#also i had no idea people who have dengue for the second time are way more likely to develop severe dengue

[waking-hell]

I've been struggling with my mental health for as long as I can remember and they come and tell me rn a simple mosquito can literally end my life lmao

[purplesurveys]

1152

survey by emptyspaces

What song reminds you of being in middle school? Patron Tequila was a huuuuuuuuuge bop in 5th grade, and I can tell you too many kids who were too young for the song nevertheless vibed hard to it. Down by Jay Sean also reminds me of mid-elementary school. I believe both have so far been one-hit wonders, lol.

What was the first thing you learned how to cook? I don’t cook cook, but I remember we had one day in like preschool when we were taught how to make homemade pizza. That was the first dish I remember making. We used white bread for the crust and topped it with tomato sauce, grated cheese, and sliced hotdogs. I ended up liking the ‘recipe’ a lot and frequently asked my aunt or grandma to make it for me.

What does your hair currently look like? It’s slightly damp since I took a shower a couple of hours ago, and it’s currently styled in a low side ponytail.

Who's the worst driver you know? It’s been years since I’ve been in a car where my uncle was in charge of the wheel, but I would always end up feeling nauseous whenever he was the one driving. I never figured out why, but my best bet is because he tends to press hard on the brakes. I also don’t trust anyone who’s fine with being way too close to other cars.

What are some wild animals commonly found where you live? I live in a residential area where there are approximately 0 wild animals roaming around lol. I do have some neighbors who keep chickens, but that’s as wild as it gets over here.

Does it take a lot to make you cry? Nah. Just show me a stereotypical emotional video, like anything to do with grandparents or pets reuniting with their owners, and I’ll produce some tears for you in seconds.

If the last dream you had came true, would that be a good or bad thing? Bad. I was relieved when I finally woke up.

Have you ever had a lucid dream? No. I’ve tried doing it before but just could never get in the zone.

How long did your last car ride last? Something like 20 minutes. The mall isn’t that far away and most of the travel was because our house is way too far from the village’s entrance.

Isn't it disgusting when people chew with their mouth open? I mean c'mon... It’s icky but I have other worse pet peeves.

What's your most prominent memory from 2009? I used to keep this journal where all of my entries were of me roleplaying in the Twilight universe. Obviously it’s embarrassing to think of now, but I must’ve written quite well back then because my classmates loved reading it and used to pass it around during recess and lunch hahaha. That was my only successful stint in fiction writing ever. I know the notebook is still around somewhere, but I refuse to see even just the outside; too much cringe lol.

Do you think there will ever be world peace? A little pessimistic answer but no.

What's your biggest problem at the moment? A client was supposed to send us this file that I needed so I can proceed with a deliverable that we were asked to do today, but he never followed through. That’s fine by me since executions get moved all the time, but it also means he’ll probably send it sometime during the Holy Week break and I’ll have to work during one of my days-off this week. -__-

Has anyone ever told you you're too emotionally needy? I don’t think so. If someone has it would most likely stick with me.

Has an ex ever told you that they want you back? Nope. She has an infinite amount of pride in her bones for her to do that.

Have you ever turned down a job offer? I have never had to, and so far I’ve only been the one turned down haha. Joke’s on them; I’m super happy with the job I’ve landed.

What's the longest hospital stay you've had? For what? I’ve only had to be confined once and that was just an overnight stay. It was a dengue scare but turned out to be just a low platelet count.

Do you know anyone who doesn't know the basics of using a computer? My maternal grandma refuses to learn anything that’s got to do with modern technology, and I suuuper doubt she’d be able to figure out how to turn on a laptop or computer.

What was the last snack you ate? I was feeling hungry earlier and had a bite of this guava chip that my workplace had sent over as a care package; but it tastes super healthy and blech and I felt like I deserved something more junk food-y for finishing off the work week haha. Now I’m having KFC delivered at 1 AM :(((

What's something really basic that you're terrible at? Lighting up a matchstick. I’m scared of fire and I always ask my dad to be the one to light up my scented candles every single time.

Is it just me, or are tv shows/movies getting to be really dumbed down? No. Different generations, different tastes catered. I also think I’ve answered this survey before because I remember saying that I actually appreciate how content these days are more inclusive and open about tackling sensitive issues. That’s the complete opposite of ‘dumbed down’ to me.

Do you know any same-sex married couples? Finding one in the Philippines is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but yeah I happen to know a couple of couples. They probably handled all the paperwork in the US, but still. I’m glad their family is able to thrive here.

What was the last appointment you scheduled? It was a telemedicine consultation. I didn’t need it, but one of our clients recently partnered with this telehealth service and they wanted someone from the agency to use a free trial so we can have a better idea of what the service offers. I was the sacrificial lamb (lmao) and so I had to have this quick video call with one of their doctors. That was the first instance I was glad to have scoliosis because it gave me something to talk about, because otherwise I would be completely lost on what to consult about.

Are you happy with the person you have become? Getting there :) I definitely don’t have as many self-loathing moments than I used to just a few months ago.

What year were you born? 1998.

What does your favorite watch look like? I don’t have one; I don’t use watches as I will probably lose them in like a month anyway.

Did you have one of those Tamagotchi things as a kid? Yeah, but I personally didn’t get the hype and quickly went back to my other toys.

What's your favorite kind of wine? Sweeter ones. I can’t stand bitter wine.

When was the last time you felt lonely? Last Sunday. I was talking to Angela and Andi more excessively than usual that day; and it was most likely the quarantine getting to me. Even though they reassure me that I’m not being too clingy or annoying I still feel like I am, so that day made me rethink and reflect about ways to expand my circles and gain new friends.

Are your parents still together? Yeah, I literally just got them their KFC orders like 10 minutes ago.

Have you ever been so broke you didn't know how you'd keep a roof over your head? I’m thankful to have never been in this position.

Do you know anyone who believes that vaccines cause autism? Possibly. But at least they’re smart enough to keep their mouth shut about it.

What was the last piece of furniture you bought? OMG OMG OMG I *literally* just received it this afternoon but I finally bought a cute lil night lamp for my room :> :> Hahahaha I’ve spent my last four employed months spending on nothing but food, but I decided to switch it up a bit and finally purchase something that won’t be gone the next day, hence the lamp. Not really furniture, but still. It’s the cutest thing ever and it’s currently lighting up my room really prettily!!!

What's a new skill you'd like to learn? Climbing.

How did you celebrate your last birthday? It was the peak of the pandemic when the entire world was still scrambling to figure out how to handle it, so all stores were closed and no one could go out. I barely remember what had happened since that day just flew by, but I do recall that Angela had a box of sushi delivered to my place.

Do you have any great housecleaning tips? Not really.

What's your favorite cocktail? Zombie.

Did your favorite movie come out before or after you were born? Way before I was born; it’s 31 years older than me.

Is there anything you need to do before the end of the day? Nope.

[judgement-free-sideblog]

Blood, tears and sea breeze.

Hi there! First things first, I want to apologize for the long time that has gone by since an update, I am truly sorry. I would explain, I am a doctor and I work in a rural area, we had a nasty Dengue virus outbreak and we had a lot of patients, so I was buried in job, we had no mortal victims thankfully, but it was insane. Also I get the Dengue myself and it was awful, but I feel better now and everything is going back to normal, here is a new chapter to this story I hope you enjoy it.

Warnings: ANGST, mental health issues, graphic depictions of violence, blood, cursing, mentions of sexual assault, mentions of sex, substance abuse.

Summary: The not so peaceful town of Broadchurch face dead again, while Alec Hardy continues his journey to redemption will this school teacher be the key to solve the mystery or just another victim of the ever watching evilness that seems to reside in the town.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 7: Like a sleepover.

Alec parked his car near the church and cursed himself when he realized his mistake since his presence confirmed to the reporters that something or someone interesting was inside, when he approach the benches he could se Paul who was lecturing a woman with an angry tone that he had never listened before, neither have the old lady in front of him since she looked terrified at him.

"Don't come here acting innocent, the lord knows when your motives are driven by greed and I truly hope whatever you use the money they gave you is worth it, and don't you dare to blame it on your grandchildren since they don't need to have this terrible example from their grandmother" He was obviously restraining from using more harsh language but the anger on his face was enough to make his point clear, and Alec even stop himself from storming in. "Now go away Mrs Campbell, and I hope you would think about your actions when you go out and talk with that people" The woman went out walking rapidly and visibly shaken.

"I was under the deception that priests never get mad" the detective enter the room and Paul gesture relaxed immediately. "Although is rewarding seeing you act out like that"

"Well they do when their congregation sell out each other for money" He said fixing up his clerical collar and regaining composure. "I'm glad you are here, it's madness out there, this town I thought they were better than this"

"Well you choose a profession full of disappointments" Y/N voice came from the altar and she approached now wearing what Hardy asume were donated clothes to big for her making her look like a child, and he brushed away the endearing feeling bursting in him for a second "For what is worth you should be more like that, maybe seeing the personification of the wrath of God in your face would make them listen" She said touching his arm making him smile, a stupid smile in Hardy's opinion. "D. I. Hardy, I was not expecting to see you so soon, but I assume you are not here to tell me I can go home already" She said with a pinch of hope in her voice that was killed the instant Alec look at her.

"No, I'm afraid not, and since you staying here has already been released to the media within four hours you can't longer stay here." He said trying to think what to do next.

"Yeah, and Ellie's ... I mean D.S. Miller's nephew certainly did a number on me didn't he?" She said bitterly, she appear more calmed, and he could see a glimpse of the woman who's thoughts he had spend the morning reading.

"That bloody idiot, he would sell out his own mother for a "good story" and he always think he is doing the police a favor, only making our job more difficult" Alec was angry and his mind was still trying to figure out his next move.

"Well now I'm glad I never dated him." Y/N said trying to lighten up the mood. "I can stay at the Trader's I can pay for that for a couple weeks, I would hate to cause more trouble"

"I don't think you should stay that close to Jonathan's house" Pauld said getting ahead of Hardy "Maybe Beth can take you, just for the night at least" He said and then look at Hardy.

"Sure, I mean if she agrees" He said knowing she will since they had been in a similar situation before.

"Great! If you think you can trust Lizzie's family to murderous psychopath, it'll be just like a sleepover" Y/N said sarcastically making both men feel uncomfortable. "I'm kidding? You guys really need to relax" She said looking at them "Now how am I supposed to get out of here?"

"I may have an idea" Hardy said finally with his expression still as stoic as ever.

Ellie stormed in her sister's house and the young man working o his laptop stood up immediately trying seeking cover behind the kitchen table.

"You bloody bastard!" She screamed at him and she grabbed the closest thing to her

"He hey hey... relax" He said putting his hands in front of him, she throw the ceramic fruit to his head. "Hey you almost hit me!" He screamed when she missed and the pear shattered in pieces.

"What the fuck were you thinking?!" Ellie scream again "Don't you have any decency left since you came back? That poor woman you have signaled as a suspect is not even at the police station anymore you moron."

"What? But you take her in for questioning, and she was covered in blood... and..." Olly realized his mistake and start looking at his aunt with sorrow, he was not about to betray his source but he understood that he had done something wrong "Damn it Ellie I'm sorry, I thought it was legitimate information"

"Well it doesn't matter anymore, once again I'm going to clean up your mess, come by the station we are going to release an official statement about Norbury's death and maybe it will help to clear out this mess" She was being reasonable, more than he can hope for since he was sure she was still pissed.

"And the woman? If she is not at the station where is she?" He jump straight back at the subject annoying Miller.

"Too late for you, didn't you hear? There is a horde of reporters raiding the church to talk to her" She smile at him, happy to see he didn't know, and hoping that Hardy had taken care of that end.

Paul came out of the church and a small figure covered jump in the car with him and he drove past the reporters who immediately try to follow him and some even did on their own vehicles, maybe when they figured he was just going out to get the paper and some groceries with the help of a boy that was being punished for misbehaving at school, would they realized their mistake, and how they didn't pay attention to the pair of people that walked from the back of the church to the Latimer's house.

"So, did you talk to Dr. Florence?" Y/N asked when the garden of the Latimer's was in sight "Oh come on, they can't no longer see us" She urged him when he gave her another of his angry looks.

"I did, but I am not supposed to discuss any of the investigation with you" He said finally.

"Fine, I'm sure she was pleased to see you again" She said and smiled at his puzzled face "I have seen you in her office before, and I overhear the last time you were there, you made a big deal about not wanting to come back"He looked ashamed and open the fence of the backyard to avoid her look "Relax I won't tell anybody, no one will listen anyway, I'm crazy remember? We can still be therapy buddies" She wink at him and enter followed by the baffled detective.

"Oi! I thought she was supposed to escape the press, come inside before any of those idiots will see you" Mark Latimer called them and they hurry inside.

"Mrs. Latimer, I don't know how to thank you"Y/N said once they were inside.

"It's nothing, Chloe's room is clean and free since she is at Uni, you can take it, can you show it to her dear?" Mark nodded and they walk out of the kitchen and Hardy could see her holding on to Lizzie a little more than usual.

"I wouldn't bring her here if I felt she was in any way guilty you know" He said to her and her arms relaxed a little.

"Well you can never be completely sure. But if you trust her we would help you for as long as we can."

"Don't worry, I just need her to have a place for the night we will figure something else tomorrow" He said and a couple minutes later he walked out of the house to get back his car. Ellie had the press release almost done by the time he arrived at the station and the sun was setting on Broadchurch.

"Busy day huh?" She said offering a cup of coffee "Brian is finishing with the house but he said he found something interesting about the cottage, he will tell us later, are you ready for the press."

"I'm fine, I swear Miller this bloody town is fill with idiots, this woman just lost her fiance and they are making all this circus about it" he sit on his chair and let go and exasperated sigh. "Let's get this over with".

It was as simple message, a man have been found dead and the police was investigating several lines of information, they had no idea who had done such monstrosity, and they urged the public to speak up, and no they were not considering the partner of the victim as a suspect, yet the mind of one of the many souls watching said, and turn off the telly, before exiting the room carrying a purple suitcase with the name Jonathan Norbury on it.

