Me

Your MC knows they’re in a story, and makes full use of all the tropes to come out a hero every time. Trouble is, there’s a real hero emerging in the city, which presents the MC with a choice: remain a hero and watch the story crumble around them, or become a villain and save the world

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

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

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

lil matt damon SNAPPED

Peculiar Muro en la frontera de Palestina. Rick: “Mira Morty, me convertí en un muro para ilegales. ¡¡¡SOY RIIIIICK MURO ILEGAL!!!” Imaginen un mundo sin muros ni fronteras.

You are born with the ability to see whether people listen more often to the angel or the devil on their shoulder, based on the opacity of each- if they listen more to the angel, it’s more solid and the demon is more transparent, and vice versa. You recently met a guy online and you’re finally going to meet. You go in for a handshake and glance at his shoulders, but you can’t see the angel. Only a solid demon.

New path into bipolar disorder comes to light

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a multifactorial brain disorder in which patients experience radical shifts in mood and undergo periods of depression followed by periods of mania. It has been known for some time that both environmental and genetic factors play important roles in the disease. For instance, exposure to high levels of stress for long periods, especially during childhood, is one factor associated with development of BD.  

New research published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience connects the dots between two genes involved in the brain’s response to environmental stimuli — called EGR3 and BDNF — and may explain the impaired resilience of BD patients to respond to events, including stress. The study not only provides new insights into the biology of BD, but also suggests that EGR3 could be a potential drug target.

Immediate early genes (IEGs) are a class of genes that respond very rapidly to environmental stimuli, including stress. IEGs respond to a stressor by activating other genes that lead to neuronal plasticity — that is, a change in form and function o brain cells in response to changes in the environment. Ultimately, the process of neuronal plasticity gives the brain the ability to learn from and adapt to new experiences.

One type of protein induced by IEGs is the so-called Early Growth Response (EGR) proteins, which translate environmental influence into long-term changes in the brain. These proteins are found throughout the brain and are highly produced in response to environmental changes such as stressful stimuli and sleep deprivation. Without the action played out by these proteins, brain cells and the brain itself cannot appropriately respond to the many stimuli that are constantly received from the environment.

Effective neuronal plasticity also depends on regulatory factors called neurotrophins that promote development and survival of brain cells. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), the neurotrophin mostly found in the brain, has been extensively investigated in BD patients and has been suggested as a hallmark of BD. Indeed, some studies have shown that serum levels of BDNF are reduced in BD patients during periods of depression, hypomania, or mania. Other studies have shown that regardless of mood state, BD patients present reduced levels of BDNF. Overall, changes in BDNF levels seem to be a characteristic found in BD patients that may contribute to the pathophysiology of the disease.

The new study by an international team of researchers from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, University of Arizona College of Medicine in the United States and McMaster University in Canada connects the dots between these two players to explain the impaired cellular resilience observed in BD that in the grand scheme of things may relate to the impaired resilience presented by BD patients to respond to events, including stress.

In a previous study by the group in 2016, one type of IEG gene known as EGR3, that normally responds to environmental events and stressful stimuli, was found to be repressed in the brain of BD patients. This suggests that when facing a stressor, the EGR3 in BD patients does not respond to the stimulus appropriately. Indeed, BD patients are highly prone to stress and have more difficulties dealing with stress or adapting to it if compared to healthy individuals. The research group is now suggesting that both EGR3 and BDNF may each play a critical role in the impaired cellular resilience seen in BD, and that each of these two genes may affect each other’s expression in the cell.

“We believe that the reduced level of BDNF that has been extensively observed in BD patients is caused by the fact that EGR3 is repressed in the brain of BD patients. The two molecules are interconnected in a regulatory pathway that is disrupted in BD patients,” says Fabio Klamt, leading author of the article.

The authors also add that the fact that EGR3 responds very quickly to environmental stimuli renders the molecule a potential drug target. “It is possible to imagine that EGR3 may be modulated in order to increase its expression and that of BDNF, which may have a positive impact on BD patients,” says Bianca Pfaffenseller, a scientist working at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, in Brazil, and the first author of the study.

The idea that mental disorders should be seen as any other chronic disease in which the underlying biology plays an important role has replaced the old descriptions of mental illnesses as the result of bad psychological influences. As Nobel prize laureate Eric Kandel has said, “all mental processes are brain processes and therefore all disorders of mental functioning are biological diseases.” The perspective article authored by Fabio Klamt and colleagues supports this view by offering new insights into the underlying biology of this lifelong and devastating mental disorder affecting millions of people worldwide.

The best babysitter

other fav character this season tho B)

World AIDS Day by the Numbers

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

1.8 – Estimated number who are children, in millions

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

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

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

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

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

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

13 – Percentage in the U.S.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.2 million – Number of Americans currently living with HIV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 in 99 – Average lifetime risk nationwide

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

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

78.7 – Average life expectancy of an American male

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

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

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

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

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

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

this was an assignment from a bit ago but i kept forgetting to scan it in >.>