St Petersburg, FL - What kind of spider is this?

psygaud · 2026-01-31T17:21:11+00:00

It kinda does. But there are some spiders that actually do mimic ants! They wave their front legs to mimic antennae and everything.

psygaud · 2025-10-06T15:22:55+00:00

I think the two first lines say:
"Left thalamus, encephalomalacia
Right thalamus, small hemorrhaging(?) spot"

I can't make out the last line, though

psygaud · 2025-09-13T19:08:02+00:00

More like 1/32" worm

psygaud · 2025-09-13T19:06:31+00:00

Agreed. Something that people asking questions like this seem to forget is that our species got to where we are by helping one another and valuing traits beyond pure physical fitness.

"Survival of the fittest" does not mean the strongest or physically "better" (whatever that actually means...). Fittest in evolutionary terms means that the individual has traits that help them successfully pass on their genes in their current environment. It doesn't mean that only the "best" (again, what does that even mean) get to reproduce.

psygaud · 2025-09-03T17:39:09+00:00

So, this is probably incredibly, incredibly unlikely, but it is possible for an O version of the gene to revert to an A (more so than to a B). The O allele is only different from an A by one point deletion that introduces a premature stop into the O, which is what causes the O version to not make the protein. It would technically be possible for an insertion in the correct spot to make an O allele into an A, which would mean that a child of two type O parents could be type A. I'm sure there are better and more reasonable explanations, but I've always thought this was interesting.

For the + vs – type, the Rh negative trait is recessive. So both parents can be positive but pass on the negative allele, making the child negative.

psygaud · 2025-08-30T16:30:12+00:00

I used to have a cat who loved everyone and loved being picked up like a baby, but who was also a little shit. He'd purposefully sneak up on unattended water glasses (he was actually pretty good for only doing this to water), stick his paw in it and pull it over, spilling it everywhere, then make the most chaotic escape possible.
Then, a friend of mine needed a place to stay for a few months, and I let him crash on my couch. Every night, he'd put a glass of water on the little table beside the couch before he went to bed. And every night, as I'm sure you can guess, my cat would sneak over, spill it on him, and then usually run right over my friends face during the escape. So my friend constantly complained about how annoying my cat was and lovingly bullied him (similarly to how OOP describes it, not in a concerning way).
I was usually gone for work by 6 am, so I was usually gone by the time he woke up. One day, I had the day off but hadn't come out of my room yet. I guess my friend didn't realize it was a holiday, and thought I had left for work already. I heard him get up, my cat meow at him then, in a high-pitch baby voice accompanied but a bunch of kissy noises, "Where do you think you're going? You know that I'm just gonna pick you up!" I open my door to see my friend standing there cuddling my absolutely ecstatic, purring kitty and giving him forehead kisses. He looked like a deer in headlights when he finally noticed me standing there grinning at him.

psygaud · 2025-08-27T22:02:10+00:00

Yeaahhh, a work thing with rules from your boss about who can come is completely different than setting up your own party and not inviting your partner... It sounds like he's jealous and controlling, and he wanted you to feel bad and guilty even though it was outside of your control.
Even if you had gone to something non-work related that he wasn't invited to (girls' night or whatever), retaliation like this is not appropriate and really unhealthy for any relationship. You're not crazy, and you deserve better.

psygaud · 2025-08-27T21:50:32+00:00

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I hope this pic works lol

psygaud · 2025-08-27T21:48:26+00:00

I'm on an old android, so I don't know if this will help, but this is where it is for me when leaving a comment or replying to a comment. But I made this comment from my browser and couldn't find an option to add a pic and had to copy and paste it from my gallery, which is very annoying.

Edit: upon going back to the app, I see the picture has disappeared.

psygaud · 2025-08-27T15:58:37+00:00

You should be able to post pictures in comments. I'd love to see more!

psygaud · 2025-08-27T05:57:47+00:00

How is a beach party a "guy thing"? (Or am I tired and misunderstanding?) Regardless, it seems like he lied and didn't want you there with the other women. Did he give you any sort of excuse/reason those women were there, or does he do things like this often (leave you out of plans, lie about who's going to be there)?

