💔

YO.

You’re a hit man with a conscience - before every kill, you help the victim check something off their bucket list.

Matteo Farinella.

murder-look intensifies with every step

Before we can live in a world of vertical gardens covering stained glass skyscrapers, we need to build a world of backyard garden boxes made of reclaimed wood. Before we can cover every rooftop with solar panels, we need to equip every home with solar smokeless cooking made of scrap metal

The appeal of those green cityscapes in the pretty pictures isn’t just that they’re hi-tech and clean, it’s that they sprout from a society that values compassion, the environment, and human lives more than it values profit. We need to build that society first, and we need to build it from the ground up with what we have available

The solarpunk future is for our grandchildren. Our job is to pave the way for it

Fascinating!

(Image caption: The normal mature dog spinal cord (A) has many axons surrounded by thick myelin sheaths (blue). In contrast, in the recovered 13-year-old dog with the genetic abnormality (B), there are many axons with thin myelin sheaths, identical to that seen in remyelination)

A little myelin goes a long way to restore nervous system function

In the central nervous system of humans and all other mammals, a vital insulating sheath composed of lipids and proteins around nerve fibers helps speed the electrical signals or nerve impulses that direct our bodies to walk, talk, breathe, swallow or perform any routine physical act.

But diseases of the nervous system, including multiple sclerosis (MS) in people, degrade this essential insulation known as myelin, disrupting the flow of information between the brain and the body, impairing movement, dimming vision and blunting the ability to function normally.

And while scientists have long studied myelin and understand its role in disease when it degrades, they have puzzled over how myelin repairs itself naturally and whether the thinned sheaths that are a hallmark of the healing nervous system are adequate for restoring the brain’s circuitry over the long haul.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison reports that in long-lived animals, renewed but thin myelin sheaths are enough to restore the impaired nervous system and can do so for years after the onset of disease.

The team’s findings reinforce the idea that thin myelin sheaths are a valid, persistent marker of remyelination, a hypothesis challenged by other recent research. “As the only biomarker of myelin repair available this would leave us without any means of identifying or quantifying myelin repair,” explains Ian Duncan, an expert on demyelinating diseases at the UW–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and the senior author of the new study.

Duncan and his team looked at a unique genetic disorder that naturally afflicts Weimaraners, a breed of dog that as 12- to 14-day-old pups develop a severe tremor and loss of coordination. The condition is known to occur as the development of the myelin sheath in parts of the dog’s central nervous system is delayed. The symptoms gradually diminish and in most cases disappear altogether by 3-4 months of age.

“This is a very widespread mutation in the breed,” says Duncan, noting that myelin repair mimicking what is seen in remyelination is known to occur in these dogs as the rejuvenated nerve fibers have a thinned myelin sheath.

The new Wisconsin study was made possible as 13 years ago two Weimaraner pups, littermates, were seen as patients at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Duncan was able to maintain contact with the owners after the dogs were adopted and retrieve samples of spinal tissue after the dogs lived out their lives. As they aged, the dogs exhibited few signs of tremor and were deemed ‘neurologically normal’ up to 13 years of age.

The purpose of the study, says Duncan, was to confirm that thin myelin sheaths persisted and supported normal neurologic function.

To expand on the results, Duncan also looked at a condition in cats, another long-lived species that has been shown to fully recover nervous system function after demyelination. In particular, Duncan’s team was interested in remyelination of the optic nerves.

That element of the study, looking at remyelination two years after the onset of the condition, Duncan notes, is an example of “true demyelination and remyelination. We found that nearly every optic nerve fiber was remyelinated with a thin myelin sheath, which is important for understanding human disease because in multiple sclerosis, the optic nerve is often the first to be demyelinated.”

The new findings confirm that the gold standard for evaluating remyelination is the long-term persistence of thin myelin sheaths, which support nerve fiber function and survival, Duncan notes. The results are important for diseases like MS as it means that new therapies designed to promote myelin repair can be safely evaluated and quantified based on the presence of thin myelin sheaths.

Geneticists are starting to unravel evolution’s role in mental illness 

Psychiatric disorders can be debilitating and often involve a genetic component, yet, evolution hasn’t weeded them out. Now, recent work is beginning to reveal the role of natural selection — offering a peek at how the genetic underpinnings of mental illness has changed over time.

