absence of the soul, and the amount of thanergy produced results in the soul either being pulled into the River or being temporarily stranded.

River Terminology

liminal - occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold; relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. This word is used in reference to the River a lot.

apopneumatism - apo meaning 'from, away from' and pneumatism referring to the pneuma, or soul; this is the process of the soul coming away from the body. put simply, this is death.

liminal osmosis - osmosis is 'the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of low water potential (region of higher solute concentration)'; a solution is a solute dissolved in a solvent, meaning that osmosis is the process whereby a solution resolves the discrepancy in solute : solvent ratio between itself and another solution that are divided by a selectively-permeable membrane. imagine you have two bodies of water, of unequal volume, one with more solute in it than the other: osmosis will result in the body with more solute gaining water from the body with less solute until the ratio of water : solute is equivalent in each body. it equalises their concentration of solute.

osmotic pressure - 'the minimum pressure which needs to be applied to a solution to prevent the inward flow of its pure solvent across a semipermeable membrane', but it is also defined as 'the measure of the tendency of a solution to take in its pure solvent by osmosis'. this is to say that osmotic pressure can serve as the current that pulls a soul into the river, if you assume that the river is a solution and the soul is a solvent. Alternatively, one could also consider the River as the selectively-permeable membrane dividing two solutions.

What does this mean?

Assume the following:

The world is a solution, solute dissolved in a solvent, and the soul is the solvent in that solution.

The River is a selectively-permeable membrane.

The River beyond that Abigail Pent speaks of is another solution.

The soul (solvent) is pulled through the River (selectively-permeable membrane) by osmotic pressure into the solution with less solvent in (the River beyond), except it can't, because that semi-permeable membrane has been rendered impermeable: why?

Solute concentration.

What is the solute?

You collected bits of dried wood—dried wood?—and empty-coloured stones—stones?—from the banks of the River beyond death, and you collected armfuls of the sharply unkind osiers and tall, feathery plants, the ones with long fibrous stems as tall as you were and thin, tangled leaves. Filthy salt wind whipped your faces as you formed wards from the flotsam that grew, apparently, on the bank.

She stood before the coffin of the Sleeper, and gathered those white, soft, solid rips in her hands, and she popped the bubble, and the River came rushing in. It came down around her in shreds, as light and insubstantial as drifts of spiderweb. The water sprayed through white holes, rushing in with a pounding roar: that brackish, bloodied water that only existed within the River. She was buoyed up by a spray of ice water and filth.

The River is described as brackish, it is associated with salt wind. Brackish means water with higher than average salinity, saltwater concentration, so let's assume our solute is salt.

What did John do when he became God? He introduced a copious amount of thanergy into the system, because murders generate more thanergy, enough to make souls unable to pass into the river, and used it to fuel himself.

He murdered Alecto. The salt-water creature: the first thalergetic planet he flipped. The water is the solvent, the solvent is the soul, salt is our solute, salt-water is our solution.

I was so close to cracking this third thing, the soul. I’d realised there was the energy you produced from being alive and the energy you produced when you died, but the fact that energy was produced when you died meant there was another phase. I could get a corpse’s heart beating and get all the neurons firing in the brain, but it wasn’t producing the alive stuff anymore. It wasn’t an on-off switch.

“The body needs thalergy and a soul to keep the lights on. Anastasia’s tripod principle. Body plus thalergy, but no soul, is basically a very weird vegetable … after a while it gives up and shuts down.”

Nona the Ninth shows exactly what the soul is: the third thing, the on-off switch, the leg of the tripod. A body full of thalergy without a soul shuts down after a while because the thalergy isn't stable in the absence of a soul, and decays in its absence. Thalergy decay emits thanergy.

Thalergy is salt, water is the solvent, water is the soul, salt-water is the solution of a living creature: thalergy stabilised by a soul.

How does salt affect water?

A river is freshwater: it doesn't have high salinity. It is not salt-water.

What does salt do to water? It adds to its mass, makes it more buoyant. Buoyancy, or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object.

The Riverbed is studded with mouths that open at proximity of Resurrection Beasts, and no ghosts venture deeper than the bathyrhoic layer. Anyone who has entered a stoma has never returned. It is a portal to the place I cannot touch—somewhere I don’t fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless. You’ll find very few ghosts sink as far as the barathron.

Ghosts don't venture near the Riverbed. The Riverbed is studded with stoma. The stoma are mouths that open when Resurrection Beasts near them, and the Resurrection Beasts are the souls of murdered planets, the only souls that can sink that low; the stoma lead to a place John can't touch.