Tag list:

@laciesaito

@allonsymexgirl

[mosquitobadminton45]

Best Mosquito Badminton of 2020

Here’s how electric bats work: Mosquitoes are fast and they can be aware of their surroundings. So setting up a trap for them doesn’t really work. You have to be active in getting rid of them one by one. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s the only way to ensure that you’ll get rid of them.

I always use a mosquito killer bat, and I’ve found it to be the most effective way to make my home mosquito-free. It works all the time. And it’s way quicker than any other methods.

There are lots of killer rackets in the market, but only a few of them work properly. They’re cost-effective and they neutralize the mosquitoes. Here are the top 5 best mosquito killer bats that you should get.

Hunter Brand Mosquito Killer Swatter1. Hunter Brand Mosquito Killer Swatter

The top choice is the mosquito racket by the Hunter brand. If you can’t decide on which one to get, then you should pick this. It has the best features out of any other rackets on this list. Plus, it comes with a 6-month warranty. Check the product page on Amazon to learn more about it.

Pros – This bat is very effective in killing insects. It has a high voltage and a low current, which stuns any mosquito while being safe to use. Some people have concerns about the safety of using these rackets. With this racket, you don’t have to worry. This racket is environmentally friendly and easy for anyone to use. Don’t ever touch the electric area!

The brand and product quality are very good. It’s a trusted brand that makes electric products that last. Another good thing about this racket is that is is pretty large. This means it can cover more area, maybe even kill multiple mosquitoes at once. It can also be plugged in and charged. No charger required – it’s built inside the bat. You just need to plug it into an outlet.

Cons – There are no Cons to report here! This is about as good as an electric racket for mosquitoes can get. It’s a highly recommended product.

Prepoy Mosquito And Insect Killer Racket2. Prepoy Mosquito And Insect Killer Racket

The Prepoy mosquito racket is another high-quality bat that’s second on my list. It’s the cheap, economic option for people who want to save some money. It’s a lot cheaper than the Hunter racket. But there are also some downsides to using a cheap one like this. Here are the Pros and Cons:

Pros – Prepoy is safe and easy to use. The electricity output is low, so it doesn’t pose any risk for people around it. You should be careful not to touch the electric field though, because it stings a little. It’s safe for pets and environmentally friendly. Of course, a mosquito racket keeps you safe because it prevents the spread of diseases that mosquitoes often carry, like malaria and dengue.

Another big advantage, which I mentioned, is that this is a cheap product. It’s great for people who are looking to save money. It also works well. It also has an efficient battery, which charges in only 4-6 hours. The charger adaptor is built-in and you plug it into an AC outlet to recharge it.

Cons – Since the bat is pretty cheap, it’s not as reliable as the Hunter brand model. You get what you pay for, and if you want this racket, then don’t expect to get premium quality from it. It’s good, but not the best one in the market.

BigSavings Electric Mosquito Zapper3. BigSavings Electric Mosquito Zapper

This mosquito killer racket is one of my favorites, for a few reasons. Firstly, the electric field design is creative. It also comes in a variety of colors. But besides the design, it also has a set of impressive features. Here are the Pros and Cons:

Pros – It has a very efficient battery. When you use it for the first time, you need to charge it for about 6 hours. After that, whenever you use it you only need to charge is for 1 – 2 hours. It has a very low charge time. One of the electric rackets I used had an 8 hour charge time! It took too long to charge. This is one of the most efficient ones.

Another advantage of using this racket is how it’s effective at killing bugs in one swat. It has a multi-layer design, so it doesn’t just let mosquitoes escape, like some other rackets do. It traps them and kills them in one zap.

Cons – There are no problems that I found with this product.

ME Mosquito Killing Racket4. ME Mosquito Killing Racket

ME (Mannan Enterprises) mosquito racket is powerful and unique. It has a charging voltage between 220-Volts to 240-Volts. The frequency is between 50 Hz and 60 Hz and it has a work voltage of 2200-Volts. But don’t worry, that’s not the actual current.

Pros – One of the cool things about this racket is the web-like design. Not only does this suit the purpose, it actually helps with trapping the mosquitoes better. It ensures that if you swing at a mosquito, then it won’t be able to go through the bat. The pattern is too complicated, and that’s good for catching mosquitoes.

This bat needs to be charged for 5 hours before the first use. It has an LED light indicator, which shows you the status of the charge. You’re recommended to turn it off as soon as it’s finished charging. This is to not overcharge the battery. It has a good battery, and is safe and leak-proof. It also charges in a short amount of time.

Cons – This product has a few complaints by people who said that the quality was not as good as advertised. There are also some negative reviews about the package. But the majority of reviews, and the overall rating, and positive.

FEOMY Mosquito Racket With LED Torch5. FEOMY Mosquito Racket With LED Torch

This electric racket by FEOMY is different than the other ones on this list. And that’s mainly because it has an LED flashlight attached to the handle. Pretty cool, right? It’s not a feature that you would expect in a mosquito killer bat. Let’s look at the Pros and Cons to see if it’s worth it:

Pros – The LED torch is the best feature of this racket. It’s very useful, because you will often need to get rid of mosquitoes on the middle of the night. Say, if you’re sleeping. Instead of having to turn on the room’s lights, you can just use this flashlight to find the mosquito. It saves you a lot of trouble. It even helps with

Cons – There’s a question as to whether an LED torch light is necessary for a mosquito racket. Some might say it’s unnecessary and just adds to the weight and cost of the product. Nevertheless, this product has some negative reviews by people who say it doesn’t work properly or last very long. Read its Amazon product page and reviews for more information.

Electric Mosquito Bat With LightSome Tips For Using Your Mosquito Killer Bat If you’ve never used a mosquito racket before, you might not know about the most effective ways to kill a mosquito with it. These are some tips on how to use the racket.

First, you should always keep the racket near you, wherever you’re sitting. Often, what happens is that you suddenly spot a mosquito near you, but the bat is in another room! So you run to get the bat, but when you get back, the mosquito is gone. That’s why it’s handy to keep the bat near you. I always keep it next to me while I’m doing my work or reading.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this isn’t like other methods of mosquito killing, like electric traps or coils. You have to be pro-active in finding and killing mosquitoes. Often, a mosquito will appear near you, and you just need to kill it. But mosquitoes can sort of detect their environment, and they’ll be careful not to come near you, especially if they know you have an electric bat.

One mistake that people make is that they just wave around the bat, and hope that a mosquito will get trapped in it. Don’t do that! You should only swing the bat when you see a mosquito in sight. If you swing it randomly, then a mosquito will see it and they will avoid it. You’d be lucky if you killed any that way.

Besides that, there are some other steps you should take in mosquito-proofing your home. The first one is to make sure all your windows and doors are closed after dark. This is when mosquitoes get into your home. So if you can prevent that, you won’t even have to deal with them. Spraying a mosquito repellent on your doors and windows is also a good idea.

Mosquitoes pose some serious health concerns, so it’s time to deal with the problem seriously. You can also look at other effective ways to get rid of mosquitoes.

[orbemnews]

Genetically modified mosquitoes have arrived in the US For the first 12-week phase, blue-and-white boxes containing about 12,000 GMO eggs developed by a US-owned, British-based company called Oxitec have been placed in six small areas of Ramrod Key, Cudjoe Key and Vaca Key. When water is added, the mosquitoes hatch, mature and enter the environment over the next week or so. A small, vocal group of Florida Key residents have fought the release of what they call “mutant mosquitoes” since the project was announced — and they are incensed. “Our opposition has been long and strong,” said Barry Wray, the executive director of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition. “We live here, this our home, and they’re forcing this down people’s throats.” “The only thing you can do legally at this point is stand in your yard with an insect fogger,” said Mara Daly, a resident of Key Largo, Florida, who has fought the release for eight years. “You can’t touch a box, but you can fog the s**t out of your own yard if you don’t want to be a part of the trial.” First release of GMO mosquito in US The Florida Keys project, greenlit by the US Environment Protection Agency in May 2020, was approved to release up to 750 million genetically altered mosquitoes in 2021 and 2022. The program’s target: Aedes aegypti, an invasive species of mosquito that carries several potentially deadly diseases, including yellow fever, dengue and Zika virus. The rapid spread of Zika became a worldwide public health emergency in 2016 after an alarming spike of babies born with abnormally small heads — a condition called microcephaly — to mothers infected with Zika in Brazil and French Polynesia. Aedes aegypti soon spread the virus to at least 34 countries and territories, including Texas and Florida in the US. Dengue outbreaks, often epidemic in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, also strike south Florida: Key Largo had a small outbreak in 2019 and 2020, while Key West had outbreaks in 2009 and 2010. Known as “break-back fever” due to the piercing headaches and joint pain it creates, dengue also causes flu-like symptoms, including fever and rashes. Serious cases can cause bleeding, shock, organ failure and even death. In reality, the 2021 release will include far fewer than the 750 million approved by the EPA, said Nathan Rose, who heads regulatory affairs for Oxitec. In the initial stage, 144,000 male mosquitoes will be released in the three-month pilot period, Rose said, after which additional testing will be done to ensure the mosquitoes are mating with females in the wild and reducing the population as planned. If successful, up to 20 million more male mosquitoes could be released during the height of the mosquito season this year. A deadly mate The current Oxitec method targets female mosquitoes of Aedes aegypti — because only the female mosquito bites for blood, which she needs to mature her eggs. Males feed only on nectar and do not bite people, so they are not a carrier for disease. While many mosquitoes live in grasses and fields, the female Aedes aegypti prefers to live around her favorite prey — humans — and can breed in receptacles as small as flower vases and shower drains. Forgotten or discarded containers in backyards or construction sites? Even better. Unlike species that carry other diseases which may swarm and bite viciously, the female Aedes aegypti is sneaky. She prefers to hide under your chair, waiting for just the right moment to attack, typically during the daytime. Capturing a sip or two of your blood, she deposits any virus she carries and departs — moving on to the next victim. Oxitec’s solution to the problem is OX5034 — a 2.0 version of its original Aedes aegypti modification. Unlike version 1.0, designed to kill all offspring, the newer model has been genetically altered to pass along a lethal gene that only kills females. The kill switch is triggered in the larval stage of the female’s growth — well before hatching and growing large enough to bite and spread disease. “The second generation of the mosquito allows us to target only the females, and allows the males to continue to go and do more of their work, which helps effectiveness,” said Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen. Only females that are grown in an environment with antibiotics in the tetracycline family will live to mate and give birth, Frandsen said. Those females are kept in the Oxitec production facility in Oxford, England. Eggs they produce are shipped to Florida for release, but since there are no antibiotics in the release boxes, just food and water, the only OX5034 mosquitoes that will survive and fly away are male, Rose explained. Once mature, the GMO males mate with local wild females, passing along the lethal gene that makes their female offspring die. OX5034 male mosquitoes can survive for several generations, or about three to four months, passing along their modified genes to subsequent male offspring. If enough GMO males mate with local females, the population of biting females drops within months — as does disease transmission. A long fight in Florida The state of Florida issued an Experimental Use Permit in June 2020 after seven state agencies unanimously approved the project. But it took over a decade to obtain that approval. The local outbreaks of dengue fever a decade ago left the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District desperate for new options. Despite an avalanche of effort — including aerial, truck and backpack spraying and the use of mosquito-eating fish — local control efforts to contain Aedes aegypti with larvicide and pesticide had been largely ineffective. And costly, too: Even though Aedes aegypti is only 1% of its mosquito population, Florida Keys Mosquito Control typically budgets more than $1 million a year, a full tenth of its total funding, to fighting it. The district reached out to Oxitec for help in 2012. The company had developed a male mosquito named OX513A, programmed to die before adulthood unless it was grown in water that contained the antibiotic tetracycline. Batches of the OX513A would be allowed to live and mate with females; however, their male and female offspring would both inherit the “kill” programming and die, thus limiting population growth. Because few offspring survived, mass production and release of the GMO male was consistent to control local populations. The OX513A mosquito had been field-tested in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil, with Oxitec reporting a large success rate with each release. For example, a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the presence of local Aedes aegypti by 95%. But when word spread in the Florida Keys that a GMO mosquito was on the way, public backlash was swift. More than 100,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the proposal; that number has grown to more than 237,000. The EPA and US Food and Drug Administration spent years investigating the mosquito’s impact on both human health and the environment, allowing time for public input along the way, Frandsen said. But public relations campaigns reminding Floridians that the male GMO mosquito doesn’t bite didn’t solve the problem. Media reports quoted angry residents refusing to be treated as “guinea pigs” for the “superbug” or “robo-Frankenstein” mosquito. In the midst of the evaluation, Oxitec developed the second-generation OX5034, which it dubbed the “Friendly” Aedes aegypti mosquito, and withdrew the application for the first. New mosquito, similar worries Today, environmental groups and local advocates worry that the new “Friendly” mosquito has not been as rigorously tested as the first generation, a claim that Oxitec roundly refutes. One concern is that some female larvae may live and make their way to local sources of antibiotics, thus defusing their genetic kill-switch. Pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, are in the US water supply, primarily due to “human excretion and by drugs being flushed down the toilet,” according to the US Geological Survey. “In my opinion, some of those females will find antibiotics, just because there’s so many antibiotics in the environment, and so some of them will live,” said environmentalist Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the Center for Food Safety, which advocates for organic, ecological and sustainable food alternatives. “That’s actually something which was looked at carefully by the regulators when they approved this project,” Oxitec’s Rose told CNN. “They looked to see if there were any potential environmental sources of tetracycline in the project release area and the conclusion was ‘No, there weren’t.’ “ The Aedes aegypti species flies very short distances, typically traveling no more than 150 meters, or less than a mile, in its two-week lifespan. “So the chance of a female mosquito actually finding some tetracycline in a place where she could lay her eggs, and then have some of the female offspring survive is extremely, extremely low,” Rose said. Despite a lengthy, ongoing public education campaign by local officials, including monthly webinars designed to address citizen concerns, critics like Barry Wray believe that many Florida Key residents have no idea that “mutant” mosquitoes are coming. “You can walk down the street and knock on anybody’s door, and I guarantee you about 80% of the people will know nothing about this whatsoever,” Wray said. “We have gone above and beyond as it relates to public engagement,” Oxitec CEO Frandsen said. “Can you imagine any other large multinational chemical company doing 14 public webinars, being at farmer’s markets or going door to door to talk about the technology? Never happens.” Critics say they will not stop fighting the release, telling CNN they are speaking with officials in the Biden administration’s EPA and may even consider legal action. “I’m hoping civil unrest happens,” said Key Largo’s Mara Daly. “Other than that, you can hire a private mosquito control company to come out to your whole community and have them spray. There’s no way to opt out of this trial at this point.” Source link Orbem News #Arrived #Genetically #GeneticallymodifiedmosquitoeshavearrivedintheUS-CNN #Health #modified #mosquitoes

[dipulb3]

Genetically modified mosquitoes have arrived in the US

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-have-arrived-in-the-us/

Genetically modified mosquitoes have arrived in the US

For the first 12-week phase, blue-and-white boxes containing about 12,000 GMO eggs developed by a US-owned, British-based company called Oxitec have been placed in six small areas of Ramrod Key, Cudjoe Key and Vaca Key. When water is added, the mosquitoes hatch, mature and enter the environment over the next week or so.

