That magical time again…..and so I begin….

Locally–Since I am an old fart let’s start with the weather….after a snow storm a few days ago we are now back to highs in 70s and lows in 50s….a far cry from, the single digits a week ago.

Remember years ago when OJ had his slow speed chase with the cops?  We, we had pwn slow speed chase recently….some yahoo stole a small earth mover and went unto Interstate 10…..

Here is the article and the video can only be viewed on the article….

A man was arrested in Alabama after police say he led them on a low-speed chase in a small, stolen construction vehicle.

People who saw the bright orange track skid loader with police hot on its tail said it was a bizarre sight.

“That’s not something you see every day– that was definitely crazy,” Scott Stockton said.

Authorities said the track loader, which had been reported stolen, was used to try to hit someone. The vehicle had been on and off the roadway.

https://www.wlbt.com/2025/02/03/small-construction-vehicle-leads-police-slow-speed-pursuit-highway/

Time to get into the meat of the ‘Dump’….

When I lost my toes I had to spend 40 sessions in a hyperbaric chamber….it was disconcerting and very uncomfortable….so when I read this article I relived those sessions….

A pressurized oxygen chamber exploded at a suburban Detroit medical facility, killing a 5-year-old patient and injuring his mother. The explosion occurred Friday morning at the Oxford Center in Troy, north of Detroit, per the AP. The child, from Royal Oak, Michigan, had been inside the machine and was pronounced dead at the scene. “The mother of the child suffered some injuries to her arms as she was standing right next to the chamber as the explosion occurred,” Troy police Lt. Ben Hancock said. “We don’t know exactly what the child was being treated for at the center today.”

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases the delivery of oxygen to a person’s body by providing pure oxygen in an enclosed space with higher than normal air pressure, according to the Mayo Clinic. The therapy includes treatment for decompression sickness, serious tissue disease or wounds, trapped air bubbles in blood vessels, carbon monoxide poisoning, and tissue damage from radiation therapy.

Hyperbaric chambers contain 100% oxygen, which is up to five times the amount of oxygen in a normal room, Troy Fire Lt. Keith Young said Friday at a news conference. “The presence of such a high amount of oxygen in a pressurized environment can make it extremely combustible,” Young said. “We did some initial investigation. This is very uncommon, so we’re not sure what led up to it.” The Oxford Center said in an email that a fire started inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Lung cancer is on the rise….

Cases of lung cancer in people who’ve never smoked cigarettes or tobacco are increasing, along with evidence suggesting air pollution plays a role, according to new research. Lung cancer in people who’ve never smoked is now “estimated to be the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide,” occurring most commonly in women and Asian populations, according to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which stresses a startling percentage of these cancers are of one subtype—adenocarcinoma, “a cancer that starts in glands that produce fluids such as mucus and digestive ones,” per the Press Trust of India.

Adenocarcinoma is the dominant subtype of lung cancer among men and women. It accounted for 46% of global lung cancer cases among men and 60% among women in 2022, up from 39% and 57%, respectively, in 2020. It also accounts for up to 70% of lung cancer cases among never-smokers, according to the IARC study published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal on Tuesday, which is World Cancer Day. Adenocarcinoma is weakly associated with smoking compared to the other three lung cancer subtypes (squamous cell carcinoma, small-cell carcinoma, and large-cell carcinoma).

Globally, 16% of adenocarcinoma cases diagnosed in men and 15% of cases diagnosed in women in 2022 could be traced to a specific type of air pollution known as particulate matter, a complex mixture of solid and liquid chemical particles, some of which are small enough to be inhaled. “Changes in smoking patterns and exposure to air pollution are among the main determinants of the changing risk profile of lung cancer incidence by subtype that we see today,” says lead author Freddie Bray, head of the cancer surveillance branch at IARC, per the Guardian. “Whether the global proportion of adenocarcinomas attributable to ambient air pollution will increase depends on the relative success of future strategies to curtail tobacco use and air pollution worldwide.”

Be careful what you breathe….maybe masks are not such a bad idea after all.

More on the food front….do you eat truffles?

