Amid recent anti-refugee sentiments, it’s inspiring to see a team representing the 60 million displaced people throughout the world. See Grover’s full loving speech.
The acoustics in the 400 year old mosque are amazing & notes hang in the air with crystal clarity. The singer is a student from northern Iran visiting Isfahan & had always wanted to sing in the mosque because of its unique acoustic resonance qualities. You have to stand on the tiled square for perfect effect.
I’ve seen this photograph very frequently on tumblr and Facebook, always with the simple caption, “Ghost Heart”. What exactly is a ghost heart?
More than 3,200 people are on the waiting list for a heart transplant in the United States. Some won’t survive the wait. Last year, 340 died before a new heart was found.
The solution: Take a pig heart, soak it in an ingredient commonly found in shampoo and wash away the cells until you’re left with a protein scaffold that is to a heart what two-by-four framing is to a house.
Then inject that ghost heart, as it’s called, with hundreds of millions of blood or bone-marrow stem cells from a person who needs a heart transplant, place it in a bioreactor - a box with artificial lungs and tubes that pump oxygen and blood into it - and wait as the ghost heart begins to mature into a new, beating human heart.
Doris Taylor, director of regenerative medicine research at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, has been working on this– first using rat hearts, then pig hearts and human hearts - for years.
The process is called decellularization and it is a tissue engineering technique designed to strip out the cells from a donor organ, leaving nothing but connective tissue that used to hold the cells in place.
This scaffold of connective tissue - called a “ghost organ” for its pale and almost translucent appearance - can then be reseeded with a patient’s own cells, with the goal of regenerating an organ that can be transplanted into the patient without fear of tissue rejection.
This ghost heart is ready to be injected with a transplant recipient’s stem cells so a new heart - one that won’t be rejected - can be grown.
When planning your wedding, it’s important to delegate roles. Who will lead the yoga session? Who will officiate? Who will oversee the last minute makeup fixes? And most importantly: Who will struggle to carry the enormous dog down the aisle?
Today I talked to a girl, a teenage girl old enough to drive and contribute to society with a job, who did not know what a house hippo is. She had no fucking clue. I tried to tell her how much they like the crumbs of peanut butter on toast but she didn’t understand. And in that moment I realized I was fucking old.
I realized this is such a Canada specific post omg. If you don’t know about the house hippo, please enjoy this one minute video that almost every Canadian alive in the 90s can recite verbatim.
@plantwiitch why do you trick your youth like this.
Alternative concept: you’re trapped on a derelict space station with a dead crew and a master AI that’s not actually omnicidal - it’s just perpetually befuddled, not terribly competent, and so dreadfully sorry for all the inconvenience.
one of the most amazing things that has been said to me in therapy is that self esteem doesn’t exist.
and that floored people and the psych went onto say that what she meant was that self esteem is a concept that actually includes a vast array of things and labelling them all as one thing is really limiting and prevents actual improvement
you could have real strong pride in the things you create and hate your body
you could hate your creations but also want to share them with people
you could not hate yourself at all but not take care of yourself, engage in reckless self endangerment
thats all bundled under ‘self esteem’ but saying ‘i need better self esteem’ doesn’t mean anything
whereas if you say ‘i need to work on ways to keeping myself safe, refusing to act on destructive urges’ or ‘i want to be in a place where i believe compliments trusted people give me’
thats concrete, thats a goal.
having it said in therapy helped a lot of people in my group stop saying ‘i have low self esteem’ and start specifying about the actual issue they have
I feel we talk about signs of abuse from the victims standpoint but not from the abusers standpoint. In order to stop emotional abuse and recognize when we engage in unhealthy behaviors I made this list.
Do you react to important people in your life by ignoring them completely and not acknowledging their presence? Especially if they do something you don’t like?
Do you feel that your partner/friends/family members are the cause of your bad moods or frustration?
Does your partner/etc “do things the wrong way”?
Do criticize your partner/etc for being unreliable or a bad person?
Do you feel you have to constantly overlook your partners flaws in order to be around them?
Are you frequently accused of being “moody” or “hard to please”?
Do your partners complain that “nothing they do is good enough?
Do your partners appear to avoid you when you are angry or upset rather then comfort you?
Do you negatively comment on their intelligence or appearence? Either in private or in front of others.
Do you blame them when someone goes wrong?
Do you ever use phrases like “I could just hit you right now” or “I”m so mad I could punch something”?
Do you ever punch walls/throw things in front of your partner/etc?
Do you leave during fights and not inform of where you are going and when you will be back?
Do you behave the same alone with your partner that you do if you were in front of your friends or in public?
Have you frequently accused your partner of being too sensitive?
How often is your partner praised and complimented by yourself?
Do you think your partner spends too much time with friends and family?
Do you feel your partners friends and family are trying to drive you apart?
Do you actively comfort your partner when they are upset or angry even if you don’t really understand why they feel the way they do?
If your partner brings up a behavior that bothers them do you respond by discussing how to change it or do you respond defensively?
Do you have difficulty apologizing?
All of these things are abuse tactics. Obviously even the healthiest of us will do these sometimes but if any one becomes a regular habit that’s when the problem starts.
this is super important, i feel like this website makes it easy to put yourself in the role of the victim but never the abuser. It’s also important to note that being a victim does not preclude you from being an abuser.
I find this esp. important. I’ve exhibited some of these behaviors. I know abuse perpetuates abuse and that victims of abuse learn abusive behavior. I also know that having mental illness can make reacting and dealing with feelings even more difficult. That being said: being mentally ill does not mean you cannot be held accountable for your actions. Nor does being a survivor of abuse. I gotta take care of myself & heal and recognize how trauma and mental illness plays a role in how I treat others. Being a victim doesn’t mean you cannot be an abuser too.
Everyone bow before author Nalo Hopkinson cosplaying as Lt. Nyota Uhura – at her first-ever convention! She posted the picture in celebration of Star Trek’s fiftieth anniversary, and estimates the shot was taken in 1978.
We’re going to gaze at the joy in this picture as we get ready to embark on a weekend, and we suggest you do the same!