Many psychiatric disorders are polygenic: they can involve hundreds or thousands of genes and DNA mutations. It can be difficult to track how so many genetic regions evolved, and such studies require large genome data sets. But the advent of massive human genome databases is enabling researchers to look for possible connections between mental illnesses and the environmental and societal conditions that might have driven their emergence and development. Others are looking to Neanderthal genetic sequences to help inform the picture of these disorders, as well as cognitive abilities, in humans. Several of these teams presented their findings at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) meeting in Orlando, Florida, in late October.

Llamagirl.

I know it’s selfish of me, but I hope you get to see this. I hope that one day, while you’re scrolling through tumblr, you’ll see this post. 

I’ve been told I’m delusional, and that I think too big for my dreams to come to reality. But that’s just who I am. When I first held you on the bus, I wasn’t in a good place. You didn’t know it at the time, but you being there, you just... existing with me during those moments on the bus, they made everything so much better. I still dreamt big though.

 I would think of these fantastical delusions where the whole world was our playground, where nothing could ever hurt you or me again, and we could just be together, forever. Other times, I would just wish that I could stop time, so that I could hold you in my arms forever and not have to dread the return home.

Home. That’s a word filled with both joy and bitterness. At home, no matter where I’ve been, I’ve been hurt, and I have hurt others. I know I deserve what’s coming to me, because my mind doesn’t stop. Hurting people in your mind is fine, but when it becomes so graphic, and you take joy out of delivering brutal pain upon those you hate and despise, it makes you wonder if you are even a good enough human being to stay alive. I can’t say it here, because if I were caught with evidence like this, I could possibly be sent to a mental hospital for the violent urges and obsessive fantasies. Don’t worry, I’ve researched this, I’m not going to stupidly incriminate myself. I’ll tell you the thoughts and fantasies if you want me to, just give me time, enough time so that I won’t regret it immediately after I said it. 

Your eyes are beautiful, you know? They have a sort of radiance to them. To me, it’s a pathway, one that takes me away from all the stress and pain, and allows me to enter a temporary Haven ( or is it Heaven?), for just a little while, at least. Sometimes I ask you if i can just look at you, you might have noticed cuz you seem to find it a tad odd jajaja. I do it for a reason. I want to look at you, to fall in your eyes and never come out. If I were there with you, I would take off your glasses, and tell you how beautiful you are both with and without them, and I would stare into your eyes for hours. That is, if you would let me, of course. They’re magical honestly; your eyes encaptured me in delightful rapture right before I first kissed you. 

A funny thing you should know about me, most people tend to think that I look at them directly in the eyes, but I actually get way too shy for that. To remedy this, I typically look right below their eyes, between the cheekbone and the actual eye; at about the Palpebromalar groove, if you want me to be even more specific. I know how you love detail. It’s a pretty good way to avoid actual eye contact honestly, it makes it less awkward because I feel less inclined to look away. But see, that changed with you. I always wanted to look at you in the eye, and I always did my best to, but I was too scared that I would look away. But then, at Paseo, when you told me you were going to leave, I made a choice. I was going to kiss you, and I was going to look into your eyes. And it was so, so beautiful. I don’t think you noticed, but I felt my face becoming flushed just by looking at you. That never happened with anyone else, not like this. My face never gets flushed, but you managed to stir something in me that made me want to look into your eyes forever. 

And then came your lips. It was hilarious how we initially failed in the kiss, so I kissed your cheeks. They were so soft, I wanted to keep kissing them nonstop. But I saw that you were really shy about this, but also really looking forward to it. I didn’t want to make you wait any longer, and honestly, I don’t think I could have waited any longer myself; I’ve been wanting to kiss you for an infinitely long time. The first kiss, I held it for a while, I wanted to see what you would do, because I didn’t want to stop. It was too good, too addicting, too amazing to just stop like that. After that first kiss, I just wanted more, and It made me so happy that you wanted it too. You looked so happy, so excited, so full of life. It’s like something lit up inside you, like all that tiredness and pain that you’ve been going through had just disappeared, for just a little while. And it disappeared for me too, honestly. I was extremely suicidal back then, but on that day, at Paseo, I didn’t think of hurting myself, I didn’t even think of hurting others; the only thing on my mind was, “God I hope my breath doesn’t smell bad.” 