A small, vocal group of Florida Key residents have fought the release of what they call “mutant mosquitoes” since the project was announced — and they are incensed.

“Our opposition has been long and strong,” said Barry Wray, the executive director of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition. “We live here, this our home, and they’re forcing this down people’s throats.”

“The only thing you can do legally at this point is stand in your yard with an insect fogger,” said Mara Daly, a resident of Key Largo, Florida, who has fought the release for eight years. “You can’t touch a box, but you can fog the s**t out of your own yard if you don’t want to be a part of the trial.”

First release of GMO mosquito in US

The Florida Keys project, greenlit by the US Environment Protection Agency in May 2020, was approved to release up to 750 million genetically altered mosquitoes in 2021 and 2022.

The program’s target: Aedes aegypti, an invasive species of mosquito that carries several potentially deadly diseases, including yellow fever, dengue and Zika virus.

The rapid spread of Zika became a worldwide public health emergency in 2016 after an alarming spike of babies born with abnormally small heads — a condition called microcephaly — to mothers infected with Zika in Brazil and French Polynesia. Aedes aegypti soon spread the virus to at least 34 countries and territories, including Texas and Florida in the US.

Dengue outbreaks, often epidemic in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, also strike south Florida: Key Largo had a small outbreak in 2019 and 2020, while Key West had outbreaks in 2009 and 2010.

Known as “break-back fever” due to the piercing headaches and joint pain it creates, dengue also causes flu-like symptoms, including fever and rashes. Serious cases can cause bleeding, shock, organ failure and even death.

In reality, the 2021 release will include far fewer than the 750 million approved by the EPA, said Nathan Rose, who heads regulatory affairs for Oxitec.

In the initial stage, 144,000 male mosquitoes will be released in the three-month pilot period, Rose said, after which additional testing will be done to ensure the mosquitoes are mating with females in the wild and reducing the population as planned.

If successful, up to 20 million more male mosquitoes could be released during the height of the mosquito season this year.

A deadly mate

The current Oxitec method targets female mosquitoes of Aedes aegypti — because only the female mosquito bites for blood, which she needs to mature her eggs. Males feed only on nectar and do not bite people, so they are not a carrier for disease.

While many mosquitoes live in grasses and fields, the female Aedes aegypti prefers to live around her favorite prey — humans — and can breed in receptacles as small as flower vases and shower drains. Forgotten or discarded containers in backyards or construction sites? Even better.

Unlike species that swarm and bite viciously, the female Aedes aegypti is sneaky. She prefers to hide under your chair, waiting for just the right moment to attack, typically during the daytime. Capturing a sip or two of your blood, she deposits any virus she carries and departs — moving on to the next victim.

Oxitec’s solution to the problem is OX5034 — a 2.0 version of its original Aedes aegypti modification. Unlike version 1.0, designed to kill all offspring, the newer model has been genetically altered to pass along a lethal gene that only kills females.

The kill switch is triggered in the larval stage of the female’s growth — well before hatching and growing large enough to bite and spread disease.

“The second generation of the mosquito allows us to target only the females, and allows the males to continue to go and do more of their work, which helps effectiveness,” said Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen.

Only females that are grown in an environment with antibiotics in the tetracycline family will live to mate and give birth, Frandsen said. Those females are kept in the Oxitec production facility in Oxford, England.

Eggs they produce are shipped to Florida for release, but since there are no antibiotics in the release boxes, just food and water, the only OX5034 mosquitoes that will survive and fly away are male, Rose explained.

Once mature, the GMO males mate with local wild females, passing along the lethal gene that makes their female offspring die. OX5034 male mosquitoes can survive for several generations, or about three to four months, passing along their modified genes to subsequent male offspring.

If enough GMO males mate with local females, the population of biting females drops within months — as does disease transmission.

A long fight in Florida

The state of Florida issued an Experimental Use Permit in June 2020 after seven state agencies unanimously approved the project. But it took over a decade to obtain that approval.

The local outbreaks of dengue fever a decade ago left the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District desperate for new options. Despite an avalanche of effort — including aerial, truck and backpack spraying and the use of mosquito-eating fish — local control efforts to contain Aedes aegypti with larvicide and pesticide had been largely ineffective.

And costly, too: Even though Aedes aegypti is only 1% of its mosquito population, Florida Keys Mosquito Control typically budgets more than $1 million a year, a full tenth of its total funding, to fighting it.

The district reached out to Oxitec for help in 2012. The company had developed a male mosquito named OX513A, programmed to die before adulthood unless it was grown in water that contained the antibiotic tetracycline.

Batches of the OX513A would be allowed to live and mate with females; however, their male and female offspring would both inherit the “kill” programming and die, thus limiting population growth. Because few offspring survived, mass production and release of the GMO male was consistent to control local populations.

The OX513A mosquito had been field-tested in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil, with Oxitec reporting a large success rate with each release. For example, a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the presence of local Aedes aegypti by 95%.

But when word spread in the Florida Keys that a GMO mosquito was on the way, public backlash was swift. More than 100,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the proposal; that number has grown to more than 237,000.

The EPA and US Food and Drug Administration spent years investigating the mosquito’s impact on both human health and the environment, allowing time for public input along the way, Frandsen said.

But public relations campaigns reminding Floridians that the male GMO mosquito doesn’t bite didn’t solve the problem. Media reports quoted angry residents refusing to be treated as “guinea pigs” for the “superbug” or “robo-Frankenstein” mosquito.

In the midst of the evaluation, Oxitec developed the second-generation OX5034, which it dubbed the “Friendly” Aedes aegypti mosquito, and withdrew the application for the first.

New mosquito, similar worries

Today, environmental groups and local advocates worry that the new “Friendly” mosquito has not been as rigorously tested as the first generation, a claim that Oxitec roundly refutes.

One concern is that some female larvae may live and make their way to local sources of antibiotics, thus defusing their genetic kill-switch. Pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, are in the US water supply, primarily due to “human excretion and by drugs being flushed down the toilet,” according to the US Geological Survey.

“In my opinion, some of those females will find antibiotics, just because there’s so many antibiotics in the environment, and so some of them will live,” said environmentalist Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the Center for Food Safety, which advocates for organic, ecological and sustainable food alternatives.

“That’s actually something which was looked at carefully by the regulators when they approved this project,” Oxitec’s Rose told Appradab. “They looked to see if there were any potential environmental sources of tetracycline in the project release area and the conclusion was ‘No, there weren’t.’ “

The Aedes aegypti species flies very short distances, typically traveling no more than 150 meters, or less than a mile, in its two-week lifespan.

“So the chance of a female mosquito actually finding some tetracycline in a place where she could lay her eggs, and then have some of the female offspring survive is extremely, extremely low,” Rose said.

Despite a lengthy, ongoing public education campaign by local officials, including monthly webinars designed to address citizen concerns, critics like Barry Wray believe that many Florida Key residents have no idea that the “mutant” mosquitoes are coming.

“You can walk down the street and knock on anybody’s door, and I guarantee you about 80% of the people will know nothing about this whatsoever,” Wray said.

“We have gone above and beyond as it relates to public engagement,” Oxitec CEO Frandsen said. “Can you imagine any other large multinational chemical company doing 14 public webinars, being at farmer’s markets or going door to door to talk about the technology? Never happens.”

Critics say they will not stop fighting the release, telling Appradab they are speaking with officials in the Biden administration’s EPA and may even consider legal action.

“I’m hoping civil unrest happens,” said Key Largo’s Mara Daly. “Other than that, you can hire a private mosquito control company to come out to your whole community and have them spray. There’s no way to opt out of this trial at this point.”

[irenesbackpackingadventures]

Camron Highland to Ko Lanta

Visiting the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia was a welcome relief from the heat of the city. Surprisingly as the UK was having a mini heat wave, at the time I was there it was hotter in the UK than where I was, despite it only being April.

I spent two days in the highlands, the first day I did a tour which was a whistle stop tour of all the things in the area. The highlight being the BOH tea plantation, which was very interesting especially as I love tea so much, and I got to have my first proper brew in weeks!

There was a girl in the same hostel as me who had dengue fever, she had been to hospital and as it is reportable disease the government had sent out people with very strong insect killer to fumigate the whole town. It was horrible, despite all the windows and doors being shut, it still came in the buildings. I could taste it!

I woke up early to go for hike the second morning with a Turkish man I met on the tour the day before and a German man he had met at his hostel. It was more like a jungle trek than a hike, the path was barely visible in places, luckily there were pieces of tape wrapped around trees every so often, so we knew were still on the right path. As we were nearing the end of our walk and were heading back to the town we came across two stray puppies, they were so cute, I want to take them with me, I have to resist this urge a lot, otherwise I think I would have more dogs than Battersea by now!

After well-earned rest, I went for food and a walk with an English girl from my hostel, before going to the night market with a group of other travels also from our hostel. It was a very nice evening.

The following day I took a coach to Penang, an island on the north west coast of Malaysia. Penang is full of street art and had plaques explain the meaning being the names of the streets. I was staying on Love Lane which is where the rich foreigners housed their mistresses away from their wives.

I visited Fort Cornwallis and was lucky enough to be the only person there for the tour, so I got a private tour by a wonderful lady named Molly, who told me about the fort, and also about the history of the town. This was my favourite thing in Penang, mainly due to Molly.  To be honest I didn’t really do much in Penang, I did walk about for quite a while and failed miserably to locate the music museum which I really wanted to visit as it sounded very interesting.

The bus journey from Penang to Krabbi was interesting as most of the time I had no idea what was actually going on.  Thankfully there was a Malaysian man who spoke good English to explain things to me for the first few hours, I was surprised when we were at the duty free shops to see that the price of the alcohol was almost the same as it is in the supermarkets in the UK. I was also surprised when there were no checks of our bags, I walked through customs holding nothing but my phone, passport and wallet, I left everything else on the minibus.

When we arrived in Hat Yai I was told to get out at a café and told my bus would be there soon. I asked for confirmation from a lady in the café as to the time of the bus, she shrugged and said ‘I no know’. Travel in Asia just seems to work but I can’t work out how. Eventually a tuk tuk arrived to take me to the main bus station, where I got on the final bus to Krabbi.

I spent a day in Krabbi walking around the town, I want for a walk through the mangroves, hoping to get a boat over to an island in the middle of the estuary, but when I got to the end of the walk way there was a jetty and no boat which scuppered that plan. I did however witness my first Cock fight, it was just the first of many upsetting things I would see in Thailand.

I spent the next four nights on Ko Lanta, enjoying two relaxing beach days, and spent another day riding around the island on a scooter.

I first rode to Ko Lanta Animal Welfare Centre where I walk a dog called Sheldon, then spent nearly two hours in the cattery playing with kittens and the older cats too. The rest of the day I spent riding around to different view points to enjoy the beauty of the island. I found a stretch of beach and discovered plenty of life in the rock pools, adding to the number of species in the pools when I slipped on the rocks and landed in the water, lucky I escaped with just a bruised leg and dented pride after an English man came running over to make sure I was ok. I finished the day by watching the sunset from a beautiful beach, the colours in the sky were incredible.

[keywestlou]

TRUMP WINS.....FOR NOW.....THERE IS ALWAYS LAS VEGAS

Trump won for the second time yesterday. The man is unimpeachable! He has one problem, however. People such as he get their just due at some later time.

So it will be with Trump. He has too many criminal and civil matters hanging over his head. In due course, he will be litigating them. Probably more than one at a time. Justice delayed will not be justice denied in his instance. He always has Las Vegas!

Recall O.J. Simpson. Many thought he was guilty of killing his wife and her boy friend. Yet he was acquitted. Thirteen years later Simpson was tried on criminal charges in a separate matter in Las Vegas. He was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years. He was paroled after 9.

Trump will get his.

Trump has his guardian angel. The one that comes from below. He played his most devoted supporters for suckers and insulted the intelligence of the rest of the American people.

Trump support by Senators and Representatives was nothing less than an abdication of responsibility.  Such abdication invites more lawlessness from Trump or those who follow who are of his ilk.

This episode in U.S. history carries a clear message. We cannot sit on our asses and turn our backs on national terrorism. It has come out of the shadows. It must now be defeated.

Fire should be fought with fire. The country cannot sit idly back and do nothing or very little. All out war is required.

Or, what happened January 6 will occur again. At a time when the terrorists will be successful in overturning the government.

No negotiation with terrorists. The necessary must be done. Intelligence and force the weapons. Wipe them out! Otherwise the Cruzes, Grahams, Hawleys, and Rubios will become America’s leaders.

Poor Ashley Judd. The movie actress and activist. She is going through an experience that would be even too much for a movie.

