#signs of malaria

[bookdoctorconsultationonline]

11 Most Common Signs And Symptoms Of Malaria Fever at Livlong

Check out the most common signs and symptoms of malaria you should know. Read this blog for more info on the malaria symptoms and treatment at Livlong now!

[allhealthneedsdoctorconsultation]

11 Most Common Signs And Symptoms Of Malaria Fever at Livlong

Check out the most common signs and symptoms of malaria you should know. Read this blog for more info on the malaria symptoms and treatment at Livlong now!

[orbitsuns]

[thefloatingstone]

In case nobody has seen hippo teeth

You ever think about how weird hippos are ecologically speaking?

There's literally no other megafauna on earth that spends the entire day lounging around in water, mostly just socializing, only to come onto land to feed at night.

I remember when I used to do education programs on hippos, most people assumed they ate aquatic plants, and that that's the whole reason they were in water. Meanwhile, hippos are basically just giant nocturnal cows that eat only grass.

[healthvise]

10 Signs and Symptoms of Malaria

Malaria disease is commonly caused by mosquito bites, In this article, we have discussed the symptoms, causes of transmission, risk, and prevention of malaria disease.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is a big deal. No, $48,692.05 is in no way, shape or form a fair price for the many thousands of acres of traditional Chinook land that were never ceded but were taken by settlers anyway. However, the fact that this funding from the 1970 Indian Claims Commission settlement is being released to the tribe is the strongest move toward regaining recognition in years.

As a bit of background, the Chinook Indian Nation are some of the descendants of many indigenous communities who have lived in the Columbia-Pacific region and along the Columbia to the modern-day Dalles since time immemorial. They saw the arrival of the Lewis & Clark party to the Pacific Ocean in 1805, but shortly thereafter were devastated by waves of diseases like malaria and smallpox. The survivors signed a treaty to give up most of their land in 1851, but it was never ratified by the United States government. While some Chinookan people are currently part of federally recognized tribes such as the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Reservation, the Chinook Indian Nation--comprised of the Lower Chinook, Clatsop, Cathlamet, Willapa, and Wahkiakum--have remained largely unrecognized.

That changed briefly in 2001. On January 3 of that year, the Department of the Interior under the Clinton administration formally recognized the Chinook Indian Nation. In July 2002, the Bush administration revoked the federal recognition after complaints from the Quinault Indian Nation, as the Chinook would have had access to certain areas of what is now the Quinault reservation. This meant that the Chinook, once again, were denied funding and other resources given to federally recognized tribes, to include crucial healthcare funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinook Indian Nation has been fighting legal battles to regain federal recognition ever since the revocation. The funding released to them in this month's court decision doesn't make them federally recognized, but it is a show of legitimacy in a tangled, opaque system that indigenous people across the United States have had to contend with for many decades. Here's hoping this is a crack in the wall keeping the Chinook from recognition, and that they get more good news soon.

[cryptwrites]

Poisons

Hello! I'm gonna share how I go about writing poisons and the things I think are helpful to keep in mind. Now, I have never actually poisoned someone - shocker - but I have done extensive research on the topic, so I would say I know a decent amount about how to effectively poison someone. Disclaimer: This is for writing purposes only, don't poison people. Thanks.

Keep In Mind:

Poisoners need little to no physical strength although they do need a strong sense of self control & nerves of steel. Shooting or stabbing someone takes a mere moment of consideration and is frequently the result of  a split second decision, while position requires dedication. Many poisons require a certain amount of time to work and the poisoner usually must administer several doses of poison in order to work. The poisoner also usually must be within close proximity to their victim and often will have to look them in the eye and engage with the person while the person slowly dies.

Exotic poisons can be more trouble than they’re worth. Importing exotic poisons leaves a trail for authorities to follow, and they require more research to correctly use.

Smart poisoners work with what they’ve got. The clever killer looks for drugs that are already in the victim’s medicine cabinet and that could be deadly. Read medical warning labels to get an idea of how to use them.

Poison can be used in ways that aren’t deadly. If the goal isn’t death, you can render someone dizzy or dopey, making a character vulnerable to a bad influence. 

Common Poisons

Hemlock: Poison hemlock comes from a large fern-like plant that bears a dangerous resemblance to the carrot plant. It was readily available for treating muscle spasms, ulcers, and swelling, but in large doses will cause paralysis and ultimately respiratory failure. 

