Books Reading the Weird Forensic Folklore: Sarah Pinsker’s “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” Participants in an online music forum research an English folk ballad… By Ruthanna Emrys, Anne M. Pillsworth | Published on May 15, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we cover Sarah Pinsker’s “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,” first published in Uncanny Magazine in March 2021. This one took home both Hugo and Nebula awards, and we highly recommend reading it for yourself if you haven’t already. Spoilers ahead! Summary There’s a murder and a hanging and something monstrous in the woods. Sets it apart from the average lovers’ tryst. Some traditional music aficionados have gathered on Lyricsplainer to discuss the English folk ballad, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather.” BonnieLass67 kicks off the conversation. Downthread, frequent commenter Dynamum characterizes the participants as a “detective team,” each with special expertise: BonnieLass67 is the historian. HolyGreil is the musicologist. HangThaDJ offers random facts and dry humor. Rhiannononymous is the linguist. Dynamum is the theorist, whose ideas some mark as stretches. BarrowBoy is a troll who calls Dynamum “comic relief” and claims to be participating only for Lyricsplainer level badges. HenryMartyn is the field worker, a student who’s received a grant to make a documentary about folklorist Mark Rydell. (Rydell was looking into the “provenance” of “Oaken Hearts.” He narrowed its original setting down to a village named Gall, where he may have disappeared.) This “team” examines “Oaken Hearts” verse by verse—twenty belong to the transcription published in Francis James Child’s authoritative collection known as the Child Ballads. BonnieLass67 regards another verse included by the Lyricsplainer site as a twentieth-century corruption. A summary of the ballad follows: “Fair Ellen” means to meet “Sweet William” one autumn night under a bridge in the woods. Ellen’s two sisters warn her no good can come from the meeting, but she ignores them. She comes upon William, kisses him, then steals his heart, literally, somehow extracting it from his chest. In the verse following, she begs him to prove his love, as others have failed to do. She places his beating heart inside “a gnarled and knotted ancient [oak?],” where it will “quicken” come spring. Inside his chest she makes a twig-and-leaf nest for an acorn. William’s eyes seek answers, but Ellen merely kisses him twice and leaves him “where oaken hearts do gather.” William, heartless, returns to the village. Next comes that 20th-century addition, in which William demands the villagers hunt down the “wicked woman” who stole his heart and voice. The next “valid” verses show that he has lost his voice and can’t tell the villagers his story. They, however, seem to know what’s happened. Mournful, they listen for his heartbeat. Finding none, they hang him from the gallows-pole “where oaken hearts do gather.” In the woods, Ellen weeps, for she loved William and “tried to claim him in her way.” Her sisters say they told her so. To avenge William and rid the woods of danger, the villagers go to the bridge but there see “no trace.” Nor can they ever find the place “where oaken hearts do gather.” Come spring, a sapling sprouts from William’s grave. The villagers cut it down, as every spring they cut down any [oak?] sapling in their woods. Still, sometimes when autumn comes, Ellen takes another love “where oaken hearts do gather.” The song “detectives” address major storyline questions (did Ellen bewitch William, are “oaken hearts” able like certain Ent flocks to move?) They also revel in such minute details as why the ballad mentions red leaves carpeting the trysting spot even though no native English oaks shed red leaves. Dynamum and BarrowBoy bicker. Intermittently HenryMartyn adds more information about Rydell’s research, which led him to the rural village of Gall. There he indeed found woods, and a stone bridge with steep embankments, and a helpful woman at the Gall historical society. HenryMartyn plans to retrace Rydell’s movements. Later he announces he’s arrived at Gall and met the historical society woman. She must be an old biddy, BarrowBoy supposes. Jenny Kirk’s nothing of the sort, HenryMartyn retorts. The “museum” that Jenny oversees occupies space in the village’s one-room gift shop. Nevertheless she’s as helpful as Rydell claimed and assists HenryMartyn to research Gall folklore. They must be getting along pretty well, since he also meets her sisters. HenryMarten writes that Rydell first looked for woods containing old oaks. Later he realized the Gall woods would lack old oaks if the villagers periodically burned them. Gall’s oak-eradicating tradition persisted until the 1970s. Consequently, Gall’s present day