Judd almost lost her leg in the Congo. At the moment, she is in an ICU unit in South Africa.

Judd’s leg was “shattered” when she tripped on a fallen tree on a pathway in the jungle. She was walking fast and did not see it.

It took 55 hours to get her from the jungle to an operating table in South Africa.

She initially was stuck on the ground where she had fallen for 5 hours. Her leg was “badly misshapened.” Those with her had Judd biting on a stick. In between “howling like an animal.”

She was eventually taken to a trauma unit on a motorcycle while holding the top part of her broken tibia together.

Judd says during these times: “I was at the edge of my edge.”

Florida is a Covid nightmare. Governor DeSantis’ fault. He is inept and at the moment out of control. He is opening some places where the vaccine can be given. Supermarkets and drug stores. However, few if any have the vaccine.

The Governor speaks with pride when he tells of the many sites where one can be inoculated. He forgets to share there is little or no vaccine available.

All at a time when Florida’s coronavirus numbers are skyrocketing.

Syracuse beat Boston College yesterday 75-67. Syracuse’s record now 12-6.

March Madness is around the corner. I doubt Syracuse will play in the big tournament. Unfortunate since Syracuse had the manpower this year. Exceptional players. They rarely were able to come together for a whole game.

Day 2 in Mykonos is my report for today. I changed my mind from yesterday. I began liking Mykonos on Day 2.

DAY 19…..Greece the First Time

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Key West Lou

What a difference a day makes!

My first night on Mikonos I went to the action area. The Chora. Old Mykonos by the waterfront.

My first night was two nights ago.

I reported yesterday that I did not like Mykonos. Too many people. Too much hustle and bustle.

I went back to Chora. Deserted compared to the evening before. Small crowds. Easy to get around. Restaurants basically empty. No one rushing you.

Why the change? I asked around. A simple reason. The night before there were three large cruise ships dumping their passengers off. Last night, no cruise ships.

I sat at an outside cafe the first night by the water. A large place. Expensive. Just watching the people and drinking. Not eating. All the tables were full with cruise ship people eating. Spending big dollars. Last night I was the only person sitting at the same outside cafe. Still only drinking. The owner and staff fell all over me. Glad you returned, anything you want, etc.

Business is tough. It is the euro situation. A major election Sunday that will determine the economic future of Greece for the next 20 years. It could also determine the subsequent rise and fall of the euro.

The local merchants were available to talk with me last night. One retailer told me his business was down 70 per cent in the last five years. The restaurant owner where I was taking up space said his business was down 40 per cent.

They all speak with fear in their eyes. They all hate Germany and Merkel. For two reasons. Germany is the only nation eating big time under the euro. Greece hurting the worst. The other reason is World War II and the Nazi domination of Greece.

After last evening, I started liking Mykonos. So much so that I may be staying a few extra days. Fourni comes into the decision making process, also.

Again, the difference a day makes. Fourni excites me. I wanted so to visit Fourni and spend some time there. Like a couple of weeks. That is how good I thought it would be.

I have no firm schedule. I was told that Fourni was a short 2 hour speed boat ride from Mykonos.

I went to buy my speed boat ticket yesterday. No boat to Fourni. They discontinued the run a couple of months ago.

Alternative ways. I could fly to Athens. From there fly to Somos. Stay overnight in Somos. Take the morning boat from Somos to Fourni.

I want to see Fourni badly, but not that bad. Too much time and too expensive.

There are no flights to Fourni from Mykonos.

I took a walk down to the waterfront. Chatted with several fisherman. Small boat owners. Would they take me to Fourni with their boat. About a 4-5 hour trip in a small boat. All said no. Too dangerous and too long. We never even got to money.

So it is Mykonos for a few days.

The electric power goes off occasionally in Key West. Yesterday the water went off in Mykonos. A frequent occurrence I was told. No water for six hours! Key West power is never off that long.

Apparently a pipe broke somewhere. I, and I assume most other vacationers on the island, were all greased up from sunbathing and no way to remove it. When the water did come back on after six hours, it was rusty for another half hour.

I was not upset. Only sticky. Happenings such as water breaks come with island living.

I finally found Terri White’s old stomping grounds last night. The piano bar she worked in several years ago. I tripped upon it. A small two foot long sign over a door on one of the alleys said Piano Bar. In I went. The place opened up into a large bar and dining room. Overlooking the water.

I met Nikki, Terri’s friend who owns the bar. I met his partner. If his family was there, I would have met each and every one of them. That is how it is in Mykonos and the rest of Greece.

It was 7. I wanted to hear Bobby Peaco play. Not till 10. Said I would return. Doubting that I would as that generally is my bed time.

Nikki was obviously pleased with Terri’s successes over the past few years. He spoke of her and it constantly.

Mykonos has to be dengue fever paradise. The mosquitoes got in my room last night. I finished the evening with at least a dozen bites.

Super Paradise Beach was my destination yesterday. I never made it. I lay by the hotel pool. It was quiet and soothing. The breeze perfect. The water the right temperature. Why leave.

Perhaps today.

I enjoy doing this blog daily and the other things I do. Yesterday, I published a new article on Amazon Kindle. Title: Unpaid Taxes. A portion of the article deals with the Greek unpaid tax problem. No one likes to pay taxes period. No one pays taxes if they can help it in Greece. This is one of the problems affecting the euro in Greece.

When there is an election, no one is pursued or prosecuted for unpaid taxes. The vote is more important than the tax dollar! When finally apprehended and charged, the individual still is not too concerned. Tax Court cases take 7-10 years to finalize.

I will try again for Super Paradise Beach today. Tonight, I have no idea.

Enjoy your day!

TRUMP WINS…..FOR NOW…..THERE IS ALWAYS LAS VEGAS was originally published on Key West Lou

[saltandstranger]

These are things that I usually just stash away in my journal for my own eyes to read. But I wanted to share with you what I've been going through the past 6 months (wow hold on a sec, where did 2020 go? 😳) because I wanted to educate people and at the same time encourage anyone who's going through a rough time while the world around us is going bonkers. You're not alone. We do life together. And we need Jesus and eachother more than ever.

So, early this year, I was diagnosed with severe mitral valve regurgitation secondary to torn chordae tendineae and infective endocarditis. (Nosebleed? Stay with me here haha).

A recap of what happened prior: I was down with what I then thought was the common flu for about 2 weeks (on and off) last January. I was on paracetamol, antibiotics, bed rest, and lots of fluids. My fever wasn't going down and I was losing sleep and my appetite. We thought it could be dengue but when I got tested, the results were negative. It was quite baffling.

One night, I couldn't sleep well and had labored breathing. Typical asthma triggered by the cold weather, I reckoned. So the following day, we drove 28 km to see my pulmo. She listened to my breathing and noted that it was clear- although she noticed that my heart rate was really fast, around 120bpm at rest (it's practically the heart rate of someone who's running). She recommended that I go see a cardiologist.

We checked in to the ER of another hospital and they immediately got a cardio to see me. One listen from his stethoscope and I could tell by the look of his face that there's some news I'm going to have to face. So right there, in the extra makeshift room on the corridor of the crowded emergency room, he told me that he heard a heart murmur, I have mitral valve prolapse, I probably have endocarditis, and I likely have an undetected hole in my heart that's been there since I was a baby (this was later on debunked through a transesophaegeal echocardiogram or TEE- a term that makes me puke just by thinking about it hahaha).

Needless to say, I was speechless. I had no idea what the other terms meant but I picked up that there was something generally wrong with my heart. How in the world was this possible when I've never had a problem hiking, trekking, chasing waterfalls, and living a pretty active life? The doctor ordered some more tests to be run, explained some procedures, etc. But I was not able to process everything at once. The shock of it all hit me square in the chest and for like 2 seconds, my mind was clear enough to do the logical thing for me that time- cry.

My mom was standing outside the makeshift room while my dad drove home to get some clothes because it was clear that I was spending some time in the hospital. They hadn't yet heard what the doctor just said to me.

I don't remember who called who, but I was speaking to my Pastor in between sobs, and then she and my friend rushed to my side after the Saturday Service in church that night and stayed with me and my mom until they got me a room.

I spent the first 14 days of February in the hospital and been staying at home ever since. Haha I've tehcnically been on lockdown longer than anyone I know. I'll tell you stories of some of these days next time. I immediately understood that I'm in for the fight of my life here. MR (Mitral valve regurgitation) is a complex case even made more so with endocarditis. All the doctors and articles I searched for in google say that surgery is the only way to fix this. I'd also like to take time to explain these stuff another day.

Fast forward to today, June 15th. My open heart surgery has been postponed for 3 months already. I know that there's a purpose for that. It's literally a daily miracle that I am breathing and my heart is beating. What brings me peace and comfort during every sleepless night is knowing that this battle belongs to my God. I know He is faithful and He keeps His covenant for a thousand generations. Even when there are days that it's honestly tougher to keep the faith, I wholeheartedly still believe that my Jesus is who He says He is, He is my healer, and He is with me and my family every step of the way to the summit of wholeness.

–K 🌊

#saltandstranger

#wholehearted

#mitralvalveregurgitation

#wowitactuallyfeelsgreattogetthesestuffoffmychest 😄

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A post shared by Salt & Stranger (@saltandstranger_) on Jun 14, 2020 at 8:29pm PDT

[salmankhanholics]

★ Salman on fire - Salman Khan tells t2 what being Salman is all about !

Karishma Upadhyay | December 20th 2017

By the time t2 sat down with Salman Khan on a slightly chilly Monday, it was past 9pm. He said a quick hello when I walked into his spacious blue tent, pitched next to his trailer van at Mehboob Studio in Bandra and immediately launched into his spiel.

“I had never thought we’d have a sequel until Ali (Abbas Zafar, director) told me on the sets of Sultan that he had an idea for a sequel. My first question was: ‘Isn’t this Kabir’s (Khan, director of Ek Tha Tiger) thing?’ I was told that it’s Yash Raj’s property. I really liked the plot. And once that was finalised and everything was in place, we got the best action director (Tom Struthers, who’s worked on Inception and Dunkirk) on board. We needed to make this sequel because we got a phenomenal script which is bigger and better than the first film.

“Yes, the action is also bigger. Our villain (Abu Usman, played by Sajjad Delafrooz) is very powerful, so the hero automatically has to be more powerful. The songs have been appreciated. The promo of Tiger got a lot of likes, so it’s difficult to publicise a film that’s already being publicised by fans. I am really grateful to the fans who have already booked their tickets. Katrina (Kaif) is very hard-working. She has always been,” Salman rattled off even before I had sat down in the camp chair across him.

It’s the week of release for Tiger Zinda Hai, and Salman’s down with a cold. Add to this almost five hours of back-to-back interviews and I thought I was walking into trouble. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Salman, as always, was entertaining. Over multiple cigarettes and half a glass of cola, the star spoke about Katrina Kaif (who also makes a cameo in the interview!) and plans for his birthday (December 27).

The audience loved you as Prem for years (starting with 1989’s Maine Pyar Kiya) and then fell in love with you as Chulbul Pandey (Dabangg). Do you think Tiger has what it takes to be loved by Salman Khan fans?

I think people really liked him in Ek Tha Tiger. Tiger is a Jason Bourne kind of character. He has always put his country and duty above everything else. But this time, he is torn between his love for the country and his family. He is a noble character. I think it’s important to do the right thing always. No matter how tough things get, it’s important to always stand by what is right.

During Sultan there was so much talk about how Ali (Abbas Zafar) pushed you out of your comfort zone. Did he do that with this film as well?

When you okay a script, you don’t need to be pushed to do anything. When I know I have to play this character in Sultan, I have to do everything to be like that character. I remember when foreign wrestlers came to shoot Sultan. They thought I was a wrestler-turned-actor. So, they patko-ed me like crazy. It was only on the last day someone told them that I am not a wrestler but just an actor. They were all so impressed with my moves and form that they asked me how long I had been training. They couldn’t believe I had only trained for two months!

So when you want to do something, you have to give it your all. You can’t be pushed or cajoled by someone. If someone needs to push you to do something, it means you aren’t interested in what you are doing.

[Just then Katrina, who was doing interviews in the adjoining studio, walks in. She’s changed from a green back-less dress into a white tee and paisley shorts.

“Go put some pants on,” Salman jokes when he sees her.

“They don’t look short to me,” Katrina retorts before asking me: “Do they look short to you?”

The Tiger Zinda Hai co-stars, former couple and current friends (?), spend the next few minutes mock-squabbling about the length of Katrina’s shorts.

“Looking at them won’t make them longer,” she says. “So poor you’ve become that you are compromising on clothes,” he adds.

Katrina is done with the promotions for the night and is heading home before going for dance rehearsals. “You’ll wear trackpants or something, right? Or mosquitoes will bite you and you’ll get dengue,” Salman quips with a grin, before adding: “I am not being able to concentrate.”

So, Katrina leaves, in a car. Only to return two minutes later. “Sorry, would you give us two minutes, please...” Katrina asks and the two walk off for a quick chat.

Katrina finally leaves, and I resume the interview.]

Tiger Zinda Hai, like Dabangg 2, requires you to revisit a character. Is that something you enjoy?

I don’t see it as revisiting but rather taking a character forward. Like in the first Dabangg, Chulbul Pandey had a lot of angst. In the second one, he got everyone together. Even in Tiger, the sequel of which comes five years after the first film, he is more mature. He is married and they have a child. When duty calls, he is there but he has more at risk now because he is a family man.

You’ve known Katrina since she was 17. You have pretty much seen her grow as an actor…

… I have seen her grow as a person. Usually people change but I think she’s grown into a beautiful person. That innocence, vulnerability, kindness hasn’t changed at all. She is not manipulative. She doesn’t play games. When you become older, it is possible for experiences to make you cynical but not with her. She is focused towards her work. One beautiful quality is that she appreciates whatever god has given her.

Is that what works for your relationship?

Yeah. I have known her from the first time she came to Mumbai. My mother and sisters are close to her. That relationship will always be there.    

