yo? let's fucking go?

the text of the article:

>Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.

>Every year, researchers try to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly.

>The same is true of COVID vaccines, which have been reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S.

>This new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus. The vaccine, how it works, and a demonstration of its efficacy in mice is described in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

>“What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.”

>Traditionally, vaccines contain either a dead or modified, live version of a virus. The body’s immune system recognizes a protein in the virus and mounts an immune response. This response produces T-cells that attack the virus and stop it from spreading. It also produces “memory” B-cells that train your immune system to protect you from future attacks.

>The new vaccine also uses a live, modified version of a virus. However, it does not rely on the vaccinated body having this traditional immune response or immune active proteins — which is the reason it can be used by babies whose immune systems are underdeveloped, or people suffering from a disease that overtaxes their immune system. Instead, this relies on small, silencing RNA molecules.

>“A host — a person, a mouse, anyone infected— will produce small interfering RNAs as an immune response to viral infection. These RNAi then knock down the virus,” said Shouwei Ding, distinguished professor of microbiology at UCR, and lead paper author.

>The reason viruses successfully cause disease is because they produce proteins that block a host’s RNAi response. “If we make a mutant virus that cannot produce the protein to suppress our RNAi, we can weaken the virus. It can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response,” Ding said. “A virus weakened in this way can be used as a vaccine for boosting our RNAi immune system.”

>When the researchers tested this strategy with a mouse virus called Nodamura, they did it with mutant mice lacking T and B cells. With one vaccine injection, they found the mice were protected from a lethal dose of the unmodified virus for at least 90 days. Note that some studies show nine mouse days are roughly equivalent to one human year.

>There are few vaccines suitable for use in babies younger than six months old. However, even newborn mice produce small RNAi molecules, which is why the vaccine protected them as well. UC Riverside has now been issued a US patent on this RNAi vaccine technology.

>In 2013, the same research team published a paper showing that flu infections also induce us to produce RNAi molecules. “That’s why our next step is to use this same concept to generate a flu vaccine, so infants can be protected. If we are successful, they’ll no longer have to depend on their mothers’ antibodies,” Ding said.

>Their flu vaccine will also likely be delivered in the form of a spray, as many people have an aversion to needles. “Respiratory infections move through the nose, so a spray might be an easier delivery system,” Hai said.

>Additionally, the researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. “Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this,” Hai said.

>Ultimately, the researchers believe they can ‘cut and paste’ this strategy to make a one-and-done vaccine for any number of viruses.

>“There are several well-known human pathogens; dengue, SARS, COVID. They all have similar viral functions,” Ding said. “This should be applicable to these viruses in an easy transfer of knowledge.

In Minecraft In Minecraft In Minecraft In Minecraft In Minecraft In Minecraft In Minecraft

I gotta get back into Minecraft y'all !dumpster-fire

you might have seen the demo played on twitch by some bald guy. 1.0 is out today and it is delivering on the promise that it's demos made

your new endless addiction. poker roguelike deckbuilder. buy jokers that multiply your hand score, convert all your 2s and 3s into face cards, play blatantly illegal poker hands like the flush house or the five-of-a-kind, challenge ever-escalating blinds that fuck with your hand while you're playing it. make number go up (and boy howdy does the number go UP lol)

fifteen bucks (dang, pretty good)

the list is not exhaustive. foods listed are blursed but not necessarily blursed in the same way

funnel cake

lucky charms (soggy)

wilted spinach salad

couscous

atomic warheads

beer above 10% abv (some exclusions)

molasses

scran or no scran

and he's a crabby asshole about it every time !whywhywhywhywhy

no, this is not in the wrong sub

i've watched jeremy blake/red means recording for quite a while. his OP-1 videos have always been mostly focused on the workflow and music creation with some side chat about life and stuff, but here the script is kind of flipped. he talks about reading devon price's 'unmasking autism' and goes from there. anyway, this video/final track is unexpectedly profound on the subject of living a neurodivergent experience in the modern condition. i think its worth your time

also if i turn a few heads on to this guy's genuinely high quality content then cool

I hit 'Discover' and every single post Bluesky shows me is gloating over the death of a Jewish centenarian. Not sure this is a much better place than X.

uhh, i can't get clear

>In a highly unusual move, the White House has requested for it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public — in a time when the U.S. is supporting a military that experts say has been committing war crimes in Gaza and beyond.

>The White House made the request within a $106 billion supplemental defense funding request sent on October 20. As reported by In These Times, the White House is asking for up to $3.5 billion in military funding for Israel to be able to purchase weapons and other equipment, from sources like the U.S. military or U.S. defense contractors, without the spending having to be approved by or even disclosed to Congress.

>Crucially, such notifications to Congress are also logged in the Federal Register, where they are viewable to the public — but the White House is trying to get rid of that transparency for Israel for funding through September 2025 and potentially beyond if Israel chooses to set aside funding before then.

>Experts have said that the move is alarming and rare. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Josh Paul, the former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, told In These Times. Within the State Department, where he worked for 11 years, Paul helped the bureau in its work on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its genocidal siege on Gaza.

> “A proposal in a legislative request to Congress to waive Congressional notification entirely for [Foreign Military Financing ]-funded Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Contracts is unprecedented in my experience,” Paul said. “Frankly, [it’s] an insult to Congressional oversight prerogatives.”

