#take my day off to send it via courier??? HONESTLY?

[landofzero-archive]

Ibara Saegusa - Private Room Chapter 2

Writer: Nishioka Maiko

Season: Autumn

(Location: CosPro Conference Area)

(One week later)

Ibara: —Yes, yes. I believe I explained that many times the other day, right? I’ll send you the materials via email.

That’s right. I’ll contact that person from here.

No. Everyone makes mistakes, so please be careful in the future. Yes, yes. Thank you. Then, please excuse me.

Haah…… Is it an email this time? Uumm……?

—Ahh, come on! What the hell is going on with this situation……!

Problems occur here and there every day! Even when I fix one problem, two more problems pop up in different places at the same time!

This is nothing short of abnormal!

Another email? Yes, yes. What happened this time?

…… What? ‘My working hours have increased too much this month, so why don’t I take some time off somewhere?’ What are they talking about……?

It’s true that I’ve been busy this month due to filming and management duties, and for the past week or so I’ve been working overtime all the time in order to deal with problems.

…… However, there’s no way I could honestly take a day off in this current situation. This is a person who doesn’t know the situation, so……

(No…… Wait. It’s certainly not the time to take a long break.

Recently, the real situation of major agencies with black labor systems has been a hot topic…… (1)

The public will be looking for the next sacrificial company to pop up in the news in a chain reaction.

Under such circumstances, it would be too risky for me to collapse from overwork as the deputy director……)

Damn…… I have no choice. I’ll quickly finish my day off tomorrow and return to the front line as soon as possible.

(Location: Starmony Dorms (Exterior))

Aira: Uummm…… Copy and paste the inquiry number here. All I have to do is start the inquiry~

—The status is complete! It’s almost arrived! My oshi’s national tour disc♪

What a reli~ef. I thought it would arrive later. I have plenty of time before I go to bed, so I’m gonna enjoy this to the fu~llest today.

That’s why I bought a lot of sweets and drinks. I won’t be leaving my room after today……!

Nazuna: O~i, Aira-chin. Isn’t it dangerous to walk while looking at your phone~?

Aira: Ah, Nito-senpai! Sorry. I couldn’t help but wonder if my package had arrived. Ehehee.

Nazuna: Package? Oh, were you tracking your courier package?

I understand why you’re worried about its status, but it’s still dangerous. By the way, what kind of package are you getting?

Aira: It’s the national tour disc for my favorite idol! I’ve been looking forward to its release!

Right now, my roommates Sakuma-senpai and Tenshouin-senpai are away at a long-term location shoot.

So even if I make noise, I won’t bother anyone, and I think I’ll have a good time at my solo viewing party.

I’m planning to go back to my room and start right away— hm?

Huh? Is there some kind of contractor at the dorms right now?

It looks like there are long pipes being brought in and large trucks going in and out. Outsiders also seem to be wandering around? Is there something going on?

Nazuna: Ahh…… Come to think of it, I heard that there was a problem with the water pipes on our floor and that the repair work begins today.

Aira: Ehh!? Construction!?

Th-This can’t be happening~…… Even though I just wanted to enjoy my disc quietly today~……

Nazuna: Ah. But from what I heard, the construction work will be done in the morning. Aren’t they just doing the demolition work now?

So I think we can have some quiet time after this~

Aira: Wh- that’s good news……♪ Then I don’t have to worry! See ya, Nito-senpai. I’m gonna pick up my luggage right away!

Nazuna: Alright, have fun. Bye~♪

(Location: Starmony Dorm Room (Eichi, Rei, Aira's Room))

Aira: I’m back~☆

– Even though I said that, Sakuma-senpai and Tenshouin-senpai are away for a few days due to long-term location work so there’s no way I’d get a reply.

In the end, I feel a little lonely without my seniors……

Well, it can’t be helped. It’s work. And that’s why I can watch discs without hesitation.

Ah, that’s right! I have to open the package right away! I have to be careful not to damage the package inside……

Uwaai♪ As expected of the first limited edition! There’s lots of bonuses!

Arrange the goods and discs neatly~. Take a photo! Alright! I’ll upload it to SNS later♪

Then, let’s finally have the viewing party for today’s main event—

Hmm? My face feels a little sticky. Maybe there’s still some foundation left over from work this morning……?

It’s hard to lie down in bed like this. I’ll wash my face before the viewing party.

Once I start watching it, I don’t want to be distracted by anything else. I have to be fully prepared!

…… Huhh? Even though I’ve turned the faucet all the way, the water isn’t coming out…… Isn’t that weird?

It was normal until this morning. It doesn’t look like there’s anything particularly wrong with the lower pipe.

Could it be that the water in the room is off because they’re doing repair work on the water system……?

Ehh? That’s a problem~……! I just wanted to wash my face and have a watch party.

Get the water flowing! Hey, hey!

—Eh!? The handle of the faucet came off!? UWAWAWAWAWAWA!? THE WATER’S GUSHING OU~T!?

W-Wait a minute! Can someone please stop thiiiiiiiiis!?

---

TL NOTES:

Black labor systems are systems where corporations operate with exploitative working conditions or a toxic company culture. They typically hire lots of young workers only to then force them to work large amounts of overtime without overtime pay (hence why Ibara doing so much overtime could cause a scandal for CosPro).

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[icreaterainbows]

so i just had a courier guy came by to deliver a 4 weeks notice from work. that’s how my day is going in case you were wondering. 

