iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Thus far it seems to be a bit of a dud - watched for a while and only caught a single meteor. Maybe next year!

010

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

You mean a good photo like the one you replied to using the same format as all your other replies, bot?

000

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

It is unusual to see a barred owl on the ground, especially during the day. But this guy was doing some sort of maintenance in the dust alongside a remote hiking trail. The owl was not injured. It flew away when it saw me, but not before posing for a nice photo. #UnusualBirdBehavior

2100

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Interesting! Did not know this… I wonder if there are other languages that use a similar term.

000

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

"Blood poverty" was not a commonly used construct, but "Poverty of the blood" was used as a synonym for anemia in late 19th/early 20th century - especially from iron deficiency in young women, more frequently termed "chlorosis". See for example this 1892 paper, and a 1909 book by a McGill physician.

040

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Found this advertisement for "Blood Poverty" tonic - "Women naturally suffer more than men" - in a 1925 New Zealand newspaper. While the first recorded use of 'cytopenia' was a 1906 paper per OED, it means 'cell poverty' - from the Greek πενίᾱ (peníā), poverty or lack. @shematologist.medsky.social

282

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Wow - Is that your home freezer or the grocery store?! February 1st is National Ice Cream For Breakfast Day - looks like you are well prepared 😊

150

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

A small stream runs through the woods behind our house, and this morning “frost flowers” were on the surface.❄️ I’ve never seen them before! They can form on thin ice on chilly, windless days when the air is much colder than the surface ice. Water vapor rising up from the surface quickly refreezes.

050

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Blue skies and blue reflections in suburban Boston this morning ❄️

060

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

The £100K treatment and £200K per year maintenance figures are for phlebotomy of 50 people rather than just one. There are data that phlebotomy or plasmapheresis decreases PFAS levels. Not saying this is the right approach, just that it is not the same as Bryan Johnson’s young blood nonsense.

010

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

I was walking along a trail yesterday and noticed this Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) - the plant that “vinca alkaloid” anti-cancer drugs vincristine and vinblastine were isolated from back in 1961. They’re still used today, especially vincristine for acute lymphoid leukemia and NHL.

0101

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Last night I imaged NGC891, the “Silver Sliver” galaxy, an edge-on spiral galaxy with a prominent dust lane about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It is sometimes called The Outer Limits galaxy because it appears in the credits of the TV show. #astrophotography #galaxy

050

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

My latest Mayo Clinic Proceedings stamp vignette on medical history is now online, about the "Dear Doctor" postcards of the 1950s & 1960s. Most were from Abbott Labs, touting sodium pentothal. Author link with 50 days free access to the article" authors.elsevier.com/a/1kN0a5qq8b... #Deltiology

060

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Carolina wren fledgling having a bad hair day

070

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

It’s interesting when we think about how much being iron deficient or anemic impairs function & health outcomes. But in 1900, the top causes of death in the US were pneumonia & influenza, TB, and GI infections a so human history is a long battle against the microbes and prob any little edge mattered

120

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Another factor may be iron-avid microorganisms that have been common causes of death historically (and still today in some places): E. coli, Yersinia, Salmonella, etc. Similar to hepcidin-driven iron sequestration, absolute iron deficiency can have a protective effect against growth of pathogens.

271

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

How fun to be back @danafarber.bsky.social today (for an SIV). The drive in is just as much of an adventure as it always was… Nice to see friends & former colleagues in person -

040

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Eek! In a chair?! That would be like attempting a digital rectal exam without asking the patient to undress: uncomfortable & uninformative. Alas, the physical exam is becoming a lost art - but hopefully since these were MPN clinical trialists they’d be better than average at spleen examination.

030

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Thought this was interesting: correlation between spleen length by palpation on physical exam in myelfibrosis versus spleen volume by centrally reviewed radiographic imaging, from a clinical trial described at #ASH24 by John Mascarenhas. There's a trend, but exam is not a super accurate measurement.

1151

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

The late-breaking abstract session in on-demand video form also makes great "background music" while packing up in your hotel room #ASH24

081

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Starting the first ever @ash symposium for mid career hematologists #ASH24

080

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

“The safety profile was generally manageable” is a statement utterly devoid of meaning #ASH24

040

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

As promised, the answer key to yesterday’s @ash-hematology.bsky.social #ASH24 crossword puzzle - hope you enjoyed it!

051

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

The annual #ASH24 hematology-themed crossword puzzle - the 13th one that @ASH_hematology has asked me to create for the @ash-hematology.bsky.social “ASH News Daily” conference newspaper. I’ll post the answers tomorrow…

1272

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Not everyone with very short telomeres has a gene mutation detected. In some series as many as 40% of patients do not have a clear associated mutation. If the telomere length assay was done by flow FISH and is <1% in both granulocytes and lymphocytes that’s consistent with a short telomere syndrome.

