#if it wasnt sewer slide

[choisansexual]

A little something in regards to all the bullshit swirling around concerning Moonbin's passing— the assumptions, speculations, and rumors surrounding COD and autopsy findings.

[A/N— long text post ahead containing personal ranting, personal perspective; but if inclined, please read thoroughly and to the end]

IMPORTANT PSA—

ALL THESE PEOPLE SAYING THAT “WE��RE JUST FANS" or that “ITS NOT OUR RIGHT TO KNOW, ITS PRIVATE"… and blah blah blah.

LISTEN—… L I S T E N…

we know. okay? WE KNOW.

but— moonbin… was an INTERNATIONAL CELEBRITY. he had and still has, millions… millions of fans and supporters. when you are a celebrity, a very large part of your life is exposed and displayed to the public. being the sweetheart that we was, he made deep connections and bonds with his fans. so, it's not about being nosy, or feeling entitled to know, or even wanting to see his autopsy results… it's about closure. it's about clarity. and its giving that to the people that loved and adored him, and actuallyed cared about him not only as a celebrity, but as a person; a human being. we just want the truth— so what if it exposes his company for negligent health care?! if it was due to preexisting health conditions that moonbin, himself, chose to not share with his fans/the public, THEN… it's his family's choice to share that, or not.

i read several different comments, and there is one that wrote out a suspicious timeline, leading up to his passing— prior to going to thailand, he fainted or passed out on the 7th of april. when this happened, he was not admitted to the hospital for any medical checks or tests. he proceeded with grueling schedules for 12 days, afterwards and passed on the 19th. he could have been sick then, and further complicated the sickness. so, more than anything… we just want clarity and for the confusion, assuming, and speculating to stop. it's not about entitlement, or invading privacy! its knowing the truth about someone who brought you happiness, that you genuinely loved, adored, and cared for. people just need to be respectful of others that are closer to moonbin than they are (i.e. family). TRUE fans are NOT the ones spreading the rumors.

if you go back to the very first news article you read about the news, when it happened, “suicide" has ALWAYS been associated with his passing. from the very first headline, it read, “ASTRO'S MOONBIN PASSES AWAY; SUICIDE". or even “ASTRO MOONBIN DEAD BY SUICIDE". so, from the very beginning, that's how it was associated. people take the police's statements as facts, because they're a figure of authority, right? so, even if the articles read, [“… he was discovered by police in his apartment dead, by what they suspect is suicide.”] it's still assumed true, since it's the police. this is what was published and released to the public from day one, so it's all that we knew… from day one. now to hear, that theres a possibility that it isnt true? people will automatically try to figure out the truth.

so, if you'd like to point fingers, there you go. stop fighting with one another, stop shoving your opinions down one another's throats. assuming is a human trait, because we, as humans, like to be aware of what's coming, or be aware of a situation that could be shocking or surprising… we seek closure, and seek answers for peace of mind. just dont force it on others who dont agree or perceive what you, personally are perceiving. period.

#RIP moonbin — #RIP moon angel ♡

[leafatlaw]

i have the absolute worst idea for a riptide fic

[viktoriakomova]

trin catastrophically injured halfway thru and i wasnt watching live bc i thought this session was boring ??? i WILL sewer slide

[yourskinnyqueen]

reminiscent of when I tried to sewer slide myself at 13. I laid in that bed so weak I couldn’t move and my father yelled at me for over on hour about how my life “WaSNt eVEN tHaT bAD”. Sure guy verbally abusing the victim into believing some warped narrative you want to portray. Go off king or whatever.

[frogginlosingit]

today was my birthday

and all i could think about was my quickest exit. iykwim. i hated it. being around my family just makes me want to go down a slide of the sewer variety.

it was like whiplash. with my friends, i am like their little baby princess angel. I got gifts and they were extra sweet and let me pick food and movies and all that junk. they dont have to /buy/ anything but its the attention that was so sweet and just being like "oh OP you pick where we get food!" and they were quite generous. Hell im starting to think my friends are altruists! it was unbelievably sweet of them to shower me with so much love. but then came the family side of the weekend.

SO i went to a relatives house for a family birthday party and it was okay. I got some good gifts mostly from my favorite uncle (crime and punishment and a bunch of other Dostoevsky works). However, the men in the family largely ignored the festivities to argue about politics and religion despite all sharing the same opinion.... I was thrown into a somewhat babysitter role and as soon as the teenage kids wanted to leave it was pretty much over about an hour and a half after starting. Now you might think that sounds normal, but family events are usually all day and at least 5 hours. So i was like okay??? And i went home to have the house to myself for a bit while my parents ran errands. My mom at the party kept trying to embarrass me, humiliate me, and minimize me at every opportunity. My family threw this big party all to make me feel so fucking small and barely talk to me. it was just...humiliating. Being sung happy birthday by people who haven't called in 10 years but now that youre in easy reach it's happy birthday OP? it just felt so...anger inducing. but maybe my new meds just need to kick in?

then today was my birthday. I did my normal Sunday routine as I was not willing to deviate despite it being my birthday. My parents made me a special breakfast and I am glad I knew it was coming ahead of time bc I was able to smoke beforehand so I could actually eat. I hate breakfast. The food is so bussin but eating in the morning is so disgusting to me esp on the meds I am on. I cant help but be an IF queen now. Anyways that was fine except that sportsball had already started... So when I was opening gifts and trying to talk my parents just didnt hear me. I got some clothes which was a surprise! And a new monitor which was not a surprise lol I explicitly asked for it but had a few things I wanted for compatibility sake and guess what? I wasnt heard. So we had to take it back and get a new one which thankfully worked. But after dinner tonight I was so depressed and upset I couldnt even use it. My computer has been out of commission for months and I was supposed to be pumped but I am crushingly depressed tonight. After getting off the phone with my best friend I finally broke down and sobbed for the first time this weekend.

