#medical biology | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Total funding amounts to $125.3M.

inkskinned · 3 months

Text

you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

#spilled ink #warm up #can you tell what i'm mad about today specifically #i will say that there are a LOT of things that go into this. like a lot. this is ungendered and unspecific for a reason #it isn't just sexism. it's also racism. and ableism. and honestly classism.#and before a healthcare professional reads this as a personal attack: i understand ur burnt out #we are ALSO burnt out. your situation is also dire. this is not an attack on you.#this is a commentary on the incredible amounts of bigotry that lie at the heart of capitalism #where people have to pay money out of pocket to be told to fuck off.#your job is important. so is our humanity. and if you cannot accept that people are fucking mad as hell #at the industry - you are probably not listening .#anyway at some point im gonna write a piece about sexism specifically in medical shit #but i don't want terfs clowning in it bc they can't understand nuance #> it is true that ppl w/a uterus are more likely to experience medical malpractice & dismissal globally #> it is also true that trans people experience an equally fucked up and bad time in the medical field #> great news! the medical industrial complex is an equal opportunity life ruiner :)#(if you find it necessary to go into a debate about biology while discussing medical malpractice #i want to warn you that you're misunderstanding the issue. because guess what.#cis MEN might experience this. particularly black men. particularly disabled men.#so YES having a uterus can lead to more trouble for you. but this happens a LOT.#instead of fighting those ALSO experiencing your pain.... try working WITH them.#which btw. is like. actual feminism.)

2K notes · View notes

valdevia · 1 month

Text

Cuscuta haemotrophica, commonly known as leechweed, is the only parasitic plant known to target animals.

The plant burrows under the skin using modified roots known as haustoria. It does not produce leaves or chlorophyll to photosynthesize, as it consumes nutrients through the host's blood.

Infestation in humans rarely progresses to the blooming stage, when it becomes dangerous and potentially lethal.

#unreality #photoshop #body horror #medical horror #speculative biology

1K notes · View notes

heighpubsseo · 1 year

Text

Insights in Biology and Medicine ( IBM ) ISSN: 2639-6769

Home

Medical biology is a field of biology that has practical applications in medicine, health care and laboratory diagnostics. Medical biology is based on molecular biology that combines all issues of developing molecular medicine into large-scale structural and functional relationships of the human genome, transcriptome, proteome and metabolome with the particular point of view of devising new technologies for prediction, diagnosis and therapy.

Insights in Biology and Medicine is a high-impact, meticulously peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publish and disseminate research works, applications and new evolutions belonging to all the aspects of medical biology.

#Medical biology #Insights in Biology #Progress in biology #biology journals

0 notes

science-for-the-masses · 2 years

Text

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

#science #science communication #scicomm #stem #science education #biology #health #medical science #parkinson's disease

9K notes · View notes

reasonsforhope · 7 months

Text

"For the first time, genetically modified pig kidneys provided “life-sustaining kidney function” during the course of a planned seven-day clinical study—a first step in addressing the critical crisis worldwide of kidney donor organ shortage.

The University of Alabama’s pre-clinical human study at Birmingham also advances the science and promise of xenotransplantation as a therapy to potentially cure end-stage kidney disease—just as a human-to-human transplants can.

“It has been truly extraordinary to see the first-ever preclinical demonstration that appropriately modified pig kidneys can provide normal, life-sustaining kidney function in a human safely and be achieved using a standard immunosuppression regimen,” said UAB transplant surgeon scientist Jayme Locke, M.D., director of UAB’s Comprehensive Transplant Institute and lead author of the paper...

The peer-reviewed findings published last month in JAMA Surgery describes the pioneering pre-clinical human research performed on a recipient experiencing brain death...

The pre-clinical human brain death model developed at UAB can evaluate the safety and feasibility of pig-to-human kidney xenografts, or transplants, without risk to a living human. It is named for transplant pioneer Jim Parsons, an organ donor whose family generously donated his body to advance xenotransplant kidney research, like the latest patient did.

A Critical Need

Kidney disease kills more people each year than breast or prostate cancer, while more than 90,000 people are on the transplant waiting list. More than 800,000 Americans are living with kidney failure and 240 Americans on dialysis die every day. The wait for a deceased donor kidney can be as long as five to 10 years, and almost 5,000 people per year die waiting for a kidney transplant.

