A dengue virus vaccine prospect, developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), has had promising results in animal model testing. It produced a protective reaction in immune dengue-infected mice. The exciting milestone provides hope to many since 390 million people are infected every year – and it’s a notoriously challenging pathogen to deal with. The most exciting part is how the vaccine isn’t injected but applied to the skin via a high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) – more simply put, microneedle patches. Dengue fever is one of the tropical regions’ most prevalent diseases. Mosquitos carry the virus and infect people when they bite them. According to Jovin Choo, a UQ Ph.D. candidate who participated in the study,  this research could lead to a readily administered vaccine that could halt the devastation of dengue fever worldwide.  For now, efforts to tackle it mainly focus on prevention. Preventative measures involve targeting mosquitoes with traps, making the insect resistant to the virus, genetic engineering to reduce their numbers, or exposing them to bacteria that stop the virus from growing. There is one vaccine currently available, known as Dengvaxia, but it’s not v

Source: This Dengue Virus Vaccine Patch Could Provide Immunity Needle-Free

June 6 is election day for Mexico.

Thousands of offices are at stake, and almost half of the country will elect new governors.

Christian Dunn, a representative for the Morena party, said this election is the first of its kind.

“This is the largest election in the history of Mexico because it’s a concurrent election. Before, local elections were held one year and federal elections the next. For the first time, federal and local elections have been combined,” said Dunn.

INE, the Instituto Nacional Electoral, or Electoral National Institute, is the sole organization putting together the electoral process for Mexico.

In Baja California, seven candidates are running for governor. Three of them are women.

Source: Historic Mexican Elections Include Vote For New Baja California Governor | KPBS

First Nations communities have fallen on both sides of the argument. Several Indigenous communities have quietly demanded the B.C. government immediately defer logging its oldest trees, warning it “will ultimately bring about our physical destruction.” At Fairy Creek, where multiple arrests along a blockade have continued to draw the media’s spotlight this week, the Pacheedaht First Nation have said old-growth activists are “not welcome.”

A hundred kilometres across the Salish Sea, another Indigenous nation has been locked in a protracted fight to protect a swath of old growth sacred to their people. They fought back, and in March, won — protecting a 70.9-hectare cutblock of forest from immediate destruction.

As old-growth forests dwindle across the province, their success shows what it takes to walk another path and protect B.C.’s last arboreal giants.

Elphinstone Logging Focus campaigner Hans Penner at the base of a large yellow cedar in Dakota Bowl. By Ross Muirhead

A LONG HAUL

For the Squamish Nation, Dakota Bowl is one of its last untouched tracts of forests.

Rising up the slopes of Elphinstone Mountain on the Sunshine Coast, its high-elevation yellow cedar forests have been described as a “living museum.”

Prized for its strength and softness as clothing material, some West Coast Indigenous communities would travel great distances to harvest the inner bark of the yellow cedar; some believed the high-elevation trees possess supernatural qualities.

Khelsilem said his nation’s push to protect the 70.9-hectare cutblock required years of research and policy work. He points to 2003 when the nation developed a land-use plan that sketched out how it wanted to use forested lands. Later, the nation sent out its own experts in archaeology, cultural heritage and the environment.

Archaeologists have found evidence that dozens of old-growth trees had been used by the First Nation dating back hundreds of years — in the end, 77 so-called “culturally modified trees” would be mapped in the forest.

Source: When will B.C. stop logging old-growth trees? – Pique Newsmagazine

“It’s a common consensus among my co-workers that we prefer not having customers see our faces,” said Becca Marshalla, 25, who works at a bookstore outside Chicago. “Oftentimes when a customer is being rude or saying off-color political things, I’m not allowed to grimace or ‘make a face’ because that will set them off. With a mask, I don’t have to smile at them or worry about keeping a neutral face.”

“I have had customers get very upset when I don’t smile at them,” she added. “I deal with anti-maskers constantly at work. They have threatened to hurt me, tried to get me fired, thrown things at me and yelled ‘fuck you’ in my face. If wearing a mask in the park separates me from them, I’m cool with that.”

Aimee, a 44-year-old screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles, said that wearing a mask in public even after she’s been vaccinated gives her a kind of “emotional freedom”. “I don’t want to feel the pressure of smiling at people to make sure everyone knows I’m ‘friendly’ and ‘likable’,” she said. “It’s almost like taking away the male gaze. There’s freedom in taking that power back.”

Bob Hall, a 75-year-old retired researcher in New Jersey with a self-described “naturally grim countenance [that] tends to be off-putting to others”, concurred. “In the United States there is an obligation to appear happy, and I get told to smile and ‘be happy’ a lot, which is very annoying,” he said. “The mask frees me from this.”

For Elizabeth, a 46-year-old tutor living near Atlanta, Georgia, the mask has accomplished for her social anxiety what years of therapy and medication have not: allowing her to feel comfortable while out in the world.

“I’m short and fat and if I don’t moisturize compulsively, my face is constantly flaking,” she said. “It’s easy to feel like I’m surrounded by mocking, disapproving eyes … Nothing has shielded me from the feeling of vulnerability like a mask has.”

Source: drivel.biz, The people who want to keep masking: ‘It’s like an…

Despite being British subjects, the 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus were denied entry to Canada due to laws that discriminated based on race, and were forced to remain aboard for two months before being sent back to India. Source: Vancouver remembers Komagata Maru on 107th anniversary of ship denied entry | Globalnews.ca

Source: At least 15 die in lava flows after volcano erupts in Democratic Republic of Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo | The Guardian