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Play Nice Random Chat Thread VI

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How long was your recovery? Know any good adductor/core stretches and strengthening exercise online resources I can try before consulting a physio?

Adductor strain, strained groin and the worst was a torn rectus abdominus (which is the one they cut during a caesarean). I suggest you ice up and see a physio asap.

Nate7 may have more info for you.
 
How long was your recovery? Know any good adductor/core stretches and strengthening exercise online resources I can try before consulting a physio?

Man I honestly think consulting a physio is the go-to here. I can recommend a good one in the northern suburbs if that helps. He's private, but if you get a care plan from your GP you get five sessions free.

It was a fair bit of rest and for me we had to look at what actually caused the strain in the first place and rehab that in addition to building strength up. Lots of glute and lower back work, as well as static holds working the adductor complex.

Once a certain point in recovery was reached I then had to work on stretching the area - I'm pretty tight around there and the hips and that was an issue.

A physio is necessary because if you start doing certain things too early you can end up worse.

Id say it was about 12 weeks or so before I felt 100 per cent. Maybe a little less.
 
Adductor strain, strained groin and the worst was a torn rectus abdominus (which is the one they cut during a caesarean). I suggest you ice up and see a physio asap.

Nate7 may have more info for you.
Thanks, TT. That sounds nasty. Rectus abdominus is just a horrible combination of words even without the torn prefix haha.

Man I honestly think consulting a physio is the go-to here. I can recommend a good one in the northern suburbs if that helps. He's private, but if you get a care plan from your GP you get five sessions free.

It was a fair bit of rest and for me we had to look at what actually caused the strain in the first place and rehab that in addition to building strength up. Lots of glute and lower back work, as well as static holds working the adductor complex.

Once a certain point in recovery was reached I then had to work on stretching the area - I'm pretty tight around there and the hips and that was an issue.

A physio is necessary because if you start doing certain things too early you can end up worse.

Id say it was about 12 weeks or so before I felt 100 per cent. Maybe a little less.
Yeah, cheers for the advice mate. It's strange though because I've injured muscles before and they were immediate sharp pain and instantly debilitating, whereas I think this stemmed from what I thought was a minor incident in pre-season and it's been gradual and insidious to the point where now, about 4 months later, I realise it's something that needs to be addressed. It's not helped by the fact that I'm at a computer all day every day for work as well. Haha I'm just extremely reluctant to go to the physio for a few reasons. One of which is that I've had massages in the adductor/ground/flexor are before and to say that I find them extremely discomforting is an understatement.
 

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A topic I raised here a few months ago about my da's 'fox news brain' became relevant again.

My mum and I a heart to heart with him about it. My mum doesn't disagree with him about much anyway but has noticed the obsessiveness and inability to enjoy life anymore. It started after I tried to talk about the footy and somehow escalated into people like me (not me in particular, apparently) ruining the country. Just completely out of the blue and barely related to the convo we were having.

I hope we got through to him but I'm not too confident. As someone mentioned here, it's like treating an addict. Sometimes you've got to wait until they're ready. I just pray to God he doesn't spend the time where he's meant to relax and enjoy life obsessing with other people on the internet about things he can't control, snapping at family members, etc.
 
A topic I raised here a few months ago about my da's 'fox news brain' became relevant again.

My mum and I a heart to heart with him about it. My mum doesn't disagree with him about much anyway but has noticed the obsessiveness and inability to enjoy life anymore. It started after I tried to talk about the footy and somehow escalated into people like me (not me in particular, apparently) ruining the country. Just completely out of the blue and barely related to the convo we were having.

I hope we got through to him but I'm not too confident. As someone mentioned here, it's like treating an addict. Sometimes you've got to wait until they're ready. I just pray to God he doesn't spend the time where he's meant to relax and enjoy life obsessing with other people on the internet about things he can't control, snapping at family members, etc.

Its an addiction to outrage.
 
Maybe find other things to stimulate him emotionally?

The last 2 seasons should do the trick.

Tried it all man - bought him stuff for his hobbies and nagged him to hang out and enjoy them with me, he's lost interest in virtually everything else (including footy), hasn't been out for dinner unless it's someone's birthday, or for a walk, to the beach, for a day trip, etc. in years now.
 
Tried it all man - bought him stuff for his hobbies and nagged him to hang out and enjoy them with me, he's lost interest in virtually everything else (including footy), hasn't been out for dinner unless it's someone's birthday, or for a walk, to the beach, for a day trip, etc. in years now.
That’s tough. Ive got a family member who’s the same. He just thrives of than anger. Goes looking for it. It’s sad.
 

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Tried it all man - bought him stuff for his hobbies and nagged him to hang out and enjoy them with me, he's lost interest in virtually everything else (including footy), hasn't been out for dinner unless it's someone's birthday, or for a walk, to the beach, for a day trip, etc. in years now.
Do youse play darts?

Maybe playing competitive games away from social media may simulate the sort of neurochemical reactions he gets from social media/sky news.




The last two are probably more interesting or useful, you may already be across the first one.

Myelin and myelinisation have a role in learning and habituation.


So what I'm saying is maybe you should be trying to create new neurocircuitry in your dad's brain. Create new reward pathways he can use instead of the old anger based ones. Easier said than done obviously. But definitely not impossible.

So winning a friendly competition while getting positive reinforcement from having fun with family may be a way to start this process. It will obviously take work because the key to myelinisation and schema development is lots of repetition. Cooking new, yummy foods might be another way to do this. His reward based neurocircuitry has been hijacked by right wing political propaganda.