I used to love my birthday now I cant remember why.

[kidkintsugi]

looking at my old vent art and realizing that ive been drawing it for a very, very long time now. too long.

i dont think im gonna be happy in the future. depression will stay with me for a lifetime.

i look at my body in disgust.

my social behaviour is abnormal.

the only thing keeping my entertained are my interests but they are intense to the point it scares people off.

i distinctively remember my therapist telling me that she doesnt know how to help me anymore. i dont know either.

im turning 20 this year, its been like this for over a decade now and it doesnt seem to be getting any better. it will just continue.

at this point i want to work myself to death. i hope i get a heart attack by the time im 30 so i can say that it wasnt sewer slide. that it wasnt on purpose even though it was.

i feel like im always so so close to actually becoming better, i work so hard for it but right before reaching the light i always fall off again.

why me god why me

if im lucky im gonna be having another panic attack tonight, and to drive the point home nobodys even gonna hear it, just like all of the other times

[evilgenderywizard]

yk having high empathy tends to suck most of the time but i do have to say its saved me from offing myself several times.

a couple years back i got to a point i ended up calling the sewer slide hotline and the main thing i was worried about wasnt me dying but the effects itd have on those around me including my mother who was a couple rooms over sleeping as she had work in a few hours. so yea it sucks crying over little things that you yourself find to be stupid and something most people wouldnt be so emotional over but sometimes it can save you from yourself when you feel youre at your worst.

[stil-yr-sand]

tw- mentions of self harm, suicidal thoughts, eating disorder? over all mental issues

for the like 2 ppl who are gonna see this

about this time last year i was doing really bad. i was cutting, wasnt eating, was really depressed, and was slowly drifting apart from my friends. just like ya klnow, wanted to kermit sewer slide. obviously i didnt, and i am really glad i didnt. im doing a lot better now, and im slowly getting back to normal.

i just wanted to say, it does get better. ive gone on prozac, and thats helped a LOT. i got a therapist, which has also helped. it does get better, i promise. my dms are always open if you need to rant, or if you need a picture of a frog. ily and im so proud of you

xxx marmalade 

have a cookie 🍪 :)

[sunfortune]

steve is reckless. and we Know this but he really lowkey tried to commit sewer slide at the end of catws and people dont really talk about that often bc of everything else that happened in that scene with bucky, etc. or chalk it up to his usual behavior. BUT Like..he really insisted on them Blowing up the helicarrier while he was Still on it And took off his Helmet And dropped his shield with No way out. but he didnt even Try to look for a way out...like bro. that wasnt usual steve recklessness. he just found out his sacrifice 70 years ago meant Nothing. he was Really ready to d*e.

[ultrastimpaks]

i had two dreams last night

[[MORE]]

the first of them i was in a zombie apocalypse. i was part of a group that needed to infiltrate this school for whatever reason. then, while we were inside and trying to stealth our way to the principal, and there were zombies everywhere just walking around, the principal started yelling through the intercom just to fuck with us. then we had to find a way out. di*go hargr*eves was in the dream and apparently a love interest. managed to get outside, found a high school friend who told me he had a special gun to take down the principal and if i did so, he would even give me his special jacket. thid gun had slides?? and buttons and a scope too. i remember it being heavy and weird to hold and it was made of many other pieces of guns and scrap metal. then i went up this small building, and managed to take the principal down. but he had guards so we had to run for our lives. we found a van waiting for us and left. on our way out i sat next to di*go and kept running my hands through his hair and he told me i did good before kissing my wrist.

dream number 2 i was part of a weird group of people whose motives i dont know. started with me climbing and going around sewers to find this old picture of a person holding a fish. found it under a bed and kept it just before someone walked in. then a man entered our space and caused a scene, i dont know what happened to him but he wasnt supposed to be there. that was good though because i would use him as a bait to say he stole the pic. there was this guy in the group i had beef apparently because he kept this photo and he noticed it was gone but couldnt say it openly to everyone so he said the crazy guy who invaded the place stole somethinf of his. he was having a thing with this other woman from the team. then while he was talking about it i showed up the pic to him and left the placr and he csme after me. i was at a diner when he showed up abt to k*ll me but i said he couldnt because i had his pic and he wouldnt want to cause a scene in public. but then i woke up and didnt find out what my Evil Plans were :(

[the-beauty-and-the-brute]

Little red (part one..... maybe)

