Unfortunately, the alternate option was not “let them stay hostage a while longer”. It was “let the hostages die”. And maybe that would have been the more ethical call. But let’s not delude ourselves that they could have been kept alive any other way.

The males don’t bite, but the females need that sweet protein from blood to grow the next generation. Exterminating all the females (the biting ones) would end the whole population.

Does Arizona not have an online free system? Illinois has a very hand-holding guided set of questions and has for years, it’s always been our federal taxes that make my head hurt to fill out via the IRS’s FreeFillableForms site.

Her son died of cancer as a young adult. I have wondered if the abdominal xray while she was pregnant contributed to that.

The photo setup leaning in to the kitten looking like a dragon (eating dragonfruit) is awesome.

Fluoride does not kill or sterilize anything. It reacts with enamel (hydroxyapetate) to convert it to a stronger version (hydroxyfluorapatite).

People who want their enamel to be softer and wear through are welcome to drink bottled water.

Some departments at my plant have 12-hr shifts, two teams consistently days and two teams consistently nights. Two days on, two days off, two on, two off, three on, three off, repeat. Long days, but also lots of days off.

Other departments work 8-hr shifts, one team days, one team afternoon/ evening, one team nights, and one team to cover every other team’s days off. Rotating shift is two or three days one set of hours, 24 hours off then two or three days the next set of hours. All new people in these departments start on rotating shift.

Management has resisted spreading the 12-hour schedule to more departments, even though more workers prefer it, because it costs more in overtime pay.

It’s such a creepy biological characteristic. Bedbugs are mildly social, and prefer to sleep near other bedbugs. But the traumatic insemination seems to be unpleasant for the females, and after enough holes are poked all over their bodies, they will leave the main colony. A single inseminated female hitchhiker is normally how they infest new places.

It has a lot of dissolved water that, if exposed to atmospheric pressure, boils off. So it could be said to have components that are boiling?

Beds predate language. Non-human apes build “nests” - beds in trees - to sleep in.

Haha, but batbugs and birdbugs - bedbug cousins that prefer the blood of bats or birds - are a thing. Bedbugs and their preference for specifically human blood evolved alongside primates starting to build sleeping structures.

Considering the size of the Canadian tomato industry (all greenhouse), it does seem like bananas should also solve. Just bananas can’t pack as densely as tomatoes, but maybe throw one banana tree in every dozen rows of tomatoes or something. A girl can dream.

It’s more likely they ship poorly. Same reason the tastiest tomato or strawberry varieties are not the ones grown commercially.

It is sad that while there are so many interesting banana varieties all around the world, only two of them ship for crap. In addition to cool-sounding fruity varieties, one variety is so starchy it used to be the base starch the diet of local people instead of a grain, how neat is that?

Maine and Alaska have ranked choice (also called instant runoff) now. Nevada is on track to also go this way. Change is slow, but it has started.

It happened in Maine. And Alaska. And is on track in Nevada.

The ozone hole size is influenced by the strength of the polar vortex, the Antarctic temperature, and other things in addition to the concentration of CFC molecules. It’s barely shrunk, but CFCs are so long-lived that was expected - the critical point is it stopped growing over 20 years ago. I believe they expect to start seeing shrinking within the next decade.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/climate-change-mitigation-reducing-emissions/current-state-of-the-ozone-layer

Two together, double cuteness! I catch one on my security camera sometimes, but have never seen two. Curious where this was taken.

This is more like you measure the fragment speeds with both a laser and with radar, and get different readings off the same fragment.

It reduces bone density. Not to unhealthy levels in teens, but there are concerns the lower baseline will increase osteoporosis risk when the patients get to old age.

They can also only be used for a couple of years. Some non-binary people want to be on them permanently, but doctors won’t prescribe that. Some kids want more time to decide, and unfortunately there isn’t anything safe to use through the full teenage years.