Groundbreaking Study Details

The 52-year-old study subject for this research lived with hypertension and stage 2 chronic kidney disease, which affects more than one in seven U.S. adults, or an estimated 37 million Americans. As part of this study, the subject had both of his native kidneys removed and dialysis stopped, followed by a crossmatch-compatible xenotransplant with two 10 gene-edited pig kidneys, or UKidney.

The transplanted pig kidneys made urine within four minutes of re-perfusion and produced more than 37 liters of urine in the first 24 hours. The pig kidneys continued to function as they would in a living human for the entirety of the seven-day study. Also, the kidneys were still viable at the time the study was concluded.

“In the first 24 hours these kidneys made over 37 liters of urine,” said Dr. Locke. “It was really a remarkable thing to see.” ...

Gene editing in pigs to reduce immune rejection has made organ transplants from pigs to humans possible. The natural lifespan of a pig is 30 years, they are easily bred, and they have organs of similar size to humans. Genetically modified pig kidneys have been extensively tested in non-human primates, and the addition of UAB’s preclinical human research model—the Parsons Model—now provides important information about the safety and efficacy of kidneys in human transplant recipients."

-via Good News Network, September 17, 2023

#organ donation #organ donor #organ transplant #medical news #medical research #pigs #kidney transplant #kidney diseases #dialysis #good news #hope #hope posting #human biology

559 notes · View notes

curiosityistheleastofmyproblems · 1 year

Text

A skeleton gentleman at a ball asks a skeleton lady to dance; representing the effect of arsenical dyes and pigments in clothing and accessories.

Wood engraving, 1862.

Wellcome Collection

#biology #curiosity #anatomy #history #medicine #human skeleton #skeleton #arsenic #histmed #medical art #poison #macabre art #skullart #skull

2K notes · View notes

turtleblogatlast · 1 year

Text

Headcanon that since Leo is not much for non comic books, he gained all his medical knowledge through very graphic and in depth medical videos instead.

The boy is no longer phased in the slightest by it anymore. The others cannot say the same whenever they catch a glimpse of a surgical operation playing on Leo’s phone.

His portaling abilities also give him the ability to secretly join med students in watching operation room procedures.

Listen I just think Medic!Leo would go about his learning process in the most Leo of ways.

#rottmnt #rottmnt leo #medic leo #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt headcanons #Leo watching an open heart operations with a bright smile on his face #meanwhile Raph is passed out in a heap behind him after seeing one (1) frame of it over Leo’s shoulder #Leo canonically knows what the inside of April’s school looks like so there’s a possibility he snuck into a biology lab for a dissection lol

1K notes · View notes

mindblowingscience · 6 months

Text

A team of surgeons in New York has performed the world's first transplant of an entire eye in a procedure widely hailed as a medical breakthrough, although it isn't yet known whether the man will ever see through the donated eye. The groundbreaking surgery involved removing part of the face and the whole left eye – including its blood supply and optic nerve – of a donor and grafting them onto a lineworker from Arkansas who survived a 7,200-volt electric shock in June 2021. Aaron James, 46, suffered extensive injuries including the loss of his left eye, his dominant left arm above the elbow, his nose and lips, front teeth, left cheek area and chin. He was referred to NYU Langone Health, a leading medical center for facial transplants, which carried out the procedure on May 27. Transplanting an entire eye has long been a holy grail of medical science, and though researchers have had some success in animals – where they have restored partial vision – it's never before been performed in a living person.

#Science #biology #medicine #eye transplant #stem #medical science

214 notes · View notes

little-pondhead · 2 months

Text

The Folly of Men -

Chapter 1: #355E3B

AO3 - MASTERPOST

[GENERAL TW: Swearing, lukewarm violence, lots of POV changes, and mild body horror.]

[Fair warning, guys: Canon is a ball pit, and I’m throwing a baby into it. I have no clue what's happening. Feel free to point out mistakes!]

Danny was starting to hate the color green. It was the color of death.