[notttt-che]

Vograce stickers review

I don’t usually make reviews here but I felt it would be opportune since there isn’t any out there and if you are looking for options and you can’t find any soul talking about it, then you would rather avoid that option, right?

When it comes to stickers, I always print them locally. It’s pretty much a hit and miss here, the people who print here are very casual and take little care of their machines. One day the prints can be nice and the other a total mess. Since the designs I was doing required kiss cutting(So you can peel off the sticker out of the sheet) and I don’t have a plotter like a machine like a silhouette or a cricut I decided I wanted this time my stickers to be made by a company.

First I contacted a company in the US which I heard good things about(Mind you, I’m from Peru) But they were taking a while to reply. I don’t want to comment on them much since I never fully tried their service. The thing was, time passed by and the stickers were on a void of no progress. 

I recalled then Vograce(Which is a known company based in China for making acrylic charms)was making stickers and sticker sheets(Vinyl/PVC and washi like paper) They replied very fast which make me feel things would be done on time. Here I’m posting my experience with making stickers(I had done charms with them before)

Communication:

Speed: Fast! Yet pay in mind because of timezones the exchange could be delayed.

Language barrier: This must be the massive Vograce downside of them all. As someone who speaks English as a second language, I have a hard time to make myself understandable. Vograce reps are pretty much the same. I think it’s best to keep messages short and simple if you can. If you need things to be fixed, then try to illustrate them so they can understand it better.

Fixing stuff: Another Vograce downside and for a moment I felt like I was talking with two different people. The first two days of exchanges went smoothly and the rep which was attending me was very nice. I sent my files via Google Drive and there were no issues at all. Yet the third day where there was another thing to fix, the rep(Which was supposed to be the same person) approached me in a rather rude manner or at least that was the impression I had. Also, they refused to check my files via Google Drive when the previous days they had any issue? This plus the fact of the timezones, the exchange was becoming really slow and tedious.

Sticker formatting:

There is no way to know how exactly they need their stickers to be formatted unless you ask them, and they are a little vague about it. I’m going to give a bit of advice here:

The way you need to format your sticker sheet is similar to how Zap Creatives request it as far as I know. You have a PSD file with a layer called “background” where the non-cut art goes. and a layer called “art” where your sticker pieces go. I had a big issue here because of the following sticker sheet:

As you can see, the borders are different colored, not just one color. 

Vograce then replied to me with a preview of all the sticker sheets that looked like this. The pink line is the cut line:

So I thought “Welp, I fucked it up, it looks like they need a bigger bleed border just in case the cut line moves a little”  I requested if it was possible to change the artwork to this one I did according to the thick white bleeding they added:

This is when things got difficult and it’s the change they were refusing to do. They told me because the stickers were very close to each other, they needed that white border. But my issue wasn’t the border but the color of it so I was clueless on why they were so against on changing it? Perhaps I’m ignoring the fact that their plotter program is different from Photoshop when it comes to replacing the artwork, but after a very very tedious exchange, the artwork remained as the preview they sent at first. So pay in mind there is a big big chance your artwork gets a white border instead of the color you requested. If anything, when printing with Vograce, avoid the nuisance and make your borders white. This may save you some headaches when sending and fixing your files.

Price:

Vograce by no means is the cheaper option if you consider shipping. The US sticker company I approached before was 20 cents less for one A6 sheet and had a flat rate of $20 of shipping for a certain amount of stickers. Vograce only ships via express(EMS) or private couriers so the shipping could be as much as the item itself depending on where you live.

Shipping:

Again, since you are paying for express shipping, things are meant to arrive quickly to your place. I knew they had a holiday so I requested if it was possible to ship it before it. Their rep promised they would, and so they did. After the previous headaches, I was relieved they kept their promise and did the effort to have them on time considering how hectic things can be before holidays.

Sticker quality:

After all the struggle I on the process the stickers finally got here. I don’t have a wide reference on how other companies make their stickers, but to me, these are very nice:

I was afraid that white border would show up but it wasn’t the case:

It’s a very precise cut.

The stickers are very thin tho! Yet they are very sticky. 

The back of the sticker paper looks like this, which might be a turn off to some people but since I’ve been printing locally, the stickers here look kinda similar with the manufacturer name so I don’t really mind.

The colors are accurate on what I sent them. Maybe they lean a liitle bit to the yellow side but that’s me being super picky because they are very close to what it looked in the screen(In CMYK) You can choose between glossy or matte finish. I knew that glossy makes your colors pop even more but I felt it could be a little jarring to have a sticker that reflective if you pasted it in your laptop or such. I’m glad the matte finish didn't dull the colors up.

How they will stand:

I have no idea yet lol. I stuck some in my most used journal and see how it will go. So far they have stuck to it well considering it’s a fabric cover.

Final thoughts:

While the end result was pleasant, I think I will try and search for another sticker company next time. Perhaps go for Vograce if you are already making a big order of something else with them. I felt the issues with communication and fixing were a turn off to me. Maybe if they had their formatting info in a PSD or in a video they would avoid so many problems with people like me who are clueless which honestly it’s a massive waste of time from both sides.

[shannaraisles]

In Marcher Fields - Chapter 23

Poppy Hawke was never the daughter her mother wanted, the sister her twin preferred, the hero Kirkwall desired. They do not see the woman who stands between them and the chaos that threatens. No one takes the time to look, until she crosses the path of a certain Knight-Captain with demons of his own to battle …

[Read on AO3]

9:42 Dragon, Solace

Skyhold was so quiet without the majority of the Inquisition in residence.

