Her life was nothing short of a miracle.
Born into an extended family of 6,000, all of whom share a rare genetic mutation that inescapably leads to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by the age of 45, Aliria Rosa Piedrahita de Villegas of Antioquia, Colombia, was the sole escapee of that fate. While much younger relatives began to deteriorate mentally and physically, she lived a normal life.
The phenomenon of Piedrahita de Villegas, who died recently at the age of 77, stunned the international team of neuroscientists who had been studying her family for decades.
“She was so fascinating because she had this mutation that just inevitably leads to Alzheimer’s disease and here she was, 70-something years old and still fine,” said UC Santa Barbara neuroscientist Kenneth S. Kosik, a member of that team. Thanks to Piedrahita de Villegas willingness to participate in their research, the scientists have gained important insights into the disease that affects an estimated 44 million peop
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Lee argued that creating such a museum would be divisive, and that unlike Black and Native Americans, who have dedicated Smithsonian museums, Latinxs have not been “uniquely, deliberately and systemically excluded” and therefore did not deserve their own space.
It was that last part that really stuck with me. It lingered because it went against much of what I’ve come to learn about the history of Latinxs in the United States.
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Mike Lee must not be familiar with his own state’s history. Otherwise he would know that what he calls Utah used to be part of Mexico as were California, Nevada and Arizona and parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming and that it joined the Union only after President James K. Polk, not content with annexing Texas in 1845, used a border dispute as pretext to declare war against Mexico and go on a blatant land grab that fulfilled
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