oaks are all young trees, while other species, like hornbeams and ashes, are old growth. Dynamum wonders if HenryMartyn’s friend knows of any oak matching the description of Ellen’s “gnarled and knotted ancient.” HenryMartyn responds that she does, and that she’ll take him to the woods tonight to show him. He reflects that, whatever truth “Oaken Hearts” holds, maybe he and the other detectives are “part of the cycle, bringing an old song to new listeners.” This is the last of HenryMartyn’s posts. HolyGreil wonders why he hasn’t commented in two years. Dynamum digs up HenryMartyn’s real name and the fact that he was a University of Pennsylvania student when he got his grant. HolyGreil, digging deeper, adds that while HenryMartyn was listed on the grant announcement, he didn’t participate in its end-of-year presentation. This week’s metrics: What’s Cyclopean: “A man met moonlit ‘neath a bridge” brings to mind Shakespeare’s Oberon: “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.” Which suggests both the passionate and destructive nature of the tryst to follow. Libronomicon: Rydell leaves behind both extensive scholarship, and a blog—Looking for Love in All the Lost Places—to bring his work to laypeople. Weirdbuilding: Pinsker builds on the tradition of old ballads, encrusted with folk process changes and full of inexplicable actions and descriptions. Ruthanna’s Commentary During Poetry Month, Pichette’s “The Size of Your Fist” brought this story to mind—one of my favorites both of Pinsker’s and of the amorphous sub-subgenre of artifact stories. The artifact in this case is not only the titular ballad, but an online annotation site where the ballad is analyzed by ballad geeks. The annotations and comments, in turn, track the disappearance of a “forensic” folklorist and the follow-up journey of a commenter tracing his steps. Layers upon layers, including (among many false links to versions by, e.g., The Kingston Trio) Pinsker’s own recording of the ballad. That recording, full of blurred echoes, gives me the feeling of trying to recollect lyrics several years later, only able to fully retrieve the refrain. Out of the 305 traditional ballads collected by Francis James Child, non-experts are most likely to be familiar with “Tam Lin.” There’s a reason for that: It stands out from the general pack in being more linear, and having less misogyny and random semi-explicable violence. This is not to say that there isn’t all sorts of enjoyment to be gotten from songs about women saving themselves from murderous elves, or Loreena McKennit turning a farmer into a king via folk process over the course of a single recording. Rather, my point is that many ballads take place in an ever-shifting world where you might get turned into a bone harp/swan because it scans, and humans live or die at the whim of incomprehensible powers and laws. The lyrics for “Oaken Hearts” fit right in. I love the idea of forensic folklore analysis. It might drop you in a tangled riddle asking how a corpse is like a swan—but historical ballads are a thing now, and you never know which older songs might carry a hint of bloody truth. Or the risk of becoming “part of the cycle.” (A search to check whether forensic folklore is a real thing turns up this, which I think may be the rabbit hole for an alternate reality game. If you’re in New England and want to give it a go, please report back. Don’t follow any strange women into the woods.) (There’s also an unrelated podcast.) Amid the sniping between Dynamum and BarrowBoy, HenryMartyn—not as terminally online as the others, poor guy—reports on Rydell’s work, the progress of his documentary, and his trip to Gall to examine the bridge and the strange local customs around oak trees. A gall, by the way, is an abnormal plant growth caused by infection, or by an insect making a home for its eggs. They also come in unusual colors that one might not otherwise see on said plant. Oaks are particularly susceptible. Were we talking about eldritch reproductive strategies? Perhaps we’ve found another one. Henry, like all good investigators tracking disappearances, is more interested in solving the mystery than protecting his own welfare. Surely real life doesn’t follow cyclical refrains. Surely a village that has recently given up their traditional oak-burning has perfectly safe new oak saplings. We’re solving an old crime, after all. Or an old something—Sweet William may have agreed to the “exchange” at least in principle. “There are circumstances for which, tragically, hanging is the only proportionate response.” Circumstances, as Henry points out, are not at all the same thing as crimes. Fair Ellen rips out hearts, but doesn’t kill. The heart goes in an oak tree; the acorn goes in the chest. The oak tree drops red in a climate where oak leaves don’t normally redden; the acorn-nested