Yes, yes i am posting this again because it is funny.

🔫laugh, or i will make you💥

“available with premium subscription” “will be removed on the 31st” “available free with ads” “rent 4.99 buy 20.00″ “not available in your country” “not available on this device” what if every streaming service fucking killed itself and films ran around their fields free and organic in their natural state

Do y’all know about Frédéric Thomas? He is a French parasitologist who heard a story about crickets in New Zealand leaping into the water even though they can’t swim, and immediately speculated this suicidal behavior was related to behavior manipulation from an internal parasite. This is before neuro-parasitology was a field at all, and before people really put much stock into parasite’s ability to control animal behavior.

Thomas was certain that studying these crickets would be a huge priority for the scientific world given the implications of a parasite controlling an animal’s actions in such an insidious way. Unfortunately, absolutely nobody would fund Thomas’ expedition to study the crickets, and his grants were all declined. In a wild move that showcases the balls to the wall, near- insanity level passion of a biologist, Thomas declared a hunger strike and wrote a letter to the president of France saying he would not eat until someone took the matter seriously and funded his study on the suicidal crickets. I feel like those of us in research can at least a little bit understand this impulse.

Well the French government actually got Thomas’ message and freaked out a bit at the negative publicity that could arise from a crazy worm scientist starving to death. So they send some government bigwigs to the university to pressure Thomas and his department heads into calling an end to the hunger strike. In the flurry of attention that resulted from this, a Swiss billionaire heard about Thomas’ plight and offered to partially fund the study. The French government was happy to get rid of Thomas and contributed funding as well so that Thomas could head to New Zealand to study his suicidal crickets. He was right about the parasites causing the behavior!

The hunger strike debacle is not even the wildest part of this story. I love biology so much

What's the wildest?? You can't leave us hangin' like this.

Okay so get this, after all that Frédéric Thomas gets everything together and flies halfway across the world to New Zealand and… he can’t find the crickets. I mean, he finds some but apparently this species of cricket is really hard to track and as a result Thomas’ team cannot capture enough to yield significant results for their study.

Thomas was forced to abandon the project and leave New Zealand, but before he did he sent a photo of a worm emerging from a cricket back to his colleagues in France. Naturally, the photo was posted in the university break room. While the photo was posted there, it was somehow seen by one of the scientists cousin who worked cleaning pools. In a bizarre twist, the cousin recognized the worm. He claimed to see them all the time in a pool that he cleaned for a local resort and also said that he had observed crickets jumping into the pool at night.

By this time Thomas was back in France but he was highly skeptical that the pool cleaner’s information was correct. He gave the guy a jar and asked him to bring some samples of the worms thinking he’d never hear from him again. Well sure enough about a week later Thomas received a jar that was chock full of worms. Specifically the species Paragordius tricuspidatus, which are parasitic horsehair worms and exactly what Thomas had desperately been trying to find inside of his crickets in New Zealand. He had travelled halfway across the world just to realize that the parasite he wished to study could be found at a hotel about an hour from his house.

Thomas’ wife was delighted when he informed her he’d booked a surprise getaway at a luxury resort, but of course she didn’t know this trip was actually a brain parasite reconnaissance mission. Thomas spent time by the pool at night and sure enough he saw crickets crawling to the water’s edge and hopping in, one by one. Thomas and his colleagues were able to use this location to find a thriving population of horsehair worms to study. Their experiments confirmed that the worms were manipulating insect brains to further their life cycle, and the results of these studies were eventually published in the journal Nature!

-hmm why are these guys killing themselves. seems silly

-if you don't give me money to find out why these guys are killing themselves, I'll kill my-hm.

US SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE IS CHANGING ITS NUMBER

Taking effect July 2022, the US Suicide Prevention Hotline will change from 800-273-8255 to the three digit code of 988. Especially with families and communities reeling from back to back tragedies, it is super important to share this information!

Repeat: Starting July 2022, the US Suicide Prevention Hotline will be 988

This is true!

WHOEVER THE STUPID BITCH IS THAT TOLD @bruno-madrigal-officials TO KILL THEMSELF, LEAVE NOW.

They did W H A T

NOW WHO THE F U C K

Sometimes the help you need isn’t the help you want. Call 1-800-273-8255 if you’re thinking of suicide.

This comic meant a whole lot to me. It was sincere in its depiction and treated the issue through the eyes of a grounded person. Not some godly hero saying everything is better than it seems, but a person trying his best before bringing her somewhere who can actually help.

Reblog every time

:0 I need this guy in my life nowww

I’m not crying, you are.

Fuck… DP is probably the only “hero” that’ll be straight forward, and also try to help you..

I fuckin adore this.🖤💞

Wills constant state of suffering amuses me to no end