#bovine spongiform encephalopathy

[teachersource]

Stanley B. Prusiner was born on May 28, 1942. An American neurologist and biochemist, he is the Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Prusiner won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for his work in proposing an explanation for the cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (”mad cow disease”) and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In this work, he coined the term prion, which comes from the words “proteinaceous” and “infectious”, in 1982 to refer to a previously undescribed form of infection due to protein misfolding.

#stanley prusiner #stanley b. prusiner #neurology #biochemistry #neurodegenerative diseases #UCSF #mad cow disease #prions #bovine spongiform encephalopathy #Nobel Prize #nobel prize winners #science #science history #science birthdays #on this day #on this day in science history

[pressnewsagencyllc]

Two Hunters Died of Rare Prion Disease. Doctors Suspect a First-of-Its Kind Deer Transmission

A new study might point to the first signs of a frightening public health scenario: Researchers found two recent cases of prion disease—universally fatal ailments caused by rogue proteins—that could have been caused by the victims eating contaminated deer meat. This connection is still far from confirmed, but doctors are calling for more research into the matter. Working on Guy’s Ritchie’s The…

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#Amyloidosis #Bovine spongiform encephalopathy #chronic wasting disease #cjd #Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease #deer meat #Disease #Encephalopathy #Gizmodo #health #Jakob #Major prion protein #meat #medical #Neurodegenerative disorders #Pharma #Prions #Rare diseases #Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies

[vampigeon]

You may have seen a video on the internet recently. As have I!

A comic strip, Vampigeon by Josh Jennings.

Panel 1: Caption: It’s not all bad, James Somerton fans. Now that you know his formula, you can make an infinite number of his videos using only the power of your imagination

Panel 2: [A title card, with Stock Footage of cows with color filters and the text "Moo, Britannia by James Somerton."]

Panel 3: [YouTube Other People's Words Reader James Somerton presents a video.] James (Encyclopedia Text): Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss.

Panel 4: James (Standard Dialogue): Historians theorize that the first Mad Cow was, big surprise, straight and female. These symptoms, the abnormal behavior in particular, mimic what people with vaginas are like all the time.

Panel 5: James (Standard Dialogue): I don't acknowledge nonbinary masc people or trans men, and, as such, their silence on the issue of Mad Cow…is deafening.

Panel 6: James (Standard Dialogue): Once, I was walking down the street at night, when a pack of roving vaginas attacked me.

Panel 7: James (Standard Dialogue): They brandished Mad Cow Burgers, screaming about I needed to kiss a boy in front of them.

Panel 8: James (Standard Dialogue): I managed to get into my home, but I could still hear the scraping of their claws against the glass. Hear their sickening howls, bragging about how women don't have problems.

Panel 9: [beat]

Panel 10: James (Encyclopedia Text): Currently the only reliable test for Mad Cow is examination of tissues during a necropsy citation needed.

#webcomic #webcomics #vampigeon #james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows

[is-this-a-valid-iterator-name]

is Bovine spongiform encephalopathy a valid iterator name

❗ Sure, why not.

(serious answer: not really)

#iterator #rain world iterator #rw iterator

[hail-tim]

Detection of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) involves the severance of the head and the extraction of part of the brain near its base during necropsy. The tissue will then be tested for the presence of the disease-causing prion <3

#i found this picture so interesting #and i've witnessed this being done in a necropsy before #agriculture #sorry i just wanted to make at least one ag post

[strongermonster]

oh shit. niche post to care about, but canada lifted the blood donation ban on people who visited/were from the uk/ireland/france in the 80's and 90's? i didn't know that, that's so awesome

(november/december 2023)

for context:

"It’s [the ban lift] the result of an update to blood donation eligibility criteria related to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) ― commonly known as ‘mad cow’ disease. Earlier eligibility criteria prevented people from donating blood, plasma or platelets in Canada if they had lived or spent time in the United Kingdom in the years 1980-1996, or in the Republic of Ireland or France in the years 1980-2001."

this also comes a bit over a year after the lifting of the gay male blood ban in canada as well.

wonderful news considering canada's ongoing blood donation shortages :)

#as a person who donates blood throughout the year yay! #i'd looooove to donate plasma but i don't have a car and the nearest ones are an hour+ by bus :( sorry everyone #jj stuff #cw: needles #cw needles

[saintsenara]

For the tag game can you tell us more about First Do No Harm :)

thank you very much, anon! first do no harm is an excellent choice from the work in progress tag game list.

provided you don't mind a bit of harrymort, with a snake-faced voldemort, rather than a hot one, that is.