Green reminded him of the portal that killed him, and the electricity that was constantly humming under his skin. It reminded him of being on the wrong end of an ecto-blaster and having to dodge for dear life. It reminded him of choking plants that swallowed him whole and tried to turn him into fertilizer. It reminded him of his glowing eyes and how they seemed to take up his entire face when he looked at himself in the mirror.

And right now, as he lay weakly on his side, grasping at fresh wounds with shaky fingers as he tried to ice them closed, the green blood that was splattered everywhere reminded him he wasn’t human.

Not anymore.

Green was a familiar color to Ra’s al Ghul. It was the color of life.

Green reminded him of the Lazarus Pits, mostly. When it was the reason he’d lived such a long life, how could it not be the first thing he thought of? Green also reminded him of his cloak and the warmth it wrapped him in during the cold desert nights when his wife was still alive. Of the beauty he saw in the natural world and why he wanted to protect it. It reminded him of his green eyes that have been passed down through his very few children and grandchildren. Green was the color of the al Ghuls and represented the power he’d amassed through centuries of hard work.

And right now, as he stood before the Well of Sins, Ra’s was reminded of a secret contract that was buried deep within his personal records, and the monster he’d made it with. The Gardener, the creature called itself, was a being who had crawled out of a Lazarus Pit years ago in search of Ra’s. Its flesh was made from thorny vines and grasses intertwined, and its eyes were tiny red blooms that glowed and made him feel sick just thinking about it. It had forced him into the contract, exchanging power and knowledge in return for a promise of help in the near future.

‘Near future,’ my ass. Timothy Drake's fleeting voice flickered in his mind, and he could only agree with his subconscious's crude words. It seemed like the only appropriate term as it had already been several centuries since the contract was made, and the being had yet to claim its part of the deal.

He watched, mind racing, as the Well of Sins started swirling frantically. He was alone, with his attendants on standby. Should he call them in? No. Whatever was causing the strange reaction in the pool had something to do with that contract. He could feel it. A power was tugging at his heart, drawing him closer to the edge of the green waters. He loathed to admit it, but this was beyond his scientific understanding. He just knew that every time he tried to look away and leave, his whole body felt like it was alight with flame.

So he stood. And he stared. For hours, possibly, before the first sign of something new caught his attention. A screeching sound was echoing from the bottom of the pool. It slowly got louder and higher pitched as the stone floor started glowing so bright Ra's almost risked the pain of glancing away.

A large head was making its way through the bottom of the pool. It went slowly to accommodate large shoulders, followed by a wide chest and narrow waist. The figure paid no mind to the churning of the Well of Sins and broke the surface of the waters with the ease of a seasoned swimmer. The screeching sound echoed wildly, bouncing unnaturally throughout the chamber, sounding more like incomprehensible words. Ra's wanted to plug his ears with wax and banish the figure back where it came from. Instead, he didn't even twitch an eye.

The Gardener stood before him. And it was carrying a body.

"Master of Lazarusss," it hissed, inclining its head in acknowledgment, but making no move to exit the pool. "Too long has it been, has it not? I've come to collect on my part of the deal."

Ra's nodded in return. Higher being or not, he refused to bow to anyone. "I've expected this, Gardener." He said roughly. Despite learning their language years ago, the sharp chirps and clicks made by the dead were difficult to sound out. It was like he was trying to mimic a broken radio. "Although it's taken longer than I expected for your arrival."

The Gardener clicked its beak in annoyance. "Don't give me flowery words, Pretender. It was not my choice whether to appear before you or not. The Scepter of our realm visited me long ago and commanded me thus; I only now see her vision behind it."

"I...see." He did not see, thank you very much. That was more information in two sentences than he'd ever managed to get from the Gardener. Were there others at play in this little contract of theirs? He did not like the idea of that. "And I assume this whole thing has something to do with the boy in your arms?"

The Gardener let out a low humming sound that seemed to originate from its chest and echo in Ra’s bones. It glanced down, turning the body over gently to let Ra's see his face. The boy was just a child, no older than sixteen. He was deathly pale and seemed eerily stiff, just as if rigor mortis had set in. His white hair was plastered to his forehead from the water, and his clothes were nothing more than rags. Thick green blood was leaking from several wounds and pooling underneath his skin. It wasn't hard to guess what the Gardener was about to ask.