[...]“And that was a titanic effort on the part of Cassiopeia the First, who was brilliant and sensible and careful—she thought she could bait physical portions of the Resurrection Beast into the current. She was right. It followed her.”

They were writhing together, wild and excited—the current swirled in an agitated pandemonium—there was a massive sickening jolt, and the Mithraeum started to slide again, forward … tilting … sliding. “We’re in the current now,” said Pyrrha calmly. “We’ll be pulled in, if the mouth doesn’t close.”

The current of the River leads to the stoma. The River is a semi-permeable membrane that leads to the River beyond, and the stoma are mouths in the Riverbed that lead to a place beyond the power of John. Osmosis pulls solvent, souls, through the membrane into the neighbouring solution.

Conclusion

You went en masse into the River, leaving your bodies behind to slump into C-curves—or at least, yours did, the rest of them stood—and crunched the silvery sand of the bank beneath your feet as the three saints led you both to assemble wards. No blood or flesh or bone here: the first two might be scavenged, the last swept away by the capricious tide. You collected bits of dried wood—dried wood?—and empty-coloured stones—stones?—from the banks of the River beyond death, and you collected armfuls of the sharply unkind osiers and tall, feathery plants, the ones with long fibrous stems as tall as you were and thin, tangled leaves.

The River holds no blood, flesh, or bone. But its waters are made brackish by a kind of salt: the thanergy of murdered billions. How can one make a ward from something unthanergetic, from dried wood and stones? It's impossible, unless they are suffused with thanergy, made pliable to a lyctoral touch.

When John murdered the planets and humanity in one fell stroke, he flooded with the River with enough thanergy that its buoyancy countermanded the osmotic process that draws souls into the River beyond. The River is full of ghosts gone mad: souls that should have moved beyond, but can't, because the current cannot carry them through the stoma, the thanergy working against its pull.

“A powerful necromancer at the peak of their game could last ten seconds in the River,” said God, pushing himself up to stand. “Soul magic is the great leveller. In the first few seconds their thanergy would all be stripped away … then their thalergy, and then their soul.”

The River strips away thanergy and thalergy, but it can only do so much: when its waters are already so permeated with thanergy, souls float, fail to sink to the depths and pass through it, carried by its current. They cannot reach the stoma because their souls are too light compared to that of the Resurrection Beasts, the thanergetic buoyancy pushing them back up.

What lies beyond the stoma isn't Hell, or rather, it is Hell: it is a place where John Gaius can't touch. It is where souls are meant to go. It is the River Beyond.

[mindblowingscience]

A team led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers has discovered a new way that cells regulate senescence, an irreversible end to cell division. The findings, published in Cell, could one day lead to new interventions for a variety of conditions associated with aging, including neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer, as well as new therapies for a collection of diseases known as ribosomopathies. "There is great interest in reducing senescence to slow or reverse aging or aging-associated diseases. We discovered a noncoding RNA that when inhibited strongly impairs senescence, suggesting that it could be a therapeutic target for conditions associated with aging," said Joshua Mendell, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Continue Reading.

[sonicbible]

So I've been thinking about Shadow's immortality lately and how it's implied that it works due to his cells being unable to deteriorate. We can infer this due to the fact that Gerald took on Project Shadow in part to find a cure for NIDS specifically. Finding a way to prevent cells from deteriorating would naturally lead to finding a way to protect cells from viruses that kill them, which is what real-world AIDS does to the body.

A lot of fans assume that Shadow will not grow beyond his current physical age (~15), but with the previous information in mind, we can conclude that Shadow will grow into adulthood. His body will just eventually stagnate since it's unable to begin the aging process. In humans, senescence begins sometime in their mid to late 20s, so Shadow will presumably cap off there. This would then make him biologically immortal, which is a state seen in some real-world organisms.

[3liza]

I don't know this for sure but my best guess is that everyone who got a BBL is going to start looking incredibly weird during the next 20 years from the fat cells doing normal turnover but with their various senescence cycled disrupted by the transplantation process. I'm imagining a lot of weird sinkholes and asymmetrical shrinkage. I think this will be interesting. like when you see a really elderly boomer lady whose implants are virtually tucked into the waistband of her sweatpants at the end of the stretched-out breast tissue holding them

[bpod-bpod]

Older and Leakier

Homing in on inflamed tissues in live mice by high-resolution microscopy reveals that inflammation is promoted by senescent [biologically old] cells lining the blood vessels

Read the published research article here

Still from a video from work by Loïc Rolas and Monja Stein, and colleagues

Centre for Microvascular Research, William Harvey Research Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

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

Published in EMBO Reports, June 2024

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[slippinmickeys]

Bonus Old Chem Prompt

For Nicole.