lover returns to the village. And the villagers are not okay with any of this. They hang William and burn all the suspect trees. Pure fear of the unknown, or experience with what he and they might turn into? The ballad gives no clue about that potentially-worse outcome. Zombie ents would be my first guess, and larval fair-young-women prone to ripping out hearts. Having a little give and take in love isn’t always such a bad thing—but sometimes it’s hard on the neighbors. Anne’s Commentary I first heard the old adage “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” on the original Star Trek episode “Friday’s Child,” when it fell from Scotty’s sage lips. Chekov claimed this saying for Mother Russia, but it evidently goes back to Anthony Weldon’s The Court and Character of King James (1651): Weldon quoted this Italian proverb “He that deceives me once, it’s his fault; but if twice, it’s my fault.” Can I emulate BonnieLass67’s erudition when she probably read Weldon cover to cover, whereas I just poked around on Google? Even Sarah Pinsker couldn’t have fooled Lass once, much less twice, as she fooled me. The first time I looked at “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,” I thought it was a genuine forum transcript. Ruthanna cleared up my confusion on that point. But then I searched the internet for a commentary-free text of “Oaken Hearts,” assuming it was a genuine folk ballad. The hell. All Google’s hits referred me back to Pinsker’s Uncanny “article.” Finally I figured out that not only was “Oaken Hearts” fiction, it was celebrated fiction, having won both the Nebula and Hugo short story awards. Shame on me, all right, but praise to Pinsker for so convincingly structuring the story as internet commentary. Double praise for so convincingly mimicking an English folk ballad that I wondered where I’d heard it before. The links to versions by Metallica, Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio, the Grateful Dead, et cetera, are dummies. Moby K. Dick’s version has the only working link, but what’s up with a whale song rendition? In truth, the “Moby K. Dick” link leads to the YouTube channel of a rock band called the Stalking Horses, which features none other than… Sarah Pinsker. Does my search for Moby K. count as being fooled three times? Never mind. I had too much fun with this story to bother blushing. The interplay of its characters nails both the major “types” of internet commenters and the flow of internet discussion. “Oaken Hearts” is more than a spoof, however. As its commentary and song stanzas braided the fates of HenryMarten and Dr. Rydell into Sweet William’s, I felt slowly mounting apprehension. I started out assuming Fair Ellen would be the ballad’s victim. What good could come from meeting some guy, at night, under an isolated bridge? Especially some guy who robbed the butcher’s son. The commenters try to soften this line into a variant like Rydell’s “Sweet William, Robert Butcher’s son.” My own softened version is that William robbed the butcher’s son not of money or beefy joints, but of Ellen herself. However that might be, it’s Ellen who victimizes William. I mean, if one kiss is getting to first base, surely ripping someone’s heart out of their chest can’t count as second base! Not for an innocent village girl. For a monster, okay, heart-ripping could even precede kissing. Ellen seems a subtler monster, one who could persuade William to agree in full knowledge to a dangerous liaison. But if she’s bewitched him, Dynamum’s pet theory, that’s coercion, not consent. In Ellen and William’s case, the only magic described takes place after they’ve agreed to meet. There is the problem of verse order that the “detectives” chew over: Should Ellen steal William’s heart before she begs him to prove his love in this drastic manner? BonnieLass67 remarks that some ballad versions do put the “plea” verse before the “rip” verse. Rhiannononymous agrees this order makes more sense. After the villagers hang William, the ballad insists that Ellen really did love him “in her way”—a way beyond the villagers’ ken, sure, but to put aside the negative connotations of “monster,” let’s say she’s a being of a different order than humanity. Say her actual form resembles an oak tree, which would give her an “oaken” heart. For her to wed William, his heart might have to become oaken as well. Ellen’s “way” could be to replace his heart with an acorn, from which he might grow himself an oaken form (starting with the sapling that springs from his grave.) Meanwhile, Ellen’s “ancient” might safeguard William’s human heart until it quickens in the spring into—another oaken heart, to be put in the grave-sapling, creating a proper mate for Ellen. There’s endless amusement to be had in fan-ficcing what Pinsker leaves out of her ballad. As HolyGreil points out, folk songs