The Ukulele Enthusiast

you look at a kid getting along with their parents and say "couldn't be me", I am happy for them because all kids deserve a healthy home life

I saw an otter briefly hop on top of a babirusa at the zoo and when the stranger standing next to me heard my camera shutter click he turned to me with this look of immense relief, put his hand to his chest, and said in a dead serious tone “oh thank christ someone caught that on film”

Not the best photo but here it is for posterity

When you drink a hot beverage and you feel the heat spilling and blooming in your chest… There is nothing like it!

This is Pokémon NPC dialogue

Minecraft animals are peak aestheticism. Nothing has ever filled me with such simple yet total delight

I was trained to kill and eat people as a kid

Came across the most charmingly delivered piece of advice on r/houseplants

The diagram:

The diagram is great but my favorite part is the quotes around "purchase"

there is no justice in this world for girls who don’t want to get up but have to

*daydreams about cuddling with u*

NOOOOO NOT DOUGLAS

Item: Inappropriate Douglas

Slater Boy

the weirdest thing about watching things from the 70s/80s/90s is their depictions of airports and planes. it feels so fictional how laid-back everything is.

what i wouldn't give to stroll into the airport like 15 minutes before departure with a carry on full of knives and liquor and chain smoke the entire flight

As a black lesbian Iiterally hate how the butch/femme thing got twisted the reason it was bad for (non-black) lesbians to say they were lesbian exclusive identities was because that's erasure of black LGBT history and silencing how much those identities mean to us as a community aka fucking ANTIBLACKNESS not because lesbians are a literal oppressor of bi people and gay men black peoples was the main ones tryna explain how and why this was fucked up but y'all forgot about the antiblackness part within a week

Can more than one nonblack person rb this

Its PRIDE TIME!!! Respect Asexuals or catch my fucking hands.

Sincerely: Ace Cadet

Always reblog Ace Cadet

Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson’s Helps Develop Test

Joy Milne, 72, from Perth, Scotland, has a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, allowing her to be able to smell Parkinson’s disease, which progressively damages parts of the brain over many years.

She discovered her unusual ability when her late husband, Les, developed a different odour when he was 33. She described it as a ‘musky aroma’. That was 12 years before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Les, who was a doctor, was determined to research the link between odour and Parkinson’s, and contacted Dr Tilo Kunath at the University of Edinburgh, who paired up with Professor Perdita Barran to begin the research. They determined that the reasons for a change in the scent of a person suffering the disease is due to a chemical change of the skin oil (sebum).

In the preliminary sessions, Milne was asked to smell T-shirts worn by people who had Parkinson’s and those who did not. She successfully identified all of the Parkinson’s patients, but told researchers that a member of the control group, a non-Parkinson’s patient, did smell like the disease. 8 months later, they were diagnosed with the disease.

Now, a team of researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a simple test involving a cotton bud swiped down the back of the neck that can identify those with Parkinson’s. The molecules on the cotton bud can be examined using mass spectrometry, which helps the diagnosis. This is a huge leap forward, as there is no definitive test for Parkinson’s, and a diagnosis is based on symptoms and medical history. Currently, there are no cures for Parkinson’s, but an early diagnosis can help begin the treatment early, lessening the speed of the deterioration.

Milne says she can sometimes smell that a person has Parkinson’s when walking down the street, but has been told by medical ethicists that she cannot tell them. She is continuing to work with scientists to see if she can smell other diseases, like cancer or TB, and hopes that one day her talent can be considered normal diagnosis.

Source: the Guardian, written by PA Media

a bit off the topic here but just pondering: This individual had an extremely rare ability, and she was also trained as a doctor. Both factors were essential for recognizing the ability she had and working with it enough to make a replicable test. 

Who knows how many millions of human beings are out there today, with rare one-in-a-million abilities like these, who never have the opportunity to make connections about what they mean?

This is why widespread education is important. The more of our population has training, the more of these opportunities will appear.

not to brag but im halfway done filling my basement with gasoline💪