Poppy was uncomfortably reminded of Kirkwall in the days following the Qunari invasion, a population discovering slowly just how much had been lost in the chaos, a stillness covering everything for days. There was no such mourning here and now, of course - indeed, the Inquisition had just achieved a victory over Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds. But most of the Inquisition were still in the Arbor Wilds, dealing with prisoners, ferrying the wounded safely out of harm's way. The only reason she was in Skyhold was because she had outright refused to be left behind when Cullen had joined the rest of Xena's inner circle to rush ahead to the fortress.

But there was a restlessness hanging over Skyhold. Corypheus' army had been defeated, not Corypheus himself. No one knew better than Poppy that he would not give up so easily.

She pushed away from the gatehouse battlements, turning back to look into the lower courtyard, quietly agitated in herself. Xena and her advisors were closeted in the war room; the rest of the inner circle were in their accustomed places around the fortress, each waiting to be told what the next step would entail. A skeleton crew of guards and servants made the fortress seem far less populous than it had been just a few weeks before. But that lack of people made unknown faces very easy to spot.

It was a dwarf that had caught her attention. Ordinarily, dwarves were a regular sight in Skyhold, the much-needed connection to the lyrium supply from Orzammar, but this one ... there was something furtive in the way he moved. He walked with purpose, certainly, but kept glancing around, as though expecting to be challenged at any moment. Poppy's eyes narrowed.

Best not to disappoint him, then.

Passing through the unused gatehouse and down the steps into the upper courtyard, she lengthened her stride to intercept the furtive dwarf as he reached the top of the wide steps from the lower courtyard. He stuttered out an apology as she ran into him, barely catching his breath before her hand clamped onto his shoulder and dragged him back under the arch of the stairway that lead to the keep proper. Bearded and tattooed - Carta, or casteless-turned-exile, she realized - the dwarf glared up at her as Poppy pressed him against the stone.

"Who sent you?" she asked, pleasant enough for the time being.

"Messenger from the camp," he answered her in a gruff tone, though she noted he was clever enough not to try and pull out of her grasp.

"Nice try," Poppy countered. "But you're not wearing any insignia I recognize, and you move like someone worried about being caught. Now ... there are two people who could have sent you that immediately spring to mind. One of them will result in you being put in the cells; the other will result in you turning around and taking a message back from me. Lying to me will result in more than a few bruises. You look like a clever lad. So who sent you?"

She could see the options flickering through the dwarf's mind - was his employer worth getting himself beaten up by the Champion of Kirkwall? No one was worth that. Inviting the woman who had killed the Arishok to kick the Void out of you was stupidity worthy of a prize, and they both knew it. He sagged a little under her grip, pulling a neatly-folded letter from his pocket. Poppy glanced at the initial written on it, and felt a part of herself growl. Bianca.

"Where is she?" she demanded, her grip tightening on the dwarf's shoulder. "In the camp?"

He winced at the bite of her fingers through his cloak. "Not here, messare," he swore vehemently. "Traveling with her husband."

"But she found the time to write this and send it here," Poppy pointed out with a scowl. She considered her captive for a moment. "Are you her courier of choice?"

The dwarf cleared his throat awkwardly. "For Ferelden and the Marches," he told her. "Personal courier."

"How many of these letters have you delivered to Varric over the years?" she asked suspiciously.

"Too many," he admitted. "It's steady money, messare."

Poppy paused, thinking over her options. She knew that Varric had called it off with Bianca, not simply because he had begun a relationship with Xena - who, in her opinion, deserved her friend infinitely more than the smith who had kept him hanging for years - but also because he had shown her the letter he had sent to Bianca making his position absolutely clear. That Bianca would disregard his request to cut all ties was enough to make Poppy angry. But she could see a way to deal with it while preserving Varric's opinion of the woman he had once loved.

"That steady money should have dried up already," she told him honestly. "Varric wants nothing more to do with her, and I will not allow my friend to be badgered and prodded at by someone who forfeited her right to his attention years ago. I am going to burn this letter. You are going to assure her that you delivered it. I am sure she'll send another one when she gets no reply. You will burn it. You will burn every letter she gives you to give to Varric, and you will swear blind that you delivered them. And I won't hunt you down and make you regret ever lying to me. Are we clear?"

His eyes narrowed as he looked up at her. "What do I get out of this, messare?"

Poppy bent down until she was glaring into his eyes from barely an inch away, her voice low with menace. "To walk away."

The dwarf swallowed, apparently not needing much time to weigh his options at this point. An offer to have your ability to walk removed by a human legend in her own lifetime could do that.

"Right you are, Messare Hawke," he agreed. "Tethras won't get another letter from her via my hands."

"Glad to hear it." Poppy straightened, removing her hand from his shoulder, and jerked her head back toward the gatehouse and the bridge to the mechanized lift. "Sod off."

The unfortunate messenger did just that, taking the steps back down to the lower courtyard a good deal faster than he'd come up them. Poppy frowned, looking down at the letter in her hands. It was so tempting to open it, to find out exactly what Bianca thought she was doing, but at the same time ... these were private words. They were words that were not meant for anyone but Varric, and though Poppy had no intention of letting him find out they had ever been written, she wouldn't betray her friend by reading them.

