Shoppers at one of Canada’s biggest and busiest malls can now use the same bathroom regardless of whether they identify as male or female as Yorkdale Shopping Centre opened its first gender-neutral bathroom.
The Toronto mall is the latest public space to offer such washrooms as schools, restaurants, community centres and other institutions move to be more inclusive.
“The new washroom provides an inclusive option for anyone, including transgender people, people of diverse gender identities and those who may require accompaniment of some kind,” reads a statement from the mall.
Screw the Trudeau Government and their obsession with oil pipelines and fossil fuel expansion in a time of a Climate Emergency.
Not to mention the Indigenous Rights this pipeline violates on both sides of the border.
Justin Trudeau is not your woke bae. He’s part of the problem.
The IPCC report says we have 12 years to substantially reduce emissions or we’re screwed, and our governments are still cheerleading mega oil projects like this. Its depressing.
The law grants transgender people the right to get an operation that matches their sexual identity. It will be paid by the Uruguayan state along with hormone treatments.
The law also ensures a minimum number of transgender people are given public jobs in the next 15 years.
It mandates that 1 percent of government jobs be reserved and establishes a pension to compensate transgender people who were persecuted during Uruguay’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship.
Photo: Activists celebrate during a session inside the Legislative Palace, Uruguay, Friday, Oct. 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Veterans Ask Native Elders For Forgiveness At Standing Rock.
I never thought I would see this day when a white man apologizes for the tyranny and oppression of Native American population. This is so powerful. This is the nation that I want – responsible, compassionate and that learns from its mistakes.
HOLY SH*T. THEY FOUND NITROGEN-FIXING CORN BRED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN MEXICO. @botanyshitposts
“The study found the Sierra Mixe corn obtains 28 to 82 percent of its nitrogen from the atmosphere. To do this, the corn grows a series of aerial roots. Unlike conventional corn, which has one or two groups of aerial roots near its base, the nitrogen-fixing corn develops eight to ten thick aerial roots that never touch the ground.
During certain times of the year, these roots secrete a gel-like substance, or mucilage. The mucilage provides the low-oxygen and sugar-rich environment required to attract bacteria that can transform nitrogen from the air into a form the corn can use.
“Our research has demonstrated that the mucilage found in this Sierra Mixe corn forms a key component of its nitrogen fixation,“ said co-author Jean-Michel Ané, professor of agronomy and bacteriology in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at UW–Madison. “We have shown this through growth of the plant both in Mexico and Wisconsin.”
…
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Researchers are a long way from developing a similar nitrogen-fixing trait for commercial corn, but this is a first step to guide further research on that application. The discovery could lead to a reduction of fertilizer use for corn, one of the world’s major cereal crops. It takes 1 to 2 percent of the total global energy supply to produce fertilizer. The energy-intensive process is also responsible for 1 to 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“
I’ve written about this before, this is one of those ‘saving the planet’ levels of discovery. No joke.
I know when this discovery first broke I got like 5236834 messages about it through like 800 channels and all “____ girls make do” memes aside….if something permanent isn’t done about the nitrogen problem ASAP, the fertile soils we depend upon will literally be rendered unusable in 100-200 years.
this is a FANTASTIC approach and I’m unironically hyped to see where this research leads. money talks, so what the corporations will be looking for is:
-yield
-insect resistance
-brittle snap (does the corn’s stem break easily? we don’t want it to)
-root health
-growth speed
because this is a native bred cultivar, we can probably assume that it’s very healthy in terms of root health, anatomical strength, and being resistant to insects in its native environment. growth speed should be fine as long as it flowers at the same time as all the other corn, so my main concern would be yield; this is what companies look for. if the researchers can get about 300-400 bushels of corn reliably yielded by this variety (where the industry is at right now), it might just be able to break into the industry to become a thing that everyone grows, which…god, that would be fucking fantastic, not only for the environment but for the farmers who wouldn’t have to pay for nitrogen spraying in their fields anymore.
And if it doesn’t have industry-breaking yield, it can most likely be bred or otherwise engineered to increase the yield
The chance of any HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a sexual partner is scientifically equivalent to zero, researchers confirmed at the 22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018) in Amsterdam today.
Final results from the PARTNER study were presented this morning at a press conference on the opening day of AIDS 2018. Results originally announced in 2014 from the first phase, PARTNER 1, already indicated that “Undetectable equals Untransmittable” (U=U). However, the statistical certainty of this result was not quite as convincing in the case of gay men, or for anal sex, as it was for vaginal sex.
Results from PARTNER 2, the second phase, which only recruited gay couples, were presented today.
The results indicate, in the words of the researchers, “A precise rate of within-couple transmission of zero” for gay men as well as for heterosexuals.
The PARTNER study recruited HIV serodiscordant couples (one partner positive, one negative) at 75 clinical sites in 14 European countries. They tested the HIV-negative partners every six to 12 months for HIV, and tested viral load in the HIV-positive partners. Both partners also completed behavioural surveys. In cases of HIV infection in the negative partners, their HIV was genetically analysed to see if it came from their regular partner.
The study found no transmissions between gay couples where the HIV-positive partner had a viral load under 200 copies/ml – even though there were nearly 77,000 acts of condomless sex between them.
Why PARTNER matters
It is fitting that the results of PARTNER 2 appear on the tenth anniversary of an impassioned debate at the Mexico City International AIDS Conference in 2008 on the validity of the Swiss Statement, which was the first published document to say that, under defined circumstances, people with HIV who have fully suppressed viral loads due to treatment cannot transmit HIV.
At the time it was said that due to lack of viral load monitoring in anything but high-income countries, this fact – even if true – would have little relevance to most people with HIV.
There was also concern that telling people with HIV that they were not infectious if virally suppressed would be counter-productive because it would discourage safer sex. The more important message to give to people, some experts said, was that they should take every dose of their therapy.
The thinking behind U=U is that telling people they are not infectious if virally suppressed was a message of hope, and something earnestly desired by many people with HIV. It would help to combat the stigma against them, and their own self-stigma. By providing a powerful incentive to take treatment it could also have a positive impact on public health, as well as on individuals.
The Swiss doctors who issued the original 2008 statement apologised at the time that stating that people “do not” transmit HIV under the circumstances above was too definite, and that they had only meant to indicate that the likelihood of transmission was reduced.
But what PARTNER tells us is that they were right all along. People who are virally suppressed do not transmit HIV.
It was widely assumed at the time that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) might make people infectious even when they normally had an undetectable viral load.
But PARTNER tells us that STI infections have no impact on HIV infectiousness in people who are fully suppressed.
And it was thought that because HIV is transmitted more easily via anal than vaginal sex, the results might not hold for gay men.
But PARTNER 2 now tells us that U=U holds just as strongly for gay men (and for anal sex) as for heterosexuals.
[…]
PARTNER is not the only study about viral load and infectiousness. Last year the Opposites Attract study also found no transmissions in nearly 17,000 acts of condomless anal sex between serodiscordant gay male partners, meaning that no transmission has been seen in about 126,000 occasions of sex, if you combine this study with PARTNER 1 and 2.
What has changed is that we can now state that U=U with at least as much confidence for gay men as we already could for heterosexuals or, as the researchers say, “PARTNER2 provides a similar level of confidence for gay men as for heterosexual couples in PARTNER 1.”
“We looked so hard for transmissions,” Alison Rodger told aidsmap.com. “And we didn’t find any.”
The last line in the last slide she presented today was “Undetectable = Untransmittable.”
This is great news and so important, emphatically confirming what we already knew: UNDETECTABLE = UNTRANSMITTABLE for HIV. Pass it on.
Queer Fiction Writer 