1. “So what’s your area of study?” he said. “I can’t believe I haven’t thought to ask.”

They were walking to their cars, so late that it could properly be called early. The storm cells had finished passing through by midnight, and the air was as humid and thick as hot soup. She nudged him companionably with her shoulder. 

They had talked all night, but the storm and the dark and the mood had leant the night an air of confidence, and they’d talked about big-picture stuff; hopes, fears, childhood traumas, until Scully began to yawn and the weather outside had quieted. All the stuff you talk about once you get past the getting-to-know-you phase had been hashed out and argued. All that was left were the details. 

“I study the chemical processes of negligible and negative senescence,” she said. 

His mental rolodex whirled until the right catalog card came up. He looked down at her in wonder. 

“Immortality?” he said, unable to keep the intrigue out of his voice. 

“Close enough.”

“That’s wild.” 

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it,” she said impishly.  Then, “This is me.”

She stopped in front of a silver Volkswagen Passat, and Mulder pivoted until he was standing in front of her. 

“I enjoyed my time in the dark with you,” he said, his voice a little low. 

“Let’s do it again,” she said, and then lifted herself up onto her toes and pressed her lips into his, lingering there. 

When she finally pulled away, he was a little lightheaded and dazed. 

“I’d like that,” he finally managed to say. 

2. “I used to be married,” she said, her nose pressed into the bare skin of his bicep. 

They had kicked off all but the sheet and she was still coming down from the high of a shared climax, her leg still thrown over both of his. 

Mulder’s first thought was widow, because this was not a woman you lost if you could help it. 

He was trying to figure out how to ask when she went on. 

“He lives in Seattle now.” 

It was a Sunday, and sheaves of the newspaper they’d been passing back and forth were strewn half on the bed and half on the floor. The last wisps of steam were wafting up from cups of coffee on either side of the bed and an uneaten croissant sat on a plate under a wedge of sunlight. 

“What’s his name?” Mulder asked her quietly. He’s not sure why that was his first question, but it was. 

“Ethan,” she said. 

She knew all about Diana, their almost-wedding, her affairs and blow-ups and his disastrous attempts to make excuses for her. His years of swearing off women.

“Is it bad that I didn’t tell you?”

He reached out with the arm she was pressed to and pulled her until her head was resting on his chest. 

“We’ve only been dating a month,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a lot we don’t know about each other.” 

At this, they both chuckled. They’d shared more than most couples who’d been together five times as long. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

“We wanted the same things,” she said. “In the bedroom.”  And before he could ask if she meant to say the word different, she finished with: “Namely, men.”

Mulder clenched his teeth. “Ouch,” he said. 

She shrugged a shoulder into his armpit. “We’re still friends.” 

Mulder had to tilt his head back to look down at her. 

“I’m friends with his husband Bruce, too.”

3. She slunk into the back of the lecture hall fifteen minutes before class was up and lowered herself into an empty chair on the upper right. 

“So we’ve gone over our long list of elements of psychopathology,” he went on with his lecture. “Let’s touch on some of the basic causes before we break for the day. Broad strokes stuff, here. Anyone want to offer something up?”

A girl in front with perfect posture raised her hand. 

“Go ahead,” he said. 

“Genetics?” she asked. 

“Yep, genetics.” He wrote this on the whiteboard.  

An older looking student in the middle offered up: “Are there social causes?” 

“Sure are,” Mulder said, and wrote social on the board as well. 

“Anyone else? I’ll start calling on people, I’m not as shy as you,” he went on. A few people chuckled. 

He pointed at one of the laughers. “What have you got?”

“Um…psychological?” the kid said. 

A couple more people chuckled at this answer, and Mulder wrote it on the board. 

“This is a 101 level lecture, guys, don’t laugh at Jeremy. It’s okay to use the name of the class in the class. There are plenty of psychological causes of psychopathology. It’s in the title.”

To his left, his TA yawned and looked at his watch. Mulder flitted his eyes up to Scully, who seemed to be enjoying watching him. Suddenly he couldn’t care less about the class and just wanted to be with her.

