This is a place where I post pretty things, funny things, thoughtful things, or just things. Mostly just things. As opposed to unjust things. Clearly...
Me: Scientist. Ginger. Tall. Francophile. Migratory Californian. Wannabe physician. Lover of laughter. Lover of arts. Pseudo-photographer. Friendly by nature.
Tumblr folk are so patient with each other. I don’t remember why I followed half of you people and every day I scroll past Discourse from someone who’s moved fandoms ranting about some show I’ve never heard of in incomprehensible shorthand like “WC/YT shippers from ZZNMHP just don’t understand why Jyrra of the North couldn’t retrieve the Aggro Crag from the MalignaSwamp” completely untagged and I’m just like
Just logged in for the first time in about 2 years and, yeah
They’re all consistently confused when the news reports on one of the other spider-men saving people at times and places they KNOW they weren’t there for but rationalize it away like “I dunno, I mean… Maybe I just forgot…? It’s been busy today I might have like… Hm… I…. ”
the Cullens would have to stop going to high school bc gen z is too powerful and would sniff out their obviously bizarre immortal energy in seconds like bloodhounds and expose them as literal vampires within days
like I’m barely gen z but these teenagers are on a totally different level of unhinged funny I’ve seen their tik toks. the Cullens literally don’t stand a chance they’re just gonna have to settle one day for a small school where everyone acknowledges that those are the vampire kids. and they all agree to just not tell anyone like the crowd in the Hannah Montana movie.
Edward Cullen getting bullied by gen Z'ers in the hallways being called “sucker” because he rambled on for 30 minutes in history class about world war one until someone snapped said “ok we get it Nosferatu you were there and fucked Ferdinand himself”
you come to the hospital in the morning to see your patients. you say good morning to the housestaff, ask about overnight events. they are surprised, weren’t you just here? yes. yes, you were. you were here. you’ve always been here.
it is time for you to do the very important medicine reconciliation. you ask the patient. they say they don’t know, you should have the list. you ask the staff for the list. there is no list, but they reassure you it’s updated. you look on the EMR, the updated med list has no dosages. you ask the patient for their pharmacy. you call the pharmacy. there is no record of your patient.
you need a stat lab. the blood gets to the lab. it’s hemolyzed. you get it sent again. it’s hemolyzed. third time’s the charm? your patient has no more veins.
you have managed your patient. you have a plan. you just need to run this by a consultant. you call a consultant. the phone rings for eternity.
there, you see your consultant go into a patient room. you have a quick question for them. they never come out. what consultant? everyone including your patient swear they were never here. the consultant’s note shortly appears in the EMR. it does not answer your question.
you are called to assess a situation. before the situation can be assessed, there are cries for calls - did you call the ICU , did you call cardiology, did you call GI, did you call the lab, did you call xray tech, did you call the family, did you call the caregiver, did you call the POA who is neither the family nor the caregiver…you will, you will, you will, you
“how was your day?” someone asks you 10 minutes before change of shift. your face falls. you did not use the Forbidden Words all day but now it matters not. a darkness passes over the ward. your pager and phone go off. it was almost the end. now it is the beginning
I remember watching the behind the scenes on this show. The creator of the show said that they got so much fan mail saying this show was the most realistic hospital show.
My parents both worked in the medical profession my whole life, and when I was watching them come home, I could see echoes of what this show did. All other medical shows were so much about the drama. This one nailed it. It nailed the good, the bad, and everything in between.
Also, I read that Scrubs was more medically accurate than House, Grey’s Anatomy, and every other medical show on TV
The official Medblr response to non-healthcare people objecting to our online jokes and complaints.
I remember watching this scene as a baby medical student and thinking, “Wow, this is soooo true, haha, Scrubs is so good! They sure do this whole doctor thing pretty well. :)”
I just happened to watch this scene years later as a resident, and it nearly brought me to tears because I saw myself in that scene. I’d been that doctor to break the bad news to a family and then went on to work for another 8 hours. In my clinic, I’d go from talking to a patient about severe depression to a patient happy about her new pregnancy to a patient struggling with 3 or 4 chronic medical conditions, and all in the span of an hour or two. It’s emotional whiplash, and it’s HARD. And we do it every day.
