1. Doctor finds anecdotal evidence that people are passing kidney stones after riding on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World
2. Doctor makes 3-D model of kidney, complete with stones and urine (his own), takes it on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 60 times
3. “The stones passed 63.89 percent of the time while the kidneys were in the back of the car. When they were in the front, the passage rate was only 16.67 percent. That’s based on only 60 rides on a single coaster, and Wartinger guards his excitement in the journal article: ‘Preliminary study findings support the anecdotal evidence that a ride on a moderate-intensity roller coaster could benefit some patients with small kidney stones.’”
4. “Some rides are going to be more advantageous for some patients than other rides. So I wouldn’t say that the only ride that helps you pass stones is Big Thunder Mountain. That’s grossly inaccurate.”
5. “His advice for now: If you know you have a stone that’s smaller than five millimeters, riding a series of roller coasters could help you pass that stone before it gets to an obstructive size and either causes debilitating colic or requires a $10,000 procedure to try and break it up. And even once a stone is broken up using shock waves, tiny fragments and “dust” remain that need to be passed. The coaster could help with that, too.”
SCIENCE: IT WORKS
Update:
“In all, we used 174 kidney stones of varying shapes, sizes and weights to see if each model worked on the same ride and on two other roller coasters,” Wartinger said. “Big Thunder Mountain was the only one that worked. We tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and both failed.”Wartinger went on to explain that these other rides are too fast and too violent with a G-force that pins the stone into the kidney and doesn’t allow it to pass.“The ideal coaster is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements,” he said.
Dorian’s intro scene is him beating demons to death with a stick. At some point he must have run out of mana and decided to channel his inner Bruce Lee and successfully bludgeon at least two demons to death before the Inquisitor arrived
Dorian masks honesty and insecurity with layer upon layer of snark, sarcasm, and faux-arrogance. He’s like an everlasting gobstopper of adequacy issues.
His fashion sense is leagues different than Orlesian/Ferelden fashions (for god’s sake his casual attire is a brown leather jumpsuit with one shoulder left uncovered. just one)
Underneath his layers of sarcasm and irony there is a doe-eyed idealist that rivals Cassandra Pentaghast who looks at generations of slavery and death in Tevinter and thinks “Yeah this is worth saving”
Dorian considers himself to be Andrastian though not in either the Tevinter sense or the Orlesian sense
For @twistedangelsays: AU where Wolfgang takes up his uncle’s criminal empire. Obviously, spoilers for the special episode of Sense8.
So Wolfgang’s uncle was a fucking crime king. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He’s all ready to shoot the offer down and go
on his merry way—who the fuck offers
a quarter of Berlin to some safecracker just because he happened to off the old
boss, anyway—and then… He imagines Sun,
in prison because she wouldn’t throw her brother under the bus, and her dark
eyes glittering in the harsh light of her cell.
He imagines Nomi, constantly reaching out to visit them in order to not
go stir-crazy in the hiding places the American government is forcing her
into. He imagines Lito, barely treading
water against the downward drag of prejudice, and Capheus, who has already
swapped so much of his innocence for medicine.
He imagines Will, already taking on the pale look of an addict to
protect them all.
Look, it’s simple. Wolfgang has always been good at looking out for
number one, and now number one is an eighth of a whole. Looking out for number one, these days, means
making sure that he looks out for all of his fractional selves, and they need
money, and clout, and somewhere safe.
He takes the offer. He’ll figure it out as he goes.
It’s dark in Seoul when he visits Sun that
night—he’s really gotten himself in over his head this time, and he needs her
steady presence—and she gracefully flips herself down from where she’s doing a
handstand against the wall. He’s sitting
against the wall of her cell when he says, “I’ve got a fucking story to tell
you.” Sun nods, folding herself into a cross-legged
position, and he takes a moment to wonder how he’s supposed to explain.
He can’t come up with anything particularly
diplomatic, so he takes a deep breath and says bluntly, “My uncle was in charge
of a quarter of Berlin, and it turns out I’m his fucking heir.”
Sun stares at him like it’s the craziest
thing she’s heard in weeks, which he finds unlikely. “What?”
Wolfgang bares his teeth and says, “I got
promoted.”
It’s a fucking trip to explain it to the others.
Kala is disappointed, which…he wishes he was surprised by that, but it’s
not like he’s lied to her about who he is.
Nomi probably rolls with it best, except for Capheus, because Capheus is
just unconquerably happy whenever the cluster is together and no petty little
criminal empire is going to change that. He hugs Riley and gets a kiss on the cheek
from Lito and actually laughs like a kid when Wolfgang admits to the
situation. Nomi starts making
suggestions immediately, and under any other circumstances Wolfgang might be
offended, but the truth is that he needs the help, so he nods and writes down
what she says.