often have “gaps” which their original audiences, knowing the pertinent tales, could have filled in. Rydell wrote that the central mystery of “Oaken Hearts” is Ellen and William’s relationship. If they’re willing lovers, neither wishing to “[betray] the other’s expectations,” the villagers become the villains, triggering tragedy through their intolerance of human/oak mingling. HenryMartyn doesn’t give the other “detectives” details on Rydell’s  relationship with the Jenny who may be Ellen renamed (as ballad heroines often were.) Before his own disappearance, Henry Martyn speculates that “love involves give and take, and that some ask for more than others.” He concludes, “That’s not always such a bad thing, if you’re willing to give.” On the other hand, it’s after having been in Gall a while and “listened to Jenny and her sisters” that HenryMartyn entertains the notion that it’s okay to give much for love. The problem is: What if you were willing before slender fingers tough as oak roots plunged into your chest, but then changed your mind? Would Ellen/Jenny let you out of your promise and put your heart back? Comment below, Lyricsplainers! Next week, we take our first trip to the Sematary in chapters 7-10 of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.[end-mark] The post Forensic Folklore: Sarah Pinsker’s “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” appeared first on Reactor.

Third in a five-part series. Read part 1 here and part 2 here. Societal rot is a choice. Does it make sense for cities and states to decide which illegal aliens can stay in the country? No. Should cities and states be allowed to flout federal immigration law, or any other federal law they don’t agree with? No.  Are cities and states that have sanctuary policies for illegal aliens harboring and enabling lawlessness? Yes. Would Kate Steinle and Laken Riley be alive today if sanctuary city policies didn’t exist? Yes. Opponents of illegal immigration demonstrate in front of the White House on Dec. 3, 2017. The rally was held in response to the acquittal that week of a Mexican illegal alien in the 2015 shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Do we have hundreds of thousands of crime victims across America because we don’t fully enforce federal immigration law? Yes. It seems as though President Joe Biden is less upset about the wanton killing of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, reportedly by an illegal alien, than he is about the suspect being referred to correctly as illegal. (Photo: RIley’s Facebook account) It’s time to make common sense common again. Societal rot is a choice. Tomorrow: Turning a blind eye to shoplifting The post SOCIETAL ROT, Part 3: The Deadly Consequences of ‘Sanctuary Cities’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

BREAKING: EcoHealth Alliance Grants Suspended and Formal Debarment Procedures Begun

Philippines and China Headed for a Showdown at Scarborough Shoal

Some people are claiming that potatoes – given enough time – can release noxious solanine gas, posing health risks to anyone in close proximity. But is this actually the case?In a widely-shared recent post, one X (Twitter) user posted an image of their sister's bedroom, explaining that the 8-year-old had taken to storing potatoes behind her bed.                      IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.While adorable, people were quick to suggest this could be more dangerous than it looks.                      IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Though we wouldn't go as far as saying they are "deadly asf" (store them properly and you don't have anything to fear from mash), as potatoes go bad they can become toxic."Potatoes are such a common feature of the Western diet that most people are surprised to learn that they are the produce of a poisonous plant," one team wrote in the British Medical Journal. "In fact, potato stems and leaves contain a series of alkaloidal glycosides, termed solanines, which are highly toxic."The main hazard comes from eating potatoes that have turned green."Greening and sprouting occur when potato tubers are exposed to light or are stored in adverse conditions, and these processes are associated with the production of the alkaloids," the team continued. "Initially this occurs at the sites of increased metabolic activity, such as the 'eyes'; but eventually solanines can be detected in the flesh of the tuber, and the normal, high concentration-gradient between the peel and the flesh is lost."In one incident described by the team, 78 schoolchildren in London, England, causing symptoms including vomiting, diarrhea, fever, blood in the stool, and worse. "Depression of the central nervous system occurred in the more serious cases, and several patients were comatose with episodes of convulsive twitching. These