Forgive us our jokes - they’re one of the things that help.
We launched our Spitzer Space Telescope into orbit around the Sunday on Aug. 25, 2003. Since then, the observatory has been lifting the veil on the wonders of the cosmos, from our own solar system to faraway galaxies, using infrared light.
Thanks to Spitzer, scientists were able to confirm the presence of seven rocky, Earth-size planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. The telescope has also provided weather maps of hot, gaseous exoplanets and revealed a hidden ring around Saturn. It has illuminated hidden collections of dust in a wide variety of locations, including cosmic nebulas (clouds of gas and dust in space), where young stars form, and swirling galaxies. Spitzer has additionally investigated some of the universe’s oldest galaxies and stared at the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
In honor of Spitzer’s Sweet 16 in space, here are 16 amazing images from the mission.
Giant Star Makes Waves
This Spitzer image shows the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi and the bow shock, or shock wave, in front of it. Visible only in infrared light, the bow shock is created by winds that flow from the star, making ripples in the surrounding dust.
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer
The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, is a frequent target for night sky observers. This image from Spitzer zooms in on a few members of the sisterhood. The filaments surrounding the stars are dust, and the three colors represent different wavelengths of infrared light.
Young Stars in Their Baby Blanket of Dust
Newborn stars peek out from beneath their blanket of dust in this image of the Rho Ophiuchi nebula. Called “Rho Oph” by astronomers and located about 400 light-years from Earth, it’s one of the closest star-forming regions to our own solar system.
The youngest stars in this image are surrounded by dusty disks of material from which the stars — and their potential planetary systems — are forming. More evolved stars, which have shed their natal material, are blue.
The Infrared Helix
Located about 700 light-years from Earth, the eye-like Helix nebula is a planetary nebula, or the remains of a Sun-like star. When these stars run out of their internal fuel supply, their outer layers puff up to create the nebula. Our Sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about 5 billion years.
The Tortured Clouds of Eta Carinae
The bright star at the center of this image is Eta Carinae, one of the most massive stars in the Milky Way galaxy. With around 100 times the mass of the Sun and at least 1 million times the brightness, Eta Carinae releases a tremendous outflow of energy that has eroded the surrounding nebula.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Located 28 million light-years from Earth, Messier 104 — also called the Sombrero galaxy or M104 — is notable for its nearly edge-on orientation as seen from our planet. Spitzer observations were the first to reveal the smooth, bright ring of dust (seen in red) circling the galaxy.
Spiral Galaxy Messier 81
This infrared image of the galaxy Messier 81, or M81, reveals lanes of dust illuminated by active star formation throughout the galaxy’s spiral arms. Located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major (which includes the Big Dipper), M81 is also about 12 million light-years from Earth.
Spitzer Reveals Stellar Smoke
Messier 82 — also known as the Cigar galaxy or M82 — is a hotbed of young, massive stars. In visible light, it appears as a diffuse bar of blue light, but in this infrared image, scientists can see huge red clouds of dust blown out into space by winds and radiation from those stars.
A Pinwheel Galaxy Rainbow
This image of Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy or M101, combines data in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-rays from Spitzer and three other NASA space telescopes: Hubble, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer’s Far Ultraviolet detector (GALEX) and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The galaxy is about 70% larger than our own Milky Way, with a diameter of about 170,000 light-years, and sits at a distance of 21 million light-years from Earth. Read more about its colors here.
Cartwheel Galaxy Makes Waves
Approximately 100 million years ago, a smaller galaxy plunged through the heart of the Cartwheel galaxy, creating ripples of brief star formation. As with the Pinwheel galaxy above, this composite image includes data from NASA’s Spitzer, Hubble, GALEX and Chandra observatories.