Mandrake: It was used as a sedative, hallucinogen and aphrodisiac. Superstition mediaeval denizens believes when the vaguely human-shaped root was pulled out that plant gave a piercing shriek that would drive anyone to madness or death - hence the harry potter scene.

Arsenic: Arsenic comes from a metalloid and not a plant, unlike the others but it’s easily the most famous and is still used today. instead of being distilled from a plant, chunks of arsenic and dug up or mined. It was once used as a treatment for STDs , and also for pest control and blacksmiths, which was how many poisoners got access to it. It was popular in the Renaissance since it looked similar to malaria death, due to acute symptoms including stomach cramps, confusion, convulsions, vomiting and death. Slow poisoning looked more like a heart attack.

Nightshade: A single leaf or a few berries could cause hallucinations - a few more was a lethal dose. Mediaeval women used the juice of the berries to colour their cheeks, they would even put a few drops on their eyes to cause the pupils to dilate for a lovestruck look which is why Nightshade is also called ‘Belladonna’ or “Beautiful woman.” The symptoms include dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, tachycardia, loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, severely dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, urinary retention, constipation, confusion, hallucinations, delirium and convulsions.

Aconite: This toxic plant, also called Monkshood or Wolfsbane, was used by indigenous tribes around the world as arrow poison. The root is the most potent for distillation. Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and with large doses death is near instantaneous. The initial signs are gastrointestinal including nausea, and vomiting. This is followed by a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth and face, and of burning in the abdomen. In severe poisonings pronounced motor weakness occurs and sensations of tingling and numbness spread to the limbs. The plant should be handled with gloves, as the poison can seep into the skin.

If someones poisoning another:

The character should analyse the daily life of the target well before attempting to poison them. Note what sort of medicines they take, at what moments they are most vulnerable, how attentive they are to their surroundings, and so on.

Choose a poison that suits your needs. You need to be as discreet as possible and not arouse suspicion. Too dramatic and people will know something is up. Choose poisons that are easy to slip into meals/don't have to be administered constantly, or you could simply frame it as an overdose by using the target's own medicines.

Think of how you want to administer the poison. Some take effect through touch while some require being swallowed. Based on that, come up with a plan to poison your target.

Make sure everything corresponds with the plot and characters, and nothing becomes a plot hole. Don't have a typically nervous character be perfectly calm when thinking of poisoning. Don't poison someone just for the sake of it. Have everything tie back to the plot, your characters rarely should be poisonings someone just for the "cool" effect. Trust me, it doesn't actually have that effect and just comes off like lazy writing. Have your characters act in accordance with their personalities.

Research time periods and history when choosing poisons. Not all poisons were popular during the same time periods, and not all of them are native to the same geographical areas.

[tomorrowusa]

Dr. Anthony Fauci voluntarily testified before a House committee and debunked MAGA Republican conspiracy theories regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Donald Trump and his lickspittles were telling Americans to drink bleach, take useless malaria pills, stick ultraviolet lights up their butts, and eat horse paste, Dr. Fauci headed an effort to develop vaccines for COVID-19.

A reminder to people with short memories who view the Trump administration as some sort of bucolic paradise: The last quarter of that administration included the worst government response to an infectious disease outbreak since 1920. Trumpsters who want us to ignore Trump's horribly botched response to the pandemic are like cruise-liner enthusiasts who want us to ignore the last 2% of the voyage of the Titanic.

Economic activity ground to a halt in 2020 as the US slid into a recession. I took this picture of a sign at a dollar store which had been completely closed for almost two months.

The whole Trump clan was disdainful of the sacrifices hundreds of millions of Americans were making.

Why has the U.S. COVID-19 response been so bad? Jared Kushner, Vanity Fair suggests.

At Times Square Jared and Ivanka's contemptuousness was made into an ad before Election Day.

If you are looking for the Original Sin of Trump's pandemic response, it was on January 22nd when he basically told CNBC's Joe Kernen that COVID-19 was nothing to worry about.

Of course it wasn't "just fine".

Trump did not declare a state of emergency for seven weeks. That gave the virus plenty of time for it to spread throughout the US.

Republicans know that their Dear Leader totally mishandled the pandemic response. That's why they repeatedly try to make Dr. Fauci a type of scapegoat for Trump's horrendous incompetence. Dr. Fauci has spent his entire career fighting disease. Donald Trump has spent his entire career narcissistically promoting himself.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying: "The Buck Stops Here!" If Trump had a sign on his Oval Office desk (which he seldom used except for photo ops) it would be: "It's Everybody's Fault But Mine!"