boys also showed signs of peripheral circulatory collapse, even when dehydration was only slight."In some cases, deaths have occurred, though there may have been other contributing factors including undernourishment and inadequate treatment.Poisoning from potatoes is rare, and usually results from eating them. However, there are dubious reports that people have died from breathing in gas accumulated over time in poorly ventilated areas – although some have suggested this could have been due to other causes, such as asphyxiation due to pooled carbon dioxide. There are reasons to be skeptical of such stories, particularly as cases in the medical literature all refer to ingestion. Plus, the melting point of solanine (while reported slightly differently by the teams who have studied it) is well above 200°C (392°F), making the release of it in gas form from potatoes unlikely in dangerous quantities. "It is not only important to keep potatoes out of the light for long term storage, but those stored under the counter, in a basement or root cellar that have started to grow eyes and become mushy and rotten can be dangerous," Michigan State University writes. The article goes on to suggest that "Rotting potatoes give off a noxious solanine gas that can make a person unconscious if they’ve inhaled enough. There have even been cases of people dying in their root cellars due to unbeknownst rotting potatoes."The confusion may potentially arise from the abbreviation of glycoalkaloids to "Gas" in scientific literature. It is still sensible, however, to store potatoes in a darkened room to prevent them from going bad, which could lead to greening and health problems should you ingest them. Also, from a parent's point of view, potatoes do not belong in your bedroom.All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current. 

Billfish – saltwater predators armed with prominent pointy bills – are typically considered to be the fastest swimmers in the oceans. The speediest species of all are thought to be the sailfish (Istiophorus). They do have stiff competition though; the bluefin tuna is a serious threat to their throne.Sailfish are beautifully adapted for swimming at breakneck speeds to hunt prey. Growing up to 3 meters (10 feet) from tail to bill, they are a member of the marlin (Istiophoridae) family that features an impressively large dorsal fin that resembles the sail of a boat. Two species of sailfish make up the Istiophorus genus: Atlantic sailfish (I. albicans) and Indo-Pacific sailfish (I. platypterus). You can probably guess where those two live. While sailfish are likely to be some of the fastest-swimming marine animals, recent research has suggested they might not be as nippy as once thought. In the 1940s, scientists estimated that sailfish could achieve speeds of up to 30 meters a second – that’s a rocketing 108 kilometers per hour (67 miles per hour). However, a study in 2015 suggested this speed is likely to be overblown. They estimated that sailfish do not exceed swimming speeds of 10 meters a second, or 36 kilometers per hour (22 miles per hour).It’s highly unlikely that sailfish can maintain this speed for a prolonged period. These top speeds are likely achieved in short but intense bursts of movement while hunting prey. Most of the time, large predatory fish like this tend to cruise at a speed comparable to the average human stroll.An illustration of the Indo-Pacific sailfish (Istiophoridae platypterus).Image credit: Naturalis Biodiversity Center via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)A 2015 project by the Central American Billfish Association recorded a tracked sailfish (I. platypterus) accelerating at a G-force of 1.79 G, according to the Large Pelagics Research Center at the University of Massachusetts. If the fish maintained that speed for just a couple of seconds, they said it would be the equivalent of 125.5 kilometers per hour (78 miles per hour).Bluefin tuna might trump this, though. The Large Pelagics Research Center carried out a similar study on bluefin tuna and found they can accelerate at 3.27 G, which is 1.8 times the sailfish record. Once again, however, these are just bursts of speed and it’s unclear how long the fish maintain this activity (they might not even have maintained this acceleration for 2 seconds, as the researchers assumed). On land, speed records are a bit clearer. The undisputed champion of running on land in the cheetah, the sleek big cat of Africa adorned in solid black spots.The cheetah’s top speed is often cited as 112 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour), although that speed was recorded decades ago and is likely to be inaccurate. In 2012, a cheetah called Sarah was recorded at Cincinnati Zoo running at a top speed of 98 kilometers per hour (61 miles per hour), earning herself the world record.