"This is our Guardian and one of the last of his kind. His haunt is not safe anymore, and I task you with his care for the foreseeable future."

Without waiting for a response, the Gardener sloshed forward to set the boy oh-so-gently upon the edge of the pool, taking care that his thorns did not pierce the child. A few vines cupped his face gently as if the Gardener was sad about the boy's state of being.

The assassin made no move to step forward and claim him. "What iske?" He asked. Ra’s voice caught on the last syllable, and he had to repeat the question again properly. Annoying.

The Gardener didn’t seem to mind and just stepped back, relinquishing its hold completely. "He is our Guardian." It repeated. "Care for him well. His fraid will be on the hunt for him and return any harm tenfold. But earn his loyalty, and the power of the Infinite Realms will be at your fingertips. Good luck, Master of Lazarus."

With that, the Gardener disappeared beneath the waves of the Well of Sins, and the waters calmed. The only proof that someone had been there was the sopping wet teen that lay at Ra's feet.

Ra's stared at the boy. The tugging in his heart was a bind, he realized. And it was tying him to the boy. Well, caring for a dead child shouldn't be that hard. Despite his disagreement with Talia over the matter, Jason Todd had turned out just fine, hasn’t he?

With the contract heavy on his mind, Ra's turned and left the boy lying there, clicking his jaw and calling for his attendants to collect him. The Lazarus Pits had gifted him with a new heir, it seemed.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

In another world, a redheaded girl was on the edge of a rampage. Her scream echoed down the suburban street her house was on, and the neighbors sighed quietly and locked their windows shut, not realizing the severity of the question. They were used to this family's antics, and the girl's screaming as a result.

But this could not be written off as 'family antics.'

Jasmine Fenton, nicknamed ‘Jazz,’ was positively furious. Red-faced, she stood before her parents with steam coming from her ears and a bat in hand.

“Jazzy-pants, we-” her father tried.

“Nope!” Jazz put up a hand to stop him. “Never mind, I don’t want to hear it. I already know.”

She whirled around, tuning out her parents' protests as she stormed through their house. Correction, her parent’s house. If she had her way, Jazz would never see these metal and unloving walls ever again. Neither would her brother, once she found him.

Her phone rang, and she flipped it open with a snap, leaving the bat at the end of the hallway. Only a few people had her number, and it sure as hell wasn’t her parents calling her. “What.” She barked, shoving the phone between her shoulder and ear as she dug through Danny’s closet. His bug-out bag hadn’t been moved.

“It’s Tucker.”

“We have a code green and a code yellow.” She ground out. Good, the ecto-dejecto shots were up to date. The less time she spends in that god-forsaken lab, the better.

“Fuck.” Tucker swore. Rustling was heard and she heard another voice in the background. “I’m putting you on speaker.”

Jazz re-packed the bag quickly, adding in some non-essentials that she knew Danny would appreciate. After it was settled on her shoulders, she switched the phone back to her hand for a better grip. “Is Sam there?”

“I’m here.” The girl responded.

Jazz tripped over her bedroom carpet in her rush to her room. She cursed but recovered and started ransacking her closet and drawers. “Good. One of you needs to contact Danielle. Our parents sold Danny out, and the GIW took him while I was gone yesterday. I’m going ghost and getting him back. Tell Danielle she’s in danger since they have her ecto-signature now.”

“We’re going with you.” Sam said firmly. There was more rustling, and Jazz guessed they were looking for their own emergency bags. “I don’t care how long it takes; we’ll get him back.”

“Are you going to shut down the portal?” Tucker asked.

Jazz paused, considering it. In the original plan, Danny was in charge of shutting down the portal while Jazz and the others took care of the Fentons, GIW, and everything else. It was personal for him; his final resting place. But now that Danny was missing, and they needed a reliable escape route.

“Not permanently.” She decided. “I’ll figure out how to turn it off temporarily, or put a shield up, but Danny will need to be the one to make that call.”