Don't be hesitant to remind people of how awful 2020 was. And point the finger of blame at the orange blob who was responsible for the catastrophe.

[hyenaswine]

driving thru belize city i saw a billboard that said "let's put an end to polio" but what, i guess deadly & debilitating illnesses that have been eradicated in the US still exist here because belizeans are lazy & don't want to change? they keep polio around for the nostalgia of it? YES I'M STILL PISSED OFF ABOUT THIS BAD INTERNET COMMENT

listen i know this is controversial & hypocritical because i am 100% also a white person but some white people really gotta fucking die

[ahedderick]

In sickness and in college

It's just over two weeks until college starts back up for my kiddos. We just got results back from that very, very expensive blood work for my son. Positive for babesia. Start (once more) the double antibiotic and the malaria meds that taste so foul and mess up his head. I can feel tears at the corner of my eyes. Can he even cope with his classes with this shit going on? He's going to be immune compromised and catching every damned cold/flu bug on the whole campus. He's signed up for 400 level classes, at least two of which will not be repeated until Fall 2026 if he misses them. Are we going to have to arm-wrestle the disability office for help (again)? Is he going to be sleeping 12 - 15 hrs a day (again)? I'm. just.

[thoughtportal]

A Sumatran orangutan in Indonesia has self-medicated using a paste made from plants to heal a large wound on his cheek, say scientists.

It is the first time a creature in the wild has been recorded treating an injury with a medicinal plant.

After researchers saw Rakus applying the plant poultice to his face, the wound closed up and healed in a month.

Scientists say the behaviour could come from a common ancestor shared by humans and great apes.

“They are our closest relatives and this again points towards the similarities we share with them. We are more similar than we are different,” said biologist Dr Isabella Laumer at the Max Planck institute in Germany and lead author of the research.

A research team in the Gunung Leuser National Park, Indonesia spotted Rakus with a large wound on his cheek in June 2022.

They believe he was injured fighting with rival male orangutans because he made loud cries called “long calls” in the days before they saw the wound.

The team then saw Rakus chewing the stem and leaves of plant called Akar Kuning – an anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial plant that is also used locally to treat malaria and diabetes.

He repeatedly applied the liquid onto his cheek for seven minutes. Rakus then smeared the chewed leaves onto his wound until it was fully covered. He continued to feed on the plant for over 30 minutes.

The paste and leaves then appear to have done their magic – the researchers saw no sign of infection and the wound closed within five days.

After a month, Rakus was fully healed. {read}

[myemuisemo]

In both #3 and #4 of the Letters from Watson for The SIgn of the Four, Watson loses his mind and babbles when he's trying to have a conversation in the presence of Mary Morstan, and I'm here for it.

For the rest of these two letters, especially #4, I feel like I've stumbled into a story by Edgar Allen Poe or Wilkie Collins. Mr. Thaddeus Sholto feels like exactly what would happen if a colorful Wilkie Collins character -- say, the terrifyingly affable, rotund Count Fosco from The Woman in White -- stumbled into Holmes' world of deduction and logic.

Thaddeus Sholto had me digging for physiognomy texts, as that protruding lower lip feels like a detail meant to say something specific in an era that took "facial composition as a sign of character" very seriously.

The Pocket Lavatar (1817) gives us one possible interpretation:

When the lower lip projects beyond the upper, it denotes negative goodness.

Also, relevant to Sholto's watery blue eyes:

Blue eyes are frequently found in persons of phlegmatic character; they are often indications of feebleness and effeminacy.

Physiognomy and phrenology both had multiple rounds of being in fashion in the 19th century, with different gurus disagreeing on what exactly your nose or the shape of your skull meant. The whole field is, of course, wildly racist, with a garnish of ableism and a drizzle of classism. It was also a fairly familiar vocabulary to contemporary readers.

Meanwhile, I feel like every reference to Thaddeus Sholto's snobby little habits is meant to make the reader chuckle at his pretentiousness and poor taste, but I can't prove it.

Since the premise of this story seems to require acting as if plundering India for gems and wealth is okay, my hackles went up at referring to Major Sholto's long-time Indian servant as Chowdar. Turns out this was a common transliteration of a name we'd now render more like Chaudhuri.

(Major Sholto had had malaria, by the way, as evidenced from the quinine bottle present when he received his startling letter. It's likely that malaria contributed to his fragile health.)

Major Sholto's relationship with his manservant Lal Chowdar is solid enough that they hide a body together, but I have to raise an eyebrow at the major's naivete.

If my own servant could not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it good before twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box?