The ability to regulate body temperature internally, rather than relying on the Sun, may have first appeared among dinosaurs around 180 million years ago, coinciding with an extreme climatic period.Dinosaurs were originally thought to have been cold-blooded creatures. Their name means “terrible lizard” after all, and lizards need to bask on rocks to warm their blood. This idea was thrown into question by the discovery of species of dinosaurs that lived near the poles, apparently surviving winter conditions modern reptiles could not handle. For years, the warm-blooded versus cold-blooded dinosaur debate was among the hottest in palaeontology.Now, there is broad agreement that some, but not all, dinosaurs were warm-blooded or endothermic, to use the more scientific term. After all, we now know birds are part of the Dinosauria clade and lizards are not. Since the ancestral dinosaurs were almost certainly cold-blooded, this raises the question of when the first warm-blooded dinosaurs emerged. Looking at when they first colonized colder regions could provide the answer.The first bones from both theropods and ornithischians – two of the three main dinosaur branches – appear in cold regions in the Early Jurassic, Dr Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza of University College London reports. No equivalent presence from sauropods has been detected, making it more likely thermoregulation had not evolved on this branch, rather than us having got our temperature reconstructions wrong.“Our analyses show that different climate preferences emerged among the main dinosaur groups around the time of the Jenkyns event 183 million years ago, when intense volcanic activity led to global warming and extinction of plant groups,” Chiarenza said in a statement. A period of high temperatures might seem an unlikely catalyst for developing the capacity to survive cold conditions, but it seems this was the case. “At this time, many new dinosaur groups emerged,” Chiarenza continued. “The adoption of endothermy, perhaps a result of this environmental crisis, may have enabled theropods and ornithischians to thrive in colder environments, allowing them to be highly active and sustain activity over longer periods, to develop and grow faster and produce more offspring.”Although the most famous theropods are T. Rex and Velociraptors, co-author Dr Sara Barela of the Universidade de Vigo noted birds are theropods too, adding: “Our study suggests that birds’ unique temperature regulation may have had its origin in this Early Jurassic epoch.”It is crucial that some dinosaurs laid eggs at high latitudes, proving they didn't just migrate there in summer.Image Credit: Davide Bonadonna/Universidade de Vigo/UCLIt was around this time that sauropods grew to the enormous sizes that are their most famous feature, which may have been another consequence of the environmental changes going on.As further evidence for their claim sauropods didn’t learn to thermoregulate while some members of each of the other branches did, the authors note that sauropods were common in relatively arid grasslands. This refutes the idea they avoided the poles because they relied on the rich foods available in tropical rainforests. If it wasn’t the lack of water that prevented expansion towards the poles, the cold appears the obvious explanation. Then again, seeing the theropod predators heading for the poles wouldn’t have given sauropods much incentive to join them.The sauropods did eventually make it closer to the poles during the Cretaceous, as seen in the example of Patagotitan, a candidate for the largest beast to ever walk the Earth. However, the world as a whole was warmer during the early Cretaceous than during the Jurassic, and the plant fossils found in similar locations to titanosaurs imply average annual temperatures of 10-15 °C (18-27 °F).The authors propose that even though sauropods could survive at high latitudes in the Cretaceous, they didn’t do so well in the far north, perhaps because they were still less suited to it than ornithopods, who outcompeted them. The enormous size sauropods had reached by this point may have helped their largest members survive close to the south pole in the Cretaceous, as all that thermal mass would have kept their body temperature relatively stable overnight.Although the work suggests birds’ warm-bloodedness is very ancient, mammals still probably had them beat by 50 million years. The study is published in Current Biology.