Riley is the first one to bring up the
obvious question, because for all that she’s quiet and shy even within their
cluster, she’s ferociously
loyal. “So,” she asks, a quiet murmur
that nonetheless brings debate to a halt, “can you help get Sun out of prison?”
Sun looks up in surprise from where Lito is
teaching her a clapping game to keep her busy in her cell.
Wolfgang grins. “Well, I didn’t take the offer for the
fucking benefits.”
It’s unfathomably weird, some month and a
half later, to have a tiny Korean woman in a business-formal dress turn up at
his door, really truly there and
scowling at his bodyguard (he only has one, and only because he couldn’t make
him leave). She’s been yelling in Korean
for five minutes by the time someone gets Wolfgang, and her frown evaporates as
she throws herself at him in a hug.
“Look!” she shouts in Korean that he
understands, dragging him outside into the perpetual Berlin rain—worse than
usual today, plastering her hair to her face.
He lets himself be dragged, because it would be bad for his reputation
if he was beaten up by this tiny woman, and Sun-Capheus-Riley-Lito grabs his
hands to spin in a circle. “I am free!”
“Yeah,” Wolfgang laughs, feeling his fractional
selves at his back. “Yeah, you are.”
HA, oh, baby, I’m an asshole. I’m confident that more people hate me than like me. My high school teachers were trying to get me expelled, I used to get into fistfights, I shout people down when they start talking about how well, black people are an evolutionary step down or well, homosexuality is illegal because Leviticus or well, Muslims are dangerous. If I had a dollar for everyone who called me a bitch or told me they hated me, I’d not be on a scholarship, I’ll tell you that much.
49: Is your life anything like it was two years ago?
Two years ago? Yeah, not unlike. College, Adler, the occasional medical catastrophe, writing novels. Same old, same old. Four years ago, on the other hand, not even slightly.
56: Do you think you like someone?
I dunno, I’m one of those people where I need to have someone sit me down and go “you’re aware that you’re into that person” before I realize. I had a terrible crush on this STUNNING girl from Kenya at my summer program, and I just saw a guy tonight who was…goddamn. Just. One hell of a jawline, with the whole rumpled slightly-smudged-with-grease mechanic’s vibe. But I also go to a VERY small school when I’m not on break, so not a lot of…variety, you know?
71: Do you have someone you can be your complete self around?
THERE’S A GUY SCALING THE TRUMP TOWER IN NYC WITH GIANT SUCTION CUPS LIKE A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE STUNT AND IM LAUGHING
UPDATE: OKAY SO police are all over and they
sent a window washer platform down from the top of the building but it was too
far above him so then sent it back up and police just shattered a window
slightly above him to try to get him and now he’s moving away from the hole in
the window and continuing up he’s been climbing for like an hour now and they
cant figure out how to get him down this is so incredible
UPDATE: LOOK AT HIM GO
UPDATE: they just inflated a giant inflatable on 56th street a third of nyc is in gridlock bc of this guy climbing the trump tower i cannOT BELIEVE
UPDATE: he’s on the 18th floor this so surreal
UPDATE: we’re approaching hour 2 of the climb and since the last update he’s made it up at least another 3 floors
UPDATE: SOMEONE TOOK A PICTURE OF HIM FROM INSIDE THE TOWER
A HERO
update: apparently his name is steve and he’s from virginia
ASCEND, STEVE
UPDATE: they just used suction cups to pull two panes of glass into the building a few floors above him
you know what they always say. you cant fight fire with fire, but you should always fight suction cups with suction cups
UPDATE: HE’S TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM THEM STILL IM CRYING WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK IS 2016????
…seriously, can some American please explain to me please?
this is coleus. for reasons that escape me, it grows in seventy fuckzillion bizarre alien colors, from neon pink to white, and is very close to unkillable. additionally, it propagates extremely well through cuttings. you know it’s coleus if you touch it and it is just a little bit soft, with a juicy stem, and it grows in bunches with alternate paired leaves, and has sort of ‘embossed’ veins that stick out on the bottom of the leaf but are creased in on the top.
when you see coleus growing in a planter you can reach, look both ways to see if the coast is clear, then pinch off a little sprig with your fingernails. you need at least two leaves, though four and a centimeter of stem is best. keep the clipped end moist, like in a water bottle or wet napkin, and get it home fast.
fill a soda or beer bottle up with water. pop the stem in. put on a windowsill to get some light. in two or three days you’ll see little roots starting (make sure to refill the bottle periodically), and in as soon as a week you can plant it, though a month is a good time to wait. you can also keep it in a bottle indefinitely, though green and brown bottles are best for that, as it will block sunlight and cut down on algae growth.
coleus that wants more water will have very droopy, limp leaves, so it’s easy to know when to water it. after it’s been watered, the leaves perk back up in an hour or so and it looks happy. coleus are very dramatic plants.
enjoy your coleus collecting! don’t get caught. if you do, don’t show them this post.