>President Biden told reporters Wednesday that Palestinian terrorists have “gotta learn how to shoot straight” — one day after an explosion outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip. > >“I’m not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it,” the president said at Ramstein Air Base in Germany en route back to Washington after visiting Israel earlier in the day. > >“It’s that old thing: Gotta learn how to shoot straight,” Biden went on. > >“It’s not the first time that Hamas has launched something that didn’t function very well.”

wow, this fucking sucks Joe

millenials, folks! aw, shucks don't ya love em? the adorable little scamps! !brak

I just broke my rule and preordered Armored Core VI, 23 hours before release. It's also the first full price $60 game i've bought in probably ten years. I'm getting the shame and loathing out of the way rn so i can enjoy tomorrow !think-about-it

Okay Okay ok ok SHUT IT. SETTLE DOWN. We are gonna talk about a CURRENT SEASON ISEKAI. If anybody in the sub within threadshot thinks that's too CRINGE for your more REFINED TASTES, you are welcome to see yourself out, there are some lovely jojo's memes on page one that should serve as a palate cleanser.

NOW. The show we are going to talk about is named My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even At Level 1. In this show, an overworked salaryman is Truck Memed into a sort of "Dungeon Crawling" New World, where people have Levels and Skills that determine their abilities and proficiencies, and who live in towns/cities situated around access to Dungeons, wherein Monsters can be found, which can be Killed, dropping their Loot; therefore, a common Job among the population is Adventurer, a job made necessary by the material fact that Farming Does Not Seem To Exist, Neither Animal Husbandry, so all goods must be gathered as Loot Drops from Monsters in Dungeons, with more valuable goods dropping from more difficult monsters. Essentially, your MC has been dropped into a generic video game.

(some extra info but not strictly necessary)

Before i go on; This Is Not A Great Show. Isekai is already an overdone and stale genre, and the titular contrivance wherein the MC is hardlocked to the starting level does not elevate this show above the pack. While the MC cannot level up, he can increase his Skill stats (ranked from F to A for most characters in the world, but MC can rank up to S for each stat) in a way that puts him on par with the world's strongest individuals. The way this is achieved is as such: A New Dungeon appeared in the world, and no drops appeared for anybody in the dungeon. But the MC, who woke up with a Loot stat of S, he gets drops! In fact, he is the only person in the show/world that has an S grade Loot stat, so he is the only person to get drops here. And what are these drops? Seeds that increase the MCs Stat Ranks. Floor one increases Strength (and so quickly the MC has an S-rank Strength stat), floor two increases Toughness, etc.

______

Don't ask me how The MC Gets The Only Gun In Universe, Don't ask me why The MC Is Surrounded By Bishoujo (you know why, try not to puke); in classic Isekai fashion, the world feels less like an organic place that the MC lands in and more like a carefully crafted set and setting for the MC to play out an evolving fantasy of wielding power and social capital, things the Late Salaryman was unfamiliar with except as dreams. Quite Boring, by the time you grasp it all. But wait a minute: what was that about strikebreaking???

I am currently halfway through the 6th episode. The local Trader (a pretty girl with pink hair of course) is in a bit of a bind. A wrinkle in the trading space has appeared, thanks to the worldbuilding contrivance of "all goods come from monster drops and each individual good only drops from one type of monster which can only be found on a single layer of a single dungeon." The Adventurers that hunt the monsters that supply Rice(!) have Gone On Strike(!!), demanding that the trading price for rice (and therefore the price they get for collecting and selling it) be raised. Exactly Two Minutes are spent in the show between the time the MC hears this and the time he has 1) spoken to the owner-manager of what can only be described as the in-universe equivalent to the Pinkertons, asking them to "let him take care of it" 2) confronted the mob of striking hunters in the dungeon, eschewing any diplomacy, literally does not speak, just raises his fucking guns, and then 3) simultaneously reveals and utilizes a new skill: combine two Healing Bullets(?) to make a Sleep Bullet(???). Upon firing this bullet, effectively, the MC sleep gasses a large group of striking workers in an enclosed space (The Pinkerton was really impressed!).

Honestly it went so fast I was caught off guard. One moment I'm gritting my teeth that they mentioned a strike as a plot device and then two minutes later the maximal negative resolution has occurred. This show just did A Quick Aside To Break A Strike like it was nothing. No real setup, no real action, no political examination of the situation or labor's demands, just "Striking Workers Get The Sleep Bullet (and quickly, too!)."

It's boring as hell otherwise, chaste-but-gross harem-ish bullshit and a world dropping contrived solutions into the MCs lap. only watch if you are extremely bored. Halfway through the season it's unremarkable boilerplate Isekai riding the backside of the swell, 5/10 at best and honestly losing points unless it comes up with more wacky strikebreaking hijinks

The "Icon Of The Seas" sets sail in January 2024. 5610 passengers, 2350 crew members, 5 times larger and heavier than the Titanic, 19 floors with more than 40 bars, restaurants and bowling alleys

hop in a pool suspended five stories above another pool on the deck of a ship that looks like the result of a mad scientist hybridizing the genes of an airport duty free terminal, a private athletic club, a five-over-one and the Evergreen Ever Given (with just a splash of Six Flags for flavor)

YO LETS GO BACKWARDS X-AXIS GANG RISE UP! UNSHACKLE YOUR MIND FROM THE THROTTLE CABLE KNOWN LOCALLY AS THE FORWARD PASSAGE OF TIME! DYNAMIC BREAKAWAY FROM THE PROTO-CONSCIOUS PART OF YOUR BRAIN TELLING YOU THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING YOU'VE EVER THOUGHT OR DONE! STEP LEFT AND DOWN INTO THE UTILITY SUBBASEMENT SERVICING ALL OF HERETOFORE RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY! SWAP THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE TERMINALS ON THE ANALOG MOTOR DRIVING THE NARRATIVE! UNWIND SPOOLED THREAD ABSENTMINDEDLY IN THE DOCTORS OFFICE WHILE WAITING FOR YOUR CANCER TO GO INTO NEGATIVE-TIME-REMISSION!

ITS BACKWARDS X-AXIS GANG NOBODY CAN STOP YOU!