(biologist - artist - queer)

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You’re the only magician that could make a falling horse turn into thirteen gerbils

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Oooh it’s even cooler than that!! You’re spot on, acid is the problem. And acid from food, candy, coffee, etc. is harmful for enamel for sure.

    But sugary stuff that isn’t acidic also rots teeth. Why? Because the bacteria in your mouth do what’s called lactic acid fermentation. Basically, when they take a sugar molecule and want to make “usable” energy out of it (in the form of something called ATP, or adenosine triphosphate), they end up creating lactic acid as a byproduct. In essence, the stuff living in your mouth makes acid out of sugar.

    We also need to break sugar down into ATP, but we do something called cellular respiration instead. It uses oxygen and creates CO2 as a byproduct! That’s why we need oxygen to breathe, and why we breathe out carbon dioxide. But, when you work your muscles hard (lifting weights, sprinting), you might use the ATP in your muscles faster than your body can make it with cellular respiration. In that case, your cells will also do lactic acid fermentation! That’s what we’re feeling when we “feel the burn” (well, that and micro-tears in the muscle, in some cases).

    Source: I’m a biologist! And I love sharing weird facts like this! Thank you for the excuse to write this out :-)


  • Other commenters have good suggestions also, but one option I haven’t seen mentioned would be to buy a powdered acid and make your own dilutions

    It’s easy to get citric acid in a dry form (like the crystal coating on sour candy), you can get 10 lbs (enough to make many gallons) of it for like $30-50 online. I put a small scoop in my dishwasher to keep my cups from getting foggy from our hard water, and I use it to descale our kettle and in our laundry, too.

    Just be careful, acid dilutions are no joke. Whether you get the cleaning vinegar or make a citric acid solution for yourself:

    • use nitrile or latex gloves when working with the acid solutions

    • wear something to protect your eyes, glasses are probably good enough but goggles are better

    • if you have an acid solution and want to dilute it, pour the acid into the water, not the water into the acid!!!

    • flush your skin or eyes with water immediately if the acid gets on you or your clothes

    These rules might seem like overkill but better safe than sorry!

    Citric acid is slightly stronger than acetic acid so if I were you I’d make like a 20% solution to have a similar effect to the cleaning vinegar (so like 100 g powdered acid to 400 mL water). You might have to mix it on the stove so that the water is simmering to get the acid to dissolve.

    Again, be careful! But as long as you’re smart about it, take your time, and prioritize safety, you can definitely use this for descaling and cleaning (and cooking!)



  • Girl, this community is full of trans folks, and not all of us are trans women. I’d wager the majority of people annoyed with this post are not cis, and it seems like some of them are trans women, too

    It’s not even something I would post in a community just for trans women, like what about trans women that don’t end up with these characteristics? Are people only trans women if they identify with these changes? Why is the assumption that men (and I guess pre-transition trans women) have anger issues and porn addictions? Why are those qualities tied to their hormones and physical bodies, so trans women who can’t or won’t medically transition are excluded from benefitting?






  • I don’t want this to be an accusation about lemmy’s user base, so take this next comment with a grain of salt:

    I feel like lemmy slants male the same way early reddit did, and the same way a lot of more technical communities seem to. I’ve definitely seen threads where the perspectives being shared feel alien and out of touch, and although I’m sure that they have valuable insights about many topics, it does feel kind of… homogenous?

    One specific example is the threads arguing about whether to make lemmy more like reddit or not. Often, there are a lot of comments arguing that they don’t want to change lemmy in ways that would make it more inviting, because then more people from reddit would show up. The implication is that the average user of reddit is an idiot or should be unwelcome in some way, but to me it seems that they are just trying to select for men in technical disciplines and who have similar world views to the current user base. Idk, it’s not a great look.

    Anyway, I’m non-binary and I don’t have endometriosis so I’m probably not part of the communities you’re looking for… still, I wish you all the best looking for your space. I think it’s truly less homogenous here than it seems… We’ll get more diverse perspectives over time!





  • You said it yourself-- the reason those people need to make weird choices like trying to find any way to qualify for more government assistance is because historically their income came from industries that don’t and can’t exist anymore. They don’t have any other choice. The solution is actually more availability of assistance resources so people from those places can have enough stability to be able to make choices like learning new skills or moving to a new place. Why can’t people like him-- who see this happening to the people around him, his neighbors, his family-- empathize?




  • I have an honest question for all the commenters saying “I’d rather not use reddit”: where do you get niche information from other than reddit?

    I don’t want to give reddit traffic, but I find myself constantly looking for information that would necessarily only be available on a platform like reddit. Examples:

    • Product info and reviews
    • Niche troubleshooting for odd hobbies (fermentation, video games, diy)
    • Travel advice from locals/regulars (do I need wetsuit to swim here? Where are restaurants that won’t harass my partner and I for being queer?)
    • Advice, when the “official” recommendations on SEO websites were clearly written for a litigation-happy American society (some healthcare, some law, etc.)

    I consider myself pretty information-access savvy but a lot of these things require a “crowdsource” aspect that blogs and other websites can’t provide.

    What do y’all do?