That’s lovely! Coming back to your career. When Tubelight didn’t do well…

… Tubelight made shitloads of money! It didn’t do well.…

…on the benchmark that you’ve set.

Ya… people have been saying that it’s a flop! It made 130 crores. I pray that everyone has a flop as big as this. By the way, this happened with Jai Ho as well. With Jai Ho we did 138 crores. This was at a time when people were pricing tickets at Rs 950 and Rs 650 for some films and we priced Jai Ho, on a weekend, at Rs 250.

So it’s your success that’s making people expect more!

Tubelight shouldn’t have released on Id. It is a beautiful film but it’s not what an audience wants during a festival. You see a Golmaal on Diwali or 3 Idiots on Christmas or Dabangg.... You should come out of the theatre in a celebratory mood. With Tubelight, people started crying within the first five minutes… you don’t want that on a festival. People who watched Sultan also watched Tubelight but the only difference is that the crowd didn’t go back to watch Tubelight a second time.

Your birthday (December 27) is coming up. I heard you are planning to not have a party at your Panvel farmhouse. That’s a break from tradition!

I just want to keep things quiet and spend time with my family. It tends to become a really big deal and is like a mela. I end up spending all night shaking people’s hands and meeting someone’s girlfriend or someone else’s brother’s friend. It’s all a waste of money.

You’ll turn 52 this year. Have you thought about career beyond being a leading man?

After Tiger Zinda Hai, I’ve got Race (3), Bharat and there will be Dabangg 3. There is that dance film with Remo (D’Souza) that I have shifted so I can learn dancing. Sohail (Khan) and I are still working on Sher Khan. Sajid (Nadiadwala) is working on Kick 2.

So your next three years are blocked.

Look, I don’t know what is going to happen in the next five minutes. Making plans is the best way to make god laugh. I take things one film at a time. I try to live in a moment to the fullest and righteously.

telegraph india

What’s your birthday message for Salman Khan? Tell t2@abp.in

[phenthepen]

This man named is Kim Myungsoo but the world knows him by his screen name "L".

I want to share that this man is part of my teenage self the time when I am still hooked up by k-pop groups. Until now k-pop are famous around the world specially to the youth. (Youth of my generation, until today) maybe because of most k - idols are also youth well mostly that's why it's easy to catch the heart of most audiences in other words most youth can relate or get easily persuade. Another is the music are catchy — the rhythm, melody of the songs are up bit more to the liking of most youth nowadays even though the lyrics of the songs they sings are Korean language or foreign to those people whom are not Koreans or they didn't know how to speak and understand the Korean language as long as the songs are catchy and it's easy to remember the melody of the songs that's fine. I admit back then I was one of those people who love Korean songs that my k-pop idol group songs have make. I mimic them and sing it also even though I don't know the meaning of each songs I sing. But sometimes I googled it to know the meaning of the songs to have better understanding of it. My fan girling of k-pop started when I still in my senior year in high school up until freshman year during college. L is my bias in all the members of k-pop group called INFINITE the first time I saw him on TV was when he is the leading man in the music video of his co- member in the group solo album. At first, I have no idea that he is a k idol or member of any k-pop groups the first thing that comes in my mind that time is he maybe an actor or a model. Since then I always found myself watching Korean channel every time I got a chance and wondering that I can see his face again, then it happen I got to watched him and it came to my knowledge that he is part of the rising group that time and that was infinite he's known as the face of the group because his the most handsome compares to other members (not bias) that was they all call him aside from being the second younger member of their group. Right after that I became hooked up to him - mostly his life as a k idol and even his personal life includes his family, hobbies or even if he has a love life backed then. I was very angry if someone write malicious article about him (L) or when I saw in the SNS short for social networking sites that someone (girl or girl idol) linked him or they have speculation that Kim Myungsoo and that whoever she is — is in a relationship. I always used his name or birthday as my email address or password to all my SNS accounts before. Even edit my pictures with his pictures saved it and make it as my cell phone wallpaper. Hahaha 😁 silly me.

But all those things changed when one day during my freshman year when I almost attend the first concert of the infinite here in the Philippines — that time I was very happy because finally, I got a chance to see my L in person. I did everything I can to saved money for the concert and to find someone who can accompany me to attend the place where the concert will be held. To my lucky I found one — she is also a fan of the infinite group but when the date of the concert approaching I remembered one sunday me and my other siblings go to church the pastor preach that moment is all about idolitry as I listened to his preaching about it —it dawn on me that what I was doing was also a form of idolitry and it is one of the listed commandments in the 10 commandments that the Lord Jesus Christ give to Moises that all the children of God should follow to be saved and have an eternal life with God. But before that my siblings always reminded me that what I was doing is a sin but I didn't accept it as being a form of idolitry that I am just having a huge crushed for L way back. But on that moment I was enlightened— I feel liked one bucket of a very cold water splash or poured on my head and I was backed to life again — the life that JESUS CHRIST is the only one whom should I idolize in my life not the people, things or anything that's keeping your faith and self away to Jesus the right one that we must look up in this lifetime that we had. So right up that moment after I confessed and I asked for the Lord's forgiveness for what I've done I started to delete all Kim Myungsoo (L) traces in my life. Also there are another hindrance the Lord sent to me so that I would never go and attend the concert when my brother got hospitalised because of dengue I give the money I saved for the concert to add for his admission bill — I also realized that my family is more important to me than to attend a concert.

I hoped whoever read this may inspire you to pleased God our creator whom we love and look up to anything and everything. Who is the only perfect because human are imperfect — no men were born perfect that fact alone give us a hint that we shouldn't be idolizing the men because we are all the same — in nature, thinking, doing, and we make mistakes all the time. Keep all that in mind.

#Jesusistheonlyonewhowemustidolizeineverything😊👍🙏✔

#i❤umyGodJesusChristAlone!🙏☝😆

#ihopeandpraysomeonewhoeverreadthismaylearnedfrommypersonalexperience🙇🌻

#mypastexperienceddefinemytodayandfuturebeing👍👊🙌

[namhyems]

to open, push down and turn

A lot happened since my last post, so here’s a quick recap.

August: Official start of the long 3-month holiday. I spent most of it tutoring students in the village. I taught a group of primary school students who really tested my patience. I also taught two high school boys as well as two high school girls. I even taught the local bank staff. I cooked for myself every day this month. I would bike to the market early in the morning to beat the rush and to make it in time for my favorite fried rice cakes with bean paste. I became really comfortable with the market and the sellers. So comfortable that they were all slapping my butt at one point and telling me how my boobs were nonexistent. Oh, I forgot to mention that my counterpart and I made a commitment to “exercise” daily with students which really just meant going on a walk to the pagoda at 6AM. With my days filled to brim, the month really flew by.

September: Mid-service training. We had three full days of training at the PC office where we learned a lot more advanced/useful language. This was also the month I visited home! The journey there didn’t even feel that long because I was just so excited. My mom and I kept this a secret from everyone for about three months. Surprising my family and friends was seriously one of the best parts. During my time home, I was reminded how much I am loved and cared for and thought about. I was reminded the importance of community and the value of having somewhere I can call home. Goodbyes weren’t as difficult this time because somehow saying “see you in a year” made it so much better than “see you in two years”.

October: I came back to the last month of school holiday rejuvenated and ready for my final year into service. This time coincided with a Khmer festival known as Pchum Ben which is a festival to respect ancestors and those who have passed. My host family and I visited the same pagoda as the one we visited when I first met them. It was a lot of mixed feelings knowing that so much has happened since that time. Transition back to the village life and back to Cambodia in general was a lot smoother than I thought it would be. I even attended my first Khmer wedding with my host family! This was huge for me because while all other PCVs went to weddings in their first year of service, I went to my first one with my host fam in my second year, lol. ~*~*PC clout~*~*

November: The first day of school ceremony took place on the first day of the month. I went to the ceremony expecting a fairly big ceremony similar to last year but when I arrived, it was two times the size as last year with a fancy elevated stage with a massive sound system. It was a Coachella main stage in the middle of the schoolyard. School commenced the day after and I didn’t know my schedule for a good week. I also started working with two new counterparts - both females! My previous counterpart went to Phnom Penh to study some more. This month I also had the best burger of my life in Phnom Penh. Shout out to Cousin’s Burger. Y’all doin’ it right. I also also had two Japanese friends visit me from Japan!! I prepped myself by binge watching Terrace House and talking to myself in Japanese as much as I could, but wow…when the day finally came, I really felt like I was malfunctioning. I literally had four languages in my brain all trying to come out. I kept imagining that episode of SpongeBob when millions of SpongeBobs in his brain are shuffling through the different drawers in his brain and end up going crazy. Yeah, that was me. But thanks to them, I got to practice my Japanese as well as reaffirm my Khmer and I finally visited Angkor Wat.

December: Six days into December, my umma came to this side of the world!! We visited my love on her little island called Singapore, met her family and friends, and lived my Crazy Rich Asian fantasy out. Not really, because the most exciting things were Donki and mazesoba LOL. Only half kidding. We then came back to Cambodia to officially show my umma where I currently call home. Thinking back now, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea going from the cleanest and most developed SEA country to one of the less developed countries…But I guess it helped with the dramatic effect. Out of everything, though, showing my umma my village and introducing her to my community was such a unique experience and feeling. The one thing everyone kept saying was “your mom is prettier than you!!!!” Why, yes, yes she is. Was that a compliment or a back-handed comment? … I’ll leave that up to you the reader. It’s also really fun now when I talk to my umma on the phone because she actually met these people and she knows what everything looks like. Honestly my appa was more excited than her and he didn’t even come, lol. We also went to Korea for a couple days. The experiences there and the feelings I felt there are too much to describe here, so I might have to save that for another post. But a major highlight was going to Guckkasten’s concert with my fangirl of a mother, hahah. Idk why but I wanted to cry the whole time watching her fangirl. It was just a lot for me to see her finally be able to do what she enjoyed rather than doing something just for our family’s wellbeing. And plot twist, I became a fan. (Omg so much happened in December…I’m only half-way through the month.) Around Christmas time, I got a phone call from medical staff that one of my closest friends was sick with dengue fever and currently in the hospital. They asked me to come keep her company at the hospital if possible, and I told them that I’d be there the next day. Seeing my friend so sick and fatigue in a hospital bed was honestly a huge wake up call. Being sick in this country with no one by our side is probably one of the loneliest things ever. I was able to see her get a bit better before leaving back to the village. Then came NYE which I spent on the islands of Cambodia. Koh Rong was the paradise I never thought I needed. I’ve always been a mountain girl but that was probably because that’s all I ever had in good ol’ landlocked Colorado. Now it’s hard for me to say if I am a mountain person or beach person. It was just that beautiful and relaxing.

January: 2019! The year that seemed light years away has finally arrived. It’s nearing the end of this month and there were just a few things that stuck out. My close friend went back home to America due to her health, and man, that hit hard. I didn’t know how sad and how empty it feels to have a close volunteer go home like that. I couldn’t even say a proper goodbye irl. It put me in a weird thought cycle for sure. This thought cycle also put me in a weird place…I wouldn’t say it’s a bad place. I’m not sure if it’s good either. I’m still trying to figure it out. I even deactivated Instagram because of it. Who do I think I am?! But for now, I think I like where I am now. (Lol, am I Tumblr emo yet?) I’ve been writing random thoughts out since this weird thought cycle so when I feel that I can gather my thoughts on one of these “writings” and actually make sense of it, I’ll try and post it.

But for now, that’s it. That’s where I’ve been and that’s where I am now.

From a weird place,

Sreymin

[acehotel]

INTERVIEW: JUSTIN STRAUSS WITH ANDREA ARANOW

New York, New York

Textile legend and long-time friend Andrea Aranow traveled the world for decades and amassed a stunning collection of textiles. These forty thousand design pieces have been digitized and organized by Textile Hive, a company she co-founded with Caleb Sayan. For this episode of Just/Talk, renowned New York City DJ and music producer Justin Strauss chatted with Aranow about contracting dengue fever, Jimi Hendrix’s custom snakeskin suit and why we need to seek beauty now more than ever.

Textile Hive’s NYFW presentation, Illuscious, happens February 9 in the Lobby at Ace Hotel New York. It’s free and open to the public. 

Justin Strauss: I recently found out about you, the Textile Hive and all the things you've been involved with. I was immediately drawn to your story. Like you, I've always collected things. I'm obsessive. Music, records, magazines, books, fashion. It's always inspired so much in my life. You came to New York City in 1968 from Springfield, Massachusetts. Let’s start there.

Andrea Aranow: I went to college and came immediately to New York upon graduation. I had been making clothes as a kid and then in high school. While in college, I started making leather and suede clothes (as well as using fabric) after I discovered that Boston was an old shoe center so the jobbers there had leather. I continued working in skins during college; then I moved to the city. I was living on St. Mark's Place with my first guy. There were two sewing machines there. It was a six-floor walkup. Soon enough he said, "These two sewing machines are a little bit in my way. There's an empty storefront on East 9th Street around the corner; let’s just rent that empty storefront, not for a business, but for a place for you to sew." Two weeks later, I put something in the window of that shop that was just supposed to be a workshop, and before I knew it, there was a business there.

JS: And that storefront became Dakota Transit. Any story of why you choose that name for the shop?

AA: That was just the name we came up with. The bands were all using farfetched names, and I liked the image of Dakota being far away. I also liked the graphic quality of these letters because I was really into art deco. We found somebody with old lead type set to make a card with these wonderful rounded letters, and boom, I was free to create and display pieces in the window. People started coming in. It just snowballed.

JS: The East Village in the late 60s was a very exciting place, a very different place than it is now... Were you going to the clubs like the Electric Circus and the Dome?

AA: Yeah, we were going to the Electric Circus and the Fillmore East. I don't know if it was so different from now, but it remains the same in the sense that the shops are little, enabling people to try out new ideas. I was on a block where everybody else was trying out their little new ideas. We felt youth power.

JS: Some of your customers were musicians. I've seen pictures with you and Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Betty Davis. What was your connection to that world?