The first ripple appears as a bright blue outer ring around the larger object, radiating ultraviolet light visible to GALEX. The clumps of pink along the outer blue ring are X-ray (observed by Chandra) and ultraviolet radiation.
Spitzer and Hubble Create Colorful Masterpiece
Located 1,500 light-years from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the constellation Orion. Four massive stars, collectively called the Trapezium, appear as a yellow smudge near the image center. Visible and ultraviolet data from Hubble appear as swirls of green that indicate the presence of gas heated by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium’s stars. Less-embedded stars appear as specks of green, and foreground stars as blue spots. Meanwhile, Spitzer’s infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, shown here as wisps of red and orange. Orange-yellow dots are infant stars deeply embedded in cocoons of dust and gas.
A Space Spider Watches Over Young Stars
Located about 10,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Auriga, the Spider nebula resides in the outer part of the Milky Way. Combining data from Spitzer and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the image shows green clouds of dust illuminated by star formation in the region.
North America Nebula in Different Lights
This view of the North America nebula combines visible light collected by the Digitized Sky Survey with infrared light from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Blue hues represent visible light, while infrared is displayed as red and green. Clusters of young stars (about 1 million years old) can be found throughout the image.
Spitzer Captures Our Galaxy’s Bustling Center
This infrared mosaic offers a stunning view of the Milky Way galaxy’s busy center. The pictured region, located in the Sagittarius constellation, is 900 light-years agross and shows hundreds of thousands of mostly old stars amid clouds of glowing dust lit up by younger, more massive stars. Our Sun is located 26,000 light-years away in a more peaceful, spacious neighborhood, out in the galactic suburbs.
The Eternal Life of Stardust
The Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light-years from Earth, looks like a choppy sea of dust in this infrared portrait. The blue color, seen most prominently in the central bar, represents starlight from older stars. The chaotic, bright regions outside this bar are filled with hot, massive stars buried in thick blankets of dust.
A Stellar Family Portrait
In this large celestial mosaic from Spitzer, there’s a lot to see, including multiple clusters of stars born from the same dense clumps of gas and dust. The grand green-and-orange delta filling most of the image is a faraway nebula. The bright white region at its tip is illuminated by massive stars, and dust that has been heated by the stars’ radiation creates the surrounding red glow.
Managed by our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Spitzer’s primary mission lasted five-and-a-half years and ended when it ran out of the liquid helium coolant necessary to operate two of its three instruments. But, its passive-cooling design has allowed part of its third instrument to continue operating for more than 10 additional years. The mission is scheduled to end on Jan. 30, 2020.
If I hadn’t become a doctor, I sometimes think I would have liked to study astronomy. These photos are astoundingly beautiful, and the scope of the universe is so grand that it continually amazes me.
There are 3 main types, but from my research, this looks to be American Gregg Shorthand.
As you can see, there are set symbols for every letter.
Let’s break one of the words down:
Using the Gregg Alphabet as reference, we can see most of the letters in “atrophied” are present. But why no “o” vowel, and why is “ph” written as “f”?
Simple. In shorthand, you cut out all vowels in a word when writing it down, with the exception of words that BEGIN or END with a vowel (hence the “a” at the start being present), or like in the “i” in “atrophied”, to make it more readable when the sound could be harder to distinguish if it isn’t written. In “atrophied” if the the “i” isn’t written, it could be hard to tell if the writer meant a “fud”, “fad”, “fod” or “fid” sound, for example.
Also, since Shorthand is a phonetic writing system, you are encouraged to write down the phonetic sounds of words rather than the actual letter blends - in this case, write an “f” instead of a “ph”.
So in actuality, these aren’t just meaningless scribbles - it’s Gregg Shorthand, a writing system developed to take down notes more quickly than when written out in full, which is very useful in a medical or journalistic environment.
Some people can even write over 100 words in a minute! And, it’s been in use since John Robert Gregg invented it in 1888! Wow! So old!
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