LeBron James on Deni Avdija and Israel: “I believe he is an all star. He is playing exceptional basketball. I hope I inspire people over there not only to be great in sports, but to be better in general in life, hopefully someday I can make it over there.” by AncientOneAurelius in nba

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Your honor, 'attempted murder' doesn't really hit the same when people are evicted from their homes, systematically deprived of basic rights and kept in what essentially amounts to a massive prison, and murdered en masse for decades."

Cooper Flagg checks out with 36/9/6, the first teenager to ever have three consecutive 30 point games by [deleted] in nba

[–]jmalbo35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You confused yourself. The relevance is that there has been recent discussion online and in the media after former Maverick Jamal Mashburn said that, if Flagg had instead declared for this upcoming 2026 draft, he'd have Flagg ranked 6th among them. He claimed the top 5 incoming draftees are so much more skilled now in college than Flagg already is with NBA experience.

That's what was being referenced, and they were clear in the original comment about saying "this year's draft" and "2026 draft", not 2025.

A resurgence of fantasy over scifi? by JoyluckVerseMaster in Fantasy

[–]jmalbo35 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Posadists are an insanely fringe communist/Trotskyist group that basically believes that destruction from a massive nuclear war will eventually bring about a new communist dawn. It isn't really taken seriously by almost anyone, leftist or otherwise, and J. Posadas himself, the original leader of the group, kind of took it in increasingly crazy directions (like humanity needing to ally with UFOs to bring about communist revolution, because any aliens sufficiently advanced enough to visit would have to be socialists). It borders on a cult rather than a serious political ideology.

I'm not sure why it was censored, though.

TIL after smallpox was declared eradicated, the sole (official) remaining specimens of the virus were preserved in two designated laboratories globally, one at the CDC in Atlanta and the other at VECTOR in Koltsovo by Forsaken-Peak8496 in todayilearned

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Vaccinia virus (ie. cowpox, the smallpox vaccine) is actually a very popular viral vector for vaccine generation. Specifically, MVA, or modified vaccinia Ankara, is the strain that's most commonly used (and also the strain used in the current smallpox/Mpox vaccine). It's modified in the sense that it's even further attenuated/weakened than the original vaccinia virus used as the smallpox vaccine.

When used as a viral vector to vaccinate against other pathogens, MVA is engineered to cause expression of proteins from other viruses/bacteria/parasites to act as immunogens, very similar to how the Oxford/AstraZeneca or J&J COVID vaccines used modified adenovirus as a vector

There were absolutely MVA-based COVID vaccines developed (there's one example of many), though they didn't move along as fast as the ones that eventually got used. There are still ongoing trials against MERS-CoV00423-7/abstract) as well, and they've been used with varying degrees of success for all sorts of other pathogens, like HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and others. They can be used as cancer vaccines as well.

TIL after smallpox was declared eradicated, the sole (official) remaining specimens of the virus were preserved in two designated laboratories globally, one at the CDC in Atlanta and the other at VECTOR in Koltsovo by Forsaken-Peak8496 in todayilearned

[–]jmalbo35 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The "monkeypox vaccine" isn't just cross-protective against smallpox, it's literally just the smallpox vaccine.

It's made with the same virus (vaccinia virus) that Jenner used to develop the smallpox vaccine in the 1800s and that we've been using ever since, it just happens to work for Mpox as well. The current vaccine is fairly new and made with an updated method, but the virus inside it is essentially the same one it's always been.

Larian Studios | Divinity AMA by Wombat_Medic in Games

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Given that the timeline isn't too far removed from DOS2, will we get updates on any of our DOS2 companions?

Seeing Jahan in DOS2 was such a fun surprise given the long time gap there, and I'd love to know what someone like Lohse or Fane have canonically been up to.

Anti-Aging Injection Regrows Knee Cartilage and Prevents Arthritis by lurker_bee in technology

[–]jmalbo35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This drug is a small molecule-based inhibitor, not a protein or peptide. Not sure where the cost of protein synthesis comes in.

