DownToClown

joined 2 years ago
[–] DownToClown@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Neat.

"A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed polearm that came to prominent use from the 13th to 16th centuries. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It can have a hook or thorn on the back side of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants and protecting allied soldiers, typically musketeers. The halberd was usually 1.5 to 1.8 metres (4.9 to 5.9 ft) long.

...

As the halberd was eventually refined, its point was more fully developed to allow it to better deal with spears and pikes (and make it able to push back approaching horsemen), as was the hook opposite the axe head, which could be used to pull horsemen to the ground.[7] A Swiss peasant used a halberd to kill Charles the Bold,[8] the Duke of Burgundy, at the Battle of Nancy, decisively ending the Burgundian Wars."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halberd

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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by DownToClown@lemmy.world to c/albumartporn@lemmy.world
 

"Street Cleaner’s theatrical and grimey take on synth music set him apart from the throng and designated him the progenitor of his own genre: "Crimewave." "

https://streetcleaner.bandcamp.com/album/annihilation

[–] DownToClown@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Minister convicted of corruption says that pretty much every other politician is corrupt after he got caught.

Yes corruption exists in Finland especially on higher levels but this "everyone else is doing it" is just the oldest defence there is.

[–] DownToClown@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

From the study:

Objective

We aimed to perform the first placebo-controlled double-blinded test that investigates the effect of biodiversity on immune tolerance.

Methods

In the intervention group, children aged 3–5 years were exposed to playground sand enriched with microbially diverse soil, or in the placebo group, visually similar, but microbially poor sand colored with peat (13 participants per treatment group). Children played twice a day for 20 min in the sandbox for 14 days. Sand, skin and gut bacterial, and blood samples were taken at baseline and after 14 days. Bacterial changes were followed for 28 days. Sand, skin and gut metagenome was determined by high throughput sequencing of bacterial 16 S rRNA gene. Cytokines were measured from plasma and the frequency of blood regulatory T cells was defined as a percentage of total CD3 +CD4 + T cells.

Results

Bacterial richness (P < 0.001) and diversity (P < 0.05) were higher in the intervention than placebo sand. Skin bacterial community, including Gammaproteobacteria, shifted only in the intervention treatment to resemble the bacterial community in the enriched sand (P < 0.01). Mean change in plasma interleukin-10 (IL-10) concentration and IL-10 to IL-17A ratio supported immunoregulation in the intervention treatment compared to the placebo treatment (P = 0.02). IL-10 levels (P = 0.001) and IL-10 to IL-17A ratio (P = 0.02) were associated with Gammaproteobacterial community on the skin. The change in Treg frequencies was associated with the relative abundance of skin Thermoactinomycetaceae 1 (P = 0.002) and unclassified Alphaproteobacteria (P < 0.001). After 28 days, skin bacterial community still differed in the intervention treatment compared to baseline (P < 0.02).

Conclusions

This is the first double-blinded placebo-controlled study to show that daily exposure to microbial biodiversity is associated with immune modulation in humans. The findings support the biodiversity hypothesis of immune-mediated diseases. We conclude that environmental microbiota may contribute to child health, and that adding microbiological diversity to everyday living environment may support immunoregulation.

[–] DownToClown@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Really rare 10/10 blep picture. Very nice.