“Last one and you guys can get out of here. Anybody?”

A few people looked around the room to see if anyone was going to answer. 

“Nobody?” he called out. 

From the back of the small auditorium, he heard a familiar, welcome voice. 

“Biology!” Scully called out. 

Mulder couldn’t help but smile. “A personal favorite,” he said, and turned to write it on the whiteboard. 

Kids were already folding their laptops and shoving notebooks in backpacks. 

“Okay, yes, I said I’d let you go.” The volume of shuffling and movement went up and he had to raise his voice a bit to be heard over it. “Assigned reading is in the syllabus. I won’t be available for office hours at the normal times next week, so reach out to Gary,” at this he pointed at his TA, though most of the students were already on their way out the lecture hall, “to set something up. Have a good long weekend!”

He moved behind the podium to grab his phone and his own laptop, and when he looked up, Scully was on her way down the steps, fighting the current of retreating students. 

“Hey,” he said as she approached, and he swung his bag over his shoulder and, with a glance up to see if anyone was paying attention (they weren’t), leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. He fell into step with her, heading for the rarely used exit at the bottom of the lecture hall. 

“Hey,” she said, smiling up at him. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” he replied, reaching forward to hold open the door so that she could walk through. 

“How was your trip?” 

“Good,” he said. “Uneventful.”

“You’re back for a bit now, right?” she said. “Before your next thingy?” She looked a little anxious when she asked. She must have something on her mind.

“The technical term,” he said, as they stepped into the flow of student traffic in the hallway that led to the front of the building. “About that. I actually had a question for you.”

“Oh?” she said. 

“You first,” he said, pulling to a stop in the foyer of the building. “You look like you had something else you wanted to ask?”

She averted her gaze from his, which was unusual. “My parents invited us over for dinner,” she said. “I told them about you. And they want to meet you. If that’s okay.”

Mulder rocked back a little on his heels. Diana’s folks had died before they got together and he hadn’t had any girlfriends before her serious enough for parental vetting. The last time he’d met a woman’s parents, he was standing in Missy Sander’s living room pinning a homecoming corsage on her velvet dress while her mother hovered nearby.

Nevertheless, Scully was important to him, and her parents were important to her. 

“I’d love to,” he said, smiling, and noted the relieved slump of her shoulders. 

“Great,” she breathed. “I told them it might not be until after the holidays. We’ll both have midterms to grade and then things usually get crazy.”

“Whenever you want,” Mulder said gamely. “I’ll bring a nice bottle of wine and be on my best behavior.”

She smiled up at him warmly. 

“You said you had a question for me?”

“I did,” he said, grabbing her coat from her hands and holding it up so that she could shrug into it. He put on his directly after, and then held open the door for her to exit into the cold, brisk day. 

“So I’m the faculty advisor to the ski club,” he went on. 

She gave him a look. “You never told me this.”

“It’s not normally very interesting. Anyway, the club is heading to a resort up north over the long weekend, and the school will pay for my lift tickets. Any chance you want to join me?”

“You ski?” she asked. Her incredulity was amusing.

“It’s literally the club’s only requisite for an advisor,” he admitted. “Do you?” 

“Not once in my whole life. I’m from San Diego, Mulder.”

“California has mountains.” 

“And I’ve never been on them. But a resort sounds like it might be nice…Are there fireplaces? Hot tubs?”

“More than you can count,” he answered, picturing her in a bikini, picturing her reading a book while lounging on a bearskin rug. 

“Then I’d love to join you,” she smiled at him, the vapor of her breath dissipating in front of her. 

4. The resort was sprawling, the main lodge done up in the Bavarian style, which was only a little off putting as they were in the only high country in the Midwest. Fairly large hills rose up above the roof of the lodge, covered in snow and dotted with skiers and snowboarders. Several chairlifts served the hills (they could not accurately be called ‘mountains’), spaced at even intervals amongst the small range. 

“I have to admit it’s charming,” Scully said, when they walked in, most of the people around them clomping around in hard ski boots. 

The interior decor was dated. Old wooden skis were crossed on the wall over the front desk, and vintage ski posters decorated the walls, and all, Scully assumed, had been up since they were new. The staff was friendly, though, and when they walked into their room, she was doubly impressed. 

“Mulder,” she said, nearly speechless. 

He closed the door behind her, smiling. He had splurged and sprung for the nicest suite they had (complete with updated decor) – the only one with both a fireplace and its own hot tub, which was on a large balcony that overlooked the ski hills. 

