mysteriousbeetle

[mysteriousbeetle]

frannie is ALSO ready for artfight >:]]]

[mysteriousbeetle]

minecraft wolf

[mysteriousbeetle]

When I (M29) was a young boy (M7) my father (M35) took me into the city (X167) to see a marching band (M23, M21, M22, F22, M24, M25, F21, M

[mysteriousbeetle]

Casual clothes Stephanie Brown for heyra as a part of the @dcforgaza fundraising campaign. Thank you for donating!

Donations are still open!

Find out more info here: https://dcforgaza.carrd.co/

[mysteriousbeetle]

2004

[mysteriousbeetle]

worst fear is that i write something from the heart and it gets mocked as #tumblrprose . second worst fear is big big big big ant colony conspiring to kill me to death

[mysteriousbeetle]

(id in alt!)

mia dearden/speedy for marsbeans6 via @dcforgaza ! tysm, requests close on the 21st!

[mysteriousbeetle]

(id in alt!)

timsteph napping together for @tobetame via @dcforgaza - requests close on the 21st!

[mysteriousbeetle]

[mysteriousbeetle]

Do prisoners actually want/enjoy those penpal programs? Because it seems like such an easy thing to do if it helps them but like with all things prison system related or possibly white savior esq feels I wonder if there's a catch

Ask me about incarceration!

YES.

Oh my god, yes, people are DESPERATE for penpals. Prisoners apply to join those programs and most have years-long waiting lists before they can get matched. These are people who are socially deprived and often feel like no one on the outside even knows they're alive. They need to talk to someone in the "real world" outside of prison.

The big catch is that it's a HUGE commitment - not easy at all. If you become a penpal, you are most likely going to become that person's primary emotional support. If they've got 7 years, you better be ready to do 7 years, keep up with it, and set boundaries for frequency. The absolute worst thing you can do is over-commit, burn yourself out, panic, and ghost them. That happens, and it's devastating.

That said, if you're willing to take that on, you could change or even save someone's life. I'll put more guidance on things to consider if you become a penpal below the cut.

One alternative that's come up in my community, which seems like it was a really low barrier to get started, are card writing events. Before holidays (even things like St. Patrick's day and 4th of July - anything Hallmark has a card for), the group will do a pop-up at a local church. They provide names of incarcerated people who have requested holiday cards, as well as donated greeting cards. They recommend that you write as much as you can - about anything. I once described the scenery on the drive I'd be taking to get home for the holidays, and I bet you anything the recipient read it ten times, because that's how much they crave contact. The nice thing about a program like this is it avoids that long-term commitment. I would love to see more of those crop up around the country.

A prison penpal will most likely, at some point, ask you for money. Financially supporting someone in prison is a lot - incarceration is disgustingly expensive - and you will have some complicated emotions about your level of comfort on the outside compared to theirs, what you're able to give, what you want to give, if you're being taken advantage of, etc. You have to set boundaries with them and yourself before you begin - decide on a number that you're willing to give, and stick to it.

You also have to set relationship boundaries, especially if you're a woman writing to a straight man. Again, these are socially deprived people. Not being allowed to interact with any women for years at a time does not cultivate appropriate behavior. They're lonely, and you will seem like the Only Woman In The World, and that tends to lead to some feelings that can be uncomfortable for the penpal.

You also have to think about your return address in terms of boundaries. Most people in prison will get out someday, and they will likely have very few connections or resources on the outside. Unless you're willing to have this person show up at your house asking for somewhere to live, you might need to go through a program that lets you use its address or get a PO box. You'll probably feel conflicted and gross about that, too, but again, supporting a whole grown person is probably more than you're looking to sign up for when you become a penpal.

[mysteriousbeetle]

explain your gender in 10 words or less without using boring words like “male”, “female”, “nonbinary”, “masculine”, “feminine” or “androgynous”.

go!

[mysteriousbeetle]

"A cure for HIV could be a step closer after researchers found a new way to force the virus out of hiding inside human cells.

The virus’s ability to conceal itself inside certain white blood cells has been one of the main challenges for scientists looking for a cure. It means there is a reservoir of the HIV in the body, capable of reactivation, that neither the immune system nor drugs can tackle.