He might not normally want to play darts but you could probably convince him there a woke plot to outlaw them.
 


a small brown reptile sitting on branch

A female Brookesia nana chameleon in Madagascar. The species is likely the smallest reptile on earth.

Photograph by Frank Glaw, Zoologische Staatssammlung München


New chameleon species may be world’s smallest reptile

About the size of a sunflower seed, the newly described creature from Madagascar may already be critically endangered.
ByJason Bittel
Published February 2, 2021
• 6 min read

Scientists have discovered a tiny new species of chameleon in a patch of rainforest in northern Madagascar. This so-called nano-chameleon is about the size of a sunflower seed, fits on the tip of a finger, and may be the smallest reptile on Earth.
Officially known as Brookesia nana, or B. nana for short, the new species is so tiny it’s thought to survive on a diet of mites and springtails, which it hunts down in leaf litter.

“At the first glance, we realized that it was an important discovery,” says Andolalao Rakotoarison, a Malagasy herpetologist and coauthor of the new study published in Nature.

Finding such a small reptile raises interesting questions about the lower limits of body size in vertebrates. It also highlights the astonishing—and highly threatened—biodiversity of Madagascar. Scientists suspect the chameleon will soon be listed as critically endangered.
Lurking in grass

Like other chameleons, this tiny reptile possesses a projectile tongue which it uses to nab prey. The creatures have found a successful niche in their native habitat, hunting by day on the rainforest floor and retreating to the safety of grass blades at night.


If a larger predator comes calling in the dark, the wobble of the grass stalk alerts the chameleon of danger, at which point it just drops off into the underbrush, says Mark Scherz, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Potsdam in Germany and coauthor of the study.

So far, scientists have observed just two individuals: One male and one female, each of which was captured in 2012 on an expedition to a cluster of cool, rainy mountains known as the Sorata massif.

Researchers suspect this nano-chameleon may hold the title of the world’s smallest reptile. Its nearest competitor is a creature called Brookesia micra, an itty bitty chameleon species that made its debut in 2012, photographed atop the head of a match.

“It feels a little silly to be like, ‘Oh, it’s a few millimeters smaller than this other thing,’” Scherz says. “But when millimeters are two or three percent of your body size, then that’s a lot of change.”

“Most of science happens in these small, incremental steps,” Scherz adds.

The fact that only two individuals have been found makes it difficult to generalize upon the findings. It’s possible that other chameleons in this species would be larger, or smaller, just like humans can be different heights. Indeed, scientists already know that chameleons in this family tend to have larger females and smaller males, which is called sexual dimorphism.

It’s also tricky to determine when an animal this small is truly an adult, Scherz says. Fortunately, when he submitted the female to a Micro-CT scan, he found evidence of eggs in the ovaries. “I ran upstairs and I was like, ‘Look, we have confirmation,’” he remembers.

Determining the age of male chameleons is a little more difficult, and requires a close examination of the animals’ genitals. As juveniles, the males’ genitals—known as hemipenes—look somewhat like smooth balloons, but they get more complex and adorned as they mature. Since this male did not have a “smooth balloon,” it’s likely not a juvenile, Scherz says. The smallest chameleons have relatively large genitals compared to related species that have bigger bodies, he adds.

“The female is certainly an adult,” says Tony Gamble, an evolutionary biologist who researches dwarf geckoes at Marquette University, but who was not involved in the study. “And it appears that the male is probably an adult, as well.”
How low can you go?

Apart from its cuteness, scientists say the discovery of yet another tiny chameleon species raises all sorts of questions about the limits of tininess in vertebrates.

For instance, B. nana is much smaller than the smallest birds or mammals, says Scherz, but there are frogs that are smaller still.
At some point though, you reach a limit to how small a reptile can be. Part of this is a problem of surface area, says Gamble. While it might seem counterintuitive, smaller creatures actually tend to have a larger ratio of surface area to volume compared to big creatures. And the higher that ratio is, the more susceptible an animal will be to water loss.

“There also seems to be a limit as to where you can put all the stuff you have,” says Gamble. Many small creatures have reduced skull sizes or overlapping bones, and some lose entire structures through evolution.

“It’s like moving from a big house into a small apartment without getting rid of anything. That stuff has to go somewhere,” Gamble says.

B. nana beware

Unfortunately, the tiny chameleon’s future is murky. The mountain forest where the lizards are found is already severely degraded, Rakotoarison says.

Many people in this region cannot afford to buy rice or meat, says Scherz. Poverty and growing populations have led to clearing of rainforests to make room for agriculture and livestock; deforestation affects around 94 percent of Madagascar’s previously forested lands, according to NASA.

With a small home range and threats to its habitat, the new chameleon species will be a shoe-in for critically endangered status through the International Union of Conservation of Nature, a conservation group. The good news is that the Sorata massif has recently been included in a new protected area in Madagascar.

“It’s all good and well to say, ‘Oh, I really hope that people stop deforesting this forest,’” says Scherz. “But until the economic future of Madagascar changes, there’s no hope for any of its wildlife because the people have to eat.”

Meanwhile, Gamble says each new species reminds scientists and the public alike that Madagascar is a mega-diverse island.

“I think what keeps stories like this front and center in our imagination is that every time something like this is discovered, it’s like, ‘Oh man, I guess [living creatures] can get a little smaller,’” says Gamble.
 
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