"Although it really doesn't surprise me that she doesn't understand what the word "no" means," she muttered to herself, inserting one corner of the folded and sealed parchment into the flame of the nearest torch.

And, without warning, green light flashed across the world, a ponderous crack of thunder following it as high above the clouds swirled, horribly familiar to anyone who had looked up at the sky following the explosion at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The burning parchment dropped from Poppy's fingers as he head snapped up, hearing the cursing that rose from everyone in this outer area.

Corypheus.

So he had surfaced. Too arrogant to run and hide, to lick his wounds and try again years from now, he was forcing a confrontation. And by the look of things, he had gone back to Haven to reopen the Breach.

She felt a flare of anger that her mistake had come back to haunt so many people all over again, her feet already moving toward the armory. She wasn't the only one headed in that direction - Iron Bull, Sera, Blackwall; they were all moving to collect their weapons, expecting to accompany the Inquisitor to this final confrontation. Poppy glanced up at the window of the war room, seeing Josephine's frightened face, Leliana's impassive wariness at her back.

A few minutes later, and she was ducking out of the armory, settling her armor and weapons about herself, unsurprised to be stepping aside as Xena and Varric hurried past her to arm themselves. Servants were bustling, throwing together packs for the journey down to the site of the Inquisition's first defeat; on the other side of the bailey, she could hear Master Dennet and his grooms preparing the mounts for their party. And there was Cullen, stone-faced, worry in his eyes as she tightened the last buckle and moved to join him for these few moments.

"I have to go," she told him before he could open his mouth to argue. "Corypheus was my mistake in the first place. I have to be there."

"I know." Cullen's sigh was heavy, but accepting, his hands falling to her shoulders as he looked into her eyes. "I want to come with you, but ..."

She reached up, gently curling her fingers to his cheek. "I know," she promised, drawing him down to press her brow to his. "We're going to win this, Cullen. I am coming back."

"Maker, please ..."

Heedless of any curious eyes that might turn to them, he pulled her into his arms, burying his face in the crook of her neck as she wrapped her own arms tight about him. She could feel him trembling, knew he could feel her shaking in answer. This was a fight she might not come back from ... but she refused to admit that aloud. She had lost too much not to have earned her happy ending. Not even Corypheus was going to keep her from having that promised home with her husband at long last. She just had to see this through to the end that loomed over them.

"Hawke."

Varric's voice as he passed, his hand on her back, drew her out of that embrace, a warning that there would be no waiting for her if she missed their departure. Cullen stiffened, his lips warm against her temple before he let her step back. No more words - everything that needed to be said between them had been said too many times before. All that remained was hope; hope that there would be no more need for such words when she returned again.

Poppy nodded to her husband, falling into step with the rest of Xena's motley crew, all of them somber with the knowledge that this really was the final confrontation. Riding out of Skyhold, turning their faces to the looming threat of the Breach, they all knew just one thing ... it was Corypheus or the world.

No more chances.

[sciencespies]

Inside a Brain Bank, Where Humans' Most Precious Organ Is Dissected and Studied

https://sciencespies.com/nature/inside-a-brain-bank-where-humans-most-precious-organ-is-dissected-and-studied/

Inside a Brain Bank, Where Humans' Most Precious Organ Is Dissected and Studied

Around three or four in the morning, Tina Zheng leaves home to meet a brain. “I’ll try to nap a little bit in the Uber ride, and then I’ll review all the brain regions in the car ride too,” she says. “We’re never sitting down doing a boring office day job. It’s just the next second, there’s a brain coming, and we have to be up and ready for it.”

Zheng works as a tissue coordinator at the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC) at McLean Hospital, one of the oldest brain donation banks in the country. Brain matter has a limited shelf life, so dissectionists like Zheng are on-call around the clock to partition and preserve a freshly donated brain as soon as it arrives to the lab, whatever time that may be.

Unlike other organ donations, which are generally used for transplants, brains are primarily harvested to support the research of neurological diseases and disorders. Every year, the HBTRC sends thousands of brain tissue samples to labs all over the world to investigate the causes and possible treatments of ailments such as addiction, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Research supported by brain banks is increasingly critical with today’s rising rates of neurological illnesses. Between 1990 and 2015, the number of deaths from neurological disorders, including stroke, dementia and multiple sclerosis, increased by nearly 37 percent. In the United States alone, 5.8 million people currently live with Alzheimer’s, making it the nation’s sixth leading cause of death. By 2050, the affected population is projected to increase to almost 14 million.

Although treatments for these disorders remain elusive, postmortem brain tissue offers a key resource for unlocking possible solutions. In the past, neurological medications like lithium, used to treat ailments such as bipolar disorder, were discovered mostly by trial and error, with researchers or physicians prescribing different substances and observing the effects. Thanks to advances in genetics and biotechnology, scientists can now hunt for specific genes and molecular pathways that are related to a particular disease, and hopefully find treatments that are tailored to these targets. Brain tissue serves as the raw material for exploring genetic and environmental factors of neurological conditions, making it a critical substance for meeting the needs of brain research labs around the world.

“It’s that feeling of, I am contributing to something much more than myself that keeps me going,” Zheng says. “The human brain, there’s so much mystery involved in it right now, I want to be part of discovering what’s next and what’s left to uncover.”

**********

The brain is like a ticking time bomb whose clock starts at the moment of death. If a brain isn’t retrieved within 24 hours, its texture changes from a “firm Jello” to “pudding,” Zheng says, rendering it essentially useless for research. Given this short window of time, the brain donation team must work as efficiently as a fine-tuned assembly line.