110

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

One week on leukemia call I got so many pages, I drained a fresh battery in a single week.

020

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Peterson saw 572 bird species that year. At the time he was the record holder for a “Big Year” of birding. That didn’t last long, though - in 1956 Stuart Keith followed Peterson and Fisher’s route and saw 594 birds. I apparently was the first person to check this book out in a while.

210

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

To say nothing of the huge social changes. Restaurants & motels were segregated, women were referred to as Mrs. (Husband’s Surname), people could make a good living with blue collar work, etc. Coca-Cola was the only drink available in some places and in hot regions they lived on Coke and salt tabs.

110

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

It was remarkable how much the country has changed in 70 years. There were no interstate highways. They ate mostly at diners and crossed borders with ease. Gas stations were hard to find in the West. Birds they saw or tried to see are now extinct. Overall the bird numbers have fallen so much… 😞

100

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Over the holiday I read this epic 1955 book by famous naturalist & field guide pioneer Roger Tory Peterson & British ornithologist James Fisher about their 30,000 mile journey around North America in 1953, exploring from Newfoundland to the Dry Tortugas, from the Channel Islands to the Pribilofs./1

130

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Most of it was wasted, yes, but it was never most of the NCI budget. A typical year was 1976 - Virus Cancer Program was 8% of the budget, $62M of $760M: www.cancer.gov/about-nci/bu... Some of the extramural support also went for studies of viral linkage, but there were many other efforts ongoing.

cancer.gov

130

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Happy Thanksgiving - and if you have a gathering at your home, don’t forget the old rule: the first person to bring up politics has to do the dishes. 😉

150

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

It was a great place for drug development during that era. They funded or conducted trials of combination chemotherapy that led to high rates of cure in lymphomas & ALL, improved breast cancer outcomes, etc. Yes they wasted a lot of time and money pursuing viruses, but there were successes too.

120

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

M31/Andromeda, with a cameo from M110. Not bad for Bortle 6-7 skies (suburban Boston), with only a 50mm lens and 2MP CMOS sensor - the S50’s newish mosaic mode is really cool, and minimizes field rotation effect from the alt-az mount. Processed in Siril & GraXpert.

050

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Limited to birds and astrophotography

110

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Common Eiders and American Herring Gulls living in harmony. BHI - Deer Island, November 24.

Herring gulls and Common Eiders. Birds on a beach.

120

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

I got too close to this herring gull while it was trying to eat breakfast and it stared me down, "Are you going to let me finish this or not?"

110

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Photo 1: California Nebula/NGC1499, 800x 10s subs with S50, processed in GraXpert and Siril, Bortle 6 sky. Photo 2: also California Nebula, this time with labels. 😀 If only ξ Persei/Menkib were slightly closer, it would be perfect for Vegas to be represented by a disproportionately bright star.

030

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

JetBlue flight from Jacksonville landing at Logan Airport this morning, photographed from BHI-Deer Island while I was out birding. (Big noisy bird.)

Aircraft landing at airport with city skyline in background

150

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

This was my first attempt to make an educational #HemSky hematology thread on Bluesky. It seems to work…so-so. Links take up more space, and the thread (23 small posts) got broken up in a way that doesn’t happen on X/Twitter. Will keep working on it - maybe it will be fixed in future updates.

080

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

So the next time you see the "Frankenstein monster" of a #ringsideroblast under the microscope, with its canvas-worthy brilliant blue granules, keep in mind that you are looking at star-stuff. /23End @ash-hematology.bsky.social

030

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

It seems likely this gifted writer heard about the sinister reputation of Dippel & Burg Frankenstein, and her fertile imagination transformed this "blast" of an idea into one of the all-time classic novels: "Frankenstein", published in 1820 - the first "Gothic" tale, featuring corpse animation./22

140

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

There were rumors Mr. Dippel Frankensteinensis was doing some weird or even sinister and occult stuff back home in Castle Frankenstein: trying to reanimate corpses. A century later, a young woman named Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley was touring nearby with her husband Percy./21

Portrait of Mary Shelley from the National Portrait Gallery in London.

100

David Steensma, MD @davidsteensma.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Why was Dippel - who had added "Frankensteinensis" to his name, because of his birthplace - using animal blood? Possibly because he was trying to create an "elixir of life" immortality agent. Alas, Dippel's Oil wasn't useful except as insect repellant. There's one final twist to this story./20

100