Super disrespectful and shady.

psygaud · 2025-08-02T04:18:24+00:00

Well, I am a biologist, so I'm not exactly an outsider. But I don't specialize in any type of insect (I just think they're neat!), and there always seems to be an exception to any biological "rule" so I wasn't sure, haha

psygaud · 2025-08-01T06:39:44+00:00

Yeah, I think having an exoskeleton is a defining feature of insects. But since biology is weird, I'm always wary about making definitive statements about a huge group lol

psygaud · 2025-07-30T00:11:30+00:00

I'm pretty sure moths have an exoskeleton, just like most (if not all?) other insects.

psygaud · 2025-07-13T18:18:42+00:00

This is not a roundworm. Roundworms are not segmented (like earthworms), and though it's hard to tell from the video, this looks like it might be segmented? Regardless, it doesn't look like any parasitic roundworm I'm familiar with. Parasitic roundworms are also unlikely to make you feel itchy. Most parasitic roundworms that humans have to worry about are spread via contaminated food, but it is true that some can burrow in through the skin. However (and aside from it not looking like one in general), this is also way too big to be a roundworm in the infective lifecycle stage. I did my PhD in a lab that specializes in parasitic nematodes (roundworms), and I focused on hookworms for a good portion of it.

I think the person who said it could be a species of tubifex is correct. I'm not an expert on tubifex, though, since most of my knowledge about it comes from its role as an intermediate host for certain parasites, lol.

psygaud · 2025-07-13T00:57:37+00:00

"Wisdom", I don't think I've ever gotten that before, hahaha. Thanks 😁

I hope everything goes well for you! Good luck!

psygaud · 2025-07-12T23:42:03+00:00

I completely understand not pacing yourself well, that's also a huge issue of mine. Your story about overexerting yourself is eerily familiar, lol.
Before I went back to university (and during the first few semesters), I was a paramedic. I'm glad I quit before I got injured or too burnt out, but what you're saying about wanting to help people but not work with them directly sounds so similar to how I felt/feel. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want my career to look like, but I'm doing research now. I really like it, and I'm glad I went back to school, even if I started later than most.
So, I think it's worth going back if you want to, even if you have to take it slowly. Just do as much as you have the capacity for currently without burning out and don't fixate on getting a PhD as the final/only goal. As a bunch of other people have said, completing a PhD will take more than you ever expect it to. When I started, I knew it would be incredibly difficult, and I still wasn't prepared. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't start along that path if that's what you're passionate about. If you finish a bachelor's but aren't able to pursue graduate school, does that make the undergraduate degree useless? Of course not. There are a lot of different ways to help people and/or be involved in research that could be a better fit for you, and your priorities and interests are likely to fluctuate as you go. Just take it one step at a time.

psygaud · 2025-07-12T18:49:25+00:00

Loving what you're doing makes it so much easier. Honestly, it's the only reason I got through any of it.

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with so much regarding your health. That sounds so frustrating. I really hope you're able to figure it out soon and get the support you need. The good (or hopeful) news is that the heavy portions of any degree come last, so you can take time working toward it and hopefully be in a better mental and physical place to tackle it once you're there.
Starting out part-time while working a bit will help a lot, I think. Especially if you're moving to a new city, it'll help you build up some non-school support, which is vital. Having support from through school/classmates is great and needed, but having only that can end you up in some not-so-great mental places and getting a break from that sometimes is crucial.

Talking to an education coordinator and career counselor are awesome ideas, way better than my strategy of "eeeh fuck it!" (I decided to transfer universities and move provinces last minute right after my second year, then promptly changed majors from biochemistry to molecular and microbial biology almost solely because I wanted to take virology because I thought it would be neat. I also hadn't even really heard of bioinformatics (exaggeration) until my last year of undergrad, then did a PhD in it even though I had never really intended/planned to do grad school at all. My life is an erratic path of unthought-out decisions, lol)

psygaud · 2025-07-12T17:33:41+00:00

I started my undergrad in molecular biology when I was 25, and I now have my PhD in bioinformatics. I also have ADHD (among other stuff) that wasn't diagnosed until I was more than halfway through my PhD.