His own servant saw how he behaved in India and probably has an accurate view of his ethics. That he'd kill out of greed happens to be wrong in this case (assuming a reliable narrator, which is a big assumption).

A face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of concentrated malevolence. 

My bet was "monkey," but then the Sholtos found boot prints, so either it's a monkey that wears shoes, or it's a man. Oh well.

My hackles weren't up about taking Miss Morstan's mysterious pearls from a "chaplet," but they should have been. I blush to admit that I was envisioning some sort of tiara -- but I googled before making a fool of myself and discovered that a chaplet is prayer beads. It's like a rosary, but not all chaplets are rosaries, and not all rosaries are chaplets. Is this an Anglican chaplet made from stolen gems, or were Sholto, Morstan, and their friends straight-up stealing prayer beads of another culture?

Honestly, I'm up for the Sholtos being actively cursed, but since Holmes is a rationalist, I'm also up for the more plausible outcome of their actions having brought mundane vengeance down upon their heads.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Thoughts on Taskmaster s18e08, written as I watch it:

- Babatunde's got me with the commitment to the bit there. Even one moment of explaining that paper plate would have ruined it. With no explanation... I mean, it's lazy and low effort. But not a bad idea, given the remit. I can see why he didn't want to go first.

- It's the detail of Andy's prizes that gets to me. The amount of detail is great, and has been all the way along. He could have just thought of the idea for an aftershave made of mosquito bites, told the production team to make a sign or something that says this, and been done with it. But he came up with an actual way to distill the sensation of mosquito bites, using their saliva. And then put all kinds of extra jokes on the packaging, calling it "malaria-free" and things. And, along with the extra jokes, added extra stuff that makes it fit the prize task remit even better, since the task said something that makes Greg scratch his chin, so Andy added packaging that says this thing is specifically for Greg Davies. And, with this being Andy Zaltzman, obviously he had to throw in a lie that's there for absolutely no reason, calling Greg the 2019 Wimbeldon champion. And threw in a pun, Mosquit-eau. A ludicrously literal interpretation of an instruction, a lie, a pun, unnecessary detail. A very Andy Zaltzman prize.

- Jack explained the only chin-scratching bit of his prize, exactly what would have ruined it for Babatunde. And that has ruined it for Jack.

- So Emma had the same basic idea as Andy, go physical and literal, but she called it "fake chin acne", and fake acne won't make anyone scratch. For a start, she should have just called it "chin acne". Also, scratching acne is quite painful, no one's going to do that for long.

- Everyone has gone very on-brand with this prize task, haven't they? Babatunde does something extremely low-effort but with a decent justification. Emma does something clever but the cleverness falls apart a bit in the execution. Jack is kind of annoying. Andy goes with an unnecessarily detailed literal interpretation, with a pun and a lie thrown in. And Rosie made a sex joke. Well done, everyone.

- I agree with most of that scoring but Andy should have had five. Greg answered Rosie's question almost immediately, that's hardly a cause of chin scratching.

- Hey Alex, how about you leave Andy and his helmet alone? I don't see you being concerned about concussion safety out there.

- Puzzles are fun and all, but I think it would be quite funny if this task were just who can do best on a basic eye test. It would be a creative way to discriminate against disability, but not Rosie Jones'.

- This probably isn't the answer, but I'm not sure how Emma found the word "cheesed" and didn't immediately go into the kitchen to check the cheese. I'd at least have a look there.

- I was surprised that Emma and Baba got grouped on a puzzle task, as they tend to do things very differently from each other. But I see they both found the second clue in on-brand ways. Emma figured out the clue that it's written backwards, Baba wandered around the house and stumbled upon it.

- I speak French quite well, not fluently but I did ten years of French immersion in school and live in a place with a lot of Francophones so I hear it spoken a lot, and I don't know what "socle" means. That's a hard word to put in there for them. Especially since it's the most important word, as without it the clue just tells them to look inside something, and that could be anything. You can't guess the last word from context.

It's also not the most fair clue, as it doesn't really reward creative or intelligent thinking, just whoever happened to study that language in school.

- So, what are the rules with phones? Katherine Ryan has done this before, when she called Sofie Hagan to translate Swedish in season 2. Obviously, Katherine could have just brought up Google translate on that phone. Baba's pulling out his phone, using it to call Eddie Kadi, instead of just translating it online. And obviously there are lots of other times throughout many other tasks when a phone would be helpful, for internet or for other things, and they don't normally use it because that's not in the spirit of the game. Ed Gamble sometimes mentions on the podcast that using phones isn't in the spirit of the game, even though Ed is one of the few people who has used a phone in a task, when he took pictures of the canvas, to his great advantage in a drawing task once.