The brain donation process starts when a donor is near death, or soon after they pass away. The family notifies a coordinator at the HBTRC, who secures a pathologist to remove the brain and a courier to retrieve it.

Studies on the human brain are essential to discovering the biological causes of brain disorders.

(McLean Hospital)

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“Most of the time it’s a cold call,” says Kay Sullivan, program manager at the HBTRC. The coordinators screen potential donors for issues like massive strokes or infectious diseases, and direct the families to place the bodies in refrigeration within six hours. Most brain removals take place in a funeral home rather than a hospital, since hospitals are wary of taking in “random bodies,” Sullivan says.

Allison Rodgers, another tissue coordinator, recalls her first week on the job when the brain bank received eight cases in just five days over Christmas. “Sometimes you’re working a case, and you’re wrapping up … just getting back to bed, then you get another phone call,” she says. “Honestly, all you do is put on another pot of coffee and keep going.”

The HBTRC accepts donations from every state in the U.S., so sometimes a pathologist or courier needs to drive several hours to retrieve a brain. Fortunately, the center has a network of over 500 pathologists across the country, making most brain donations possible.

Katherine Waters, the chief of pathology and laboratory medicine at VA Maine Healthcare, started harvesting brains for the HBTRC this year. “When I get a call saying where the death is, I get the kit, get my car, get to the funeral home, and harvest the brain,” Waters says.

Waters’ brain removal kit is like something Florence Nightingale might carry if she were also a mechanic and a superhero. It contains a fluid-impermeable jumpsuit, a catheter to extract cerebrospinal fluid from the spinal cord, a tool resembling a chisel to pull off the calvaria, or skullcap, and a bone saw, which is similar to an electric cast saw. “You could do it by hand,” Waters says of cutting open a skull, “but it would take a lot more time, and I don’t have the physical strength to do that.”

Waters starts by elevating the upper body and making an incision from the back of one ear across to the other, allowing her to pull away the scalp. Using the bone saw, she cuts a circle across the skull and twists the skullcap off with the chisel. With the skull open, Waters can collect fluid samples and then remove the brain, placing it in a bag with a slurry of ice, and then in another bag and a Styrofoam cooler. Afterwards, she reassembles the skullcap and scalp as if nothing ever happened. The whole process takes less than an hour.

The brain makes its way from the funeral home to the HBTRC via a courier, sometimes on a commercial flight. Team members like Zheng and Rodgers receive notice of the brain’s arrival and assemble at the brain bank to perform the dissection. Like Waters, they follow a strict routine.

After weighing and photographing the brain to note any abnormalities, the dissectionists cut it in half. One side is further dissected and frozen at minus 80 degrees Celsius, while the other is fixed in formalin. Throughout each of these steps, dissectionists look for signs of disease progression, like the shrunken frontal lobe that can accompany dementia or the deteriorated striatum of Huntington’s disease.

“Throughout the whole process, we can see how much every part of the brain changed based on what the person was experiencing,” Zheng says. “You can kind of imagine what the person’s life was like and how the disease really affected him or her.”

Human brain specimens preserved in formalin. The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC), established at McLean Hospital in 1978 and known as the Brain Bank, is a centralized resource for the collection and distribution of tissue for brain research.

(McLean Hospital)

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After about three hours, the dissection is complete. The formalin sample joins over 6,000 other half-brains in the “fixed room,” and sections are made into slides and stains that histologists examine under a microscope to look for abnormalities in the tissue, like plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s. Scientists from around the world can later request samples that match the specific pathology of their research.

“I don’t think that feeling you get when you first pick up a brain ever goes away,” Zheng says. “I feel very privileged to be in this position and to be able to talk to their families and hear their stories, and to be trusted with their loved ones’ tissue. … Seeing the tissue in my hand and cutting it and thinking about the person’s life—I think it’s really empowering.”

**********

Postmortem samples from brain banks like the HBTRC have already started to support breakthroughs in neurological research. For instance, a recent study using tissue from the cortex of donated brains pinpointed specific neurological pathways that are affected by autism spectrum disorder. Other work used donated tissue to look at the genes associated with major depressive disorder. The scientists found that the expression of genes varied based on factors like gender, providing key information that could someday be used to develop more efficient and personalized antidepressant treatments.

“You need all the tools you can get to understand these disorders,” says Sabina Berretta, director of the HBTRC. In addition to studying postmortem tissue, imaging methods like MRIs offer alternative tools for investigating neurological conditions.

Berretta explains that while imaging has the advantage of allowing scientists to study living subjects, it has poor resolution (“maybe a square centimeter”), and “you only get a slice of a person’s life at a certain time of their disorder.” By contrast, postmortem tissue provides resolution at the molecular level and could reveal lifelong patterns in a subject’s history. The two techniques are complementary, allowing broad analysis of living brains and then a more meticulous investigation of donated tissue.

“I like to think of it as if you were exploring a completely different part of the world,” Berretta says. “You would first want to fly at high altitude—get a bird’s eye view … but if you want to know about the plants and animals, what language they speak there, what houses they live in, you need to go to the ground.”

**********

Even with teams working around the clock, brain banks are sorely lacking one critical component: healthy brains. While people suffering from neurological disorders are more likely to register as donors to contribute to a future cure, healthy people usually don’t think to donate their brains. This absence places an enormous limitation on research, since scientists need control samples to compare against diseased tissue.