Raph was running along the roof tops of new york just getting ready for patrol as he usually does around sun down, the city was a little quiet And there wasnt much to do today maybe too quiet for raphs liking but soon the city would be alive again and in no time raph would have his hands full. but in the mean time he was just checking the back alleys and the busy streets before it began to get darker and darker as day changed to night, from the roof he looked down at a somewhat empty alley and was about to turn and leave before his mind processed what he just saw and he stopped in his tracks. He frantically looked back into the alley and saw a small blonde haired baby girl that was waddling down the alley and into traffic almost and his heart dropped as she got closer to the busy street, raph jumped from the roof and scooped up the kid running down the secluded part of the alley with her knowing she would scream or cry because she thought he was a monster but as he stopped he noticed she was quiet as a mouse. This was confusing to raphael as he put her down getting a good look at the kid "you arent mute, are you?" cause surely this kid saw him and knew he wasnt human, and as the little girl looked with her tiny blue eyes at raph she didn't look like she saw a monster she seemed like she saw a friend which made her smile as she reached to touch his face. Raph didnt stop her as she stroked his scaly face gently before touching his scar and frowning "owwie" she said standing on her tippy toes to get a better look at the scar on his lip, raph was baffled at how such a small human could look at him like that and could touch him so gently it wasnt until he heard people coming down the alley that he snapped out of his dazed state. He grabbed the little girl and climbed up to the roof looking back to see if they were looking for the little girl and When he was sure they werent he jumped from that roof to next, he didn't know what to do with her if no one was looking for her then where would she go and who would take care of her if no one would stand up and care for her then he would have to. the feel of her tiny hands on his face brought him out of his thoughts and back to the real world "turtle" she said with a cute smile that could melt any heart, raph took out his phone and called for donnie knowing he would at least know where to start with finding where this little girl came from and in the mean time he would just have to take her to the lair for her safety. when he got to the entrance to the lair he noticed a couple punk kids hanging out by it so he did the only thing he could think of at that time, he put the girl down hidding her behind a small tin garbage can and she whined but he hushed her not wanting the teens to hear them. he then snuck up near the kids then roared really loudly scaring the piss out of the group and causing them to Run away screaming, but after everything had died down he heard a tiny roar come from the little girl which startled him a bit making her laugh and giggle. a small smile spread across raphs face for only a moment before he tried to play it off and ignore the fact that this little girl had made him smile like that, He picked her up then jumped down into the sewer sliding down their water slide and she giggled and laughed the whole way there. once there he was greeted by mikey who stopped in his tracks once he saw what or rather who raph was holding "Hey raph, whats...." A wide grinned spread across his baby brothers face, Raph growled and shoved mikey out of the way so he could bolt straight for donnies lab hoping not to run into his older brother on the way but sadly he wasnt as lucky as he hoped, leo caught a glimspe of him and her just as he walked in to the door of donnies lab and raph could see a confused look grace his face. As raph stepped into the lab and looked around he noticed donnie wasn't here so he turned to leave but Leo blocked the doorway, his arms were crossed and his face looked stern though he tried to remain calm his tone became aggressive "raph what are you doing, who Is that?". as the leader spoke raph rolled his eyes already done with this conversation "this is a lost girl I found on the street she needs help getting back home" he said brushing past his brother and out of the lab, Leo followed him as he took the little girl to the kitchen and sat her at the table "and what you couldn't take her to the cops so they could handle it" leos tone was now biting as he spoke to his brother. "no I couldn't! I could not leave her there and let her just be forgotten or worse!" raph yelled "and if you don't like the way I help people then you can kiss my-" raph was interrupted by splinter "boys!", he said "That Is no way to handle an emergency, I have taught you better" said the old rat the two glared at eachother then Leo walked away "my son I hope you know what your doing" splinter said walking up to the little one who sat at the table looking up at raph with wide innocent sad eyes. "Hello little one" he said and she gave a small wave "we want to help you get back to your mama and papa, okay" she frowned pouting a little whining saying "no" she stood up in the chair and reached for raph giving the grabby hands like she wanted him to pick her up, raph sighed knowing it would be hard to let her go now that she was attached to him "come on kid, lets go see if we can find you some toys" said the brute as he picked her up. Splinter watched them as they left the kitchen "this is going to be a long next few days" he stated with a bit of a chuckle as he began to make some tea for himself and leo to help calm his nerve and bring down his anger, as raph walked into his bedroom he put the little girl on his bed and she gave a cute yawn "hey you sleepy kid?" she shook her head rubbing her eyes tiredly. Raph knew she was lying and that she in fact was sleep but was fighting it so he decided to grab one of his old teddy bears that he used to sleep with as a kid "here, hes not much but hes a good friend", the little girl looked curiously at the old ragged bear before she took it in her arms and hugged it close to her nearly falling over on the bed as she giggled holding it. Raph smiled at the heart warming site but then his smile turned to a sneer as mikey entered the room "hey big bro, whos the little princess?" He asked excitedly, raph crossed his arms "i dont know mikey, i found her on the street she was list so im helping her" he answered back "oh so can she talk?" mikey asked and raph shrugged "hey whats your name?" Mikey asked. The little girl looked at mikey then at raph as if asking what say in that moment of silence as the orange bandana turtle sat waiting for her answer "Sapphire" she squeaked out in a small mouse like voice, mikey smiled "aww, well hey little sapphire wanna play some games" she nodded but raph butted in "not until after her nap, i know your tired kid just take a little rest" he said and she frowned but laid down to nap. Mikey shrugged and turned leave the room but before he did he whispered "ill be waiting for you when your ready sapphire" she giggled and smiled before she squeezed the bear and snuggled into to bed, raph took a blanket he knitted and tucked her in leaning over her "alright kid ill stay just until you fall asleep but soon my brothers will need me" she reached up and stroked his face gently as her eyes became heavy and she started to drift off to sleep. Raph smiled as he felt her tiny hand on his face tracing every scar he had gained from training and fighting over the years and soon she fell asleep, he waited for a few moments watching her sleep not wanting to wake her as he snuck out the room and gave a sigh "well that was easy" he said "but its only going to get harder" leo added.

[dying-mall-rat]

Yall if I'm ghosted you better know it wasnt a sewer slide

[berrymeter]

i knew mbti was bad but i looked up what the creator did and like... lmao... ppl want to claim THIS is better than astrology?? get out of my face

[ashlynforsure]

Annoying Realities...

