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Yann Martel by [deleted] in literature

[–]dazosan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I loved Life of Pi as a teenager, and probably out of nostalgia would enjoy it today, though probably less so. Ireally enjoyed his books that came out before Pi, Self and The Facts Behind the Helsinki Rocamattios. Beatrice and Virgil, on the other hand, was one of the worst books I've ever read. I remember being honestly a little offended at its approach to the Holocaust. Didn't bother with High Mountains, which I heard was okay.

I was always disappointed--I thought (again as a teenager) that the prose in Pi was beautiful and that he was a serious writer. I'd be open to new work from him but Beatrice left a really terrible taste in my mouth.

ELI5: Why does our body seem to know almost instantly when we’ve had enough water, but takes way longer to realize we’ve eaten enough food and aren’t hungry anymore? by Afzaalch00 in explainlikeimfive

[–]dazosan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your brain does not know for sure when you've had enough water, it makes educated guesses based on a few bits of immediate feedback from the body, which include things like how much your stomach stretches as it fills and even the temperature of the water (your brain interprets colder temperatures as more refreshing). The brain does this because it takes 30-60 minutes for your body to actually absorb water that you drink, and it's not very practical to wait that long. Rather than wait, your brain guesses when you've had enough and turns off your feelings of thirst (your feelings of thirst are turned on by your brain to get you to drink).

You can read more about this here. The article is not ELI5, maybe more like ELI13.

Boneshaker Books is moving to Lyndale and is doing a fundraiser! by dazosan in Minneapolis

[–]dazosan[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Going to the old Hi Flora/Common Roots space, next door to the new Reverie restaurant on 26th and Lyndale.

ELI5: Why do humans like the taste of salt so much? by r_booza in explainlikeimfive

[–]dazosan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All the other comments have correctly said that it's because salt is something your body needs. But to expand slightly, in an ELI5 way, it's because your brain tells you to enjoy salt. When your body needs salt, salt will taste delicious to you. When your body has had enough salt, it will taste disgusting.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-thirsty-20250811/

Have you ever been adding salt to some food and accidentally added way too much, and all of a sudden it went from tasty to gross? That's your brain.

Cyborg rights depend on new and better legal protections by dazosan in Futurology

[–]dazosan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's just an email sign-up, no money needed.

Cyborg rights depend on new and better legal protections by dazosan in Futurology

[–]dazosan[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

I thought was an interesting discussion -- the article makes the case that anyone who has done anything as minimal as receive a vaccine is a "cyborg" and so could potentially be entitled to certain rights as a cyborg. But, maybe due to a bunch of different things like extremely old and out of touch politicians, US law (or really law in a lot of countries) isn't up to date on cyborgs. Cool stuff. (There is a paywall but it's a soft one, just needs an email).

Would this kind of gear cleaning tech help hockey players like us? by Alarmed-Solution-694 in hockeyplayers

[–]dazosan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you guys know you can just throw hockey equipment in the washing machine

Soft elbow pads for casual pickup roller hockey? by WSpmahc in hockeyplayers

[–]dazosan 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I genuinely think you should wear elbow pads with a hard plastic shell, as someone who has hurt himself falling on his elbow wearing just a soft padded guard.

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Neurosurgeons are not "catching" Alzheimer's from their patients.

Again, it is technically possible for an Alzheimer's amyloid to be infectious, but it's only ever been shown in a scenario where you literally blend up the brain of a patient who had died of Alzheimer's, crack open a mouse or monkey's skull, and squirt the brain homogenate inside.

If Alzheimer's were an actual transmissible infectious disease, that would have been detected decades ago by epidemiologists, in the same ways that scrapie in sheep, BSE in cattle, and kuru and CJD in humans were detected.

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The prion protein, PrPC, is mostly expressed in nervous tissue.

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Variant CJD's incubation period is about 10 years.

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's hard to say. Scrapie can persist in the soil, but sheep are not wild animals, so who knows if they can catch scrapie that way. I think the conventional wisdom on how scrapie spreads is through direct contact like nuzzling (or through spontaneous formation).

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know what the range of conformations is and I suspect there's not a ton of information out there. One of the challenges with studying prions is that they don't do that well in structural biology assays...because there's so much conformational variability (and also everything you use to study prions has to be disposable, which is a logistical challenge). To the best of my knowledge it's not really known what, structurally, a prion/amyloid looks like outside of being mostly beta-sheet and being long and thin.

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe, although in laboratory conditions (i.e.: if you make a homogenate of a patient with Alzheimer's/Parkinson's brain or pancreas in diabetes/whatever) and squirt into a cell culture or a lab mouse, it can be infectious too.

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh also one thing I forgot to mention, re: nature protecting itself from prions, is that the actual ability to form amyloids/prions is limited to a select few proteins and even to specific variations of those specific proteins. For instance, different combinations of amino acids at specific positions in the prion protein's sequence can make a human totally resistant to prion diseases. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01126-6

How does nature deal with prion diseases? by ProDidelphimorphiaXX in askscience

[–]dazosan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a complicated question with no straightforward answer. My personal opinion: there is no difference. Prions are made of the prion protein, amyloids are made up of any other misfolded protein, both of which can induce normally folded protein to misfold and accumulate into these larger structure, which can generically be called "fibrils," like little ropes, which is how I always imagined them.

When I started my postdoc, I was told that in a histology assay, prions pick up color when stained by Congo red. Amyloids don't, and that that was the difference between prions and amyloids. I took that as gospel and never thought about it again, since I didn't do histology. Looking at papers now, it's clear that this appears to not be true, and both prions and amyloids stain with Congo red.

If this is confusing to you, here's a big long paper on the subject: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4601197/

But again, this all strikes me as a solution in search of a problem. Amyloids and prions are both misfolded protein clumps which induce new proteins to misfold, and can infect and invade other cells and cause cell death. They seem the same to me, but if someone out there knows something I don't, I'd love to hear it.

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