It was at that point that I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to make you smile. Yes, I felt a bit of fear because I didn’t feel capable of doing so, but I would be damned if I didn’t fucking try. And I hope I’ve done well up until now.

Well, if I’m being honest, I know I haven’t done well. I’ve hurt you, I’ve broken your trust and I proved that I’m completely irresponsible. That’s why I’ve been working my ass off to be a better man. Yes, man. I want to be that man for you, not just a boy or kid or guy, I want to be a man. The one who you can trust, who you can love without feeling like I’m going to just let you down again like I have so many times in the past. By the time I arrive in Ecuador, I will be at least a 20% cooler Gabe, I assure you, with a 45% increase in responsibility and 5% less jealousy (I’m working on the jealousy, that gonna take some time, but don’t worry, I’m aiming to reduce it by 20% next year to make up for it).

Let’s go back to the word “Home” for a bit, shall we? I have some things I need to get off my chest, and I feel like you deserve to know. Let’s start with Chile. I never really recognized Chile as my home, considering the fact that I lived in it for only my first two years of infancy with a total of 20 month’s worth of visiting over 19 years. I still identify as Chilean, and it really bothers me that you joke about me being more gringo than Chilean, but I know that you only tease, so it really is fine, you know? Speaking of gringo, lets get into the US. I’ve lived in the US for a total of 12 years with about four months total of visiting throughout my four years in Ecuador, give or take a month or two. You, like so many others, joked that I was extremely gringo, but honestly, I don’t think I am. I can’t really identify myself with the US. Yes, it’s been my home for a disgustingly long amount of time, but that doesn’t mean that it actually was my home. I felt homey at the beginning because I didn’t really know any other place, and because my family was there. But then Simon left. He graduated from the University of Maryland, he did spectacular apparently. I actually tried to ignore the fact that he was leaving though, as if I just refused to accept that he would no longer be a part of my life. And for a while, it was okay. What really hit me was my sister’s departure. She had just graduated from Churchill High School, and she got accepted into La Universidad Catolica de Chile, which was fucking amazing! But again, I chose to ignore it. In fact, according to her, she didn’t even want to go! She wanted to study in the US, in Maryland. But my parents had some massive turmoil at that point, so they pretty much forced her to go to Chile, but I didn’t know this until much later. To be honest, I don’t think that I will ever feel as abandoned as I did then. My sister, who would protect me from my father’s temper, who would clean up my tears, who would promised to be there for me always, just disappeared. We didn’t really talk for about two years after that. Yes, I would visit Chile, and I would tell her EVERYTHING in my life, but it was still super awkward between us.  It’s funny though, whenever my mom and I flew back to the US after visiting Chile, I would just be bawling my eyes out, begging to see my sister again and I would apparently wonder why she left in the first place. I was heartbroken that my sister cared so little about me, or so I thought. I think that’s the reason why I want you to spend so much time with your sister, because even though she’s super angsty and acting like a total teen by ignoring you, it’s going to hurt when you leave for university, for the both of you. What made the pain worse for me was the fact that I was left alone, between two warring parties: Dad and Mom. The short tempered man who I was terrified of, or the sweethearted woman who knows exactly what strings to pull to make it seem like she was the victim. My mom definitely isn’t perfect, I hope you know that. She has a very dark side that she shows much less of now, but then again, don’t we all? I became a very good liar because of my parents, you know? I’ve only cried two times because of the divorce when I was younger: when my father broke down because he knew that I wasn’t going to live with him, and when he said that he would leave me if I wanted him to. Those were very extreme situations, so they don’t count. I would look like a total asshole if I didn’t cry at those times. Then again, I am a total asshole, so it would have actually matched the personality, but oh well, I wasn’t strong enough to hold back those tears. But I did hold them back for the rest of middle school. When you make someone choose between two things, you have to make sure that the person is ready for such a big responsibility. We take choice for granted, because it gives us so so much power, but for an 11 year old boy, choosing between your parents is absolutely soulcrushing. I did it anyways though, I didn’t have much of a choice in the first place. I’m pretty sure I would have killed myself if they stayed together and fought so often like they did before, especially now that I had no one to help me ignore the fights, to ignore the fear, the pain, and the uncertainty. But now it all came to me. Once I chose my mom over my dad, my first depressive thought came in; I thought, “Am I even worth it?” “Am I even worth all this pain and