Have you ever wanted someone you couldn't have? Like really wanted someone, like really bad? That is one of the most annoying feelings ever. Its like missing a train that you almost had, but the doors closed as soon as you stepped through the turnstile annoying. Its like, man that train was MINE! Same feeling… The only thing is, with the train, you can catch another one. I CANT CATCH ANOTHER YOU! ( Thats what I say to them in my head). Its just annoying. Just when you realize you like them, and are interested in the possibility of SOMETHING, they drop the bomb, or you see that selfie with them and their partner, or even better! You hear them call their partner “babe”. Its like all of my hopes just calmly slide down the the curb of a New York City street soaked in dirty dreamwater and makes their way into a sewer….another fantasy wasted. Like whyyyyyy?! And what’s worse, is when you see the relationship is solid. HA! Yeah, you can cancel all hopes, they’re not breaking up anytime soon, and if they do, they’ll be a reconciliation post back up on social media within 48 hours. “Y'all thought it was over? We’re forever, I love you baby.” Somebody pass me a neuse.

The up side to all of this is that within that time, you realize that it didn't happen because it wasnt meant to be you. That's not the person you were meant to have. Maybe its supposed to be a really good friendship or business relationship. One thing I've learned from trial and error, is not to let emotions get in the way of what could actually be good connections. Its not worth it. Some people are truly better off as friends. The person that you're just so infatuated with, may be the complete opposite of who you imagine they are, once you really get to know them. So if they’re taken, you can scream in your pillow when you get home, get it all out. But dont sulk for too long. And most importantly! DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF A SIDEPIECE, NEVER BE A HOMEWRECKER AND DONT BE A HATER! You're more than that, and you’re worth being number one…EXCLUSIVE! Remember that.

[erclov]

dont expect or tbh even really want ppl to read this cuz its super negative but uhhh TW for sew of the slide all thoughts and other depressing things!!

its so frustrating cuz i genuinely dont know the way to make me happy

like all i’m doing is toiling day after day. it makes me so spiteful to think any other ““opportunities”“ are just slightly different ways of being exploited.

like the only “way out” i can think of is to make more money bc i won’t have to slowly k*ll myself in order to live decently. but in order to do that it feels like i’ll have to be the one exploiting ppl. one way or another. i genuinely don’t know if there’s a way to make money w/o someone being exploited somehow. and i hate that. i don’t want to do that. but it feels like the choice is either me or someone else. and it makes me wanna cry. i don’t wanna be here. day after day i have to put on a fake smile for my employer and do a job that is incredibly physically taxing for minimal pay. worst part is? pay-wise its one of the better ones i can have. bc everyone pays their workers sh*t here, unless u have a degree or a bunch of work experience in smth specific already. so like, idk what else to do!! do i go into more debt to ““further my education”“ hoping and praying smth works out? and how will i do that if i’m unable to even live on my own cuz i can’t afford even that?

basically i hate all my options!!!!!!! and everything feels very disingenuous, and whatever i choose i will have to fake a smile in order to do it, which i dont know if i’m strong enough to do unless i brainwash myself somehow.  if it wasnt for some of the stuff i do to help my depression i would probably be completely sewer slide all rn!!! but instead i am slightly better and still insanely depressed!

[caredogstips]

Man v rat: could the long conflict soon be over? | Jordan Kisner

The Long Read: Rat spread infection, ravage crops and very sometimes eat beings alive. For centuries, we have struggled to find an efficient way of controlling their numbers. Until now

First, the stories. “There wasnt” super rats. Apart from a specific subtropical make, they do not get very big than 20 inches long, includes the fanny. They are not blind , nor are they so worried about “cat-o-nine-tails”. They do not carry rabies. They do not, as was indicated in 1969 viewing an island in Indonesia, fall from the sky. Their communities are not led by elusive, monstrous king rats. Rat skeletons cannot liquefy and reconstitute at will.( For some otherwise rational people, this is a genuine relate .) They are not indestructible, and there are not as many of them as we remember. The one-rat-per-human in New York City estimate is pure fiction. Consider this the good news.

In most other respects, the rat problem, as it has come to be known, is a perfect nightmare. Wherever humans travel, rats follow, forming shadow metropolitans under our metropolises and hollows beneath our farmlands. They thrive in our squalor, attaining dwellings of our sewers, vacated alleys, and forgot ballparks. They poison food, gnaw babes, undermine builds, spread malady, devastate crop furnishes, and very rarely eat parties alive.A male and female left to their own machines for one year the average lifespan of a town rat can beget 15,000 descendants.

There may be no prince rat, “but theres” rat lords, an organization of up to 30 rats whose tails have knotted together to form one monstrou, swirling mass. Rats may be unable to liquefy their bones to slide under doors, but they dont need to: their skeletons are so flexible that they can constrict their route through any pit or crack wider than half an inch. They are cannibals, and they sometimes titter ( kind of )~ ATAGEND specially when tickled. They can seem en masse, as if from nowhere, moving as fast as seven paws per second. They do not carry rabies, but a 2014 consider from Columbia University found that the average New York City subway rat carried 18 viruses previously unknown to discipline, together with dozens of familiar, hazardous pathogens, such as C difficile and hepatitis C. As recently as 1994 there was a major reappearance of bubonic haras in India, an distasteful flashback to the 14 th century, when that rat-borne illness killed 25 million people in five years. Collectively, rats are responsible for more human death than any other mammal on earth.