Tucker started typing furiously on his laptop, muttering under his breath until he got to the file he wanted. “Sam and I will take care of the town defenses, and Dani’s on her way from New Zealand. She’ll be here in a few hours. I’m sending you a bug; plug it into the Fenton’s security systems, and it’ll lock them out of the house for now. Only do it after you’re done in the labs. Sam’s gone off and is pulling some strings to get all the ghosts in town back to the Zone. I’ll start tracking Danny and shutting down all the Fenton and GIW equipment I can find.”

“Thanks, Tucker. I’ll meet you guys at Nasty Burger in two hours; pass that message to Danielle.”

“Sure thing. Oh, and Jazz?”

“Yeah, Tuck?” Jazz started counting her hidden wads of cash, making sure it was all there. They never wanted to believe the Fentons would go this far, but she was glad they’d made contingency plans just in case.

She could hear Tucker’s silent snarl as he said his parting remark. “Leave enough of them behind for the rest of us.”

Jazz laughed, a little hysterical. “I’ll try.” She said, bidding him farewell. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure she could look at her parents ever again. But she knew, deep in her bones, that if they tried to stop her, there wouldn’t even be ashes left from the hell she would raise.

Gotham was caught in a storm. It was one of those ugly, howling summer storms that threw water in your eyes and bit your skin with a vengeance. Damian squinted, trying to make out the sight of Spoiler and Signal through the rain, but even their bright uniforms were lost in the shadows.

He tightened his grip on his grappling hook as a particularly harsh wind tried to throw him around like a ragdoll. Water seeped into his collar, making him shiver. A beep echoed in his ear, and he risked taking one hand off the line to answer his comms.

"Robin," Oracle was practically shouting in his ear over the storm. "Signal made it to the Cave. Spoiler is rounding up Condiment King, and then she'll do the same. You can go back now."

Damian tsked. "Father is still out here," he replied. "I shall not return until he does."

"Robin-" Oracle sighed.

Another gust of wind made him grunt, and he cut the call to refocus on scaling the building. The only good thing that came from such a wild storm was that most of the villains were smart enough to stay inside. Splitting up in such conditions always left a sour taste in his mouth, but Damian understood it was necessary to cover as much ground as possible during times of emergency.

He wasn't sure this counted as an emergency, but Todd was certainly treating it as such. The citizens of Crime Alley were being hit hard. Enough to the point where Red Hood had openly invited the Bats onto his turf to help with the flooding and evacuation from some unstable buildings. Batman and Red Robin had gone, leaving Robin and Orphan to cover their patrol routes.

Finally, finding purchase on the rough brick, Damian quickly hauled himself up to safety. Some of his equipment was ruined, and his costume was soaked. Truly, this storm had come out of nowhere.

His comms clicked back to life. "Robin." Cain's clipped tone was somehow louder than Oracle's voice.

"I'm here," he replied, scowling at the oily mud on his shoes. Damned pollution.

"Home," Orphan said simply.

Damian scowled even harder. He could argue with Oracle without issue, but he barely won when it came to speaking with Orphan. "...Fine." He sniffed. "I shall return."

"Good." Damian could hear the smile in her voice. "Agent A has cocoa."

"I'll consider it." He said stiffly. He imagined his adoptive sister smiling slyly and glancing toward the sky before the comms switched off, leaving him to his thoughts again. After checking his grapple to ensure it still worked, he started picking his way through the building at a snail's pace, letting himself get distracted whenever he spotted someone in trouble. The Batcave would be warmer and dryer than the streets, but not everyone had a dry place to return to. Every little bit helped in the long run, and even Damian wouldn't pass by a lost child in the rain.

The only thing that bothered him more than the dark clouds overhead and fresh hail on the way home was the unnatural feeling on his spine. It felt like someone was watching him, judging him. But when he looked, nobody was there.

The stars were gone.

Danny felt weightless as he floated, staring at the space where the stars were supposed to be. He felt lighter than normal. Danny was surrounded by colors that flowed and ebbed like the tide, taking him deeper into this mysterious space. Golden fish and silver deer wove past him as fire and ice trailed behind, and yet he couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to get up. He just laid there silently. A bone deep exhaustion was settling into him, but sleep refused him.

“Ghost Child.”

Oh, Danny was dreaming. He was already asleep.