AA: I made suede clothes and then I bought some snakeskins to use them as appliqué. When Jimi came in, he saw these snakeskins on the back of a chair and he said, "Oh. Well, let's try a whole suit out of snakeskin." Thus was born my very first complete snakeskin outfit, of which I made many, many more.

JS: Was he a regular customer?

AA: He wasn't that regular in the beginning. He didn't speak to me directly. A little irregular. He came with girls. He'd tell the girls, the girls would tell me. He was pretty shy.

JS: Miles Davis?

AA: Miles was totally verbal. Miles could express himself very well. Miles was much more advanced in his dressing than Jimi. He was a lot older. The first time we went to Miles's house — I had never seen a round bed before — and then I saw this closet that was the whole length of the room. It was a big bedroom opening onto a garden. Miles was pretty special.

JS: He introduced you to Betty Davis?

AA: Yeah, he brought Betty in.

JS: She's a perfect person for your clothes, I would guess.

AA: Yes she was. I didn't get to know Betty that well because she was in and out within probably a year as Miles moved on in his interests. Miles and Betty were so glamorous. Then very quickly, the Village Voice picked up on the shop and wrote about it, and then Harper's Bazaar and Vogue followed because somebody probably said, "Yeah, it's done in the East Village. It's young. That's where you need to be."

JS: “Youth quake” the magazines were calling it at the time.

AA: We all got along really well. I wasn't paying any attention to what was happening in the broader world of fashion. From these editors, at Vogue particularly, they'd say, "It's going to be a season of high pants. Could you do something in the hot pants model?" My own version in snakeskin with a bomber jacket. I remember a peach python one-piece. It got some publicity.

JS: It happened very organically for you...

AA: I wanted to be a fashion designer, but I didn't know anything about the industry. I went to Brown University. They don't know about fashion. I studied cultural history and wrote 25-page papers in college.

JS: The store went on for a few years until the early 70s?

AA: Yeah, for a few years, until I took a vacation to Peru because it always closed in the summer.

JS: Did you have a family at this time?

AA: Yes, I already had a young son, born in 71. We always closed the shop in the summer because people with money went out of town, so we figured that was a good time for us to take off. One summer I had an internship at Reveillon in Paris. That was another eye-opener. My eyes were getting stretched so wide in those years when I was in my young 20s. It was just like, "The world, all this stuff."

When I was a kid and I came into New York on my once-a-year visits, I'd just stay in the lobby of MoMA looking at the clothes people wore because I just didn't see those kind of clothes anywhere else. I drank in the sophistication and the variety of the city. Then when I went to Reveillon, I was wearing bare feet and leather sandals, my East Village attire. Madame Reveillon came by and commented on them. I'm sure they were really uncouth, but she was nice.

JS: I find it interesting, another little parallel is that when you start a family, there's a tendency for people to give up on their passions, and maybe you could've gotten a job in the fashion industry, maybe you could've done something else, but you followed your passion.

AA: We went to Peru on a vacation, and I already knew that my son could no longer be in a crib in the back of the studio, so I was going to have to make a decision to stay home with him in an apartment or hire a nanny. Neither one seemed ideal. When we went to Peru, it was fresh air in every sense.

JS: Were you married?

AA: My son's father — my husband at the time — was a rock-and-roll reviewer. We were going out to a lot of music, and he was also with the Reserves of the Coast Guard, because he was a bit older than me. He had to join something to avoid getting drafted, so for six years he was tied once a month. He always told me when he finished that, we could go and live abroad.

In the end, when he finished that six years, he did not want to leave New York. And me, I wanted to leave New York, so we parted ways.

JS: You and your son packed up and moved to Peru?

AA: Yeah, we went to Peru. We ended up staying for five years because it was very healthy. We were out in the mountains. We could be together. It was interesting for both of us. That was the thing about it. I didn't want to be in an apartment.

JS: How old was he?

AA: He was two, three the first round of our life in Peru.

JS: How would you support yourself at that point?

AA: I had a job for a little while working for the Ministry of Culture in Peru as their textile expert. That didn't really pay the bills, so I just started collecting and documenting on my own after six months.

JS: What was the process of finding these fabrics and these textiles?

AA: It was a fatal attraction. I wanted to see these hand woven clothes being made so badly that I sometimes just followed people onto buses after the market. (I didn’t speak any Spanish at the beginning.) When I was chasing these guys in bunches, it was because this is what the ponchos were looking like. How could I not follow a textile like this?

They're just so beautiful. I went to Peru initially to Cusco because it was the only town I'd ever heard of. I didn't know anybody that had been to Peru. It turned out that Cusco is pretty famous and there had been other people there studying textiles. I found the less famous areas and we ended up staying in another part of the Sierra that hadn't been documented. They had great textiles, tapestry weaving, back-strap looms, things like this poncho and also these very crazy embroideries. I stayed a long time until the Civil War actually drove us out. By that time I had a Peruvian husband, a second kid, but the Sendero Luminoso was all around us and we were clearly not of the place. I was getting really paranoid.

JS: Where did you go next?

AA: We went to London for the next three years.

JS: When did you move to London?

AA: That was in about 81. I went to London with this big Peruvian collection which I'd put together over all those years.

JS: Were these just bolts of fabric or swatches?

AA: No. Everything was handmade. They only wove to measure. They were either ponchos or square cloths that the women wore, called a manta. There were finished garments that were hand-woven or hand-embroidered for the dance costumes. I had shot a lot of field slides. I got to London with this material. I went to the Museum of Mankind, which is a branch of the British Museum, and they loved it. They assigned a grad student to write down every scrap of information on the four hundred items: who made it, what the motifs were, etc.

JS: That must have been very rewarding.

AA: That was really good. London is a great place to study because the museums are very open to education, unlike other places where you have to make an appointment far in advance and tell them exactly what you want to see. In London, they think of themselves as there to educate everybody. It was really good.

JS: Is the collection still there?

AA: Yes. I sold them half of my Peruvian collection and kept half. I then started investigating and making short forays into Asia, looking at textiles.

JS: You were in London, and did you start traveling again?

AA: We can say I kept traveling. I'd been to Afghanistan, and I'd been to Laos, but I made more trips to Asia, several to Burma. Just then, China opened up for individual travel, so you no longer had to be part of a tour group. A new frontier; people of the backpacker circuit were very excited. It had been closed for so many years, decades. I made a few small trips to China. Then I decided that I really couldn't do my research well just using this six-week summer vacation that my kids had from school.

JS: Your kids were with you in China?

AA: Yeah, my kids were always with me.

JS: How was that for them? Now they're a little older. Did they ever ask, "Mom, why are you dragging us all over the world?"

AA: It was very mixed for them, to tell you the truth. After these short trips to China, I took the kids out of school and we spent a whole year traveling in China — not to the cities, but these very rural areas. We were very much the focus of attention when we arrived in an outlying village. Sometimes my five-year-old son, Caleb, who is now my partner at Textile Hive, was surrounded by 50 people and it was just too much attention. But mostly he played without too much care for language. For my older son, Shad, the lack of other urban twelve-year olds was more pronounced.

JS: Were you “home schooling” them, so to speak?

AA: No. We did carry an algebra book around for that whole year, but not that much schooling. It was an extraordinary experience. These people had never seen Westerners. At the beginning I didn't speak any Mandarin, and then I learned some Pidgin Mandarin. We had to communicate every way we could — with physical language and just relying on peoples’ good intentions and our mutual curiosity.

JS: In Asia what were you finding, what were you seeking as far as fabrics and textiles?

AA: I was looking at these groups— so-called minority cultures — the non-Han Chinese. There are 96 cultures and 96 language groups in China. At that point, so soon after the cultural revolution when the schools were closed and life was devastating, these minority people had been told to shape up, learn Mandarin, go to school, wear the khaki uniforms, become one with the rest of the people. They kept their costumes and stuff hidden away in the house. When they got wind of the fact that I was fascinated by the embroideries, they'd pull them out.

JS: People would let you into their homes?

AA: Yeah, but we couldn't stay overnight. They would get in really huge trouble. There were clear rules. We had to walk a lot to get to these villages, and sometimes the government would intercept us. I'd say, "Oh I'm fascinated by this," blah blah blah. They'd say, "Oh we can give you a car and a translator." Of course if I went with a government car and a translator, no one would receive me at all. It was very physical. We did a lot of hiking.

JS: You would hike to these villages with your kids?

AA: Yeah.

JS: That's amazing.

AA: We were totally safe. That was one good thing.

JS: In any of your travels did you ever feel a sense of danger?

AA: None in China.

JS: Where, if there was one?

AA: I haven't felt it too dangerous.

JS: Really?

AA: Even the first time I went to Syria I was a little bit nervous. I said, "I'm looking very Semitic. These guys, it's not going to take them too long to figure out." You know what happened? The Christians said, "Come and stay with us. Those Muslims are really dangerous." Then the Muslims would take me home and say, "Don't go near those Christians. We'll take care of you." I was always under somebody's wing in the Muslim countries, including the last trip, I guess was probably Uzbekistan.

JS: Are you still traveling?

AA: Yeah. My next big dream expedition is going to be to Iran.

JS: Are there places in the world left that you'd like to uncover and find?

AA: Yeah, Iran especially, because I was in Afghanistan in 78, the last year it was okay to travel there. I planned to go there. It's a famous textile center. Then the gates closed.

JS: What about India?

AA: India I never really explored much. I've been a few times. I was afraid to take my kids into hot places. I'm from New England. I know how to deal with the cold and I felt I could protect them in the cold, but not so much in the heat. When I went to Colombia a couple years ago I got dengue fever. Before that I got typhoid in the jungle in Peru. I wasn't too adventurous taking my kids to hot places. I'd like to go to India, but it was a bit like the way I feel about the Louvre. It's too big. There's too much I have to study before I go there. I'd better not go at all.

JS: Were you raised religiously?

AA: No, not at all. I just trust people naturally for some unknown reason. I think my goals and my values are so different that, what could anybody want from me? I don't have diamonds or good looks or the more common things that might cause trouble.

JS: You have a lot of knowledge and a lot of information though.

AA: I don't think anybody would kidnap me for that...

JS: How do you feel about sharing your collections to museums? Is that the end goal?

AA: Yeah. Really it is now, because I've done a lot of original research, and I'd like these collections to be available. I always so appreciated being able to access and handle and see collections in museums. It's hard to get private collectors to open their doors.

JS: The Met with their costume archives?

AA: I've sold to the Costume Institute a very, very elaborate costume from the Miao people in China. I may sell the odd textile to the Met, but the Met still considers itself an art museum, and they're very quick to point out that they're not very interested in ethnography or ethnic collections in depth, so it's not really the place for my stuff, mostly.

JS: Tell me a bit about the Textile Hive. Is that where the collection resides now?

AA: Textile Hive was born because during the time that I was living in Japan for three years in the 80s, I was making a collection of modern kimonos for the British Museum. In addition to buying garments, I bought a lot of swatches that I could show people — what is this? where is it from? — and then more questions about the techniques just for my own study. I returned to America in 87 with all these fabulous Japanese textile swatches. People said, "Yeah, we don't need to buy a whole kimono, but if you can sell us a swatch for inspiration, that would be great."

So my design business began with a lot of Japanese kimono fragments and other “ethnic” material. I called the company Andrea Aranow Textile Documents. I would present swatches of antique fabrics, or vintage fabrics, or handmade fabrics to designers for inspiration. I began with home furnishing designers and then later added fashion people. I was showing in Paris during Premiere Vision and I did shows in New York and I worked with all kinds of different designers for about 25 years.

This cross-cultural stuff has always interested me. How is a design perceived by the people who make it and use it? Even in these very traditional societies, like the minority groups in China, there's always a slight advance. I went to one community where they were making these beautiful aprons on indigo backgrounds and they had a very set format: three columns on each end of the apron, and a grid pattern across the middle, in red, all embroidered. The young girls, their embroidery was in shocking pink, and the middle-aged women had used a bright red like you're wearing, and the older women had this dark red. If a young girl put on the dark red apron, she would be laughed out of town.

It's these very narrow differences, but they're still evolving their design. It's such a contrast to, say, Western stuff where you're wearing flowers one week and then the next season it's only plaids. Everybody is evolving and everybody's evaluating each other everywhere in the world. It all advances. This design stuff is moving forward.

In Caleb's tags for Textile Hive, he developed two vocabularies. One is objective — where the piece was actually made, and then a subjective view. It's not from Japan, but it has a Japanese look to outsiders. This whole cross-cultural thing has been fascinating, watching the way people choose designs, thinking about how they're expressing it then and what it means to their client and what it means when we look back and have nostalgia for the 70s and the 90s. All these things are little markers that have to do with people expressing themselves through choosing what to wear. I like that.

JS: I like that too. Who were some of the designers that you worked closely with?

AA: I liked working with Dries Van Noten.

JS: I love his clothes.

AA: He just loves texture. Our sensibilities are very close for texture and color and tactile. Consuela at Marni was somebody else I worked with personally whom I liked a lot. I did a lot with Vuitton Men's, Gap. And Ralph Lauren too when he was in a townhouse and you were always having to step over boxes to get from room to room.

JS: Have you seen your inspiration come to life in some of their clothes?

AA: Yeah. Sometimes I'm on the street and I recognize something. These are only reflections of the original. By 2009, I had amassed 40,000 swatches, having added a lot of Western commercial samples and many more pieces from my travels. My son, Caleb Sayan, offered to modernize the presentation. He digitized each piece and counted everything. He barcoded everything. He photographed each one of those 40,000 pieces. It's just astounding, this thing he built, this app. He tagged it with 2,300 tags, so if you're looking for Siamese cats from the 50s, you can find them.

JS: How long did this take him?

AA: Seven years.

JS: Is it also a physical place that people can go to?

AA: Yes. Textile Hive has a showroom in Portland, Oregon and it's got this wonderful, searchable app. The project is now finished so we're glad to be able to showcase it here in New York where it was born.

JS: Yes, I want to ask you about that. You're doing a project in collaboration with the Ace Hotel?