Humans have a peculiar talent for obliterating other species. In the case of rats, we have been pursuing their total demise for centuries. We have invented elaborated, horrific nets. We have trained hounds, ferrets, and “cat-o-nine-tails” to kill them. We have invented ultrasonic machines to drive them away with high-pitched racket.( Those machines, still popular, do not work .) We have poisoned them in their millions. In 1930, faced with a rat infestation on Rikers Island, New York City officials flushed the region with mustard gas. In the late 1940 s, scientists developed anticoagulants to plow thrombosis in humen, and some years later supertoxic versions of the medications were developed in order to kill rats by making them bleed to extinction from the inside after a single quantity. Cityscapes and farmlands were drenched with thousands of tonnes of these chemicals. During the 1970 s, we utilized DDT. These periods, rat poison is not just sown in the earth by the truckload, it is rained from helicopters that track the rats with radar in 2011 80 metric tonnes of poison-laced bait were dropped on to Henderson Island, home to one of the last untouched coral reef in the South Pacific. In 2010, Chicago officials croaked natural: figuring a natural piranha might track and kill rats, they secreted 60 coyotes wearing radio collars on to the city streets.

Still, here “they il be”. Harmonizing to Bobby Corrigan, the worlds conducting expert on rodent ascendancy, many of the worlds enormous metropolis remain totally overcome. In New York were losing that war in a big lane, he told me. Combat analogies have become a central boast of rat conference among pest limit professionals. In Robert Sullivans 2014 volume Rats, he described humanitys relation with the species as an unending and bestial battle, a battle we seem ever, always to lose.

Why? How is it that we can send robots to Mars, build the internet, keep alive infants born so early that their surface isnt even amply made and yet persist unable to keep rats from peril our food supplies, biting our newborns, and appearing in our toilet bowls?

Frankly, rodents are the most successful species, Loretta Mayer told me lately. After the next holocaust, both rats and Twinkies will be the only concepts left. Mayer is a biologist, and she contends that the rat problem is actually a human trouble, a result of our preposterous selections and lacks of curiosity. In 2007, she co-founded SenesTech, a biotech startup that offers the promise of an truce in a conflict that has lasted thousands of years. The abstraction is simple: rat birth control

The rats primary survival knowledge, as a species, is its disheartening charge of breeding. Female rats ovulate every four epoches, copulate dozens of times a day and continue fruitful until they die.( Like humans, they have sex for solace as well as for procreation .) This is how “theres going” from two to 15,000 in a single time. When poison or catches thin out its own population, they mate faster until their numbers regenerate. Conversely, if you can keep them from copulating, settlements collapse in weeks and do not rebound.

Solving the rat question by putting them on the pill voices ludicrous. Until recently no pharmaceutical concoction existed that could shape rats infertile, and even if it had, there was still the issue of how it could be administered. But if such a thing were to work, the impact “couldve been” historic. Rats would die off without the is necessary to poison, radar or coyotes.

SenesTech, which is based in Flagstaff, Arizona, claims to have created a liquid that will do precisely that. In experiments conducted in Indonesian rice fields, South Carolina pig farms, the outskirts of Boston and the New York City subway, the produce, called ContraPest, effected a fall in rat populations of approximately 40% in 12 weeks. This autumn, for the first time, the company is forming ContraPest available to commercial groceries in the US and Europe. The team at SenesTech believes it could be the first meaningful advance in the fight against rats in a hundred years, and the first workable alternative to poison. Mayer was weaken about the implications: This will change “the worlds” .

Mayer is a tall, vigorous lady in her mid-6 0s with bright eyes, spiky gray-haired whisker and a toothy grin. Her dogmata of selection are Buddhism and the Girl Scouts. Its various kinds of my core, she enunciated of the latter, to do for others. In gossip, her demeanour is so upbeat that she seems to be holding forth radiantly before an audience or on the brink of explosion into ballad. When wished to know how she is doing, she routinely reacts in a near-rapture: If I was any better, Id be a twin! she also appears to enjoy watching parties be interested to know whether this is an expression they should know.

When I took a seat in her office earlier this year, she applauded her sides triumphantly and articulated Ooh! Youre sitting outside record and strength! There was a breather. I had a feng shui party come and do my agency, she explained.

Loretta Mayer, CEO of SensTech, props up a test cup of the companys rat contraceptive formula. Photograph: Taylor Mahoney/ SenesTech

Mayer came to science later than customary, in her mid-4 0s, after a career in real estate development and a stint as the international vice president of Soroptimist, a global voluntary organisation dedicated to improving the lives of women. The job change was surprising, even to her. After a close friend expired abruptly of a heart attack, Mayer called up a biologist she knew and asked how something like this could have happened. The biologist “havent had” filling answer; she explained that while congestive heart failure in humanities had been thoroughly studied, little attention had been devoted to post-menopausal congestive heart failure in dames. Well youve got to change it, Mayer responded, scandalized. The biologist was otherwise occupied, so Mayer decided to do it herself. At 46, she penetrated a PhD programme in biology at Northern Arizona University.

After graduate school, her initial study as a prof of biology at Northern Arizona focused on artificially persuasion menopause in lab mouse so that she could analyze changes in the postmenopausal mettle. Three years into her efforts, Mayer was contacted by Patricia Hoyer, a peer in Phoenix, who said that she had stumbled across a substance that seemed to make mice infertile, without having any other outcomes. Together, Mayer and Hoyer synthesised a new complex, which they announced Mouseopause.

Shortly after Mayer and Hoyer published their work on Mouseopause in 2005, Mayer received a telephone call from a veterinarian in Gallup, New Mexico, who had read about her research. The Navajo reservation where he worked was overrun by wild puppies. There were too many to spay and neuter, so “hes been” euthanising virtually 500 a few months. If you are able do for a bird-dog what you can do for a mouse, I could stop killing bird-dogs out here, he told her.