“I think a lot of people are scared of brain donation because it involves death, and a lot of people, especially young people, don’t plan their funeral,” Sullivan says. “There is a stigma … so people are scared of the topic.”

Sullivan cites some common misconceptions, such as the idea that brain donation prevents a funeral viewing (it doesn’t, as cuts are only visible on the back of the head). Many also assume that the brain is included in the standard organ donation you sign up for on your driver’s license, which prioritizes transplant and only retrieves the brain after it’s started to degrade.

“I think in the future, we’re hoping there will be a database where you can select which body parts will go to research, and then if there’s a car accident or something, you’ve already given pre-mortem consent for [brain donation],” Sullivan says.

The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center collects brain and tissue samples from across the United States and distributes them to investigators all over the world.

(McLean Hospital)

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Efforts to increase the number of brain donations are already under way. Tish Hevel founded the Brain Donor Project in 2016 to help spread the word about the NIH’s NeuroBioBank, a national network of six brain banks including the HBTRC that was established in 2013. Motivated by a nightmarish experience trying to facilitate her father’s brain donation while he was suffering from Lewy Bodies dementia, Hevel started the nonprofit to ease the process of connecting donors with brain banks.

“There are more than 50 million Americans [with neurological disorders],” Hevel says. “That’s [almost] one in five of us … and we’re not getting answers fast enough. There simply is no substitute for human brain tissue. Many neurological researchers say that is the most precious substance known to man.”

In its first two years of operation, the NeuroBioBank supplied more than 10,000 tissue specimens to support almost $70 million in research funding that involved postmortem brain research. Since October 2016, the Brain Donor Project helped reach more than 6,300 new donors from all fifty states. But Hevel emphasizes that there is still a long way to go.

“When we were first setting up, [experts asked], ‘What if we’re too successful? What if we have too many brains?’” Hevel says. “It’s just not going to happen in our lifetime. It’s just such a critical issue, [and] we’re just not making progress in key areas. … We got to get to it so that people don’t have their whole families’ lives ruined.”

In light of this escalating need for neurological research, Hevel’s efforts offer hope: We might finally save the human brain from its most pervasive threats, if we choose to put our minds to good use.

#Nature

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [540]

Ellana is warm and smells heady with sleep when he slides into bed behind her. He feels his entire body relaxing, like every single bone is taking one long, deep sigh and all the tension he’s been carrying for weeks since he first left Morrin floods out of him instantly. It’s all worth it. Even the dumb dog that’s currently trying to stick its long nose into he back of his knee.

Ellana mumbles softly, stirring awake, voice garbled and words slurred, “You’re back?”

Bull hums, raising up on his elbow to lean over her and kiss her hair. She smells like storms. Like wet stone. Like the coast. Like dragons.

“How were the kids?”

Ellana reaches back and pinches him.

“Don’t call them that,” she grumbles. “Calling your band of former sell swords the kids.”

“What else would I call them? The boys?” Bull asks, using the hand he’s not leaning on to try and untangle her hair from her face.

“Try calling Dalish one of your boys, see how well that goes,” Ellana replies, sitting up and turning to face him, shoving her hair off her face and shoulders. “Let me look at you.”

Bull sits back obligingly, taking her in as well.

All of the commotion with the Venatori and the grumblings of Orlais, and the silence from the Anderfels has most of Thedas stirring. The situation is constantly changing and that means Bull is constantly being called back to Skyhold to deal with situations that can’t be managed from Morrin. The periods he’s being held back at Skyhold are getting longer and more frequent. He’s made some noise about it, but honesty the situation can’t be helped.

“I thouhgt you wouldn’t be back,” Ellana says, lacing their fingers together. “Dorian had written to say that the Inquisitor wanted to send you to Nevarra.”

Bull hadn’t known about that.

“You and Pavus write?”

“Of course we write,” Ellana says, “He’s the only one who writes me anything.”

There’s a sting to her words and Bull feels a small well of guilt.

“Sorry. I get…caught up in things,” Bull says. “I’m not going to Nevarra.”

It’s too far from the south. It’d be easier for the Qun to get him there. Bull doesn’t say that, though. He doesn’t want to worry her more than he has to.

“And I’m glad of it,” Ellana says. “It takes you weeks to come back, and Skyhold is already — relatively — close. I cannot imagine how long it would take for you to return if you were sent to Nevarra. Are you back for long, or are you on a small stop on the way elsewhere?”

“I’m here,” Bull says. “I wish I could say for good, but I am not on assignment so. That’s something.”

“I’ll take that something,” Ellana says softly. “For as long as I can keep it. Lie down with me, husband. And we shall sleep and tomorrow you will tell me what news you have and we will enjoy what time we have before you are, undoubtedly, called back to do your duties.”

“And will you tell me all the ways my swords and daggers and brats misbehaved and caused trouble?” Bull asks as he lies down, Ellana’s head moving to rest on his chest as she rests her palm on the center of his chest, sighing softly. He is not the only one relieved that he’s back. “And what other sorts of trouble you’ve been getting into?”

“Me? Trouble? Never,” Ellana says. “You’ve gone and imagined me a fantasy, have you?”

“You, trouble? Always,” Bull says, taking the hand on his chest and squeezing. “But I wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t trouble, so that’s fine by me. I think I’d feel guilty, honestly.”