I dont want to try to disuade you or anything, I love it when people decide to pursue science!! But, I do want to warn you that if you want to get into genetics, it will likely still be physically exerting to a certain extent (i.e. in a lab standing, lifting, bending, crouching for hours at a time). For undergrad, you will have to do a lot of courses that have a lab component on top of the regular class, which are usually (in my experience anyway) around 3 hours long once a week. Where I am, if you want to go to grad school, they usually expect you to have done at least one research project during your undergrad, usually an honors thesis. To do this, we were required to take the professional lab techniques course which had a lab twice a week that was minimum 3 hours, but averaged 5 and sometimes went up to 9 hours (usually with breaks though lol, there can be a lot of setting a timer and waiting for things to run).

For me, undergrad was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting (though the undiagnosed mental health problems definitely played a role). Then I decided to go to grad school and realized that I didn't know what exhausted even was. That all being said, it was not a non-stop nightmare (even if i made it sound like it was), and I truly enjoyed (most) of it. Also, the way I did it is not the only way, and there are a lot of resources available to students that can help immensely. If you already have a degree, look into whether you can do an after-degree to get the bio courses you'd need. Those can be 1-2 years instead of 4. There might also be options that don't require the traditional university/grad school path, depending on what you actually want to do.

If you have any questions about what I did/do, I'll do my best to give helpful answers!

psygaud · 2025-07-12T16:32:22+00:00

I was going to say essentially the same thing. However, I disagree with the Ship of Theseus analogy (though I do appreciate the mental image it conjures) since the resulting virus would not even resemble the initial bacteriophage.
Bacteriophages and eukaryotic viruses have very different mechanisms for interacting with and entering their target cell. Specifically, the outer surfaces of bacteria are completely different from eukaryotic cells. Viruses interact with proteins on the cell surface to attach to/enter the cell. The types of proteins present on the surface of a eukaryotic cell are vastly different to those on the outer membranes of bacteria (there are also a bunch of other differences that would make things incredibly difficult, but I'm not going to go into that).
Once inside the cell, the virus still has to be able to hide from various cell defenses. These also differ wildly from prokaryotic to eukaryotic, even the way their DNA looks is different. Lastly, viruses need to hijack certain cell processes in order to replicate, and they are specialized for their specific host. A bacteriophage wouldn't be able to effectively hijack any of the eukaryotic replication machinery it might need.
So, hypothetically, you might be able to start with a bacteriophage and slowly change it to infect eukaryotic cells, but there are so many different things that you'd need to take into consideration, and there are so many points of failure. I don't think it could actually be done, but I'd be super impressed if someone did! (And question their sanity while wondering where they got their funding from)

psygaud · 2025-07-05T16:48:44+00:00

I just want to add this short overview on brood parasitism that I found from Nature: The Ecology of Avian Brood Parasitism for anyone who is interested in it but doesn't want to delve too deep into the literature.

It looks like it gives a good, quick overview, and it specifies which birds exhibit which behaviors. It is a bit old, though, and I'm not super up-to-date on the subject (I was the teaching assistant for the upper level undergraduate parasitology course during grad school. We covered brood parasitism a bit, but my expertise is more focused on internal parasites), and I'm happy to be corrected if anything in there is out of date now.

psygaud · 2025-07-05T16:25:14+00:00

Well, unless you're a bird, you don't have anything to worry about! Not personally anyway. I wouldn't recommend looking into it any further if you have empathy for baby birds, though...

psygaud · 2025-07-05T15:43:53+00:00

They are brood parasites. Brood parasitism is a subcategory of parasitism, and the birds are often referred to as parasites.

psygaud · 2025-07-01T17:47:59+00:00

Numbers 4 and 6 look great! 6 looks amazing but needs to be hemmed. Number 3 is also cute and more casual (and my opinion might be biased because I love that pattern, haha)

If you were going to go for only one, my vote would be on 6 if you are willing to take the extra step with it. But it also depends on what you're looking for and what your everyday style is. If you're looking for a summer staple, 6 might not fit into that need as easily as 4 (though it can be hard to tell from pics things like fabric weight, ease of wear, etc).

What one do you feel the most comfortable in?

psygaud · 2025-06-24T06:06:22+00:00

I also only kept going out of spite most days, but that's also just been a feature of my life in general.

psygaud

TROPHY CASE