I think it’s time to stop sending them dildos. They’re apparently now burning them in oil drums. While they arguably deserve the stench of burning silicone, that can’t be good for the environment.

That...is exactly how the immune system works. The IgG producing cells don’t care whether the antigen is alive or not; if the clone producing the antibody that binds the antigen detects the antigen, it’s activated to proliferate, and if its progeny detects the antigen again, they proliferate very rapidly. Vaccines…

Of course you can build an immunity to polio. That’s exactly what the body’s response to the polio vaccine is.

There used to be this burger joint in Seattle that would add pureed fresh fruit to milkshakes, and they were delicious. I’d give anything for one of their vanilla shakes with blackberries right now.

A few days ago I saw a young man on the Red line manspreading in one of the reserved for disabled seats, in a crowded train, with his backpack on the seat beside him. And no, he did not offer his seat to my crutch-using self.

Considering the numbers of women pursuing (and having achieved) doctorates in the biomedical sciences, I’d suggest the problem these guys have in increasing the numbers of women in biotech involves not even trying.

You sit on your hands while every other sushi emporium in Japan hires only men, but a single restaurant that hires only women drives you take to your keyboard at the injustice to the male sushi chefs who failed to get a job at any of the others? Really?

Ah, so I may still be ungrey!

God only knows. It’s the Christmas song that most makes me want to poke a chopstick through my eardrums.

As someone who grew up in a place that had both tornadoes and dust devils, that thing is a largish dust devil. I ran through several such dusty whirlwinds as a little girl.

There’s actually extensive research on learning in flies. Try keywords Drosophila and learning at PubMed Central.

An allergy is an autoimmune disorder.

My problem with the story as written is that it appears that it was not made clear that the gluten-free toast was being prepared in a way that made cross contamination possible. The customer found out by asking, after she’d been eating it for several months:

Do crumbs from other bread actually get on the currently-toasting bread? It’s tough for me to imagine this.

I just don’t understand why they would even bother with that kind of half-assed accomodation. It’s as helpful as picking the shrimp off the pad thai for someone who mentioned their severe shellfish allergy while ordering.

Life-threatening auto-immune disorders do indeed tend to be dramatic.

Yes, it is that dangerous to celiacs. It’s an auto-immune disease; it takes just a trace of gluten to make a celiac’s immune system mount an attack on the celiac’s intestinal lining as not-self (that is, gluten makes their bodies make antibodies to their own lower digestive system). It won’t cause an anaphylactic…

I’ve got to agree with you on that. What’s the point of offering gluten-free toast if the bread is going to be toasted in a toaster contaminated with regular bread crumbs? It doesn’t really affect the trendy gluten-avoiders, but is actively dangerous to celiacs.

Indeed, with a ruling that blatantly suggested that the state legislature outlawing upskirt photos, which the legislature promptly did.

She was, reportedly, glancing at her cell phone. You know what really creates a disturbance? Three adults trying to force a kid to leave the classroom, followed by that same kid being violently assaulted by a police officer. I’m betting the rest of class barely noticed when she looked at her phone, but they sure as…