AA: Because  Ace is based in Portland, we met with them four years ago and they said, "Oh this is fantastic. We want to feature you during Fashion Week," but this happened, that happened, and all of a sudden it was 2016. We recently revisited the idea and mutually decided this would be the moment. We were going to just do a project in the tiny little gallery, but then I had this idea to invite artists. I love Japanese washi paper. I remember paper clothes from the 60s when I was growing up.

We ordered the paper from Japan, right from the maker. We had it shipped from the small island of Shikoku to here. You might like to touch this. This is made from mulberry fiber...

JS: The clothes are made out of this fabric?

AA: Yes, from this paper. You cut this out of the fabric. I delivered the paper to the artists and invited them to each choose a design from Textile Hive and interpret it for a casual kimono. The garment is known as a yukata. Now we're assembling them, getting them ready for the catwalk.

JS: The show at Ace New York will be a live presentation of these?

AA: They're going to be on models. They're going to walk down the table down the center of the room, the lobby.

JS: As someone who's studied fashion as history, how do you feel it relates to the way things are today? Do you see a correlation fashion and politics and the world we live in, or is it just for adornment?

AA: I think that especially being in New York, people look at you on the street. What you wear and what your mood imparts definitely has an effect on the general atmosphere. My take at the moment is, "Let's make beautiful stuff,” because we can't really control a lot of this other stuff that's going down. We can try and organize and protest, but we artisans, creative people, we should maybe try and do a little more than usual to bring up the mood.

JS: People say in these kind of environments, political environments, is when the arts flourish, like in New York in the early 80s when there was an explosion of culture from Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the music of the clubs and everyone. The city was crumbling, yet there was this amazing art and music being made that is still influencing and informing culture...

AA: I wasn't here in the 80s, but I remember that from the 70s when people started to mix it up, do performance art, painting the next day. There were a lot of collaborations. I feel that's what's going on now. I think it started already when the recession began. People just said, "All right, these little blocks and divisions that have been reining us in and keeping us focused on our own narrow thing are going away and we've got the freedom to experiment. If we're not going to be making money, we'd better be at least having fun." It seems like the moment for that now.

JS: It's a scary moment.

AA: It's scary, so let's do what we can to enjoy life.

[ourladyoftherosary]

If I Could, I Would Erick Jerard Gagui & Alecx Nicole Paguio

Chapter 1 Thunderstorms

14 missed calls. That’s a good start for the day. I woke up in the loud thunderstorm brought by a rainy morning. I thought something near got stricken because I felt the vibration here in my room which is on the topmost level of our house, the attic. All I could hear was thunderstorms and rain teardrops falling from the rooftop which was only 4 feet away from my head. I returned the missed calls and no one was answering. Shit, maybe she’s mad again. I haven’t seen her since I got very busy lately and our last meet-up was about a week ago. I know she misses me and I miss her too but she has to understand. 

Kuya Gilbert, my older brother, left some breakfast in the dining table. I cannot believe Kuya still went to work with this crazy storm. I wish I could be like him, good-looking and responsible. 

Someone is calling. Shoot, I think it’s her. I prepared myself with the thousand words that I can get with her sermon. I love her even though she will always be like this and I am ready to hear her whether it can be romantic or insulting. We broke up two times already and I’m tired with those moments of heartbreak. I want to fulfill our promises to each other but in our current situation, maturity is what I need to handle this. 

The phone keeps ringing. I ran so I could reach the timer of the phone dial.

It’s not her. I left the phone still ringing and went back to the dining room to eat. 

The person keeps calling. I let my phone vibrate and make noises while I enjoy my breakfast. The rain gets stronger and the flood starts to enter the house. 

I was in my bedroom again. I began thinking about the call I got earlier. I am not sure about what I feel right now. I keep saying to myself the promises I always keep on repeating in front of her like we are already on our wedding day. Someone calls and gladly, it was her.

I said her name, “Lyrae.”

Her voice was so soft and peaceful to hear. I’m glad that she’s not mad. She told me that she keeps on calling because she was worried.

We talked for 2 hours. Every pause we make, I always think of telling her but no, she’s not ready for this. She suffered a lot from me, my old me, and I don’t want to hurt her with this new self. She was very gentle and kind. She always gets mad lately when I don’t show up or answer her calls and she deserves it. I’m aware that she never deserves someone like me but I love her, I have to be selfish about it.

I received a text from the person I keep on avoiding with her calls.

“I need you.” There is a dot so it means this is something serious. I called the person immediately. 

She answers and doesn’t sound well. She told me that she was in the hospital and a loved one is in a critical condition.

I almost dropped my phone from nervousness. While getting ready, too many things are popping into my mind: Lyrae and the loved one who got admitted to the hospital. 

Kuya Gilbert used our car so I decided to just wear shorts and slippers since it got flooded in our area and I got no private transportation. 

I am at the hospital. Joshua’s dengue got worse and I need to be there for him. He is just a year old and too young to be in this condition. Lyrae doesn’t know anything about me and this child. The person I want to avoid is his mother, my ex-girlfriend and the only girl that torn me and Lyrae’s relationship two times. I don’t want to get to the point that I will hurt Lyrae again with this fruit of ours, me and the antagonist of our romance.

I don’t know if I’m selfish to hide this child from her because I also love him. I both love him and Lyrae more than I love myself. I care for them so bad. I wanted to call Lyrae and tell her straight away so I won’t be bothered anymore or let’s just say, the feeling of being bothered will be lessened. But no, a thousand times no, I won’t tell her. 

Joshua’s sickness is the reason I got very busy the past week. He wants to be with me and I don’t mind because I always want to be with him. Sometimes, I fantasize the idea of having a peaceful life with Lyrae and Joshua but I know that will never happen.

I cannot remember that I slept. I had a nap while beside Joshua who is currently sleeping. I received a text from Lyrae and she said that she wants to meet with me today. I didn’t think twice and decided to give it a go since I got Joshua’s mother here to guard him. 

We went to an American restaurant. Lyrae loves to eat big meaty burgers. That is why she loves American recipe burgers. While we torture our big burgers, my eyes are with her. I keep staring at her eyes which are currently in a happy state. My son needs me and Lyrae needs to know too. 

While we are eating, I keep thinking of different answers from her after I tell her the situation. I am not sure if she is going to cry or just be proud because at least I want to be a responsible dad to my son. 

I am the last person to finish my food. I was busy thinking about certain things for the two of us. I will tell her now, no matter what.

I waited for 10 minutes to rest our tummies from getting heavy and full. Well it seemed that we are both okay so now without hesitations and second thoughts, I told her.

“Babe, I have a son with Ella.”

I want to elaborate more and explain everything but I don’t know what happened. I even keep on stuttering when I told my revelation. She just looks at me like she saw something crawling into my face. She is expressionless. I am aware already that she got hurt but at least I became honest with her. 

She suddenly smiled and got me a huge relief. Everything happened so fast like what I said wasn’t even important.

“Okay.” Her reply was that single word. A word full of thousand thoughts I’m not aware of, or even understand. I know girls; they are so mysterious about things like this.

I just smiled when she avoided the topic by opening another one. I just went with the flow so nothing bad will happen with our relationship. I hope she will understand me someday but for now, I will give her all the clocks and wait for her true and clear response.

Chapter 2 Stars

It was when the stars were nowhere to be found. I was hurt because of the little white lies from the people whom I knew for ages and I couldn’t do anything but to rest under the life of tree. I wanted to scream out my lungs and yell my million thoughts straight at their deceptive faces, so I could lessen the pain inside, but then I can’t, because how? I can barely breathe and speak as I tried to stand up and only went down on my knees.

I… I was craving for hope back then, that someone will make me feel at ease when you came in front of me like a knight in a shining armor and keep on saying how sorry you are because of not being able to protect me .. But, I wonder if you knew what I needed that time? Because only a simple hug from a buddy like you will do, yet you hugged me so tight like there’s no tomorrow.

It was when the stars are missing back then, when I felt these butterflies from my stomach dancing because of you.

As the seconds, minutes, hours, days and months passes by, my feelings for you didn’t even change, instead it only gets deeper than the sea which is hard for me to reach, especially when you did something really unexpected, you confessed in front of multiple eyes telling that you’re feeling the same way I’m feeling in, and that you can’t wait to spend your days with me.

Do you remember when you said that traveling and exploring unfamiliar things is our thing? When we do crazy stuff that a normal couple would not want to try? Because we love to prank each other that would really make us laugh all day long. And, on that moment with our precious smiles, I knew it was you, everything was full of happiness and genuine love which I couldn’t ask for more, I’m contented with what we had, and what we will soon have, knowing that you will always be there for me.

But then… what happened?

Our memories of happiness became blurred and dark like the night when I needed your hug. Our eyes are full of hatred and pain as we fight over little things that became a heavy burden on our perfect and imperfect relationship. With the fact that you only come to me once in a blue moon just to wave and not to stay made me hopeless. Love, is it really too much to ask for something great? I’m only asking for your time, a time just like the glorious days, because you kept on ignoring me, and you kept on saying that you’re busy when you’re actually not. Because yes, it hurts, my heart hurts so bad, I’m starting to feel the spaces between us which made me think you’re hiding something from me. But then never mind, because you know what? I can’t give up everything between us, I still wanna hold on to this relationship that is toxic and already broke twice as I’m willing to stay with you. I wanna save our ship from sinking.

And then a miracle happened, I was so happy, confused and lonely at the same time when you asked me for a date as nervousness started to fill my heart, but I miss seeing you and your beautiful eyes so I just let myself to act natural like nothing happened. We went to my favorite American restaurant to have a talk, a good talk that only lasted for a short period of time. While torturing our big burgers, I noticed that you’re staring at me so I called you not only once but thrice with your name “JC!” and we stare at each other for about a minute when you finally broke the silence, saying “Babe, I have a son with Ella.” Boom! You heard that? A bomb just exploded, both my heart and soul shattered into pieces and I can’t do anything but to be on silence, a silence that is so overrated. Because honestly, I don’t know what to do nor to react so I just smiled. After bringing back my thoughts, “Okay” was the only word that came out of my mouth on understanding the truth, because I know, nothing will change with the reality that things will never be the same like it used to be, so .. If only I could stay, I would, but it’s hard, because even the universe is against with us.

And that’s how we ended up not being together. Our ship sank, our feelings might be a ghost now, but still, what a sad beautiful tragic love affair. You’re happy now, and so am I.

[makingscipub]

Inspecting Pandora’s box: Promises and perils of gene drives

This is a guest post by Aleksandra Stelmach, University of Nottingham, Institute for Science and Society.

***

Some years ago the sociologist Alan Petersen noted that metaphors of new biotechnologies not only express hopes and fears about their use and misuse, but that they also set the agenda for debate and action. Thus, metaphors not only convey meanings, but also tell us what to hope for and what to be afraid of in the context of emerging biotechnologies.

I thought about Petersen’s article when I read the latest Nature news feature about gene drives. This piece, entitled ‘Hijacking evolution’, is all about hopes and fears related to this new genetic engineering technology (for a good video explanation see here). While, it is hoped, gene drives could soon be used to help control pests or insect-borne diseases such as malaria, the Nature article explores the fears, or the ‘unknowns’ of this new technology, especially its potentially negative unintended consequences. The article is well worth reading in full, but in what follows I will first highlight some key points, and then focus on metaphors and stories of risk that are used to communicate about gene drives.

Gene drives: what they do and what they’re for

So, what are the hopes and fears related to gene drives? They are laid bare already in the opening sentence of the Nature story: ‘Self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents: the promise of gene drives. Altering the genomes of entire animal populations could help to defeat disease and control pests, but researchers worry about the consequences of unleashing this new technology.’

It seems that both promises and perils of the new technology lie in how it works and what it attempts to achieve. The Nature article describes it by recounting the story of two scientists from Imperial College London who. in 2011, first engineered gene drives in mosquitoes. ‘Austin Burt and Andrea Crisanti had been trying for eight years to hijack the mosquito genome. They wanted to bypass natural selection and plug in a gene that would mushroom through the population faster than a mutation handed down by the usual process of inheritance. In the back of their minds was a way to prevent malaria by spreading a gene to knock out mosquito populations so that they cannot transmit the disease’.

Since then, the article explains, ‘Gene drives have rapidly become a routine technology in some laboratories; scientists can now whip up a drive in months. (…) scientists have engineered CRISPR-based gene-drive systems in mosquitoes, fruit flies and fungi, and are currently developing them in mice. But that’s just the beginning of the story. Questions about whether a gene drive is possible have been supplanted by other unknowns: how well they will work, how to test them and who should regulate the technology.’

The article suggests that technical challenges surrounding gene drives are less daunting than the social ones, as, according to Kevin Esvelt, a prominent gene drive expert from MIT, ‘Technologies like this have real-world consequences for people’s lives that can be nearly immediate’. So what are the main concerns about gene drives?

The challenge of mutations

The first issue revolves around the question whether gene drives will work as intended.  Since genes drive have been tested only in laboratories, and have not yet been released in the wild, it is not certain that they can be effective in helping control diseases and pests. According to Nature, ‘As soon as researchers began to make gene drives regularly in labs, animals developed resistance against them – accumulating mutations that prevented the drives from spreading’ in subsequent generations.

To avoid such a scenario, scientists are now trying to target genes that are resistant to mutations, for examples those linked to reproduction. So far the task has proved difficult in mammals, such as mice which could potentially be targeted with gene drive technology (see a previous post by Brigitte Nerlich on this topic). But last autumn the group led by Andrea Crisanti from Imperial College London succeeded in engineering a self-destruct mosquito by making a gene drive that disrupts its fertility gene called doublesex: ‘With the drive in place, female mosquitoes cannot bite and do not lay eggs; within 8–12 generations, the caged populations produced no eggs at all. And because it is crucial for procreation, doublesex is resistant to mutations, including those that would confer resistance to a drive construct.’

Back in the autumn this research was hailed by the media as a success and even dubbed as ‘giving malaria a deadline’. Crisanti, who is now working on improving the safety of this technology, is quoted in Nature as saying: ‘I want to make sure that the likelihood of developing resistance is very, very remote before saying the technology is ready for the field’.