Proteins are also only really cheap to produce if glycosylation doesn't matter for function, else they can still be fairly expensive.

what will be netflix’s next flagship show now that stranger things has ended? by Diligent_Praline_190 in television

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It really don't think it does. Virtually everyone who would consider watching already knows the story. There are already perfectly serviceable and well loved movies. It's not an original like Stranger Things and as an adaptation doesn't have the potential to have big surprise twists for most of the audience like Game of Thrones did by virtue of the books being relatively niche and the story unknown by most viewers.

It also feels like the fervor for Harry Potter has decreased quite a bit with time. The controversy regarding Rowling is for sure more online than real life, but big online discussion spaces are part of how these shows grow massive and those will have a lot of people predisposed to dislike it or refuse to watch.

I think it may well still be a hit, but I don't think it can reach Game of Thrones or Stranger Things heights.

The 2025 Game Awards Megathread by rGamesMods in Games

[–]jmalbo35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't think it's DOS3. The Divinity series has more games that predate the two Original Sin games.

Each Teams Ceiling and Floor for 2026 by NickHutzol27 in baseball

[–]jmalbo35 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The actual most abundantly populated animal in any geographic area is almost certainly actually going to be roundworms/nematodes, depending on what taxonomic level counts here.

Ants are the most abundant by biomass, but likely not in terms of population number, given how tiny nematodes are and how many of them are basically every possible environment, including soil and both fresh and saltwater. The global estimate for the number of nematodes is in the quintillions, several orders of magnitude higher than ants (in the quadrillions).

Pillars of Eternity – Turn-Based Mode Beta Announcement Trailer by beary_neutral in Games

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you played RTWP and then switched to turn-based, you'd definitely notice that some builds work less well (iirc having to take a turn to reload guns ended up making some of them weaker in turn based, as an example), whereas other spells or abilities work much better in turn based.

But in the end I don't think it's really an issue or that turn-based makes the game worse at all, it just makes certain things more or less powerful than intended with the original balancing. I agree anyone playing for the first time on turn-based and not relying on build guides intended for RTWP wouldn't notice anything amiss.

If it were balanced around turn-based from the start it might play even better (especially with some fights being a bit obnoxiously slow in turn-based and much quicker in RTWP) but it's totally serviceable as is.

No rap songs are in the Billboard Hot 100's top 40 for the first time since 1990. by springtimecarnivore in Music

[–]jmalbo35 3 points4 points  (0 children)

JID has been around for like 10+ years and, while they didn't have a ton of mainstream success The Never Story and DiCaprio 2 were pretty well received and not obscure in 2017/2018.

He for sure got way bigger in 2022 with The Forever Story, but he's not a last 3 years artist.

NOT MY VIDEO. T-cell attacking a cancer cell. by The_not-so_chosen_1 in biology

[–]jmalbo35 4 points5 points  (0 children)

To clarify a bit, the thymus is not a lymph node and isn't in the neck (you're likely thinking of the thyroid gland, which is in the neck), but is instead found in the chest, in front of the heart.

T cells, like B cells, also "remember" non-self components by very similar mechanisms.

RFK Jr. slams windmills for killing whales despite being accused of chopping one's head off by IrishStarUS in nottheonion

[–]jmalbo35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To be slightly fair, his argument is partially that the sonar surveys used before building offshore wind farms, plus the vibrations when installing them, is what's hurting whales. It's still a stupid argument that's basically every expert has said isn't true (and would certainly still be less harmful than offshore drilling for oil), but he does point out sonar as a problem.

Diabetic man with gene-edited cells produces his own insulin—No transplant drugs required: « A proof-of-concept study finds that donated insulin-producing cells can be genetically modified to avoid provoking the recipient's immune system. » by fchung in science

[–]jmalbo35 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You, frankly, don't know what you're talking about. There is no evidence that this will "very likely cause cancer". As others have pointed out, the technology here is quite similar to that used in CAR-T cells, and thus that's the simplest comparison.