Anyway, have they been told that they're allowed to take phones out, but only if they call other comedians to translate foreign languages? Or to ask their agent to get them out of a field, obviously.

- Okay, it's pretty funny to listen to Babatunde try to pronounce French words. Slightly annoying clue, worth it for that.

- Well, I paused the video, wrote that whole point about cell phone used, played the video, paused it again to make fun of Baba's inability to speak French, played the video, and saw Emma just Googling it. So Baba could have done that too, he just chose to call his friend instead. I mean, obviously, in the real world, I understand why he did that. It's funnier to call another comedian than to Google it. But in the context of the game, Googling is faster, Baba's made an error.

- Oh, base. Well I wouldn't have got that. No one knows that word. I know plenty of Francophones and I bet lots of them don't know that word.

- Oh dear. Greg has just said that Emma and Baba were grouped because they both found the special glasses, and Andy and Rosie are next. This wouldn't be the first task where Andy just gives up without solving it. Tell me he doesn't do that here. We're getting late in the season now, with Andy going into this episode only a few points behind first place. A high-scoring episode eight could pull him into the lead with only two episodes left. A low-scoring episode eight would be hard to come back from. Come on, Andy. Surely you understand some French. You created an entire cryptic crossword, you can read backwards.

- In the first task where Andy gave up completely, he put his hand almost into his pocket right at the beginning, and then proceeded to not find the locket in there by the end. In this one, he has nearly taken the top off that thing right at the beginning, and then didn't. Please do not have this be another "You almost got it right away but then failed completely".

- God damn it, Andy. Just open the thing up.

- I like Rosie trying her hands as circles to be glasses. It's worth a shot.

- And they've got it! Oh my God, that was unnecessarily stressful. Come on, guys. I'd have been furious if Andy had missed that. I mean I'm glad Rosie found it too, I'm just at this point invested in the idea that Andy could win the season. Much less likely for Rosie.

- "It depends on your attitude to flamingos." Andy saying that has reminded me: Alice Fraser is currently in that weird limbo that all Australian comedians seem to do eventually, where she's maybe sort of moved to the UK but hasn't quite done it yet. Meaning she's probably eligible for the UK or AU versions. I'd be happy to have her on either. Having worked with Alice for so long, Andy is, of course, quite familiar with varying attitudes toward flamingos.

- It was funny for them to show the attempts in that order. If we'd seen Andy and Rosie first, then Emma and Baba would have looked very stupid, taking all those clues to find what was obviously right next to them. But because we saw Emma and Baba first, they seemed reasonable at the time, and then Andy and Rosie recontextualized them to make all the other clues seem silly. Good editing decision, that order.

- Hey, Alex managed a bit of French! He did private school and then Cambridge, you'd think he could manage one French sentence.

- Okay, we need Jack to fuck this up here, as he's leading with the points. I'd love for Andy to win the season, I'd also really like for anyone to beat Jack, as I dislike him and just don't want to see more of him. He's been isolated because he was very fast or very slow, let's hope for the latter.

- Oh, bullshit. First of all, I don't like Alex helping Jack once again. He's been helping Jack a lot throughout this season - I thought I was imagining it at first because I don't like Jack, but Ed's been pointing it out on the podcast too. And it makes sense, as Alex had wanted Jack on the show for ages. Stoic, "all the information is on the task" Alex, giving Jack a look when Jack said the glasses might be in the lab. And it still didn't help.

Anyway, bullshit. The task said "the special glasses". Not some, the. The ones that Alex intended. If you could use just any special glasses, even if they're not technically glasses (because things Jack found were goggles), then they should accept the other contestants using their fingers or the eye test thing.

I've not seen the post-task studio bit yet, that is just my opinion on the task itself. I'll be annoyed if they allow this.

- Thank you, Emma. Those are goggles. Not glasses.

- Thank you, Greg! I'm fine with the sympathy point, fair enough. One could definitely argue that Alex screwed Jack over there by stopping the clock when he hadn't completed the task, and if Alex had given Jack more time, he'd have found the real glasses eventually. Oddly, in this case, Alex's sycophantic attitude toward Jack worked against Jack, as Alex just sees anything Jack does and says "Yeah, cool, you're great." So fine, give him one point with the assumption that he'd have completed the task at some point.