The issue of control

The second question is about other potential applications of gene drives. They could be used, for example, to help conserve fragile ecosystems on islands by eliminating invasive rodents.

Researchers working on prevention of insect-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, are also trying to develop tools that are ‘more subtle than completely wiping out insect populations’. According to Nature, ‘Omar Akbari and his colleagues at UCSD engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to express an antibody that protected the insects against all four major strains of dengue. They are now attaching that antibody to a drive to see whether it will spread. Akbari is also building an all-purpose gene drive that activates a toxin when any virus, not just dengue, infects A. aegypti. “We want to build a Trojan horse in the mosquito,” says Akbari. “When a mosquito is infected by a virus — whether it’s dengue, Zika, chikungunya, yellow fever, whatever — it activates our system, which kills the mosquito.”

Another major concern is whether gene drives can be controlled and how their potentially adverse effects could be mitigated. As Nature reports, scientists in the field are developing ‘gene drives with built-in controls, external overrides or both’. For example, Esvelt has built a ‘self-exhausting drive’ called, metaphorically, a daisy drive. ‘The drive is engineered to lose a link at a time, like plucking one flower from a chain linked head to stem, until it runs out over several generations’.

Even if these built-in controls are effective, it is not clear how the modified organisms would behave in the wild. The article quotes the biologist and bioethicist Natalie Kofler from the Editing Nature group at Yale University. Kofler warns that since gene drives could potentially change entire populations, they ‘could also, in theory, negatively affect human health by causing the malaria parasite to evolve to be more virulent or to be carried by another host’.

Governing the unknown

The complexities and concerns related to gene drive research mean that scientists will need more time to develop and trial this technology. There remains, of course, the issue of governance, and the Nature story asks: ‘Who decides when to use a gene drive?’

Fredros Okumu, director of science at the Ifakara Health Institute in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, stresses that interested countries should be able to make such decisions themselves. Okumu argues that gene drive technology would be perceived as more trustworthy in Africa – the country which could benefit from applying gene drives to control the spread of malaria or dengue – if African researchers could develop it locally. Kofler, who, in the past, argued for a collective oversight of gene drives, thinks that historically marginalised groups should be involved in the decision-making process.

Interestingly, the focus of the Nature story seems to be on who should decide on when to use gene drives, rather than questioning whether this technology should be used at all. Reacting to this publication Matthew Cobb, a zoologist from Manchester University, tweeted: ‘Outlines the key issues, but why no reference to the need for **international** regulation, or highlighting the apparent lack of interest in this issue from leading scientific organisations?’ . Cobb advocates the need for a global regulatory framework of gene drives and has written about benefits and risks of this technology (see for example here).

Metaphors and stories

This brings me to the question: what are the risks related to gene drives and how are they conveyed through metaphors and stories? Although the Nature article offers only a snapshot of the ongoing debate, it may provide some initial ideas about the metaphorical and narrative framings at work.

Hijacking

Judging only by the title of the Nature feature, gene drives present considerable risks to the natural world. The article opens with the striking metaphor of ‘hijacking evolution’, and points to the dangers of messing with the genetic make-up of wild organisms, as ‘researchers worry about the consequences of unleashing this new technology’. The theme of fear of unintended consequences of emerging technologies has roots in the story of Pandora’s box, a well-rehearsed trope in the field of science studies and science communication. As the article explains, gene drives could ‘in theory, negatively affect human health by causing the malaria parasite to evolve to be more virulent or to be carried by another host’.

But as I read on, I found fewer framings of risks to environment, and – instead – more metaphors of risks posed by gene drives to the targeted organisms, such as mosquitoes or mice. For example, the metaphor of hijacking also refers to ‘hijacking the mosquito genome’, but here it has rather positive connotations, as it provides ‘a way to prevent malaria’.

Similar framings were previously used in gene drives debates, as the hijacking metaphor was deployed to highlight both advantages  and potentially negative consequences of this new technology. It seems then that the hijacking metaphor might not only evoke dangers, but also that hijacking evolution or mosquito genes might be considered a risk worth taking.

Engineering and control

Although gene drives rely on the gene-editing tool CRISPR, ‘editing’ metaphors associated with CRISPR don’t seem to dominate the Nature article. Instead, numerous engineering metaphors are used, well-known from synthetic biology: gene drives are made, built, engineered, developed, designed and devised. Scientists can ‘insert’ or ‘plug them in’, or even ‘’whip them up’ in a short space of time. Gene drives are also presented as a ‘routine technology’, with ‘built-in controls, external overrides or both’. Safety is being improved, as scientists are ‘studying how to control, counter and reverse gene drives’.

In addition, engineering metaphors convey the image of a rational technology (as discussed here by Victor de Lorenzo) that can be controlled and reversed. On the other hand, the gene drive technology promises control over nature, as it has been proposed as ‘a way to reduce or eliminate insect-borne diseases, control invasive species and even reverse insecticide resistance in pests’.

An overall impression is that the gene drive technology is being developed with safety and ethical issues in mind. This contrasts with earlier and more alarming media stories which drew attention to the unpredictability of this technology and highlighted ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ lab fears’, referring to the worry that researchers will not be able to control the technology they have created.

War and destruction

When potential applications of gene drives are discussed, the language is reminiscent of ‘control of disease’ discourse permeated by war and plague metaphors. Such discourse was used in the past, for example in the context of ‘war on invasive species’ or ‘war on cancer’, and it relies heavily on aggressive, militaristic language. The tactics used in gene drive research are described with the help of metaphors of deception: there is talk of scientists ‘bypassing natural selection’, ‘hijacking genes’ and ‘building a Trojan horse in the mosquito’. The overall impression is that with the help of gene-drives it might be possible to wage guerrilla style warfare on pathogens.

The aim is to design gene drives that can ‘manipulate or eradicate’, ‘knock out’ or even ‘completely wipe out’ insect populations. While being used against disease and pest, gene drives behave like bioagents: they can ‘spread by themselves’, ‘radiate’ or ‘mushroom through the population’, metaphors that also evoke nuclear warfare. Their application results in ‘self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents’.

While these metaphors draw attention to risks posed by gene drives to mosquitoes and pests, they don’t highlight other risks and concerns that have been debated elsewhere (see here for example), namely that gene drives can be weaponised and used by unauthorised groups or individuals. This could even amount to what has been termed ‘entomological warfare’ in which gene drives are used to sabotage crops and spread diseases.

Another issue is whether war and destruction metaphors should be used more cautiously or even at all when talking about gene drives. The use of militaristic framing in biomedical discourses has significant drawbacks and has been criticised by social scientists (for example in the context of Zika, here and here), who pointed out that militaristic language and thinking put an excessive focus on the issue of gaining control, even at great cost, and make it easier to ‘sacrifice people and their rights’ in the pursuit of new cures and technologies. 

Messengers of risks

Coming back to Petersen and his article on risk metaphors, the Nature article nicely illustrates the point that metaphors, though powerful, are also partial. While they alert us to some risks and opportunities, they obscure other potential benefits and dangers of new technologies. This might include questions about how they can be misused, what kinds of risks they bring and to whom, which ethical issues are deemed important, and also who should be involved in governance and decision-making.

This means that in order to get a more nuanced understanding of the field and debates about risks, it’s important to analyse a plurality of different metaphors (see this article by Brendon Larson; and previous blog posts on gene drive metaphors here and here). It also means that it’s important to keep an eye on how metaphors behave in different contexts and how they change over time.

As Petersen notes, metaphors tend to evolve with the field and the changing scientific and political agendas. Given that gene drives are seen as the next big thing in science and society, there will surely be more metaphors to study.

Image: Creative Commons

The post Inspecting Pandora’s box: Promises and perils of gene drives appeared first on Making Science Public.

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[bandonggarciajalandonisainz]

SA 21: Module 1 Posted by: Jay Sainz

My understanding of well-being is a person’s mental stability, physical fitness, emotional security, and spiritual connection with what one has faith in. It is generally being healthy and positive in every aspect of life. Well-being is often what one answers when asked, “How are you?” Though it may come from a simple question, the answer can be quite complex. To further expound my idea of well-being given that my situation is being in a new environment on my own and the rest of my family and peers are far away, I will be presenting two objects that are unique to me and relate them to how I understand and practice well-being. 

First, the reality is that I am really far away from my home, Cebu. It has been my situation ever since August 2016 when I came to Manila to study in the Ateneo de Manila University. Initially, I felt anxious entering college, being alone and that I was the only Cebuano in my block. I had thoughts that my blockmates might think that this ‘probinsyano’ lives on trees or something like that. To makes things worse for myself, I had a severe case of dengue shortly after arriving in Manila. I missed my OrSem and the first week of classes. I only got to meet my blockmates in our first Intact session, and I was nervous then.  I was afraid of what their first impression of me might be. Based on the cultural construction of emotions, as I entered a new environment, my emotions were actively constructed to meet the demands of the respective cultural environment that being the unfamiliar culture of people in Manila. Through cognitive appraisal, I was quiet, shy, and merely observing everyone. It took a while for me to open up myself to everyone. Even after being more open, there still have been times of boredom, loneliness, and stress. 

This brings me to my first object, the image of the Child Jesus, the Santo Niño. I brought it with me because it represents a part of my Cebuano culture, and it played a significant role in my life as I grew up. As early in my childhood years, I would attend the week-long Sinulog fiesta honoring the Santo Niño. I would join the fluvial parade where hundreds of boats full of people would follow the image displayed in one of the boats. This was done very early in the morning so you could see the sunrise and the Santo Niño perfectly align in the most picturesque moment. Then I would attend the procession for the Santo Niño. Every year, more than a million people would attend and would wave their hands, sing, and shout, “Viva Pit Senyor,” as the Santo Niño passes by. It still gives me goosebumps every time. I grew up seeing a Santo Niño in every home. I have a corner of the house dedicated the image of the Santo Niño with flowers beside it, a candle always lit, and a spotlight on top of it. This was the culture I grew up with so it was only fitting that I brought one to Manila and placed it in my mini altar.

Whenever I was mad as a kid, frustrated at my brother, or had a bad day, my mom would bring me to the corner of the house with a Santo Niño and tell me to sit down and just pray or talk to it. It felt good to talk to something that wouldn’t fight back, talk back or do anything to me. It felt very calming that you can talk to something about all your pain and problems. It gave me a sense of peace. Now my System 1 way of thinking associates the Santo Niño as a religious figure that helps me. Every time I see it, the Child Jesus also comes to my mind and I often relate it to the Sinulog festival. Deeper thoughts lie when I engage myself with the Santo Niño. This is when System 2 comes into play when I try to figure out my problems usually over stressful situations in colleges. I try to see possible scenarios and think of how to respond to them. The memories of my childhood are then triggered by the stressful mood. These memories of the past usually evoke my feeling of peace afterwards. As stated by Williams in “Mind, Body, and Emotion,” thoughts and memories related to whatever came to mind or in our life to make us happy will come back quite automatically. Thus, it became a mixture of both the systems that led to the overall promotion of my well-being. Peace comes to my mind when I see the Santo Niño, but it is only achieved when I engage in deeper thinking. 

As I started to open myself more in college, I met someone who helped my well-being. This brings me to my second object, a polaroid of me and my girlfriend. I have always wanted to send this back to my family as much as I wanted to keep it. The reason being is that I want them to know that I am in good hands. Her name is Marga Antonio. She is from Davao and is currently taking up BS Health Sciences in the Ateneo. She can speak and understand Cebuano as well. We share the same ideas and passions. Meeting her helped me become more mindful, to become more aware of the thoughts and feelings of others. I paid more attention to not only my own well-being but also to her well-being. Sending this polaroid to my family will hopefully give them the affirmation that I am doing well, and more importantly, it will give them a sense that I am capable of taking care of someone else aside from myself. I found a new understanding of well-being as something we can all share if we help each other achieve it. Well-being deserves attention from everyone.   

In my new environment, I have learned to balance homophilous and heterophilous interactions. Homophily with other Cebuanos and heterophily with Tagalogs and Chinese Filipinos. As a Cebuano in Manila, my emotions continue to be updated as cultural construction happens throughout life and everyday interactions, thus guiding me on how to act and conduct myself in new and current situations. As interactions continue to take place in this environment, I can practice well-being by receiving help from others while giving attention to myself as well. This is the task mentioned in Michel Foucault’s chapter, ‘The Cultivation of the Self,’ in the book “The Care of the Self,” known as to di’ allēlōn sōzesthai. It can be done by having a constant support system found in the family and sharing a hug every now and then. Furthermore, well-being can be improved by having a “retreat of oneself” as stated by Marcus Aurelius. With the help of my first object and what it symbolizes for, I occasionally have morning and evening meditations on how I plan to go about my day and reflecting on what actually happened. Through praying, reflecting, meditating, breathing, sleeping, and enjoying the Filipino fiestas, I continue to practice well-being through personal and social activities.

References:

Batja Mesquita, Michael Boiger, Jozefien De Leersnyder. (2016). The cultural construction of emotions, Current Opinion in Psychology, 8: Pages 31-36, ISSN 2352-250X, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.015.

Foucault, M. (1986). The cultivation of the self. In The Care of the Self (Vol. 3 of the History of Sexuality, pp. 37-69). NY: Pantheon Books.

Gross, J.J. (2008). Emotion regulation. In M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland-Jones, and L.F. Barrett (eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 497-512). New York: The Guilford Press.

Hermans, H. (2015). Human development in today’s globalizing world: Implications for self and identity. In L. Jensen (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Development and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Ch. 3, pp. 28-42). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Kahneman, D. (2011). The characters of the story. In Thinking, fast and slow (Ch. 1, pp. 19-30. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Williams, M., Teasdale, J., Segal, Z., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2007). Part I: Mind, Body, and Emotion. In The mindful way through depression: Freeing yourself from chronic unhappiness (pp. 11-49). New York: The Guilford Press.