suffering? All this fighting? I’m just a chubby kid who’s the son of two extremely powerful, very intelligent people, why the hell are they fighting over me?” “Why do they even love me?” A few months later, after constant fights with my mom, I finally began thinking, “Do they even love me in the first place? Or am I just a tool for them to use to hurt each other?” That kinda made the resentment worse, if I’m being honest. It didn’t really help much. The fights between me an my mom got worse. We would fight every night, whenever she came home from work. Eventually, I reached a point to where I didn’t even remember what it felt to have just ONE FUCKING DAY where we didn’t fight. Of course it was all my fault though, I was always the one who instigated the fighting, because I was so angry and resentful that I had to force myself to be happy for them. But them my mom left for Haiti in 7th grade. I didn’t cry in front of her, but I did whenever I went to bed. I felt abandoned again. I felt abandoned by two people; my sister, and my mom. Now I know that that wasn’t really the case, my mom got paid a hell of a lot for going to Haiti, so it really was worth it, I guess. I’m skeptical of that part, considering that I was constantly scared that something was going to happen to her. There was a German UN worker there, she was reckless and made a mistake that led to her being kidnapped, raped, beaten and held for ransom by Haitan narcos. Can you really blame me for being scared? I was terrified. We talked by skype every night, but we still fought. I fought with my caretaker, my tutor, everyone who I knew I could control. I’m a real piece of shit honestly, because even though I didn’t know the word for it back then, I knew exactly what I was doing: manipulating. I manipulated others to feel bad so that it would be me who had to forgive them, no the other way around. This worked for my tutor, but not for Karin, my caretaker at the time. She was a badass Chilean with a lot of Mapuche blood, she didn’t take shit from anyone, and I’m grateful for that. She helped me grow up, she helped me see that I was being a little asshole who needed to learn that hurting others isn’t the way to resolve one’s own pain. School was actually a vessel for me, a way for me to get away and forget the problems I had at home. I worked my ass off, and I did excellent, but I didn’t really care for it, it was just a way to forget. I did my best to ignore my dad as much as I could during that time, I was too afraid to be angry at him. You haven’t seen him angry; he’s terrifying. Whenever I would visit him at his house, which was every other weekend, I would spend most of my time avoiding him by going on my laptop or playing video games. I hated him because I felt that his way of dealing with his anger wasn’t fair, because he would scream at me or hit inanimate objects. I think you can see where my temper came from. My mom would come to visit every month or so, and for those days, we wouldn’t really fight at all, but it felt so... uncomfortable and alienating that she was there. It was like, I had forgotten how it felt to have a parent around. I forgot to mention that when my mom left to Haiti, I didn’t go to live with my dad until the last few months of my final year of middle school; for the most part, I lived with Karin, who did a pretty excellent job of taking care of me, honestly. I began going out with my friends a bit more often in 8th grade. We would play Capture the Flag, Soccer, Football, the works. It was honestly the funnest time I had. I wish I got to spend more time with them. The group varied at time, but they were mainly: Vicente Rudolph (my best friend outside of school), Maiu Romano, Daniel Espinoza, Charles Grody, Peter Harich (that guy was crazy, pretty cool though), Leetal, Mackenzie, and two others that I don’t remember. Oh yes, and Rodrigo Lamas! He and I were super close. It sucked that he ignored me once I came to visit. Oh well. I still have those memories, and I’ll honestly treasure them forever. They made me feel like I was a part of something, like I wasn’t completely alone. With them, I was actually happy. But with all good things, they must end. Thus came the move. I had to move to Ecuador, so I had to say goodbye to all my friends. I forgot to say, I hung out with a different group of people in school and out of school. The one’s I hung out in school were Trayell Sponge (my best friend and someone who always knew what to say to make me laugh), Dylan, Brandon (aka Bahram) Esmailian, Josiah Wedgwood, two William Chens, and Jared. They were such a badass group, I loved them. I remember that when I told Tray that I was going to leave for Ecuador, he punched the lockers so hard he left a dent, and was immensely pissed off for some reason. “It’s total fucking bullshit,” I remember he said. I remember that he and I tried to keep talking while I was in Ecuador. It didn’t work out, mainly because we both were just too busy with other things. In the end, I couldn’t even find him again, he deleted his goddamned facebook account. I wonder how he’s doing. And voila! I was then in Ecuador! I would go into further detail as to what happened, but this section is wayyy too long already, and I’m starting to feel self-conscious. Besides, you know most of the Ecuador section already. I’m sorry for making this section so long, It was really something that I needed to talk about.