He didn’t turn his head, nor acknowledge when the stars returned to his line of sight. The stars wrapped around him like a curtain, cutting off the rest of the dreamscape. Two bright eyes, burning like red giants, peered down at him as thin hands cupped his body.

“Ghost Child.” The voice repeated again, speaking in his mind even as the words were swallowed by the silence of space.

Danny turned his head slowly. “Nocturn,” he murmured. These too, were snatched from his throat and lost. The cold seeped into his chest and he hiccuped. He couldn’t speak. Not that he really wanted to.

Luckily, Nocturn seemed to understand him just fine. He cradled Danny gently, bringing him closer to his chest. Something shifted in the fabric of space, and suddenly Danny was being laid to rest on the smooth stone of a crescent moon, as pearly white as his own hair. He sighed as the coolness of the moon seeped into his body, soothing aches and burns he didn’t remember getting.

“Where are we?” He wanted to ask.

Nocturn blinked slowly at him, his face twisted down towards Danny. His ram’s horns glinted as a glowing blue jay landed on them and started preening itself. Danny wanted to fly with the bird. His body didn't move.

“Sleep, Ghost Child.” Nocturn hummed. The moon vibrated beneath Danny, soothing the electric currents that kept him awake no matter what he did. Danny’s eyes started sliding shut as Nocturn’s song wrapped around him like a lullaby.

The others… Danny’s mind whispered.

Are safe. The song replied. Rest, young guardian. Your people are safe. You did well.

That was all he needed to hear. Danny let himself fall into slumber, relief flooding his mind. Yes, his people were safe. He did well. He deserved some rest.

As the young ghost fell into a dreamless sleep, a real sleep, Nocturn gently tucked the boy in with a blanket made from his own starry robes, shifting the fabric once more to hide away his core, and the boy who was resting on it. The bluejay on his head chirped indignantly from the movement and flew away, leaving a trail of smoke behind.

Nocturn paid it no mind. Warnings from Fate were never a good idea to ignore, but the bird was but a memory of a life that had long since passed. It only stuck around because of the dreams that kept feeding it. The ghost let his lullaby continue as he returned to his work, taking care to move slowly.

Undergrowth was taking care of his physical body, so he would care for the boy's mind. Vortex was off to round up the little ghostlings who had scattered like dandelion seeds, and the Master of Time was keeping an eye on the rest of Phantom's fraid while they rampaged in the mortal realms. After the stunt he pulled to protect the Realms, it was the least the elder ghosts could do.

"Is the boy awake?" Ra's asked sharply, entering the private rooms he had set aside for the boy.

The attending nurse, an older man born with no tongue, bowed his head and signed, 'No, sir. Vitals are off. He is a cold corpse.'

Ra's regarded the boy. It has been several weeks since the Gardener dropped the boy off in his care, and he hadn't awoken once throughout the entire time. He truly looked like a regular dead teenager, if you exclude the unnaturally white hair.

The Demon's Head bent over the boy's bed, tugging open an eyelid to see if he would react. Nothing. However, he noted the boy's eyes were green, which he was mildly pleased about. Green was such a lovely color, and this boy seemed surrounded in it.

A sharp knock echoed from the door, and Ra's granted the other party permission to enter. His best phlebotomist, a man named Paz, entered, holding a stack of papers as thick as his thumb. He bowed to Ra's as soon as he saw him.

"The results?" Ra's asked.

Paz immediately handed over his work, fully confident that Ra's understood everything he'd written. "For all purposes, the boy is dead." He said in a thick accent. He spoke in halted Arabic, as he'd only lived in 'Eth Alth'eban for a short time. "He has no circulation. No heart to move blood, or lungs to breathe. We must move him every hour to prevent postmortem lividity. He has undergone an extensive autopsy process, but it seems it was stopped before his brain was removed. No organs remain in his body otherwise.”

Ra's examined the papers. They were reports from different scientists and doctors, all of whom had been assigned to examine and work on the boy. Most of them said the same thing. The boy was dead and had been for a while. If the Well of Sins didn't do anything when he first exited the waters, what good would it do now?

He flicked his eyes up. "But you think otherwise," he stated.