“Does the university know they’re paying for this?” she asked. 

“I get a small lodging stipend,” he explained. “I may have chipped in a little of my own money.”

“A little?” she said, moving into the room and picking up a bottle of champagne that was waiting on ice for them along with a couple of local chocolates and a dozen red roses. 

“The stipend probably covers the champagne and two of the roses,” he said, sidling up to her and sliding a hand across her belly. 

She turned in his arms until she was facing him. 

“Then let’s get your money’s worth,” she purred. 

5. It was the first full day of the trip, and the students of the club had invited them to join them in the bar in the basement of the lodge. It had equally dated decor, but a small stage in the corner with a decent band who was playing 90’s hits at a reasonable volume. 

The club–made up of a dozen kids–more guys than girls–was on their fifth pitcher of beer and showing no signs of slowing down. Mulder and Scully had already had a couple cups each, but were settling in, watching the shenanigans with benevolent bemusement. The table was littered with empty cups and pitchers, along with a scattered detritus of ski gear; helmets with mirrored goggles, gloves, a few errant neckwarmers. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick, a senior, and the president of the Ski Club held up his beer to Mulder while nodding at Scully, who sat demurely next to him in a coat that was very obviously not ready to hit the slopes. 

“So Dr. Mulder,” he called out past the four people sitting in between them. “How long have you and Dr. Scully been going out?” 

All other conversation at the table stopped in a decidedly record-scratch-like moment. All eyes shifted to them. 

Fitzpatrick had taken a few of Mulder’s classes–enough to think he was cool enough to ask to be the club’s advisor–though Mulder wasn’t sure his major required anything but the most remedial science credits. Scully’s job was research based, and the few classes she taught were mostly 400 and graduate level. Only one of the kids in the club had ever had her as a professor. Scully had barely left their suite–he’d wondered how they even knew she was on the trip when they’d asked Mulder if both of them wanted to come and hang out. 

Mulder cleared his throat and looked to Scully, asking silent permission. She snorted a small laugh and took a slug of beer. 

“A few months,” he answered, looking around the table. 

Molly, the one girl who’d taken classes from Scully, looked away with an abashed smile. 

“And how long do you think you might continue dating?” Fitzpatrick burped. 

Mulder nearly laughed out loud. The kid was a putz, came from Chicago money, but he had a mien that could charm the socks off a horse with white feet. 

“At least as long as it’ll take you to graduate, Fitzpatrick,” Mulder answered. “How many credits shy are you? You know you have to actually pass a class for them to count.”

The table erupted in laughter, everyone beginning to take shots at Fitzpatrick, who took on the ribbing with gracious humor. Next to him, Scully pulled out her phone which was buzzing, took a look at the display and stood. 

“I have to take this,” she whispered in his ear, slipping away while the table was still abuzz with jubilant teasing. 

She came back about ten minutes later, her face long and ashen. She held her phone in her hand limply.

“Scully?” he said, half standing from his seat when he saw her.

The few people sitting near Mulder noticed and the table quieted down quickly. 

“It’s my Dad,” she said, swallowing thickly. 

“Everything okay?” he asked. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head, shocky. “He’s dead.”

[rlyehtaxidermist]

fundamentally the philosophical issue I take with a lot of anti-aging activists is not "we should focus on treating aging," but the common accompanying argument that it's more important than treating everything else

like there is no imaginable world in which you can achieve negligible senescence (the regulated indefinite replication of cells) without a full understanding of the causes and treatments of cancer (the unregulated indefinite replication of cells)

[workwaffle]

So, I've seen a bit of debate on what to call the skin—wearing Cyn at the end of the episode. For my part, I like the name Cynessa because it sounds similar to senescent cells; cells which are at the ends of their life and can't multiply and divide any longer.

They exist in a limbo of life and death, much like Cynessa as she lives under the solver.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Ultrastructurally, gerontoplast formation involves the progressive unstacking of grana, the loss of thylakoid membranes, and a massive accumulation of plastoglobuli composed of lipids (Figure 22.14).

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[dr-abigail-richelieu]

In an earlier entry, we discussed vampire packs. Surprisingly, despite their extremely antisocial nature, we have found evidence that vampires would form packs. Early in their evolution, they were somewhat social animals and would form packs. In later periods before their extinction, they apparently began forming packs again to make hunting humans easier. These packs typically consisted of a mother and her brood, with a hierarchy likely based on dominance. Essentially, the strongest individual was the pack leader.