[although - just as a pre-warning - i don't advise reading any further if you have health anxiety...]

i spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the worldbuilding around wizarding medicine - and, in particular, how societal attitudes to illness and disability are changed by the fact that, canonically, magic can treat, cure, or render meaningless things which would, in our world, be considered permanent, chronic, life-limiting, or fatal.

[spoiler alert: i hate the fact that the series thinks this, since it pretty much justifies the blood-supremacist position that wizards and muggles are essentially different species... but that's a conversation for another day...]

the exception to the series' rule that wizards are more durable than muggles is its attitude towards brain injury and cognitive disability. the loss of cognitive function - which is implied to have a debilitating, irreversible impact on magical ability - is something the series finds uniquely horrifying. think of the brutal torture of frank and alice longbottom, the mind-altering power of the dementors, the fear of being placed under the imperius curse, and so on.

and i've been playing around a lot recently with how these thoughts could be used in fic - and, especially, how they could be used in a way which wasn't just me reeling off my notes from uni. not least because i don't know where those are.

and, obviously, how they could be tied into my actual favourite thing to write about...

harry potter and lord voldemort being forced to engage with the concept of love.

there is - of course - a very famous trope which medicalises love: hanahaki disease. and my original idea for first do no harm was to write something using this.

of real world diseases, hanahaki most closely resembles tuberculosis [a comparison which has been made in numerous fics, including a lovely bit of tomarry - consumption by @laeveteinn]. and i can understand why something tuberculosis-like grabs fic writers' imagination... after all, tb was considered incredibly glamorous in the victorian era - it makes you fashionably pale! it gives you big shiny eyes! it makes you look fragile and feminine and delicate! it makes you gives you an attractive flush on the cheekbones! it makes you cough blood delicately into a handkerchief! it consumes you from the inside out!

and it kills you.

[and it's getting harder to treat.]

and, sure, it makes a great metaphor for unrequited love. but for unrequited love which is sad, rather than terrifying and unwanted... and this fic is about love which is terrifying and unwanted.

which is where talking about the brain comes in...

when asked to name diseases which frighten them, most people would - and, indeed, should! - say rabies. and i do think there's something to be said for this humble virus - which can be transmitted by a tiny, unnoticeable bite from something as small as a bat; which has guaranteed its target is going to die in horrendous circumstances by the time they've even started to suspect that something's wrong - as a metaphor for love taking root without its host realising, and for how disorienting and overpowering love can be when it gets going.

rabies kills a bit too quickly for my purposes though...

lucky there's something just as horrifying lurking out there. a subset of neurodegenerative diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. or prion diseases.

most people have very probably heard of at least one prion disease: bovine spongiform encephalopathy [mad cow disease - i.e. reveal you're a european millennial without saying you're a european millenial]; creutzfeld-jacob disease; kuru [famously transmitted via cannibalism]; and the one which has made me feel vaguely terrified since i first discovered it existed...

fatal familial insomnia. in which the prion-induced degeneration of the brain causes holes to appear in the thalamus - the area of the brain which regulates sleep - until it resembles a sponge.

and the patient can literally never sleep again.

for the rest of their life - usually within eighteen months of the disease's onset - they are held in hypnagogia [pre-sleep limbo, the state between wakefulness and sleeping]. they are disoriented, panicking, hallucinating, forgetful, losing control over their body, losing control over their entire sense of self...

[the face of prion diseases is the astonishing scientist sonia vallabh, who is trying to make as much progress towards a cure for fatal insomnia as she can before it kills her.]

you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.

well, maybe you would. if you didn't know that a bit of your worst enemy's soul lived inside your greatest weapon, or that your greatest weapon's blood kept your worst enemy's heart beating, or that they are most vulnerable to each other as their connected minds linger on the threshold of dreaming and waking...

how lucky that - unlike muggles, who just have to die from neurodegenerative diseases - this curse could be lifted from dear old harry and poor old snake-face voldemort if they put in a bit of effort and fall in love with each other...

ah.

shit.

[the title - first do no harm - is a bioethical phrase which is often misattributed as being part of the hippocratic oath. it is also just a generally sound philosophy to have in life. eh, albus?]

#work in progress ask game #asenora fics #first do no harm #tomarrymort #harrymort #harry potter #lord voldemort #me and the brain are in our enemies to lovers era

[sparky-tubgoat]

[skipsayslip]

Did you know mad cow also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is progressive neurological disorder of cattle that results from infection by an unusual transmissible agent called a prion. Most accepted theories say that a normal prion protein mutates into harmful protein that then damaged the central nervous system of the cow. Another common type of Prion disease is wasting disease which is found in deer. While exact causes of the protein mutation in cows in unknown scientist believe that cows and calfs who consume infected cow meat and bones can become infected.

