Went Out To A Vernal Pool Today And Saw Some Crazy Toad Action

protestants: god is not an absent father! talk to god like a friend! god is always with you! bring your problems to god, no matter how small! it’s not at all weird to call god “daddy!”

catholics: god is far too important to give a fuck about your lost keys or your algebra exam. please address your petty concerns to one of god’s ten thousand holy secretaries. if it’s really important, consider asking his mom.

Ms. Holly Aaron, Dr. Karen Dehnert, Dr. Scott Laughlin, and Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi

University of California, Berkeley, California, USA Specimen: Fucosylated glycans in a zebrafish embryo. Technique: Confocal microscopy

My best friend is defending next month, and he has decided to dedicate his thesis to his son and daughter (who are cats) and to his godson (who is my cat). I will never be sad again. This has cured all that ails. 

The central nervous system (CNS) in most vertebrates forms initially as a flat sheet of cells, which subsequently rolls up and fuses shut to form the hollow neural tube, which is the precursor to the CNS. The enriched apical actin in the closing neural tube (shown in green in the image) is central to cell shape changes that contribute to the rolling up process.

Image: Color micrograph showing a cross-sectional (transverse) view of the closing neural tube in a Xenopus embryo. Actin is shown in green.

Cutaneous mass on the right flank of a 2 year-old, female-spayed, black Labrador Retriever.  The owner noticed the mass approximately a week earlier, and it has been growing in size every day.  On palpation, the lesion was quite painful.  The dog also had a fever, at 103.5°F.

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Fine needle aspiration revealed copious inflammatory cells.  Mainly neutrophils, with lesser numbers of macrophages.  Notice how some of the neutrophils appear ragged, some borderlining on unidentifiable?  Such changes are consistent with a degenerative change, which usually occurs in the presence of a bacterial agent.  And speaking of bacteria, there are TONS.  A mixed collection of cocci and filamentous rods (red arrow).  The presence of filamentous rods is often associated with plant foreign material (like a ‘grass awn’ or ‘cheat grass’).

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Diagnosis: Marked, septic, suppurative inflammation with necrosis.  Basically an abscess.  A key piece of history…the patient is a hunting dog and partook in some field trials a few days before the mass developed.  The patient is slated to have the mass surgically explored in hopes of finding planet debris.

Contest Entries: Hypatia of Alexandria

My favorite Female Scientist by Drziggystardust

Mathematician, philosopher, astronomer- Mostly known for her work in mathematics because she is the first well documented woman in the field. Her life and work were so important that many scholars agree that her brutal murder by religious zealots marks the end of the Classical Antiquity era, at the very least her death marked the downfall of intellectual life in Alexandria.    

My blog is a private thing that is open to everyone in the world except to the people I know in real life.

I read case files on dogs with serology positive for Ehrlichia co-infections all day today. Sooo many CBCs, blood chem panels, and cytology reports from clin path. All the things. And at the end of the day, I was like

Sofia Ionescu (1920-2008) was a Romanian neurosurgeon, thought to be one of the first female neurosurgeons in the world.

She studied medicine in Bucharest, and in 1943 became part of the first team of Romanian neurosurgeons. She continued practicing the profession for almost five decades and received numerous awards for her lifesaving work.

Behold the Gastric Rainbow. Sounds gross, but it’s actually beautiful. This cross-section of a mouse intestine is labeled with a spectrum of fluorescent molecules. From the green and magenta digestive enzyme-producing cells to the red mucus-secreting cells, this is one of the most dynamic areas in the mammalian body: Each cell is replaced by another every 3-5 days.

(via The Scientist Magazine)