Your Friendly Neighborhood Hug Dealer 🧸

#LongLiveSlip💔🕊️ #MorrLife4Life🕊️

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

A 17-year-old in Iowa boiled beets in her chemistry class and turned them into stitches that change color when your wound gets infected. Her name is Dasia Taylor. It started as a science fair project.

She wanted a low-tech version of the "smart stitches" Tufts researchers built in 2016. Those used thread wired up with sensors and a tiny chip that pinged your phone if something went wrong. Cool, but useless without a phone or a hospital that can afford it.

Her version doesn't need any of that. Healthy skin is slightly acidic, like lemon juice but much milder. When bacteria grow in a wound, the chemistry flips and turns more like soap or baking soda.

Beet juice has a quirk. The same red pigment that stains your fingers when you cook it shifts color based on what it touches. Bright red on healthy skin. Dark purple on infected skin. The switch lines up with infection almost exactly.

She tested ten threads before finding a cotton-polyester blend that soaked up the dye and changed color within five minutes. That was the prototype.

Around 1 in 40 American surgeries end in an infection at the cut, costing hospitals more than $3 billion a year. In poorer countries the rate is closer to 1 in 9. In parts of Africa it's 1 in 6. In some Ethiopian hospitals, up to a quarter of surgery patients leave with an infection.

The whole game is catching it early. Spot it in time and antibiotics handle it. Miss the window and the patient is back on the operating table.

Dasia filed a patent in 2021 and started a medical device company called VariegateHealth in 2022. The stitches haven't been tested on real patients yet. New medical device patents can take a decade. She's also looking into a side benefit: the beet pigment kills bugs like E. coli and Klebsiella in lab tests.

Smart stitches need a phone to read them. Hers just need eyes.

[Nostalgia @nostalgiaa]

One day you sang the goodbye song for the last time and didn't realize it

[🌸🦄🩷unicornthorns🩷🦄🌸 @T_Marie60]

Even blacker and prouder than the first one playing R&B bops released during black history month—
yeah this was a black ass movie

[T @tylerthecreator]

SUGAR ON MY TONGUE ON STAGE

[Your Friendly Neighborhood Hug Dealer 🧸 @JayyThaTruthh]

I’m backkkkk

[ʟᴇᴇʀᴏʏ. @IamKickz]

Sneak??? I never cared… I’ll be in that bitch like

[Your Friendly Neighborhood Hug Dealer 🧸 @JayyThaTruthh]

Happy birthday to my friend in my head the one and only @KekePalmer

[Ms. Arizona @TucsonHottie_]

Who’s winning in a fight ATL Stripper or ATL Waffle House employee on the 3rd shift?

[Your Friendly Neighborhood Hug Dealer 🧸 @JayyThaTruthh]

Hmmm. It’s been a while

[Elmo @elmo]

May Elmo just say, Ms. @sza, YOU WERE FANTASTIC!!! ⭐️❤️🙌

[Complex Sports @ComplexSports]

This photo >>> 😮‍💨🔥

[Live Performance Hub @performancesdly]

#KendrickLamar full #SuperBowl halftime show:

[AJ King @allday_ajking]

SERENA CRIP WALKING ON DRAKE LMAOOOOOOOO

[Franklin Leonard @franklinleonard]

It’s the shooter from Degrassi.

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

"I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue" - Kendrick Lamar

[Dai 💋 @daishamaee]

the snow is so pretty but it’s cold boo aht aht 😂

[Your Friendly Neighborhood Hug Dealer 🧸 @JayyThaTruthh]

@aiyanaevon Lmaooo I was doing shit with my left hand for no reason when I had my ring

[tino @tiinoRB]

people calling doechii an industry plant is so funny to me bc most of yall probably don’t even know she made this song

[Your Friendly Neighborhood Hug Dealer 🧸 @JayyThaTruthh]

Look at my 🧸👁️ ❤️

[The Gym Hashira 🇹🇹 @kye_the_kingz]

This is your sign to get into the gym in 2025