Now researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, have demonstrated a way to make the virus visible, paving the way to fully clear it from the body.

It is based on mRNA technology, which came to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic when it was used in vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, the researchers have shown for the first time that mRNA can be delivered into the cells where HIV is hiding, by encasing it in a tiny, specially formulated fat bubble. The mRNA then instructs the cells to reveal the virus.

Globally, there are almost 40 million people living with HIV, who must take medication for the rest of their lives in order to suppress the virus and ensure they do not develop symptoms or transmit it. For many it remains deadly, with UNAids figures suggesting one person died of HIV every minute in 2023.

It was “previously thought impossible” to deliver mRNA to the type of white blood cell that is home to HIV, said Dr Paula Cevaal, research fellow at the Doherty Institute and co-first author of the study, because those cells did not take up the fat bubbles, or lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), used to carry it.

The team have developed a new type of LNP that those cells will accept, known as LNP X. She said: “Our hope is that this new nanoparticle design could be a new pathway to an HIV cure.”

When a colleague first presented test results at the lab’s weekly meeting, Cevaal said, they seemed too good to be true.

“We sent her back into the lab to repeat it, and she came back the next week with results that were equally good. So we had to believe it. And of course, since then, we’ve repeated it many, many, many more times.

“We were overwhelmed by how [much of a] night and day difference it was – from not working before, and then all of a sudden it was working. And all of us were just sitting gasping like, ‘wow’.”

Further research will be needed to determine whether revealing the virus is enough to allow the body’s immune system to deal with it, or whether the technology will need to be combined with other therapies to eliminate HIV from the body.

The study is laboratory based and was carried out in cells donated by HIV patients. The path to using the technology as part of a cure for patients is long, and would require successful tests in animals followed by safety trials in humans, likely to take years, before efficacy trials could even begin.

“In the field of biomedicine, many things eventually don’t make it into the clinic – that is the unfortunate truth; I don’t want to paint a prettier picture than what is the reality,” stressed Cevaal. “But in terms of specifically the field of HIV cure, we have never seen anything close to as good as what we are seeing, in terms of how well we are able to reveal this virus.

“So from that point of view, we’re very hopeful that we are also able to see this type of response in an animal, and that we could eventually do this in humans.”

Dr Michael Roche of the University of Melbourne and co-senior author of the research, said the discovery could have broader implications beyond HIV, with the relevant white blood cells also involved in other diseases including cancers.

Dr Jonathan Stoye, a retrovirologist and emeritus scientist at the Francis Crick Institute, who was not involved in the study, said the approach taken by the Melbourne team appeared be a major advance on existing strategies to force the virus out of hiding, but further studies would be needed to determine how best to kill it after that.

He added: “Ultimately, one big unknown remains. Do you need to eliminate the entire reservoir for success or just the major part? If just 10% of the latent reservoir survives will that be sufficient to seed new infection? Only time will tell.

“However, that does not detract from the significance of the current study, which represents a major potential advance in delivery of mRNA for therapeutic purposes to blood cells.”"

-via The Guardian, June 5, 2025

[mysteriousbeetle]

I was standing in the crowd, just trying to get a bag of flour for my family. I didn’t even have a ration card—just hope and empty hands. Then the shooting started. People were screaming, falling. Blood on the ground, flour in the air. I survived, somehow… but what I saw there will haunt me forever.

I can’t go back. I won’t risk my life again just to bring home bread. My family needs flour—not death. If there’s any way you can help, any donation, any support… please. Don’t let that place be the only option left for us.

[mysteriousbeetle]

nudibranch (Acanthadoris lutea). Moss Beach CA, Nov. 2011

[mysteriousbeetle]

"did i tell u this already?" we are in a timeloop and i am in love with u tell me again

[mysteriousbeetle]

[ID: A post from @/Horned_Sphere that reads, "Just found out your boss isn't supposed to hit you". /End ID.]

[mysteriousbeetle]

i lowkey do not gaf about veterans/ppl in the us military with combat ptsd. like if u voluntarily signed up for the us military, u voluntarily signed up to advance colonization and white supremacy and the murder of innocent people, and whatever trauma u have from that is unimportant in my eyes when you've personally contributed to traumatizing entire families and communities and cities and countries