“Guilty to have a wife who doesn’t bring trouble to your doorstep?”

“Guilty that my kind of trouble keeps washing up on hers,” Bull replies. “We received an envoy in Skyhold. Or at least. The Dalish ambassador did.”

“Oh?”

“A message about a clash between Wolves and Hawks?”

Bull can feel Ellana getting smug. She even nuzzles her grin into his chest.

“Go to sleep,” Ellana says, “And I’ll think about it.”

-

“Abelas,” Ellana says, turning to the man standing in the shadows, “Why must you lurk like that?”

“I didn’t realize I was lurking,” Abelas replies. “Does it bother you?”

“Yes. It does. You look ridiculous.” Ellana didn’t realize she’d ever get a chance to mouth off at the older elf like this again. The wonders of leaving the service. “Let’s go for a ride. It’s a beautiful day out. Clear skies, the air is crisp, and the ground shouldn’t be too wet. I think my stag could use a nice run through his paces as well.”

“As you like,” Abelas says as Ellana stands up and starting heading towards the main hall. “You seem…energetic today. Should that be a cause for concern?”

Ellana ignores him.

“Ah,” Abelas says, sounding bemused. Ellana ignores that, too. “You’re sulking.”

She has to bite her tongue to avoid answering.

Abelas doesn’t say anything and Ellana doesn’t look at him but she can just sense that there’s an extra…spring to his otherwise staid step. The downside of having known someone so long, she supposes.

And she isn’t…sulking. It’s just a wonderful day and she’s been inside for almost a week because of the on and off storms and heavy winds and it looks like it’s finally calmed down enough she can go outside and do something that isn’t stare at a wall. It’s such a nice day with wonderful weather and it makes her head clear and her lungs feel three times as large when she takes in a breath. And the sky is perfectly clear so now would be a good time to send some letters or receive some letters because there ought not to be a reason for a messenger bird to be delayed by this.

And if it’s been almost two weeks since she last heard from the Iron Bull then perhaps now is as good a time as any for a letter to arrive via bird or courier or some…piece of paper tied to an arrow perhaps. By anything really. It’s not as though that her last letter also mentioned a poisoning incident and a slight rash of fevers spreading through Skyhold. It’s not as though Ellana is waiting for important news concerning the safety and welfare of her husband.

And it’s not as though Ellana received a letter from Dorian Pavus that included a footnote that mentioned that her husband was fine and possibly being sent to Nevarra of all places, and how did she feel about that?

The Iron Bull is his own man with a life separate from hers and duties beyond the walls of Morrin Keep and he owes allegiances to higher powers than their marriage vows.

And Ellana is beyond annoyed with it because considering all that writing he does he doesn’t seem to write her anything.

So maybe…she is sulking, but not much. She’s just peeved.

“Fine weather for flying, shall I fetch your falcon?” Abelas asks.

Ellana turns to glare at him as she mounts her stag. She has half a mind to have her stag kick mud at him while he’s still on the ground. But Abelas knows her too well and he is quickly astride his own stag and pulling up next to her as the gates are opened.

“If a letter comes it comes,” Abelas says, keeping their stags just far apart enough that Ellana can’t kick him. “No news is good news.”

“How unlike you to be so optimistic,” Ellana mutters, “I do so hate it when you act like a hahren.”

“And yet you insist on acting the role of a da’len,” Abelas replies calmly. “Lead on, now. Lest you squander your beautiful day.”

[mattsammonsez]

Brass Tacts: The Art of Screwing Up (Without Screwing it All Up)

To err is to human, and in broadcasting and content creation, to err could be rather costly. But how do you turn that mistake you made in to a lesson learned without totally derailing your career path?

My first broadcasting internship was in the summer of 1996, and I was fortunate to have it in my hometown of Tampa. While the format of the music on “101 WUSA” wasn’t exactly this 18-year-old’s cup of tea, I knew then my choice of being a production assistant for the station was a better option than being a morning show lackey for the more popular top 40 station I could have worked for. This was a chance for me to get my hands on some equipment and do some actual work, which I wanted to do after getting my career started just a few months before. If I was going to give up my paid weekend work back in Tuscaloosa for an unpaid major market internship, I wanted to make it worth my while.

With my internship starting in May, we were right in the thick of May sweeps-- one of the two time periods each year (the other being November) when local TV stations pull an all-out blitz of advertising to draw more viewers. The May and November sweeps determine the ad rates on the stations, so the stakes are high in every TV, radio, or print ad that runs. To help production director Steve Sande and the production staff out, I was assigned the duty of taking the numerous commercials from the TV stations and ingesting them in to the digital commercial system WUSA was using.

Now this was 1996, and digital technology was still very primitive compared to today’s standards. The commercial system required several steps to record a commercial into it, and the commercials from the TV stations were delivered on reel-to-reel tape. Each station would send over about 8-10 commercials on several tapes. The spots promoted the 6 p.m. and late night newscasts for that night to air in the PM drive shift, maybe even the prime time lineup for the network, and most importantly the morning news and network programming that would air during the lucrative morning drive shift. With the TV stations jockeying for viewers in a day and age where most cable systems still only had maybe 50 channels, and the internet was still a curiosity rather than a primary source of information for people, these commercials were extremely important to clear. And that’s not just for the TV stations buying the time, but for the radio stations that sold the valuable avails to them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had thousands of dollars of air time in my hands every time I strung up one of those tapes to play back in to the commercial system.