Wow, that took a MASSIVE load off. It feels nice to be able to talk about this stuff. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, you. Wonderful, amazing, beautiful you. I wasn’t lying when I said that you had saved my life you know? Every day I would go home from school, hoping that the  bus would crash or I would get shot, just so that I wouldn’t have to go back home. The bus the was the only escape for me. I constantly thought of it, you know? Suicide. At one point in time, it was literally the only thing on my mind. It made me see how worthless I was, and even though I am much, much better now, I still feel that sometimes. In my opinion, depression can be used as a lense to see oneself at our worst, and we can use that to see all the improvement we’ve made ever since we came to realize all the awful things about ourselves. But you know what I found funny? There wasn’t anything wrong with you. Yes, you had a dark past regarding certain things that I will not get into, but to me, you were still that perfect girl who made me smile. Yes you made mistakes, you fought with your parents, but so did I! And the thing is, I always felt like I could find comfort in you, like you always knew how I felt, and most importantly, you treated me like a human being. I didn’t feel like that with the Seniors honestly, it felt like they were friends with me just for the sake of being friends, not because they actually liked me. Yes there were exceptions, but it was still very frustrating to live in a group that you know you don’t always fit in with. Honestly, both of us have our bad sides and issues, but we also have the side that makes us beautiful and amazing; that’s what makes us human. We are an explosive mixture of all the evil in the world mixed with all the good in the world, and for the first time in a long time, I feel that I can finally say this truthfully: I absolutely fucking love it. I love how humans are hybrids between perfection and mistakes. It makes me see us as humanely perfect, if that makes sense? Like, in the perspective of a human, we are all perfect, because everyone is a unique mixture of good and bad that leads us to a chain of events called life, and we all just want to do just these few things in our rather short lifespan: to fit it, to be happy, and to succeed. That is what makes us so humanely perfect, the fact that we are hybrids of two opposing sides and that we all strive for the very same goal. To me, you aren’t perfect, and I’m not perfect to you, not in the way other people see it at least. We humans make too many mistakes to be called perfect, because we see perfection as a godlike form in which one cannot make any mistakes or fuck up once in a while, but I call bullshit on that. We are perfect, in our human form. We humans fuck up, and that makes us grow and learn and improve, and that makes us perfect, because whether we know it or not, we become better, because we want to be perfect, even though it’s absolutely normal for us to make mistakes throughout our lives. So, in human terms, the fact that we make mistakes but improve upon them, that makes me see us as perfect, because we grow and we learn, even through our vices and mistakes, we are still humanely perfect. 

Maybe that last section didn’t make any sense... sorry about that, I’m a tad sleep deprived, I’ve been writing this for about 3 or so hours now and I’m now entering the wee hours of the morning, so I may become a tad incoherent. 

Nonetheless, I’ve told you a bit about myself, and how I see us as humans, and now I just want to say one thing: I love you. I adore you. To me, your hair can be seen as a rainbow of flowing shimmering locks of hair, and your beautiful eyes are the moon and the sun to me, because it feels like you are there to protect me no matter what. Your voice is the wind to me, how it flows so gently and kisses my face and hugs my body so gently, to show your love for me. Your laughter is the sound of pure happiness, which approaches me whenever I get on skype, because I know that the ringing calling of skype means that I’m just seconds away to hearing your voice. As I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I feel lost without you. You’ve guided my way through so many hard times, and I hope I’ve done the same for you. We’re in this together through thick and thin, no matter how many fights we get into or how angry we are at each other, I still love you, and i still remember all the good, amazing memories we’ve made together, because I will cherish those till the end of my existence, but I hope my existence can end next to your side, when we’re both old enough. You are my love, mi amor, mi vida, my always, and I love you infinitely, please don’t ever forget that. The future is very uncertain, that is for sure, but it’s like you’ve said, “I’m not sure about a lot of things, but I am certain of one thing. And that is that I love you.” Sorry, I may have messed up the wording a tad, but you know what I mean. I too am uncertain about so many things, I just try not to show it. But I am certain that I love you, infinitely and truly. I used to wonder about my future, and if I ever deserved to have one in the first place, but whenever I look at you, I know that I want to keep going, through the good and the bad, that eventually, It’ll all be worth it. You make me want to be a better person, for myself as well this time. I want to be better, because I want to succeed and do great things in life. I want to be happy. Specifically, I want to be happy with you. 