- Adorable that Emma heard the whistle and immediately started running toward the task. She's great for this show.

- I 100% believe that Emma Sidi dreams about admin, and Andy Zaltzman dreams about running Olympic events while riding animals.

- Okay, that's fucking funny. By setting a task that penalizes those who speak faster, they managed to find a way to discriminate against the four non-Rosie contestants, for not having cerebral palsy. Well done.

- My pedantic thought #1: It says they can move to the next barrel after completing a challenge, it doesn't say they have to go in one direction or the other, they could go from 1 to 9 and then stop. Pedantic thought #2: it says they can only move to "the next barrel" after completing a challenge, it doesn't say there are any restrictions on when they can move to the barrel after that one, or after that one, or any barrel besides the next one.

- When Emma began her explanation of bed socks with the words "when women...", I immediately pictured various things she might say next - she's very young for menopause (I fucking hope so as I think she's my age), but there are certain points in a menstrual cycle when body temperature regulation can fluctuate wildly, there are various reasons why cis women might be more likely than cis men to need to frequently switch between socks and bare feet. I... I assumed she'd say something about that. Was extremely caught off guard by what she actually said. Well done to Emma, Greg, and Alex for all being quite comedically quick in the scene that followed, that was very funny, but... I mean, it didn't answer the question. Is that real? I'd never heard of that.

- "Lobsters are biologically immortal" is a Zaltzman-level lie. Rosie, you've fallen for a Zaltzman-level lie.

- Ah, I see how this task works. One of those ones where you're best off just getting somewhere, I probably wouldn't try for going past five, and then quitting while you're ahead. The penalties for fucking it up when you try to go farther are too great, going back to the beginning for two mistakes or getting disqualified for an even-numbered barrel.

- And just after I wrote that, Rosie did exactly what I thought, got to barrel 5 and stopped. Good job.

- God, it is adorable how eager Emma is on these. I like how she leans forward, in the task and in the studio, when she's really into something. Jumping to the next barrel without waiting to hear how the question went. Emma Sidi is not here to fuck around.

- "Predict which hand Alex's whistle is in - your right!" Yelling that at Alex before he even put the whistle in in a hand. She's great. She and I shall have a spring wedding. Or whatever season she wants, really, I'll leave it up to her.

- Oh she's done so well but she's flying too close to the sun! Slow down, Emma!

- ...And right after I wrote that, back to the beginning. Especially disappointing as she messed up on the coin, which she could have easily got right if she'd taken half a second to think. Like with the dice, it does not say they can't just carefully put it down with the side they want on top. But that is Emma in this whole season, very eager and very clever, but mistakes in the execution.

- Oh my God, Emma. Nearly disqualified from a task for thinking that lobsters are biologically immortal. Amazing. That was great fun and also unnecessarily stressful. But she scraped by to three.

- Well, Andy and Jack have been grouped. That probably means they did similarly well, so either way, neither's pulling significantly ahead of the other in points on this one.

- And yep, that went exactly how I said. There were multiple bits there where I thought Andy was flying too close to the sun, but I shouldn't have doubted his ability to work out how a lemon feels. You live to fight another day, Zaltor.

- Hot dog! Hot dog time! Hot dog on Emma, so Andy's the only one who's still saving it. I've still got my theory that Andy's going to use it in the studio.

- It would be funny if just once, they gave out a task like this one, that's obviously part one to a larger task, and then that turned out to be the whole thing. They're all trying to work out what to label and what noise to make and stuff, according to what will be most useful in the main task. And then Alex just stops the clock and Greg judges them on who made the best noise.

- Andy. Andy, who are you? TV's changed you. You are a respected satirist, Andrew. And now you have labelled your balls. Well done.

- And Emma immediately assumed this task will be exactly what I just suggested it might be, as a joke. That that was the entire task. She's great. We can get married in the winter, if she wants to.

- And now he has to label his balls over and over.

- Okay, so I'm at my parents' place at the moment, and my dad's just come in and said he'll watch the last bit of the episode with me. So I'm going to stop pausing it to write stuff down every few seconds, and just post this now and watch the rest right through. I hope everyone's having a good time.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman at NYT:

Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there. Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race. With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like ��always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age. Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.) Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs. And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

[...] The former president has not been hobbled politically by his age as much as Mr. Biden was, in part because the incumbent comes across as physically frail while Mr. Trump still exudes energy. But his campaign has refused to release medical records, instead simply pointing to a one-page letter released in July by his former White House doctor reporting that Mr. Trump was “doing well” after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt. How much his rambling discourse — what some experts call tangentiality — can be attributed to age is the subject of some debate. Mr. Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style that entertained and captivated supporters even as critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s mental fitness for years. [...]