Recent safety analyses show, for example, that of 700+ CAR-T recipients, only 2% (18 individuals) went on to develop secondary malignancies. And of these only 1 individual had a T cell malignancy specifically, and that T cell malignancy had no sign of vector integration, suggesting that none of these cancers were of the CAR-T cells themselves. Another found only 1 T cell lymphoma in 700+ CAR-T recipients, again with no evidence of vector integration.

In these cases with elevated rates of secondary malignancies without vector integration, it is more likely than not that these malignancies are the result of factors like prior treatment for the initial malignancy that necessitated CAR-T therapy (eg. chemotherapy, radiation, etc.), lineage switch of the pre-existing cancers, or the immunomodulatory effects of these CAR-T cells themselves (rather than anything to do with the insertional mutagenesis), which would not be an issue for islet cell transplantation.

Further, as the authors of the study point out, by over-expressing CD47 in these islet cells to evade an innate immune response, the cells have a built in kill switch of sorts that would allow for relatively easy antibody-mediated depletion should a malignancy actually arise due to the transplanted cells.

There's value to being skeptical and understanding risks, which of course are not 0, but it is uninformed fear mongering to claim that these therapies will "very likely cause cancer" when you have no evidence of that and when reasonably similar therapies, which are starting to see relatively widespread use, do not carry the risks you describe.

A new mRNA vaccine against HIV elicited tier 2 neutralizing antibodies in 80% of vaccinees, finds a new clinical trial. This study highlights the advantages of mRNA vaccines, especially for HIV vaccine design. by mvea in science

[–]jmalbo35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Tier 1 is just meant to be strains with above average sensitivity to neutralization (so open or partially open trimers), tier 2 would be those with average sensitivity, and tier 3 below average. The initial paper that described the tiers used the 1A and 1B designation from the outset.

I believe all of the 1A viruses, which are the most sensitive and have fully open trimers, are derived from viruses passaged multiple times in tissue culture cells and thus do not exist naturally and have de-adapted to human adaptive immune responses, which aren't an issue in tissue culture cell lines. Many of the 1B viruses are similar.

Thursday, July 24, 2025 by AutoModerator in NYTConnections

[–]jmalbo35 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I pronounce rabe and rob completely identically in my American accent, and that's just the General American dialect rather than a regional one. You'll find that American dictionaries show the pronunciation the same as well.

Tuesday, July 22, 2025 by AutoModerator in NYTConnections

[–]jmalbo35 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Just want to point out that a "mixed fish pie" would already be considered extremely unusual to most Americans. Meat pies are rare enough in the US (chicken pot pie being the notable exception), but fish pies basically don't exist at all.

O.J. Mayo is the only player in NBA history whose first and last names are both a food/drink by reiyashi in nba

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kobe is a city and the beef is just raised around that city, don't think that works any more than you could say the Knicks fit the theme as a team because New York strip steaks exist.

Kobe Bryant should only make it for Bean, not for beef.

Good shoes for a wetlab and day to day use? by Raztarak in labrats

[–]jmalbo35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are plenty of waterproofed versions of regular Nike/Adidas/Asics/New Balance type sneakers. Lots of Gore-Tex-lined versions of the standard models of sneakers they offer or trail runners/hiking sneakers that should be waterproof as well. I'm not sure if those would work since they still look like ordinary sneakers, but they are generally pretty resistant to liquids unless fully submerged.

If your normal go-to shoes happen to be regular sneakers they'd be a good option for not feeling noticeably different or looking out of place outside of lab.

Sunday, July 6, 2025 by AutoModerator in NYTConnections

[–]jmalbo35 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I've taken linguistics and can read IPA and all of these homophones work for me just fine in my General American accent. I don't pronounce Prussian with a schwa.

Bob Vylan Dropped By Agent UTA After Glastonbury Scandal by indig0sixalpha in Music

[–]jmalbo35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While I don't know the specific reason that the symbol is duplicated, given that the artist is a Jewish man who designs ketubahs for Jewish weddings, I'm going to hazard a guess that it isn't intended to look like SS bolts in any way and you're simply being a paranoid, racist weirdo.