Another Saturday and yet another news dump….news that can amaze and entertain….

Summer and heat here in the South…..my garden is taking a hit from the extreme 100+ temps……my figs are starting to come in so that means figs, feta, honey and walnuts for snacks…..great flavors.

First before I start there are a few gnawing questions….

When did poker become a sport?

Why do so many women want to be blonde?

It is the 4th weekend and families will be traveling and doing stuff together like a visit to a museum….well if in Arizona then try this one….it is called a ‘poozeum’

One way to tell how a Tyrannosaurus rex digested food is to look at its poop. Bone fragments in a piece of fossilized excrement at a new museum in northern Arizona—aptly called the Poozeum—are among the tinier bits of evidence that indicate T. rex wasn’t much of a chewer, but rather swallowed whole chunks of prey. The sample is one of more than 7,000 on display at the museum that opened in May in Williams, a town known for its Wild West shows along Route 66, wildlife attractions, and a railway to Grand Canyon National Park.

The Poozeum sign features a bright green T. rex cartoon sitting on a toilet to grab attention from the buzzing neon lights and muffled 1950s music emanating from other businesses, reports the AP. Inside, display cases filled with coprolites—fossilized feces from animals that lived millions of years ago—line the walls. They range from minuscule termite droppings to a massive specimen that weighs 20 pounds.

Poozeum’s president and curator, George Frandsen, bought his first chunk of fossilized feces from a shop in Moab, Utah, when he was 18, he says. From there, his fascination grew. “It was funny. It was gross,” he says. “But I learned very quickly it could tell us so much about our prehistoric past and how important they are to the fossil record.” Coprolites aren’t tremendously common but they can make up the majority of fossils found at some sites, and people have learned more about them over the past few decades, said Anthony Fiorillo, executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

I am not  big fan of fast food but a new report should scare the fast food addicts into rethinking their choices….

Microplastics are in various foods, including fruits, vegetables, and processed foods. When it comes to meat, even small amounts of microplastics have been found in fast food, including chicken burritos, chicken nuggets, whoppers, and hamburger patties. Microplastics have also been found in ground chicken, corned beef, franks, Italian sausage, turkey breast, ground beef, smoked sausage beef, and ground pork.

Avoid These Meats Because of Too Much Plastics in Them

Speaking of food…..there is a new fad developing…

In my town it seems that every street corner there is a Starbucks, a Dollar store, a sushi restaurant and a Mexican restaurant and now we might have to make room for another trend for foodies…..’onigiri’….

The word “onigiri” became part of the Oxford English Dictionary this year, proof that the humble sticky-rice ball and mainstay of Japanese food has entered the global lexicon. The rice balls are stuffed with a variety of fillings and typically wrapped in seaweed. It’s an everyday dish that epitomizes “washoku”—the traditional Japanese cuisine that was designated a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage a decade ago, per the AP.

• What’s in it? The sticky characteristic of Japanese rice is key. What’s placed inside is called “gu,” or filling. A perennial favorite is “umeboshi,” or salted plum. Or perhaps “mentaiko,” which is hot, spicy roe. But in principle, anything can be placed inside onigiri, even sausages or cheese—then the ball is wrapped with seaweed. Even one nice big onigiri would make a meal, although many people would eat more.
• History: Onigiri in its earliest form is believed to go back at least as far as the early 11th century. It’s mentioned in Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji. It appears in Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1954 film, Seven Samurai, as the ultimate gift of gratitude from the farmers.
• Background: Onigiri is “fast food, slow food, and soul food,” says Yusuke Nakamura, who heads the Onigiri Society, a trade group in Tokyo. Fast because you can find it even at convenience stores. Slow because it uses ingredients from the sea and mountains, he said. And soul food because it’s often made and consumed among family and friends. No tools are needed—just gently cupped hands. “It’s also mobile, food on the move,” he said.
• Some want classic onigiri: Yosuke Miura runs Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku, a restaurant founded in 1954 by his grandmother. It claims to be the oldest onigiri restaurant in Tokyo. Also a classical flautist, Miura sees onigiri as a score handed down from his grandmother, one that he’ll reproduce faithfully. “In classical music, you play what’s written on the music sheet. Onigiri is the same,” he says. “You don’t try to do something new.”
• Some want to experiment: Miyuki Kawarada runs Taro Tokyo Onigiri, which has four outlets in Japan. She’s eyeing Los Angeles, too, then Paris. Her vision: to make onigiri “the world’s fast food.” Kawarada’s onigiri has lots of gu on top, for colorful toppings, instead of inside. And each one comes with a separately wrapped piece of nori to be placed around it right before you eat.
• Customers: Miki Yamada, a food promoter, intentionally calls onigiri “omusubi,” the other common word for rice balls, as the latter more clearly refers to the idea of connections. She says her life’s mission is to bring people together, especially since the triple earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters hit her family’s rice farm in Fukushima, in northeastern Japan, in 2011. “It energizes you. It’s that ultimate comfort food,” she says.

Oh Goody more food porn invading social media.

After many years of listening why has SETI been so unsuccessful?

The universe may teem with tiny alien microbes.

After all, scientists suspect such primitive organisms could even dwell nearby on other worlds in our very solar system — in briny oceans beneath shells of ice. We can’t be sure, of course. Microbes can’t beam us any messages. (Though we have plans to look for them.)

But scientists have been getting a clearer picture of why no far-off intelligent civilizations — among the trillions and trillions of planets in the universe — have called us, or why we haven’t picked up even a hint of their existence. A compelling new idea, published in the journal Scientific Reports, shows how challenging it would be for a planet to gradually evolve intelligent, communicating life. Such a world, they argue, would need both oceans and continents, and the surface must be in geologic motion (which we call “plate tectonics”) for at least some 500 million years.

When other factors are considered — such as the fraction of hospitable planets that host any life at all and how long a signal-emitting civilization might last — the possibility of many active, communicating civilizations in space looks implausible.

https://mashable.com/article/alien-intelligent-life-civilization-likelihood

Always room for a good alien story, huh?

Finally, we have been blaming cows for air pollution well now a team is blame a new culprit, at least around LA…..TREES.

In a controversial new study, scientists are claiming that trees in Los Angeles are contributing to the city’s air pollution, challenging conventional notions about the positive role they play in urban ecosystems.

As New Scientist explains, the theory was born of a strange conundrum: despite efforts to decrease traffic exhaust and increase environmental protections, the ground-level ozone and microscopic particulate pollution that make up the city’s smog have remained steady.

Back in 2022, a team of scientists from Colorado and South Korea found that those stubbornly stable pollution rates were likely due primarily to a rise in “secondary” sources of pollution — and in this latest multi-institutional study, researchers suggest that trees and shrubs may be the culprit.

Published in the journal Science, this new research focuses on terpenoids, an organic chemical compound found in plant matter that generally acts as an antioxidant — but which, when released into the atmosphere, can combine with pollutants to make them more harmful.

Upon release from plants, the discharge from terpenoids becomes what’s known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which end up reacting to air pollution by creating the kind of ozone and fine particulate pollutants in question. What’s worse, plants emit more VOCs due to rising temperatures and drought, both of which plague the City of Angels in particular.

https://futurism.com/trees-blamed-air-pollution

And you thought trees were our friends…..

Enough for this Saturday…..because of the extreme heat right now the best thing to do outside is get all your chores done by 10 am and then avoid the triple digit temps and high humidity while lounging in the A/C….I am old so make that 9 am….

Enjoy your weekend my friends and as always….Be Well and Be Safe…

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”