Mr. Trump’s complexity level has remained relatively steady and has not diminished in recent years, according to the analysis. But concerns about his age have heightened now that he is trying to return to office, concerns that were not alleviated by his unfounded debate claim about immigrants “eating the pets” in a small town. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe he is too old to be president, and his critics have been trying to focus attention on that. A group of mental health, national security and political experts held a conference at the National Press Club in Washington last month on Mr. Trump’s fitness. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of former Republicans, regularly taunts him with ads like one calling his debate with Ms. Harris “a cognitive test” that he failed.

Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis, although he has picked up the pace lately. He appeared to nod off during his hush-money trial in New York before being convicted of 34 felonies. Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition. “That can change with normal aging,” said Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. “But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

[...]

In 2011, as he was contemplating a run for the presidency, Mr. Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and sounded more partisan notes. While many of the themes would be familiar to today’s voters, he stuck closer to his script and finished his thoughts more often. His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor. Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime. He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

This New York Times article today calling out Donald Trump’s cognitive decline that has impacted his speeches over the past year or so is a powerful must-read as to why Americans shouldn’t put this senile fascist back in office.

Read the full article at NYT.

[valiantstarlights]

Omegaverse Lore: Blue Fingers Disease

As with the previous omegaverse lore post, I talked about this on @mr-sadman discord, and I'm also posting about it here because sharing is caring. 😊 Again, feel free to use this in your omegaverse stories, as long as you give credit/tag me. Thank you! 🥰

Huge thanks to @sleepsonfutons for coming up with the official medical term for the Blue Fingers Disease, and to @arialerendeair for reminding me to post the lore! 🙇‍♀️

Thermal Dysregulatory Sensorineural Myocarditis (TDSM), or as it's more commonly known, The Blue Fingers Disease, is a Secondary Gender Disease that can happen to anyone, regardless of their secondary gender, as soon as they reach their majority.

CAUSE

Rejection (or apparent rejection) by one's potential mate.

SYMPTOMS

1.) Low body temperature and unnaturally cold skin

The longer the person is experiencing this disease, the lower their body temperature gets.

This symptom is easier to spot in alphas, whose body temperature run hotter than betas and omegas.

2.) Discoloration of the fingertips

Fingertips during early stage TDSM are a shade paler than the person's skin, while later stages of TDSM sees the person's fingertips turn into shades of blue that grow darker the more the disease progresses.

Fingertips that are almost dark blue are advanced cases, as the person could literally die at any time if not provided with immediate care.

(A sure sign that a person's cause of death is TDSM is when the person has blue-tinged lips immediately after their death, along with dark blue fingertips. The blue shade does not fade over time.)

3.) Intermittent tremor in the hands and poor grip strength

4.) Lethargy

5.) Memory loss and/or confusion

6.) Tendency to space out

7.) Lack of appetite

8.) Vulnerability to seasonal diseases

These include, but are not limited to: the common cold, influenza, and pneumonia, as well as mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue and malaria.

TREATMENT

Receiving care from other sources, such as family and friends, is a tried and tested way to cure TDSM. But the recovery is slow (taking months or years) and the person is still considered at risk until the blue on their fingertips fade completely.

The quickest way to fully cure the person, of course, would be if they fall in love with someone else, or if the person who initially rejected them returns their love. If this is the case, then it is not unheard of for the person to be cured of TDSM in a single week, though it would still take a couple more weeks for the symptoms to fade completely.

That being said, it is important to note that multiple studies conducted worldwide show that it is more common for TDSM to be cured by the care of others versus the person's feelings changing or their feelings being requited by the person who had initially rejected them.

DURATION

There is no set time for how long this disease lasts until the afflicted person dies. There have been cases where the person only lived for a couple weeks more after the rejection happened, while in rare cases, the person lived for decades after the rejection, before they finally die around the same time as their beloved.

One of the most famous long-lived cases of people who lived with TDSM is St. Francesca,* which caused early Christians to start referring to TDSM as St. Francesca's Disease.

(*It is said that St. Francesca fell in love with a married man and, realizing that it was against the teachings of the church, prayed to God to let her live so she could serve Him all her life.

However, recently discovered evidence suggests that Francesca was actually in love with her fellow nun, Sister Cordelia, who was one of her childhood best friends. When devout Cordelia decided to enter a convent upon her reaching her majority (a decision supported by her religious parents), Francesca allegedly ran away from home to join her.

