Rhyothemis
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rhyothemis.bsky.social
Rhyothemis
@rhyothemis.bsky.social
300 followers 900 following 300 posts
~fluttering from topic to topic~
MLIS, MSc (marine biology)
interests: art & architecture, biology & medicine, nature & environment, natural product chemistry, gardening, permaculture, reading, cats
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rhyothemis.bsky.social
Why was it so hard to figure out the cause of death was anaphylactic shock?

www.youtube.com/post/UgkxCTb...

#Allergies #Anaphylaxis #AlphaGal
Screenshot of a YouTube post by the New York Times posted 2 days ago. Text reads: "Brian Waitzel, a 47-year-old JetBlue pilot, went to a barbecue, where he ate a hamburger, at roughly 3 p.m. He returned to his New Jersey home and mowed the lawn for an hour. By 7:20, he was in the bathroom, vomiting. By 7:37, he was unconscious. Soon, his son was trying to resuscitate him. Waitzel was declared dead later that night. The conclusion of an autopsy: “Sudden unexplained death.” Now, more than a year after Waitzel died, a team of doctors say they have found an answer. The physicians linked his death to a growing menace: an allergy to red meat triggered by a tick bite. Read more: https://nyti.ms/4oXFvmR". The text is followed by a photo of Waitzel in the cockpit of a jet, wearing his pitot uniform and smiling.
December 2, 2025 at 1:47 AM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
#Lungs #health
The scan that takes less than 10 seconds and doesn’t need any intravenous dyes provides a complete picture of the chest cavity, creating a baseline image patients can keep for life. This approach also addresses critical gaps in preventive care, particularly for the growing number of patients experiencing lasting respiratory effects from COVID-19 and other environmental exposures. “Nearly six years after the pandemic’s start, we’re seeing increasing numbers of patients with lung scarring and fibrosis from COVID-19, especially those who get reinfected with respiratory viruses,” said Dr. Bharat. “The damage compounds with each infection. Early detection through comprehensive screening can help us intervene before these conditions progress to requiring transplantation.”
November 28, 2025 at 1:51 AM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
The study identified a senoprotein, Gas6. Gas6 is a vitamin K dependent protein. The original study is paywalled, so I can't get details on whether Gas6 was carboxylated or not. Link to journal article: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
#Aging #Gas6 #VitaminK #CardioVascularDisease
To test their findings, the researchers isolated a protein associated with aging in the aortas of mice, and injected it into young mice to observe the results. Animals treated with the protein had reduced physical performance, decreased grip strength, lower endurance, and lower balance and coordination compared to non-treated mice. They also had prominent markers of vascular aging.
November 26, 2025 at 11:02 PM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
Interesting comment on the video by Dr Younger in response to a question about whether commercially available naltrexone is racemic or not #naltrexone
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpsK...
Thanks for bringing up that issue! There has been a ton of misinformation on "regular" prescription naltrexone, even among experts. If you look it up on Google, it will tell you that naltrexone is a racemic mixture of l- and d- forms. Any many, if not most, papers do the same. They are all wrong. If you pull up the CoA for manufactured naltrexone, you will see it has a -192 degree optical rotation. All commercial naltrexone is levo only. Levo hits both opioid and TLR4 receptors (among other things), while dextro only hits the TLR4 receptor. I don't know how to fix the misinformation online because now AI is pulling its info from incorrect sources. So it is almost impossible to get to the right source unless someone already knows what they are doing (e.g., accessing the manufacturer CoA's). - Jarred Younger
November 19, 2025 at 5:30 AM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
my comment: Empathy and theory of mind are different things, at least in my experience. I'm autistic; I'm good at following the Golden Rule, but lousy at the Platinum Rule. IIRC, the Platinum Rule is something that customer service experts came up with - 'Treat others as they would like to be treated'. I have trouble seeing things from another person's perspective, but no problem seeing someone in a particular situation and feeling how I would feel in that same situation - but not necessarily how they are feeling. For example, I once had a co-worker tell me her son was about to become an Army paratrooper. My reaction was 'Oh no! Can't you talk him out of it?!'. I was distressed, just as I would be if a son of mine (if I had one) were in the same situation. My co-worker, however, was a Navy veteran and very proud of her son being accepted into the Army Rangers and his decision to sign up. Of course, she was offended by my reaction. It took me some time and reflection to understand where I had gone wrong in that interaction.
March 14, 2025 at 4:29 PM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
review from 2014:
Thiosulfoxide (Sulfane) Sulfur: New Chemistry and New Regulatory Roles in Biology pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25153879/

#biology #biochemistry #dialysis #plasmapheresis #sulfur #H2S
The conclusion from these findings is that disulfides in the first group generate a growth factor de novo while the compounds in the second group mobilize the growth factor from fetal calf serum. The mechanism common to the first group is the metabolic generation of a carbonyl group adjacent to the disulfide bond resulting in the labilization of one of the sulfur atoms and its release as sulfane sulfur [17] (Table 2). The catalysts effective in the cell cultures were found to be alcohol dehydrogenase for the disulfides of mercaptoethanol and thioglycerol, diamine oxidase for the disulfide of cysteamine (i.e., cystamine), and pyridoxal plus a metal ion or the enzyme cystathionine γ-lyase (γ-cystathionase; CTH), for cystine. Surprisingly, viscose dialysis tubing is also effective [17]; it is manufactured by treating cellulose with carbon disulfide and it contains residual sulfane sulfur chains unless it is exhaustively boiled in water before use. Thiols in the second group at high concentrations (10 mM) were shown to release H2S from fetal calf serum according to Equation (1) [18]:
December 19, 2024 at 7:32 PM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
Fig. 9. Schematic diagram depicting proposed mechanism for ALDH2-offered protection against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Dashed line denotes effects likely to occur but has not fully been validated by the current available evidence. It is proposed that downregulation of TRPV1 in response to doxorubicin challenge imposes inactivation of eNOS through a PKA-dependent mechanism, en route to mitochondrial injury, ROS production (not directly examined here), intracellular Ca2 + derangement, apoptosis, myocardial dysfunction and cardiac remodeling. ALDH2 prevents doxorubicin-induced loss of TRPV1 to preserve mitochondrial integrity, cardiac geometry and function. Arrowheads refer to stimulation whereas “T” ending symbols denote inhibition. ALDH2: mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase; TRPV1: Transient receptor potential channel vanilloid 1; ROS: reactive oxygen species; PKA: protein kinase A; and eNOS: endothelial nitric oxide synthase.
December 8, 2024 at 4:27 PM
rhyothemis.bsky.social
I was a bio major 🤷‍♀️
Score of 15/15 on religious knowledge quiz
October 8, 2023 at 5:40 PM