Recent comments in /f/askscience

przyssawka t1_j1z1sdu wrote

Reply to comment by Wireeeee in How do shifts work on really long medical operations? by TerjiD

Head and neck surgeon here. 24h shifts are the norm, it’s something you just get used to. It sucks but that’s the reality of it. 36 hours of nonstop work does happen, especially in residency. It’s definitely taxing and impacts your productivity especially during low stake work like charting. I had instances of my prechart notes being absolute gibberish due to sleep deprivation. But when it comes to procedures your body runs on adrenaline, tired or not it feels like a reset button was pressed, even during longer procedures like laryngectomies. Getting distracted doesn’t really happen unless you are a med student holding the retractor then all you have left is praying for mercy and sweet release

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Fedekz3215 t1_j1yx6xl wrote

Reply to comment by Mr_Zaroc in How do shifts work on really long medical operations? by TerjiD

You pee shortly before going to the OR so you're usually good for a few hours. There's a "first assist" which is usually a resident or PA scrubbed in helping. In long procedures there can be tedious dissecting so the attending can break scrub and go urinate or eat a quick snack while the resident keeps working. Only takes a minute or less to scrub in these days (Avagard replaced the old 4 minute scrubbing, and the scrub tech will have your gown and gloves ready for you) so that's not a barrier at all.

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Wireeeee t1_j1yw1qa wrote

Reply to comment by bananaforsteve in How do shifts work on really long medical operations? by TerjiD

This, I don't understand. Surely, anything above even 15+ hours of concentration is counterintuitive, right? Like, what about the loss of focus, accuracy, and drowsiness? Maybe 24 hours is doable since they've had a lot of practice, but 36 hours is insane.

Like, I start going delirious and dissociating from reality at 30 hours mark (without any stimulant drugs), can't imagine a surgeon not tripping balls from the sleeplessness haha.

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Rolldal t1_j1yrojg wrote

Reply to comment by lynmc5 in What is the ‘widest’ ancestral generation? by vesuvisian

It largely depends on when. During the middle ages under the feudal system it was difficult for all but itinerant workers (tinkers, travelling merchants, etc.) to move but as the feudal system collapsed this changed. During the English civil war many ordinary people moved about, travelled to the new world etc. Also often occupation dictated movement. My Potter ancestors generally stayed put but my miner ancestors moved as mines ran out of coal, lead, tin or whatever they happend to be mining.

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DingoZoot t1_j1yr38c wrote

Reply to comment by Crazy-Delay-5149 in Did the same strand of virus cause spanish flu and swine flu? if no then how are they different by manwithsillymustache

Or, for something a little easier to digest. Spanish Flu was Swine Flu, or derived from it. Spanish Flu isn't really a thing. There is a reason why you hear it called Spanish Flu but I don't have time to go into it. As far as I know but I could be wrong, "Spanish Flu" would that have been spread around Europe would have been imported from the USA via troops afflicted with the H1N1 virus.

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Crazy-Delay-5149 t1_j1ypvc9 wrote

Reply to Did the same strand of virus cause spanish flu and swine flu? if no then how are they different by manwithsillymustache

Ok, I'll try to be clear and keep it simple.

Flu has a bunch of proteins, but here we're just going to look at the 2 that are on the surface of the virus:

  • Hemagglutinin (H) : this one is used by the virus to attach to cells and enter them, that's how you get infected
  • Neuraminidase (N). When the virus highjacks a cell to create more copy of itself, the new virus need to leave said cell. So imagine baby viruses hanging on a cell. Neuraminidase is used by the baby viruses (virions) to detach from the 'mother' cell.

So, you've probably heard about H5N1 or others. That's how we identify the strains, by which hemagglutinin and which neuraminidase they're using.

Now onto the species barrier. There are different types of flu (A, B and C). B is a classic human flu, C you barely need to talk about, basically just a common cold. Flu A is the one we get mostly sick from and is the one that tends to cross species barrier and cause pandemics.

For example, usually yearly vaccines contain a couple of A strains and a B strain, whatever was most prevalent in the other hemisphere 6 months ago.

Back to species barrier - flu is not only human, can be avian, swine...

Crossing the species barrier can happen one of two ways:

  • either the virus adapts to our cells, mostly through the H protein. That's typically what happens when chicken get infected. They have the same receptors as birds on their cells, so they can get infected by avian flu. But chickens also have receptors similar to humans. So in chicken, the virus can adapt to human receptors and become infectious for humans. That's usually H5N1.
  • either a host sensitive to several strains can get infected by several viruses. For example, a pig could get infected by avian flu, human flu and swine flu. Then, upon packing new viruses, the cell doesn't know which is which. Imagine having to repack unlabelled DVDs into the right anthology. So mixes can happen, and that's usually how we get scary viruses such as H1N1 in 2009 (although swine flu by itself is usually H1N1 to be fair)

I hope this makes things a bit clearer, there is much more to it, such as the fact that inter species adaptation also occurs via the polymerase because the replication temperature in different hosts is not the same etc.

If you have more questions or things are unclear feel free to ask :)

Edit to add:

Oh I forgot to say - Spanish flu was H1N1. It was a crazy pandemic mostly because such a mix that could infect humans had never been around before

And all H1 for example are not the same, which is confusing when talking about different H1 strains - it's a bit like saying H1 would be a dog and H5 is a cat - it doesn't tell you if the H1 you're looking at is a husky or a poodle

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