She had written a note to her older brother that she made the decision to run away 'with both eyes open,' knowing that Cordelia will never return her affections, but willing to suffer TDSM (she used the term The Internal Winter) if it means still being a part of Cordelia's life.

Multiple sources write about how the two remained best friends until their later years, often claiming that Francesca and Cordelia are 'true sisters in the eyes of the Lord,' and that it is rare for one to be seen without the other.

St. Francesca died less than a day after Sister Cordelia did, at age 79, after having TDSM for more than 60 years.

Due to this, people are now theorizing that Sister Cordelia is an aromantic asexual, but that she still loved St. Francesca as her dearest friend, so Francesca did not succumb to the illness or get too sick, as others with TDSM do.

People from their hometown have asked for Sister Cordelia to be made into a saint as well, and they have commissioned statues of the two women to be made. The statues will be placed in the town square, and will depict the two sitting by the fountain, with Sister Cordelia warming St. Francesca's hands.)

There have been claims that the stronger the feelings of the person are, and the harsher the rejection was, affect the time in which the disease accelerates. And while this is a trope often used in literature and popular culture, there is no scientific basis for it as of yet.

STATISTICS

The Blue Fingers Disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death worldwide, with more than 80% of the people who died being betas and omegas.*

(*As TDSM is more easily detected in alphas, it is possible that betas and omegas often get misdiagnosed with depression during the early stages.)

SECONDARY GENDER DISEASES AWARENESS MONTH

February is Secondary Gender Diseases Awareness Month. The month was chosen primarily for easy recall, as it is the second month of the year. However, February is also the month when new cases of TDSM spike worldwide, due to everyone everywhere celebrating Valentine's Day.

--

Note: In the original discussion, this was supposed to be an alpha-only disease, but for the sake of all the delicious angst, I say it's up to you to decide in your stories who can have this disease. 😊 Enjoy!

[scotianostra]

August 21st 1798 saw the death of James Wilson, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Wilson was born on September 14th 1742 at Carskerdo,Farm, near Ceres, the fourth of the seven children of Alison Landall and William Wilson, a Presbyterian farming family.

He attended the Universities of St.Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He never finished his studies, as he sailed for the New World in 1765. Aided by some letters of introduction, he became a tutor with the College of Philadelphia. He received an honorary M.A. shortly thereafter. In November 1767, he was admitted to the bar, and thus pursuing his recent-born interest in the law. He set up his own practice in Reading in the year 1768. He was quite successful, as he handled nearly half of the cases charged in the country court.

In 1774, he wrote an essay with the title:“ Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Government.” He distributed this article among the members of the First Continental Congress. Within those pages, he set down a number of arguments which severely challenged the parliamentary authority over America. In the final conclusion of this manuscript, he states that Parliament had no power whatsoever over the American colonies. Although he accepted in some ways the power of the Monarch, he would not subject himself to the whims of Parliament, in which the colonies had no representation. His manuscript was read in both America and England, and created quite a stir. He was one of the first to ever voice these opinions in a sensible, well-argumented manner.

As a member of the Pennsylvanian Provincial Congress, he made a passionate speech about the possibility of an unconstitutional act made by Parliament. Judicial Review, the American system of checking governmental acts with the Constitution, was on its way.

In the same year, 1775, he signed the Declaration of Independence as a member of the Second Continental Congress. According to sources, it seems he hesitated at first, but signed anyway. This was due to the fact that he was a representative of the Middle States, where opinions about independence differed. But by signing the Declaration, he broke the deadlock the Pennsylvania delegation was in. His signature made sure Pennsylvania voted for independence.

During the next years he was an occasional member of the Continental Congress, and was present at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which assembled with the purpose of drafting The Constitution of the United States of America. Here he was a very influential figure, whose ideas where heavily incorporated in one of the most important documents in history. Thus the Constitution bears his signature.

In 1789, he became a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, and in the same year was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court.

It’s not all good news on this Scottish born American though, he was a terrible businessman and he took flight to escape imprisonment for debt. Eventually his $197,000 debt sent him to jail twice, but only for short stays. This didn’t seem to have affected his duties as a judge though as he continued on the Federal judicial circuit despite his misdemeanors.

In 1798, James Wilson suffered a bout of malaria and then died of a stroke at the age of 55, he was buried in the Johnston cemetery on Hayes Plantation near Edenton, but was later reinterned in 1906 at Christ Churchyard, Philadelphia.