Paz nodded enthusiastically. "The boy is dead, but his blood is alive!" He tapped a green folder that was poking out from the bottom of the pile. Ra's shuffled the papers off to the nurse and opened it. Printed off charts had been scribbled over with Paz’s frantic notes, documenting his thought process.

The phlebotomist rambled excitedly as his boss read his work, gesturing wildly. “It’s incredible! Most of his red blood cells have died off, and he has an abnormal amount of white blood cells, which indicate some kind of infection. But his plates-“

‘Platelets.’

“Platelets,” Paz nodded his thanks to the nurse for correcting his speech. “The boy��s platelets are still alive, and are actually trying to heal his injuries! We recorded a time-lapse last week to confirm it. The process is incredibly slow, even compared to human healing, but there’s a difference! Because of the absence of red blood cells, the plasma left in his body has practically doubled in volume, even though there’s no circulation to keep it moving. We’ve noticed a collection of stem cells at the base of his skull has started growing as well, and whatever it’s producing is being released into the body at regular intervals.”

“What kind of cells are they?”

“Unsure. At first, we thought it was cancerous in nature.” Paz tapped the corner of the folder again, prompting Ra’s to turn the page. “And while these cells are certainly growing as fast as unchecked cancer, rather than doing harm, we’ve taken samples and noted that they’re merging with whatever original matter has been left in the boy’s body. Bonding, like glue! The healing process is periodically speeding up with every release, the plasma has started circulating on its own, and the white blood cell count is diminishing. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s filling in for everything that’s missing, and keeping what is there, alive. Dr. Vanessa hypothesized that within the month, it may even start replacing the boy’s organs.”

Ra’s looked up from the research. “These photos look like plant cells, is this an example or actual recordings of the activity?”

Paz wrinkled his nose. “Those are evidence of the activity. For some reason, cellulose is present within his body, and the mysterious stem cells seem to be a mix of both plant and animal matter. It’s hard to track even with our technology, but it looks like the cellulose is forming a sort of…skeleton? Frame? I’m not sure what the right word is, but Dr. Vanessa says they might start regrowing in another month. If that’s true, this would be a huge breakthrough in the realm of organ transplants and other medical fields!”

The Demon’s Head hummed, flipping through the work again and considering the man’s words. “Very good,” he praised. Paz beamed like a child at his words. “Unfortunately, I shall be releasing you of your duty, and your tongue is too loose for your head.”

“What-“ Paz’s eyes widened as he gurgled, his words cut off. Ra’s twisted his wrist, driving home the dagger he’d planted in the man’s heart. He had no use for men who talked too much.

Paz fell to the floor, convulsing as he tried to weakly remove the weapon still sticking out of his chest. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he went pale as his blood seeped out onto the floor.

Ra’s barely spared the dying man a glance, taking back the extra stack of papers from the nurse and neatly stepped around him to exit the room. “Clean that up,” he said over his shoulder.

The old nurse bowed his head, waiting patiently for the foolish doctor to finish dying before he got out the mop.

This is why the nurse had survived so long; he knew how to stay silent.

[Nocturn tucking Danny in to rest. Ghost speech says, "Rest well, ghost child"]

#pondhead writes #the folly of men fic #dpxdc #long post #really long post #no beta we die like Danny #I rewrote this three times #this was gonna be longer but the plot got away from me so we're doing more than one part now #the whole point of this is to get me back into writing more so i guess it's working??#i literally did so much googling for this #even watched timeline videos but i'm pretty sure i'm still wrong #literally what is dc lore anymore #i'd rather learn about kingdom hearts lore at this point #literally I am summoning all of my brain snails to bring this together #not medically accurate!!!#I am not a doctor I just took biology twice

92 notes · View notes

erinsintra · 7 months

Text

why do human genital names sound like fantasy spells. i mean. clitoris. testicles. cervix. scrotum. i feel like if i say these on the right order my furniture will start floating or some shit

185 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

entheory

marble and blood

me-contro-te-persi-nel-tempo-ita

¡Dove Vederlo! Me Contro Te Persi Nel Tempo 2022 Streaming Grat

ihavethestormwithin-blog

リベルタ。

marineteta

Marineta

afrontporchkindoflove

Im Talkin’ You&Me W/Same Street/Last Name