During a normal pregnancy, oxidative stress enhances antioxidant mechanisms that are capable of reacting by way of enzyme activity and non-enzyme free radical deactivators. However, pregnancy is also a state in which this adaptation and balance may be easily disrupted.

🤫

So where are we at with this virus people?

This nonspecific cation channel opens when illuminated with blue light, depolarizing the cell [4, 6] to trigger action potentials cells with high temporal precision [5]. Since the initial discovery of ChR2, many modifications have been made to refine the kinetic properties.

For example, ChETA, engineered to address limitations of spike fidelity with ChR2, has faster temporal kinetics and can maintain reliable spike precision up to 200 Hz [7].

Halorhodopsins (NpHR), light-gated chloride pumps activated by yellow light, allow for temporally specific hyperpolarization with single spike precision [8–10].

Archaerhodopsin-3 (Arch), a yellow light-activated outward proton pump, is an increasingly popular tool for light-induced hyperpolarization to inhibit cellular activity. Arch recovers spontaneously from inactivation with a much shorter recovery time than NpHRs [11].

Arch currents continue to increase with increasing light intensity, while NpHRs saturate [11]. The increased light sensitivity of the ArchT variant, along with better membrane targeting, allows for improved neural silencing both at cell bodies and terminals [12].

2020 marks the start of the quantum dot revolution.

Completely ignoring the fact that "photocatalytic generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from quantum dots (QDs) has been widely reported."

Results: It was found that whereas singlet oxygen (1O2) was not produced by photoexcited QDs, superoxide anion(O2− )and hydroxyl radicals(OH) were generated by QDs, especially in the presence of a physiological concentration of electron donating agent including NADH.

Using cell metabolic activity assays and various probes of ROS generation, the formation of ROS in cellular environments was demonstrated.

Conclusion: Illumination of QD-treated cells and bacteria with light did affect viability. The above results, together with those of assays in the presence of various scavengers of specific ROS, indicate that the formation of ROS by QDs mainly proceeded via electron transfer.

After therapy sessions, it is occurring to me how my parents and maybe most desi parents don't really grow as parents. For example, a person would be a very different to a baby and to a teenager because the needs and vulnerabilities are so different.

But here, I feel that growth for parents stagnants sometime around when a child is 12-13. None of our parents really talk to us about puberty and growing up. None of us are taught or can talk about relationships because of moral reasons. So what do you have?

You have parents who are still parenting their adult children like kids, not apologising to us but asking us to eat, reminding us to wear jackets, locking up cars. They care. But they are coming from a care where the parent is always concerned about keeping the kid safe and alive

which imo really reduces the kind of parental advice and care one needs as an adult. Because adults know enough about the world to no longer be infantilized but we still have parents who expect us to be the same children because they're still the same kind of parents.

This is why so many of our parental relationships are strained or just based on civilities. We're forced to hide a lot from them because parents refuse to grow as parents and acknowledge us as adults. How many of us are still lectured, have curfews, other restrictions?

DR CHRIS MACKIE (@Healthmac) is London’s Medical Officer of Health and a government advisor.

Yesterday, he said schools being open, “SLOWS the spread of COVID.”

For context, let’s look at 23 other times he misused data or gave a bad unsupported take.

🧵A THREAD🧵

...1/24

...2/24

...3/24

...4/24

...5/24

1/23 We haven't had a lot to celebrate during this pandemic. But achieving the milestone of offering vaccine to the over 70s, health and care workers and the most clinically vulnerable just before target date is a huge cause for celebration, given the scale of the achievement.

2/23 When Margaret Keenan got her first jab in Coventry on December 8th last year, who’d have thought that, by Valentine’s Day, we’d have vaccinated over fourteen million people across the UK in just ten short weeks? Amazing, extraordinary and truly, really, world class!

3/23 I’ve been struck by how much joy and relief has been brought to those doing the vaccinations and those receiving them. A GP told me yesterday that nothing had given him greater pleasure in his long career. And that the patient's relief was sometimes overwhelming.

4/23 It's vital to recognise the extraordinary contribution of the staff and volunteers who have made this happen. One of my close family had their jab yesterday and was in awe of the volunteer standing outside in the freezing cold for a four hour shift meeting and greeting.

5/23 What I wanted to share in this thread was the slightly untold story of some of the extraordinary challenges the NHS has had to overcome to deliver this target. Requiring superhuman effort from NHS leaders and staff, way beyond the call of duty. Five challenges set out below.

Once again I'm reminded that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The recent push by a large number of autistic people to 'own' their diagnosis and try to raise acceptance and dispel harmful myths has kicked up a minority of autistic people to fight against this.

This may seem bizarre - who fights against improved acceptance? - but actually has clear roots in the ongoing culture war the West seems engaged in. The identity positive autistic movement, of which I am a part, is viewed by some as another manifestation of 'wokeness'.

This is the right-wing definition of 'wokeness', of course - ie a modern equivalent of the pejorative take on political correctness, but it's definitely at the core of this 'neurorealist' movement - the idea the autistic community is being hijacked by 'woke lefties'.

They believe that the push for acceptance of neurodiversity and rejection of the medicalisation of autism is misguided and drawing attention away from those autistic people who, in their view, need more help and intervention.

The trouble is, this view is pretty much baseless. Firstly, there is little evidence that autistic advocates who push for acceptance are in any way harming autistic people who require more help and support. Second, the view effectively silences those of us who are able to share.

New NHS reforms announced today. Seems to be a story of two parts, plus a missing character. Quick thoughts (1/):

Part 1 of the story is a set of technical fixes wanted by NHS leaders to encourage collaboration in the health system. The direction here makes sense—and fits with what the NHS has been doing for ages. Competition is (mostly) out; collaboration is in: good (2/)

And the need for legal changes to tidy the mess left by Lansley’s 2012 Act has long been recognized. But... (3/)

The benefits of integration are often way overstated, and the risk of reorganizations underplayed. In its first 30 years, the NHS’s structure was relatively stable. But over the past 30, the NHS in England has been on an almost constant treadmill of reform and reorganization (4/)

Overall, evidence suggests that previous reorganizations have delivered little measurable benefit. They can also distract and disrupt, depending on how they’re done. The list of other things for the NHS to be doing during and after the pandemic is very long. So be cautious (5/)