Mayer describes herself as excessively connected to animals, dogs in particular. When she arrived in Gallup and identified the piled bodies, she agreed to measure Mouseopause on an initial group of 18 booking puppies. I held up that first puppy, who I called Patient Zero, she told me, and I pronounced, I dont know what this is gonna do to you, but you will live on a satin pillow the rest of your periods. The insertion saw the dogs infertile, but left them otherwise glad and healthy.( Mayer delivered home all 18 pups and built a kennel in her ground to house them until she could find residences for them with houses she knew personally. Patient Zero, renamed Cheetah, lived with her until she died of old age though the pillow was fleece .)

The next request received from Australia in 2006. Biologists there wanted an adaptation of Mouseopause for rats. Rats, they told her, were snacking 30% of the rice harvest in Australia and Indonesia. If she could reduce the rat person by even half, they claimed, the harvests that would be saved could feed millions of people.

Mayer was moved by the idea of finding a solution to rat overpopulation that was neither lethal nor noxious. Since its fabrication, rat poison has been our primary procedure of curbing rat people, but it is dangerous. Assimilated in high-pitched doses, its lethal to humen, and it poses a particular to children because it is sweet and brightly emblazoned. In the US alone, more than 12,000 brats per year, the majority of members of whom live below the poverty line, are accidentally poisoned by pesticide symbolize for rats.

The collateral mar incurred by rat poison likewise extends to the environment, leaching into the grunge and poisoning house babies, farm animals, and wildlife that feed on rats. Worst of all, rat poison is not very effective at eliminating large-scale infestations. As long as there was a meat generator, colonies bounce back, and, especially in Europe, rats has been an increase resistant to the poisons. As Mayer often enunciates, Doing the same concept over and over and expecting different ensues: isnt that the definitions contained in madnes?

Persuaded by the research, and by her bride, fellow biologist Cheryl Dyer, Mayer decided to devote her job to developing a new, smarter direction to control the rat person. In 2007, they founded SenesTech. Beings do never to invest with a husband and wife squad, Mayer joked to me. I speak, Oh absolutely not! Then you have preeminence. But wife and partner? Works enormous!

For Dyer and Mayer, the immediate problem was obvious: while the laboratories mice and feral bird-dogs had received injections in controlled studies, wild rats would have to eat the formula of their own choice. Rats are neophobic they forestall what they dont know. Whats more, municipality rats are already well fed. In New York City, for example, they have fresh bagels, pizza, defrosted ice cream and fried chicken in unending furnish. To attain, Dyer and Mayer had to stimulate the combination not just edible but delicious.

After a series of tests, they speedily settled on a liquid, rather than solid, formulation. Rats have to suck 10% of their own bodies heavines every day to survive, and so are always ogling out for something potable. We compared the[ two] and they urinate on the solid and drank the fluid, Dyer told me. Rats are pretty straightforward.

Where Mayer is tall and voluble, Dyer is short and broad-shouldered, quiet and succinct. She seems most comfortable behind the scenes, if exclusively because it is easier to get away with wearing Hawaiian-print shirts and no shoes. At SenesTechs headquarters, Dyers windowless office is right next to Mayers, and if Mayers office evokes Zen, Dyers evokes an island paradise. Incidents from Hawaii envelop her walls, hula( and rat) figurines row the shelves, and on her table sits a small wooden mansion, which does, WELCOME TO THE TIKI BAR. I still have a widescreen Tv, on which Dyer likes to watch old-time movies on soften all day.

It was Dyers job to acquire Mouseopause appetizing for rats a ticklish overture because its active ingredient, 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide( VCD ), is fierce and caustic. Rats have the same smell advantages as humans they adoration fat and carbohydrate though Dyers experiments with various smells profiles indicated that their desire for both surpass ours.

She was also tasked with the greater challenge of adapting Mouseopause to work on rats, which are much hardier than mice. While VCD effected the eggs in mouse ovaries to decline rapidly, female rats were far less susceptible. Hoping for a complex gist, Dyer included two seconds active ingredient: triptolide, which stunted any germinating eggs. The solutions become better, but still not been enough. They precisely had smaller litters, goddammit, she said.

Eventually, out of a mixture of curiosity and madnes, she fed it to both males and females. The develop was drastic. It turns out that the triptolide destroyed sperm the males became sterile almost immediately after assimilating the formula. This was a total bombshell: no one had ever experimented triptolide on male rats before. It was dazing, Dyer told me. Totally unpredictable. Research after test: no puppy. She sighed. Man, you should have viewed the No Pup party. After three years of research and evolution, they had a make that worked and did not trauma other swine.( The active ingredients are metabolised by the rats body in 10 minutes, which means that any piranha that chews it is not affected, and the compound rapidly breaks down into inactive ingredients when it makes grunge or ocean .)

ContraPest, the finished product, is viscous and dessert. Electric pink and opaque, it tastes like nine packets of saccharine blended into two tablespoons of kitchen lubricant. Rats adoration it, Dyer added. Affection it. Mayer, who taste-tested every form during the development process, has not been able to say the same for herself.

In 2013, New Yorks Metropolitan Transit Authority( MTA) reached out to Mayer after hearing about SenesTechs early experiments to ask whether the company would experiment ContraPest in New Yorks metroes as part of a citywide effort to find brand-new, most successful alternatives to poison. Numerous municipalities dedicate manpower and fund to keeping the rats under control, but New York, which is more or less the rat capital of the western world, is the epicentre of anti-rat efforts. Every incoming mayor of New York shows his intentions for a enormous rodenticide Giuliani even commissioned a rat czar to oversee the carnage merely to leave the next guy even more to deal with.