I don’t feel like I’m enough just yet, but that’s something I need to keep working on so that I am enough. I will make you the happiest girl in the world, you just wait and see. 

You must be getting a stroke from all the cheesiness I’ve been saying, and I want to keep going, but I know that If I do I just won’t stop, and I need to post this eventually! Maybe I’ll write another message defining all the ways that you amaze me and make me appreciate you as the amazing, beautiful person you are, but thats for next time. 

For now, I love you infinitely mi amor, so much so that the universe itself cannot contain my love. I want to see you now, so so much that it’s killing me. But i’ll just have to wait. I’ll be there soon, so that I can hold you in my arms again. One month left, please wait for me like I’m waiting for you, I love you 

<3

- GQ

World AIDS Day by the Numbers

36.7 – Estimated number of people, in millions, around the world living with HIV

1.8 – Estimated number who are children, in millions

30+ – Number of FDA-approved antiretroviral drugs for treating HIV

18.2 – Estimated number of HIV-infected persons worldwide, in millions, receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART)

380,000 – Lifetime treatment cost, in dollars, for an HIV infection

96 – Percentage reduction in likelihood of HIV transmission via sex from HIV-positive person on ART to HIV-negative partner

90 – Percentage chance of avoiding HIV by taking PrEP, a daily prescription antiretroviral

30 – Percentage of persons globally who do not know they are infected by HIV

13 – Percentage in the U.S.

78 – Estimated number of people, in millions, around the world who have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic in 1981

35 – Estimated number who have died of AIDS-related illnesses worldwide, in millions

675,000 – Estimated number of people in U.S. who have died

13,000 – Number of Americans who die from AIDS-related causes each year

1.8 million – Estimated number around the world of new HIV infections in 2016, down from 2.1 million in 2015 and a 16 percent decrease since 2010

1 million – Number of people around the world who died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2016

80 – Percentage chance that a girl growing up in Swaziland, Africa will die due to HIV-related causes

1.2 million – Number of Americans currently living with HIV

9.5 – Someone in US is diagnosed with HIV, in minutes

1 in 7 – Ratio of those infected who do not know they are infected

44 – Percentage of adolescent and young adults in US, age 13-24, who do not know they are infected with HIV

23 – Percentage of persons in U.S. with HIV who are simultaneously diagnosed with AIDS

52 – Percentage of new HIV diagnoses in 2015 nationwide based in South, followed by Northeast, West and Midwest, all 18 percent or less

7 – Number of US states with rates of HIV diagnoses equal or above 20 per 100,000 people: Nevada, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and Maryland

1 in 49 – Lifetime risk of HIV diagnosis in Maryland, the highest risk among states (Washington, DC has a 1 in 13 lifetime risk)

1 in 670 – Lifetime risk of HIV diagnosis in North Dakota, the lowest

1 in 99 – Average lifetime risk nationwide

3 – Average length of survival, in years, after a diagnosis of AIDS without treatment

77 – Average life expectancy of a 20-year-old man diagnosed with HIV who receives treatment

78.7 – Average life expectancy of an American male

200 – Number of CD4 cells (a type of immune cell) per cubic millimeter of blood under which a person is considered to have advanced to AIDS

788 million – Federal funding, in dollars, for domestic HIV/AIDS research and prevention in U.S. in 2017

0.71 per 100 – In charitable donations, in dollars, made by U.S. foundations and corporations to HIV/AIDS causes in 2017

549 million – Annual giving to HIV/AIDS programs by private citizens in U.S.

Sources: UNAIDS; Centers for Disease Control; AMFAR; World Health Organization; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; WalletHub; U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; Funders Concerned About AIDS; Kaiser Family Foundation

Pictured: A colorized scanning electron micrograph of an HIV-infected human T cell. Image courtesy of NIH.

mdlksdfsd my fave thing is when ppl outside of florida ask “how do alligators even get in ur pools??? how do they get into ur yards???”

alligators can climb fences. they do this a lot