Some Slides We Made In Class This Week. Histology's Been Treating Me Well.

The Fertile Crescent

NYC Subway Bacterial Petri Dish Art by Craig Ward

One of the reasons black coffee is posited to be beneficial is because it upregulates glucoronidation, which is a phase II metabolism reaction involving the covalent addition of glucuronic acid—triggering an elimination and detoxification mechanism for lipophilic compounds. Additionally, since glucuronides are charged, this also triggers the excretion of the parent compounds in urine and bile. tl;dr black coffee triggers enzymes, increases metabolism, burns fat, and causes the body to excrete various things that are posited to potentially harm us in some circumstances.

I love the way leveling works in so many games, like "shooting an arrow through my arm used to kill me, but I picked up a bunch of random things and brought them to random people and the experience was so rewarding that now a rocket-propelled grenade to the face is only a minor inconvenience"

Is there a better way to pass the time than collecting fun facts about various fields of science? I don't think so.

Today I learned that in 36 BCE, Roman statesman Marcus Varro wrote one of the earliest descriptions of germs, going on to say,

"...there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose, and there cause serious diseases."

The germ theory of disease would not be widely accepted for another 1,900 years.

MINIATURIST, Flemish Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung: Romance of the Rose 1490s Manuscript (Harley Ms. 4425) British Library, London

When my mind hands me a small thought, I can ask “Is this true?” and my mind will answer “Good question, let’s go over three thousand different rationality techniques and see what answer each of them gives.

When my mind hands me a big thought, I ask "Is this true?” and my mind just answers “It better be, m——–r, cause this is how you’re gonna be thinking about everything from now on.”

it’s interesting how many people have knee jerk scorn towards Ozempic and think it’s almost foregone conclusion to be a Faustian bargain that will cause massive long term health problems in exchange for “cheating to lose weight”. as if suffering and struggling to lose weight is just punishment for being a fatty (smells Protestant). the thing is, this doesn’t even bear out in reality either because glp-1 drugs have the knock-on effect of improving health outcomes across the board for almost everything. tho good litmus test for sussing out the type of guy who tells themselves just-so stories