Brown rat( Rattus norvegicus) rearing up. Guardian Design Photograph: Frank Greenaway/ Getty Images/ Dorling Kindersley

When the MTA officials contacted Mayer, she echoed, they were worried that the formula would not work on New York rats, which have the reputation of being bigger, tougher, and smarter than any other metropolitan rat in “the worlds”.( Norway rats, the species infesting New York, are not in fact the largest rat kind .) They requested Mayer whether they should send a few New York rats on a plane to Arizona so that SenesTech could experiment with them before coming to New York. No, I dont was just thinking, responded Mayer, entertained. I never met a rat I couldnt sterilise.

Mayer dispatched two of SenesTechs youngest scientists, women in their 20 s, to New York that are intended to test whether the formula was appealing enough. Would New York rats favor ContraPest to ocean or pizza? Wearing the most appropriate approximation of hazmat dress to protect themselves from the excrement, the scientists patrolled the metroes trash storage rooms under Grand Central Station. They planted bait chests filled with feed depots of ContraPest and then stood nearby, counting the rats that came in and out with clickers in order to racetrack how many rats were taking the bait. For six months, they baited and weighed, their suits at the end of each day in bleach.

The two young women went home to Arizona with good report: is not simply did the New York rats drink ContraPest, the drink actually worked on them. The measure approved the most important one hopes of the company there was an alternative to poison that would work, even in New York City, and they had observed it.

When humans and swine come together, there are selects. Mayer believes that if you understand the ecology of the swine and you understand your own ecology, then you and the animal will be able to coexist peacefully. After centuries of misperception and squeamishness, we are at last have a good clasp of rat ecology. Now the problem may be our hesitancy to look too carefully at ourselves.

In his 1983 journal More Cunning than Man, scribe Robert Hendrickson rolls the obvious spaces in which rats so well resemble humans: brutality, omnivorousness, adaptability to all climes, movement from east to west in the life journey of their species, reckless fecundity in all seasons, with a seeming need to prepare genocidal conflict on their own manner. He describes rats and men alike as utterly destructive, both taking all other living thing for their purposes.

Humanitys long struggle with rats predominantly signals the worst traits we share with them: our inability to live responsibly within environmental purposes; our bias toward hedonism and avarice; and our failures to look after the weakest among us. Going rid of them makes chastising ourselves first.

SenesTech is not alone in its to make efforts to organize a more sustained, responsible procedure of dissolving the rat difficulty. Its the job is heir to an existing method: integrated pest management, or IPM, which holds that if humans particularly city-dwellers took more care with their milieu, rats wouldnt thrive.

IPMs most vocal advocate is Bobby Corrigan, who has brought its principles to farmlands and metropolitans all over the world, most notably New York, which recently revised its rat domination program on his advice. Twice a year, he teaches the New York health departments Rat Academy, a three-day trained for manufacture professionals. This April, there used to be perhaps 100 attendees wedged into wooden theatre benches in a downtown auditorium, comprising feeble coffee and spongy muffins.

Corrigan is a thinnish, pale man, bald-pated except for a low-grade, wispy crown framing his ears. He invests his nighttimes on wall street or in basement recess analyse rats. Formerly, he lay in an alley with peanut butter spread around him all darknes so he had been able to get good photographs.( No, it wasnt safe. Yes, the latter are urinating on me. In grad school, you do crazy things .) He sees his work with utmost seriousness.

Heres what health professionals do, he said to his audience by way of introduction. He placed at a slip behind him and read aloud.

We protect the ceiling over folks chiefs . We protect the meat they snack . We protect their health, consolation and safety .

Im not saying this to pat us on the back. This is real. This is our job.[ Rat] get on airplanes. They chew on wires. They justification maladies. To me, this is the shot listen round “the worlds”. Then he spent 20 hours explaining how to divine datum from rat fells based on their moisture.

As the day wore on, Corrigans core message for his audience developed: struggle rats entails has undertaken to holistic attempts , not looking for a speedy, flashy mend. We love to spritz troubles away, Corrigan told me afterwards. A compound or a net, its a Band aid, and theyre Band Aids that come off very quickly. Instead, Corrigan highlights the fact that you first need to remove the rats food, then remove the rats shelter, and only then take lethal quantifies if you have to.

In theory, this solution is simple-minded. It does not involve radar or handguns. Instead, it necessitates eyelids for the trash barrel, and caulking for the rifts in foundations, or retaining our own little dens cleanse, as Corrigan articulates. It is the obvious answer, the one that has been sitting under our snouts for centuries: stop feeding them, stop housing them, and they will go away on their own.

The problem is that people, as the standard rules, favor the quick fix. Mounting out poison is easier; the ultrasonic machine looks cool. The sensible, labour-intensive alternative matches with defiance. Often, when Corrigan is called out to consult with a property owner, the owner rebuffs his advice, simply because following it would require too much contemplate, effort or expense.

And sometimes, even those who are willing to try his methods do not have the resources. Ricky Simeone, the director of pest ascendancy for New Yorks health department, explained to me that the neighbourhoods that struggle with the most difficult rat infestations are not the ones who file the most reports to its term of office. The poorest vicinities are very overwhelmed with other social or economic questions to file complaints or, worse, they consent rat infestation as one of the conditions of living in poverty.

Corrigan had reaffirmed that rats, particularly in metropolitans, affect the poorest of the poor more than the rich, because effective pest govern services are expensive. But he pointed out that no one absolutely escapes the rat question , no matter how rich. Municipalities such as New York make evident a universal truth. Were all accommodating mitts whether we know it or like it. Your rats are my rats. If the city blows it off, the sewer rats become everybodys rats. Rats are everybodys issue.

