The lusciously imagined death of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche in 1833, complete with a red-legged executioner with a most suggestive dagger. Jane Grey was very fast from a blindfolded victim in virginal white, fumbling for the block. Aged 16, she walked to her scaffold on Tower Green, and told the waiting crowd: 'Good people, I am come hither to die.' She read from her prayer book, before asking the executioner to 'despatch her quickly'.
"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory
Chapters: 2/3 Words: 3,333
Fandom: The Witcher (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach & Emhyr var Emreis
Additional Tags: young Cahir, Execution, Hanging, Noose, whumpers monthly issue 21, Title from a The Amazing Devil Song
Summary: It is the reign of the Usurper and today justice is to be served. A hanging. Only, things do not go as smoothly as they are supposed to go.
Excerpt from chapter 2 - Saviour:
Alarmed by the strange sound from the horn, the guards grab their swords and, with watchful eyes, scan the crowd for attackers.
"Damn!" Emhyr curses under his breath, lowering his signal horn. He has not only foolishly squandered his chance to free the count, his old ally, but also lost the boy. It was all for nothing.
Or was it? In contrast to the four convicts preceding him, the boy is not yet dead. Hanging from the rope next to the four lifeless bodies, he is gasping for air, his legs kicking wildly. The hangman must have tampered with the knot so the fall would not break the neck and cause instantaneous death like with the others before, but instead kill slowly by strangulating the victim. Or was the boy simply not heavy enough? Body weight is of the essence in a hanging. The why hardly matters, though. If they are quick, they might be able to save him yet. Emhyr darts a look at his companion. The arbalester has noticed it, too. He readjusts his aim and lets go of the bolt. Faster than the human eye can see, the projectile zooms through the air. At the same moment, several hooded figures on horseback gallop into the market square, almost riding down the spectators standing in their way. In a panic, they leap to the sides and bump into one another. Children start to scream at the top of their lungs, their wailing drowning out the commands the bailiff bellows at the soldiers in the black Nilfgaardian uniform. The guards encircle the prisoners, their swords trained at their throats and hearts. Whoever is attacking them, they will not free a single one of the condemned, no, over their dead bodies!
In the ensuing chaos, none of the bailiff's men notices the boy dropping to the ground, the rope cut clean in two by the bolt's broadhead.
Continue reading on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50763625/chapters/128630866
Life, at every scale, is complex and three-dimensional. So research that only looks at biological processes in two-dimensional models will often miss important details relevant to real life. This is particularly true for research into gliomas – a type of brain tumour. To overcome these limitations, researchers developed a 3D-engineered scaffold on which to grow cells for examination and experimentation. The team implanted tumour cells derived from patients on the scaffold, and found they successfully colonised the structure (pictured). The cells were more similar to tumour cells in the body than those cultured on 2D surfaces tend to be, it was easier to monitor the growth of individual cells, and the population was more stable. The scaffolds could therefore be used to closely study the natural behaviour of tumour cells – hopefully spotting any weaknesses for new treatments to target – and be a platform to test the impact of potential anti-cancer drugs.
Written by Anthony Lewis
Video from work by Nastaran Barin and colleagues
Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, & Department of Neurology, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Small, October 2022
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'Architecting' : Making, concretizing existential space by Russell Moreton
Via Flickr:
Ann Cline A Hut of One's Own Life Outside The Circle of Architecture. Herzog and De Meuron NATURAL HISTORY
Workmen rig a scaffolding on the south side of the 78th floor of the Empire State building, July 30, 1945. Two days before, an Army B-25 Mitchell bomber had crashed into the structure, and there was much to repair.