Bring Back The 4:3 Aspect Ratio, Too.

It has just occurred to me that data hoarding is the 21st century version of bibliomania.

Today I learned that in pre-Columbian, pre-Hispanic cultures like the Aztec, women and children were frequently sacrificed. Parents often authorized the sacrifice of their own children. Some even ate their own children.

Desert Pixie (Melanis leucophlegma), family Riodinidae, Peru

photograph by Cler Drive

guy who sees the gorilla the first time on the gorilla test

I know it's wrong but I hope she misses me too.

It's always annoying when a work of fiction presents a "revelation" that you didn't even realize was supposed to not be known. In Jennifer Government, there's a bit where this guy is infiltrating the villainous organization having copied the identity of a member of that organization. He meets a guy whose name is the same as his cover name, and a bit later he suddenly discovers that this is the person he's disguised as! In one Ghost in the Shell episode, they're looking through the pictures taken by a murder victim -- in a world where cybernetic implants are common, and which are clearly taken from his eyes rather than a camera -- and then much much later one of these crack professional detectives realizes that there's no camera and this is the key clue he needs to blow open the case. Even if I might buy someone from our time missing that, this guy lives in a world where such things are commonplace! How does he not realize this?

Foster Island, Seattle, 1984

Ominous positivity

Macrophage Defector

Natural killer cells are a type of immune cell that protects the body against not only invading pathogens but also cancer, providing an innate defence against these rogue cells. Some tumours, however, keep natural kill cells at bay and thereby avoid destruction. And recent research in lung tumours reveals this natural killer cell exclusion is achieved with the help of another immune cell – the macrophage. The particular culprit is a type of macrophage covered in a protein called TREM2 – an anti-inflammatory factor. Shown above is a lung tumour (green) packed with TREM2-expressing macrophages (red) that are protecting the cancer from attack. Why these macrophages switch allegiance and side with enemy is unclear, but blocking TREM2 while boosting natural killer cell activity was shown to reduce lung tumour growth in mice suggesting a similar approach might be effective in promoting tumour regression in humans too.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by Matthew D. Park and Ivan Reyes-Torres, and colleagues

Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

Image copyright held by the original authors

Research published in Nature Immunology, April 2023

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