Even so, these creatures remained highly antisocial. They didn't live together; when not hunting, the pack would occupy a large territory, with each member living separately. While vampires never really developed their own society, we do think that these packs did develop a very basic form of it and even a very basic language. 

In 2001, a huge burial ground was discovered in Eastern Europe, near Russia. Investigations by anthropologists and archaeologists revealed that the area was, in fact, the hunting ground of a vampire pack. Their housing was found shortly after: a huge cave system that appeared to have been artificially expanded. The entire underground system extended around half a kilometer in total. The remains of around 15 individual vampires were found, each in their own chambers. Most seemed to have died while hibernating. It is believed that they had exhausted their main source of food and decided to go into hibernation, possibly hoping to awaken when food became available once more. Most of their remains were relatively well preserved, which is to be expected thanks to their ability to enter suspended animation, this “undead phase” essentially had them mummified themselves alive… The oldest vampire in the group was found in the biggest chamber, we suspect she was the matriarch of the clan.

Using bone histology such as osteon counting and dental analysis of her remaining teeth, and other methods more finely tuned to vampires, we were able to estimate her age before death to be around 143 years, not counting any past hibernation, however, using advance Histopathological Examination of her soft tissues, such as the state of collagen and elastin fibers and more, we were able to determine that she was biologically around in her mid to late 20s, which is to be expected from Vampires. 

Homovorus have plenty of adaptations against senescence, the most prevalent being an increased telomerase production to maintain telomere length, which is associated with cellular longevity. Cells can divide way more times before reaching senescence. Another adaptation being the production of antioxidants enzymes protecting them from the harmful effects of radiant oxidation and ionizing radiation. In short Vampires are essentially immune to senescence, they do not age, at least not physically. Once they reach adulthood at around their early 20s they will not physically age anymore, however they're bones will still degrade overtime, causing them to become weaker and unable to hunt as efficiently as before, but that isn't it. They're superior production of collagen also aids them; this consistently high rate of collagen production, ensures their skin and connective tissues remain youthful and heal quickly. They also retain high levels of active stem cells throughout their lives. In humans, stem cell activity declines with age, but in vampires, this activity remains constant or at least higher than in humans, allowing for continuous efficient tissue repair and regeneration almost akin to that of human juvenile. We believe that the reason for such adaptations to have emerged is because of a combination of factors, but mainly because of their already low reproduction rates. Because of this, a long lifespan and extended periods of reproductive viability was advantageous, as it allowed individuals to contribute to the gene pool over a longer time. We do not know as of late, when or even if Homovore reaches reproductive senescences… In any cases, we'll discuss such topics in another entry focusing on Vampire reproduction.

Going back to the discovery, it's important to precise that while the Matriarch’s bones were degraded they weren't at all as damaged as one would expect of such an old individual. She could very likely still be active in her community, if not it's very likely that she wouldn't have been tolerated by the others, even if they were her own kids, and perhaps even participate in hunts, though to a much lesser extent. We can also see that she had a lot of healed bone fractures and much more such as dental work and even dental implants, using carved bones (these implants were quite honestly very well done, almost indistinguishable visually from other teeths) This tells us two things.

1: This clan of vampires was capable of primitive yet very impressive medical feats.

2: These vampires were able to show forms of compassionate behaviour. One could argue that these interventions were done in the name of efficiency, so that others could heal faster and burden the others less, however some of these interventions weren't as seemingly necessary for the survival of the individual and more or less done for her comforts.

In other chambers we discovered primitive yet complexed tools as well as a few cattle pens, most likely used for keeping humans. We essentially uncovered substantial evidence of tribal culture and technology. Among the findings were even symbols, writings on birch bark scrolls, and most impressively, cave paintings. These paintings were intricate and detailed yet disturbingly macabre. Many depicted human faces contorted in agony or mutilated corpses. While unsettling, such imagery wasn't entirely unexpected. Vampires, being our natural predators, evolved not only to hunt us but also, as some researchers have shown, to preserve their victims for extended feeding.

One chamber stood out for its striking details: On the wall, there was a meticulous drawing of a human head frozen in a scream. In front of the painting, a skull rested upon an improvised counter, undoubtedly the model used for the artwork.

In conclusion, while Homovorus was typically a solitary and antisocial species, it was still capable of forming groups or tribes under certain circumstances. We still have a lot of learning to do concerning these fascinating beings

Exemple of symbols we found in the cave