#my art #animal art #tw gore #slight gore #bovine #cow #skull #bloodtw #digital art #macabre

[mxmollusca]

Just wanna take a moment to thank my mutuals for not abandoning me en masse after I contracted the gay pirate flavor of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. My brain is now full of tiny, Rhys Darby shaped holes. There is no cure.

#ofmd #our flag means death #blackbonnet #stede bonnet #edward teach #rhys darby

[daprosy]

bovine spongiform encephalopathy time

#radley rambles

[lilliesofinspirationvalley]

(about the dream bbq post) aren’t daturas like… the worst hallucinogen known to man? Known to give people horrifying trips with effects that linger for months/years? I wonder if that’s significant. I saw someone else point out the fork frog guy looks like a mad cow disease prion, + the spirals in the ballerina scene and the paper streamers also resemble prions. Both these things feel similarly related to losing one’s mind.

Ayo, you’re onto something!!!

This is an ask I recieved relating to my first ENA: Dream BBQ analysis I posted! Be sure to check that out if you haven’t already! I definitely plan to write more up ;p

Let’s look into what Mabel (I shall call this user such based on the first part of their username) brought up~!

Make Me Delirious

Daturas are a hallucinogen, more specifically a deliriant. Here are summaries about deliriants and delirium I found from Wikipedia

Already, we can see some fascinating points being brought up.

Deliriants inhibit the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is a key part of the autonomic nervous system (aka, how our body and brain react to our surroundings). It’s an internal transmitter in the sympathetic nervous system (which is responsible for the fight-or-flight response), and the primary neurotransmitter/final product of the parasympathetic nervous system (which helps you calm down and bring your body back to normal). It’s primary function is activating muscles… so shutting that down is pretty dangerous (especially in high doses).

Deliriants are known for causing… delirium (what a shocker lol). Delirium causes psychomotor changes (hyperactivity/hypoactivity/mixed), emotional and perceptual disturbances (such as hallucinations and delusions), and disrupt sleep-wake cycles.

Most plant deliriants are part of the Solanaceae/Nightshade family, which include plants such ad belladonna/deadly nightshade, and brugsmania/angel’s trumpets. Arguably, the flowers in the trailer also look like brugsmania… but whether they’re brugsmania or datura, they’re both deliriant flowers, so all of this still applies.

These plants have historically been used by indigenous cultures in the Americas (likely in extremely small doses) for assistance in traditions/rituals involving altered states. Such rituals involve communicating with ancestors, divination, and rites of passage, and are always used under supervision of a Shaman.

Prion for Info

First and foremost, what the heck is a prion? 

In case you haven’t taken biology yet, or forgotten those lessons from high school, the brain has a lot of normal cell proteins called prion proteins. They're an important part of our brain function... though we're still figuring out their specific purpose. Normal prion proteins look like this (pictures are from this video):

However, there are also misfolded, abnormal prions that look like this:

These are usually referred to simply as "prions" (we specify the normal, healthy ones as prion proteins), and they're able to spread their abnormal/misfolded structure onto the normal variants of the prion protein. This chain reaction is a major causative of neurodegenerative disorders, primarily via spongificatioxn of the brain (destroying the brain's gray matter). This can lead to severe symptoms such as rapid dementia, ataxia (loss of limb control), and insomnia. Once the disease starts, it's incredibly rapid and always fatal.

One of these neurodegenerative disorders that is especially prominent is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, also known as BSE or Mad Cow disease. As the names suggest, this disease primarily harms cattle... but humans are able to become infected by it.

How? By consuming contaminated beef.

What do you usually eat at a barbecue?

"Where is my mind" by the Pixies at full blast

In all seriousness, all of these connections to literally losing your mind and dying from madness are all very concerning. BBQ!ENA is going to go through so much more (as if the two other forms of her didn't allude to that already), and I'm very worried about her.

#ENA #ena joel g #ENA: Dream BBQ #Dream BBQ Spoilers #I'm definitely planning to do another post about the new voice reveals as well #stay tuned for that!!

[yummypetroliumjelly]

OKAY IMPORTANT POLL

#disease tw #this ones for 2 people who know me irl

[meatsound]

if i was a cow id eat so much grass forever and lay in the sun and munch on some daffodils and get bovine spongiform encephalopathy