spicy pancake

paranoid linux sadgirl with imposter syndrome

  • 17 Posts
  • 734 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 27th, 2023
  • spicy pancake@lemmy.ziptoScience Memes@mander.xyz•Machine go brrrrrrr English
    2·
    1 month ago

    Some atoms don’t like being the way they are (mood tbh), and we call them unstable. Some unstable atoms spit out something called a positron in order to become the atom they want to be.

    A positron is an anti-electron, and when it collides with an electron (easy since those are everywhere) they annihilate each other, turning into a bunch of energy in the process, in the form of gamma radiation. The gamma radiation from annihilation is special because it always comes out as two rays going in the opposite direction from each other.

    That means, if you can detect when those two rays hit a ring that encircles the point of annihilation, you can use math to figure out where that point is in the ring. That’s because you know the speed of the rays and the difference in the times that both rays struck the ring.

    The aforementioned ring is a PET scanner’s detector array. (The machine at the bottom of this meme is a PET scanner.) So if you put a living thing in the PET scanner that has eaten or been injected with something that is undergoing positron emission, you can tell where in their body the position emission is happening.

    This is useful because you can use chemistry to attach something that emits positions to something that a body will move to specific locations based on what it is. For example, if you want to find cancer cells: they absorb way more glucose than normal cells. So you can attach unstable fluorines to glucose molecules and inject them into a cancer patient to find the cancer.

    Wherever you see way more positron emission happening than normal, that’s where the glucose is going. So if we know cancer cells are absorbing glucose at an abnormal rate, now we know where in the body the cancer is.

    (That’s more or less how I explained my previous job to my 4-year old niece, but with more drawings and smaller words.)

  • spicy pancake@lemmy.ziptoPiracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com•What is the best way to get or request a relatively new textbook?English
    1·
    2 months ago

    Not a perfect solution but when I needed specific obscure and/or new editions for coursework, I’d go check out my university library’s copy and photograph all the pages I needed

    it’s common for universities to keep a reserve copy (or a few) of any books required by courses. access may be limited (e.g. at my school you could check them out only 2 hours at a time). If your library has a book scanning station your life will be easier so ask if they have one.

    One time after class I ran into a classmate trying to do the exact same thing, so we ended up taking turns sharing scan photos to save ourselves time the rest of the semester. Be sure to share the love with any fellow ultra-broke classmates

    happy sailing 🏴‍☠️

  • spicy pancake@lemmy.ziptoADHD memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Anyone else this way?English
    1·
    2 months ago

    i just moved in with a roommate who’s barely ever home and I’ve done more cleaning in the last 2 months than I have in 5 years lol

    she’s not even a neat freak but my brain is like “we have to keep the apartment tidy because another human lives here.” my mean fuckin brain… I’m a human too why didn’t I deserve a clean apartment when I lived alone ;_;