Now also in 1996, I didn’t have a car of my own. While this wasn’t much of an issue living on campus of the University of Alabama, it certainly was that summer since I lived in the suburb of Seffner-- about a 20-mile drive to the station which was located near Tampa International Airport. In order to do this, someone in my family would drop me off at an express bus station in nearby Brandon. That bus would take me downtown where I switched buses to a local route, and I would do the routine in the afternoon with an added twist. In order for me to take the last express bus out of downtown to my neighborhood, I had to board the local bus near the station no later than 4:40 p.m. If I missed that local bus, I would miss the express to Brandon. That would mean I would have to take a local bus to the old Eastlake Square Mall, which was a good 20-30 minutes out of the way for my parents to pick me up. I can attest that the bus system in Hillsborough County hasn’t improved that much in the past 23 years, but I digress...

These tapes often arrived via courier between 2 and 3 p.m., so I had my work cut out for me if I wanted to get out the door for that 4:40 bus. Sometimes complicating matters, was the TV stations changing their promotional messaging, which meant tapes would come in closer to 4. One day late in May sweeps, when I felt like I had a routine down pat, I hurriedly processed the 20 or so TV spots I had to ingest before running out the door to catch that 4:40 bus.

The morning bus system was not that much better, often having me enter the station between 9:30 and 10 the next morning. Sande called me in to his production studio, and asked me if I had done the spots for WFTS, the local ABC affiliate. I said I did, it was after all part of my normal afternoon glut of commercial dubs from the 4 local stations. He pulled out a production order and commercial log written up with red ink everywhere. When I ingested spots correctly, I would give each spot a digital cart number that was assigned by the traffic department. Well on this particular day I had created a new cut number in one cart number, as opposed to assigning each spot its own cart number. That meant that the 8-10 carts scheduled for WFTS that previous night and following morning never ran. And in a day and age before instant connection with people on their cell phone or email, nobody found out what went wrong until the following morning. That’s when Sande told me about my mistake, and the cost. 

My urgent need to get out the door cost the station $1,000 in ad revenue. On top of that, the station had to give WFTS bonus avails the next day to make-good the missed spots. Let me tell you, nothing makes you think your job is done and your career is off the rails than when you the 18-year-old unpaid intern discovers you just cost the station at least $1,000 with a mistake. I learned a lot from Steve Sande, and we remained close friends until his untimely death from a heart attack in 2013, and Steve gave me the ultimate “let down dad” look to me that day. He told me to be more careful, and then I sulked off to the promotions office to do data entry while listening to Crystal Bernard and Peter Cetera croon in heavy rotation on the office’s radio.

Steve Sande, production director and saint.

Maybe it was the endless hours of typing frequent listener names and addresses in to a computer, or hearing that damn Crystal Bernard/Peter Cetera song every 87 minutes, but later that day I found my chutzpah. Around 3 p.m. I went back in to Sande’s studio, and asked him if I could have that day’s TV commercials to put in to the system. He turned around and looked at me with a little surprise in his eyes, and then he half-jokingly said, “You’ve got some nerve Sammon!” I replied that I wanted to get it right this time and he could trust me, I just wanted to help everyone out. He slowly nodded his head, and reached in to his inbox for a stack of production orders and reel-to-reel tapes. That afternoon I carefully ingested each spot as instructed, and even went back to Sande’s studio to double-check it. Every day after that, I meticulously ingested every commercial given to me, and I never screwed up another spot.

I can also say that day, I proved my worth to Steve Sande and the entire radio station. I knew I goofed up, and big time, but I learned my lesson and went right back in to the trenches that an unpaid intern works in without complaint. As I said before Steve and I became good friends, and at a lunch the following March when I just wanted to say hello because I was in town on spring break, Steve asked me if I was going to work again as an intern for the station. I honestly hadn’t given my summer plans much thought then, simply living in the moment, but I quickly agreed to. I did so much production work in my first week back in the summer of 1997, the station hired me part-time. Just a year before I was costing the station $1,000. Now, I was putting that in to my pocket after a couple of paychecks. It was a lesson I learned then on my work ethic, and it taught me a lesson on how to handle an issue like this in the future. Here’s what I drew from both sides of the equation:

Every mistake is a teachable moment, and something you should acknowledge: No matter how small or insignificant it may be, you can and should learn something from any mistake you make. And when you make a mistake you should own up to it. It’s too easy to blame someone else when you made the mistake, so fess up first and you’ll discover the learning process comes a lot easier when you’re not fooling yourself.

After you learn from it, try not to do it again: Mistakes happen because we are human, but after you’ve learned your lesson you need to show everyone including yourself that you actually learned it by not repeating the mistake. Showing you can take the fall for your mistakes, and learn and improve despite the error proves your value to everyone involved.

If an employee or co-worker makes a mistake, don’t hang it over his/her head forever: I can only imagine how terrible Steve felt when his intern made a $1,000 mistake. Actually I know it, because my interns in the future would also make mistakes on things they should have known better. But rather than berate them for the mistake, or let it linger with them for a long time, patiently work with them to understand what the mistake was and how not to do it again. Showing you understand while also correcting the mistake establishes a very important bond between you and your employees. The forgiveness, even in a costly mistake, goes a long way in keeping the employee’s morale and dedication to the bigger cause intact.

Visit SammonSez.com to see how we can help you show boldness even if you’ve made a blunder. Confidence is contagious, and it starts with you being the carrier.