People with HIV living in the UK who have an undetectable viral load will be able to donate eggs and sperm to known recipients under a new change to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. This important change, that follows the scientific consensus, comes as part of broader changes to improve in-vitro fertilization (IVF) services in the United Kingdom and make sure that equal rights are ensured for people who seek this avenue to become parents.Thanks to antiretroviral treatments, the viral load of people with HIV can be brought down to the level where it becomes undetectable. Viral reservoirs are still present in the body, so this approach is not a cure – but once the viral load is undetectable, those people cannot pass the virus along. This fact has become known as U=U, undetectable is equal to untransmittable, and it has been recognized in policy across the world.But this is not the only update to the law – there are to be changes to another aspect that added extra costs, requirements, and time for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Female same-sex couples undergoing shared motherhood IVF treatment (one partner provides the egg and the other carries the embryo) were required to be screened for syphilis and get genetic testing done for a total cost of over £1,000 ($1,270). Couples in a heterosexual relationship did not have this requirement.“This update to the law opens up the possibility of parenthood to people living with HIV previously excluded from sperm or egg donation, not because of scientific fact but because of lingering misinformation and prejudice.The transformative impact of today’s HIV treatment means that the virus is undetectable in the blood, which means that eggs and sperm can be safely donated tofamily, friends and known recipients.We are delighted that this unnecessary barrier to starting a family has finally been overcome." Professor Yvonne Gilleece, Chair of the British HIV Association, said in a statement.Once the changes are approved, it will be just a matter of months before clinics will align themselves to the new requirements. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the independent regulator for fertility clinics, has promised to provide new guidance to help with the new directives."The HFEA welcomes the news that legislation regarding partner donation in relation to reciprocal IVF, and gamete donation from those who have HIV with an undetectable viral load, has now been proposed in Parliament," Julia Chain, chair of the HFEA, said in a statement. "Fertility treatment is helping more people than ever to create their family, and everyone undergoing fertility treatment should be treated fairly."“For known donation from individuals with undetectable HIV, we anticipate that the first clinics will be able to start offering this treatment around three months following a change in the law,” Chain said in another statement.“If the proposals are accepted, the definition of ‘partner donation’ will change to allow couples undergoing reciprocal IVF to undergo the same screening as heterosexual couples."The work of activists has been once again pivotal in raising awareness of the issue and how living with HIV has changed over the years as better treatments have come on the market.“As an HIV rights organisation, we have worked hard, over many years, to bring about this change, and are delighted that this discriminatory law will be coming to an end. Changing this needless and unfair obstacle is a huge win for both HIV and LGBT+ rights. We share this victory with our colleagues at the British HIV Association (BHIVA), parliamentarians who have spoken out on this injustice, our supporters and, importantly, every person living with HIV who shared their own stories to raise awareness of this issue,” said Deborah Gold, Chief Executive Officer of National AIDS Trust.“We are absolutely thrilled at the prospect of the many families that can now be formed, and lives that will be brought into being, as a result of this historic change. We are now looking ahead to Parliament approving this secondary legislation, and celebrating the huge difference it will bring to lives and choices of LGBT+ people living with HIV.”

In the midst of the bustling horse market, a diminutive figure captured everyone’s attention. Nano, a very small miniature horse, was more an attraction than a valued animal, languishing in poor health amidst the chaos of commerce. Living up to his name, Nano earns attention by not fitting the large, grand, and impressive qualities we’ve... The post Lonely mini horse melts hearts meeting new best friend who’s just his size appeared first on Animal Channel.

