єχтяανɒgαηт єηzумэ

Disease usually results from inconclusive negotiations for symbiosis, an overstepping of the line by one side or the other, a biological misinterpretation of the borders.

— Lewis Thomas

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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: May 18th, 2024

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  • Yep, as of this week at least… For some background, Vitamins A, D, E, and K are the fat-soluble vitamins. This means overdosing on them can take quite a long time to fully recover from. Excessive Vitamin A can result in significant liver, bone, central nervous system, and skin damage, as well as hair loss. But I’ve not once heard RFK say anything about dosage, which is idiotic for someone in his position. Vitamin A’s primary role for humans involves regulating cell/tissue growth and differentiation. Vitamin A’s main prescription usage is for cystic or nodular acne under the brand name Accutane. Accutane’s dosage needs to be very dialed in, so much so that the patients using it must get monthly blood work, if not bimonthly or weekly. Additionally, women must agree to not get pregnant on Accutane, as it leads to severe birth defects and other pregnancy complications. But sure, the dude in charge of the department of health sees no need to say anything about dosage, just that taking Vitamin A is helpful for measles while there’s an exceptional vaccine readily available…





  • So, the term Fediverse basically refers to the ActivityPub protocol and the associated server software. Technically, it’s not just ActivityPub, but also the AT protocol and nostr. Another layer to the Fediverse, at least in my mind, is having some federation. Meaning Bluesky isn’t apart of the Fediverse, even though it’s built on the AT Protocol, because of it’s isolation. Since there’s no interaction with Lemmy, Mastodon, PixelFed, or other federated social networks, it’s not part of the Fediverse.











  • You’re not wrong there, hopefully the pathogen is sequenced soon and researchers start working on an approach to prevent further spread and treat those already infected.

    The fact the numbers are like this in a remote area of Africa demonstrates when it gets to a more dense population, it will only get worse. More viral infections means more mutations. A virus will always mutate, it’s how they survive. These mutations almost always result in a novel version of the virus better adept to spread in the host’s population. There’s also a good portion of these new versions which are no longer infectious as well. It’s basically a numbers game for the virus.

    But Disease X by definition will always start in one specific area, then spread throughout the population.


  • Disease X is actually a concept. In academia, Disease X is covered in infectious disease focused courses, it is a placeholder concept referring to a pandemic pathogen which has not yet been characterized. Its purpose is to encourage proactive thinking and research about pathogens that could cause a pandemic. To see the term thrown around is pretty wild, but hopefully it’s a bit of an overzealous or incorrect use of it. Not even sure if there’s enough data available yet to classify it as Disease X, but it’s Ro value is steadily on the rise, which is always concerning for a novel pathogen.