Everyone concludes, Its not my job, its someone elses job, Corrigan sustained. They envision, Oh I live in New York , no one can get rid of the rats in New York! He leaved a short sigh. We dont think we can do it alone, this is why we dont do anything as a group. As with all conditions that menace everyone but harassed the disadvantaged above all, developments in the situation is not better because we are not better.

Homo sapiens, Corrigan said to his audience at the Rat Academy. Does anyone know what this entails?

He smiled a grim little smile. Wise man.

Improving society is a collective project, but as Corrigan attests, it happens because individual beings make it their business to incite change. Mayer and Dyer, very, see this as their assignment. We have to be better stewards than this, Dyer told me strenuously. Were better than this. If SenesTech appears whimsicals in the endeavor, its founders do not seem to mind.

Rats are so longstanding a danger to humanity that contemplating an discontinue to the rat problem seems like a fiction. Photograph: AFP/ Getty Images

On a Tuesday night in August, Mayer and Dyer braced a revelry in their backyard of staff members and investors. The fellowship had just received US Environmental Protection Agency registration, a process that are typically takes times and often overheads more than companies of SenesTechs size can render.( The EPA is making an active great efforts to get rat poison off the markets in the US, and received word of SenesTechs science with enthusiasm .) Now, with the EPAs blessing, the company could take ContraPest to commercial-grade sells. Immediately, more than 100 calls and 200 emails came in with tell requests.

Mayer and Dyer live in a one-level wood hut a few miles north of downtown Flagstaff, in a wooded sphere near a subject of wildflowers. For the opportunity, they had cleared the back patio, where Mayer does her morning reflection and yoga, and replenished it with deck furniture and folding tables. The sunlight was coming down the San Francisco Peaks.

It was not a usual investors dinner, but then, SenesTechs nearly 700 stakeholders are primarily firefighters. While most biotech startups are funded by investment bankers and venture capitalists, Mayer chose to pursue funding from grant-giving the organizations and a multitude of private donors, all of whom built small investments, and each of whom Mayer knows by epithet. It was a pure accident of networking that so many of them shown itself to be firemen, but she is stimulated with the situation. Firefighters certainly believes in doing good, Mayer to present to me. And theyre like teenage girls. Formerly one of them invested, they all missed in.

There were perhaps 25 people investors, board members and SenesTech staff picked on the back terrace, ingesting tacos and drinking from Mayer and Dyers impressive liquor accumulation, but they constructed racket for 50. They were boisterous and caring, hugging one another, teasing each other, shouting old-time storeys to roarings of laughter, and clinking glass. About half the room seemed new and wearing Hawaiian patterned shirts.

When the time came for Mayer to pay a communication, she demurred for a moment before standing. Her toast altered briefly into an fable about flattening mouse skeletons in lasagna tins. But seriously, she mentioned, returning to her topic, We knew[ the working day] would come. Its enormous to be riding this motion with you. Its just so sweet. Glasses heaved into the air.

There was considerable work left to do: now that SenesTech had its national enrollment, it would have to file for registration in every position.( Since then, the company has registered in 11 US countries, and begun enrollment in the EU .) The manufacturing crew was hurrying to construct enough ContraPest to accommodate any such requests coming in.Dyer was working hard on modifications that would make the formula work in a variety of different milieu, and projecting alterations for different species. Mayer was preparing for a deluge of satisfies. While ContraPest has been effective in every experiment SenesTech has run in so far, there is a lot still to learn about how rats in different parts of the world will provide responses in it in the wild.

It sounds crazy: a banding of animal loversand firemen in the hills of Arizona, led by a Buddhist girl scout, making a pinks milkshake for rats that may eventually improve the lives of millions of people. They are unruffled by scepticism: In the middle of one interrogation, Mayer forgot a detail and yelled towards the door, Cheryl, who said to you, Thats exactly not how we do it? Dyer hollered back from the other area. Which day? In answer, they point to hard discipline, solicitations from governments and companies around the world, and an promotion from Stephen Hawking, who featured them on his documentary mini-series Defy New World.

Rats are so longstanding a danger to humanity that seeing an cease to the rat question and one that does not require us to kill them seems like a fantasize. They are, as Mayer herself applied it, a most successful species than us. Long after were moved, they will still be here. But the possibility of a peace seems closer than ever before. The answer in the future may lie wholly within biotechnology, answered Corrigan when I asked for his impressions.( He and Mayer consider themselves allies in awareness-raising campaigns to make sustainable solutions to the rat question. Mayer fondly recalls a nighttime rat safari she formerly took with Corrigan in New York .) The SenesTech product is a breakthrough, but it is still at the exceedingly infancy theatres of biotechnology for this species, Corrigan enunciated. This is going to be perhaps years of refinements and changing and experimentations. Were not moving yet. And were certainly not running.

Mayer, Dyer and their crew seem joyful at the prospect, and self-confident that they are doing the work of the future. Do you see this? requested Ali Applin, a senior member of SenesTechs staff. We were sitting in Mayers office, and Applin pointed to a little sign on the coffee table that read Make it so.

This is what she tells us, Applin said.

Mayer gestured, smiling. Thats what you need to do. I intend, why squabble over something and tell, I cant do that. Constitute it so. Find a practice. Theres always a way.

After a moment, she had another pondered. Youre genuinely gonna “re going to have to” do that, Ali, when you take this to Argentina soon. If we pondered Laos was hard I represent, my God. She grinned mischievously and folded her mitts together and pressed them to her forehead and replied a mantra. I wish you ease on the path to peacefulnes. I wish you an outcome to your suffering.

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This article was enhanced on 20 September 2016. An earlier version incorrectly was also pointed out that DDT is the active ingredient in Agent orange, and were of the view that C difficile is a virus.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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