Please consider donating to the Open Medicine Foundation to help people suffering from extremely disabling and underfunded lifelong illnesses with no know treatment.

https://www.omf.ngo

  • 109 Posts
  • 721 Comments
Joined 3 months ago
cake
Cake day: July 17th, 2024

help-circle












  • Lifelong disease usually triggered by viral infections. Very functionally disabling.

    Known immune abnormalities which seem to affect the brain and mitochondria. I think @[email protected] is specialised in it.

    Also “chronic fatigue syndrome” was the name back when it was classified as psychological. Now that it’s classified as neuroimmune the name has been changed to Myalgic Encephalomyelitsis (ME) (Or ME/CFS).

    As usual though for a medium quality source like ScienceAlert, the article is written by someone who has no specialisation in Long COVID/ME, or even medicine. So there’s a bit of oversimplification and overstating findings from one study in that article. Very few researchers think it’s a brain injury. Most think the immune system has been compromised (with some deficiencies and abnormalities) and it’s affecting the brain in unknown ways (hence the abnormalities found. It’s weird though because the immune system problems seem to cause some immunodeficiencies but also autoimmune reactions. They’ll need to be quite a bit more studies before we get a clear picture.




  • If cockroaches went extinct, there would actually be some pretty significant effects on ecosystems. They’re not just pests; they play a crucial role as decomposers. Cockroaches help break down dead organic matter—stuff like leaves, wood, and even dead animals. Without them, you’d start to see a buildup of this kind of waste, and the whole process of nutrient recycling would slow down. This matters because a lot of plants rely on nutrients that get released when organic material decomposes. If that process stalls, it could disrupt plant growth and soil health.

    Plus, cockroaches are food for a ton of animals—birds, reptiles, small mammals, and other insects all rely on them. If they disappeared, it would mess with food chains, potentially leading to population drops in species that depend on them. And let’s not forget, cockroaches are also tied into the microbial world. They carry microorganisms that help break down certain materials, so their extinction could mess with those processes too.

    So yeah, it’s easy to think the world would be better without them because they’re gross, but in reality, ecosystems would take a pretty big hit if cockroaches went extinct overnight.





  • Because Zelensky wants to win the war. And the morale of the population is extremely important to win. This could severely hamper morale. The most unpopular thing you can do is send kids who still live with mum and dad to the war.

    And “isn’t a lot to ask”, you’re not the one sending thousands of your children to die every week to defend your very existence against a terrorist state who steals your children, executes POWs, uses chemical weapons, and murders civilians for fun.

    And the only reason Ukraine are “low on men” is that they’re having to compensate for a severe lack of materials by having more troops with lower quality weapons. So sending missiles and more shells is really two birds with one stone here.