A globalist art initiative attempting to bridge peoples and cultures with 24/7 real-time public video installations has come up against the obstacle that usually trips up utopians: human nature. Lithuanian artist Benediktas Gylys' latest Portals installation connected passersby in Manhattan's Flatiron District with Dublin's O'Connell Street some 3,000 miles away. It went live last week and was supposed to run until fall 2024. 'Portals are an invitation to meet fellow humans above borders and prejudices and to experience our home – planet Earth – as it really is: united and one.' The Portals project was, however, paused just over a week into its intended multi-month run because of nasty behavior on both sides of the screen. Who thought this portal from NYC to Dublin was a good idea — (@) The dream Gylys, the founder of Portals, claims on his website that the inspiration for this project was a "mystical experience" in 2016. "Finally surrendering and sincerely admitting that I do not know anything about reality led me to a mystical experience where I felt oneness with all life on Earth for two weeks," he wrote. "After this experience I started seeing our world with different eyes and the default worldview which kept forcing me to see our planet through a lens full of narratives and filters became unbearable. I felt a deep need to counter polarising ideas and to communicate that the only way for us to continue our journey on this beautiful spaceship called Earth is together." See on Instagram Gylys worked with a team from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University to realize his apparent dream of real-time teleconferencing, which has been around in New York City since at least 1927. Together, they built the first two glorified Skype screens in Lithuania, which went live in May 2021, connecting Vilnius with the Polish city of Lublin. According to the website, "Portals are an invitation to meet fellow humans above borders and prejudices and to experience our home – planet Earth – as it really is: united and one." The promise Gylys managed to convince New York City and Dublin to take part in his globalist art project. 'Embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness.' The NYC Portal, presented by the Flatiron NoMad Partnership in collaboration with the Simons Foundation and the NYC Department of Transportation Art Program, was installed at Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street beside the Flatiron Building. Dublin City Council unveiled its circular teleconference screen near the city's Spire structure as part of Dublin's designation as the European Capital of Smart Tourism 2024. When they went live on May 8, James Mettham, president of the Flatiron NoMad Partnership, said in a press release, "This real-time connection between two iconic public spaces in global cities on either side of the Atlantic will bring people together, both physically and digitally, becoming a captivating attraction for New Yorkers and visitors alike." "It is a delight to celebrate the opening of this captivating installation and see two vibrant global cities connected in real time," said NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. Gylys suggested, "The livestream provides a window between distant locations, allowing people to meet outside of their social circles and cultures, transcend geographical boundaries, and embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness." Dublin Mayor Daithi de Roiste stated, "The Portals project embodies this, bringing together technology, engineering, and art to bring communities from across the world closer together and to allow people to meet and connect outside of their social circles and cultures." The result While most people gawked at fellow pedestrians staring back thousands of miles away, less savory characters seized upon the opportunity to hold up phones playing pornography, share offensive memes, and make rude gestures. The New York Post reported that some troublemakers in Dublin recently flashed swastikas as well as a photo of the Twin Towers engulfed in flame on Sept. 11, 2001. Hateful images were not the only things being flashed. An OnlyFans pornographer exposed her breasts to Dubliners Sunday, prompting Portal organizers on both sides of the Atlantic to take action and temporarily shut down the exhibit. Whereas the pornographer claimed on Instagram that she was responsible for the sudden end to "global interconnectedness," the Portals Organization reportedly blamed the interruption on a "technical glitch." See on Instagram The Portals Organization said in a statement obtained by the Irish Independent, "Our technical team is looking into the cause to improve the stability of the livestream moving forward." "The nature of the project, providing a 24/7 livestream, is such that sometimes interruptions will occur due to technical glitches, maintenance or simple software updates," continued the statement. "Our teams (portals.org and AVSPL) are doing their best to ensure smooth and consistent operations in order to come as close as possible to a 24/7 active livestream." The Dublin City Council indicated Monday that the exhibit will undergo a number of changes on account of multiple incidents of "inappropriate behavior" from the Irish side. "Unfortunately, we have also been witnessing a very small minority of people engaged in inappropriate behaviour, which has been amplified through social media," stated the council. "While we cannot control all of these actions, we are implementing some technical solutions to address this and these will go live in the next 24 hours." The screens were reportedly streaming again Tuesday during the day, but shut off at night, reported the Associated Press. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!