Who’s a good boy? Apparently, the doggies working for Michigan State University (MSU) and the University of Florida are some of the best furball good boys and girls out there. 

On Thursday, researchers from MSU shared with Food & Wine that they, along with a few special truffle dogs and citizen scientists, have discovered two new species of truffles. The first is the Tuber canirevelatum, which means the “dog-found” truffle. It was named in honor of truffle dog Monza, who discovered it with her trainer, Lois Martin. The other is the Tuber cumberlandense, named for the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, where Margaret Townsend and her truffle dog, Luca, found it.  

According to the team, Martin realized she had something new when she found T. canirevelatum, and it did not look or smell like anything known to grow in North America. So, Martin mailed it to Gregory Bonito, associate professor in the Department of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences at the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Bonito and his undergraduate research student, Alassane Sow, who is also the lead author of the study, used DNA analyses to identify the two truffles and to place them in “the tree of life.”

https://www.foodandwine.com/new-truffle-species-msu-researchers-8776392

What’s new on the plant-based meat front?

Only a few people fundamentally oppose eating plant-based meat alternatives, a recent survey of 2,100 customers in the U.S. shows. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by marketing researchers from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Humboldt University Berlin and Georg August University Göttingen.

According to the results, the price of meat alternatives is the most decisive factor for their acceptance, while similarity to meat did not matter that much. Although, when both options were priced the same, respondents often favored the animal product.

The high level of global meat consumption, particularly in affluent countries, is a controversial topic. “Even though the supply of plant-based alternatives has been growing for years, the demand for meat persists. Unfortunately, there is very little reliable data on the general acceptance of meat alternatives, what conditions are required to make them more attractive, and whether or not they are just a fad,” says economist Steffen Jahn, interim professor at the Chair of Marketing & Innovation at MLU.

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-people-meat-alternatives-significantly-cheaper.html

I am still not ready to give up my meat.

America’s favorite road trip restaurant joins the egg story….

Waffle House, that bastion of predicting when national disasters are getting real, is starting to feel the heat of avian flu. While Americans have long been griping about the rising cost of eggs, the hangover-food chain is now chiming in with a 50-cent surcharge on any egg-based menu item, reports NBC News. The change was announced Monday, and affects some 2,000 US locations—though perhaps only temporarily, per the AP.

“While we hope these price fluctuations will be short-lived we cannot predict how long this shortage will last,” said a company statement. The AP notes that a two-egg breakfast, with toast and a side, was listed at $7.75 on Tuesday. The chain says it’ll continue to monitor egg prices and adjust accordingly

Good see everybody taking advantage of the egg situation.

Has a war of words over eggs begun?

Cracker Barrel is coming out of its shell, looking to poach Waffle House’s egg lovers after the latter’s move to introduce a 50-cent egg surcharge. “A surcharge on eggs? Well, there’s nothing hospitable about that,” Cracker Barrel said Wednesday, adding “country hospitality is as important to us as a hearty breakfast—and that means not charging extra for eggs.” Indeed, the restaurant chain said its rewards members would enjoy “double pegs”—aka points—on all egg dishes beginning Feb. 12, per NBC News. Waffle House said it was forced into the “difficult” decision of implementing the “temporary” surcharge due to soaring egg prices as a result of avian flu. And it’s not the only restaurant feeling the heat.

Eric See, owner of Brooklyn breakfast joint Ursula, was forced to take some items off his menu due to price increases. He says 50% of the restaurant’s sales involve egg products, but the cost of 15 dozen eggs has climbed from around $45 in September to as much as $170 recently. “I’ve never seen the prices increase this quickly,” he tells Eater. According to the Department of Agriculture, egg prices were 37% higher in December than a year prior, and are expected to climb another 20% this year. The “price increase is especially hard for breakfast-focused restaurants to manage,” National Restaurant Association Executive Vice President of Public Affairs Sean Kennedy tells Fox Business.

I love a good slap fight.

A creative way of dealing with the high cost of eggs….

The theft of approximately 100,000 eggs from the back of a distribution trailer in central Pennsylvania is under investigation, authorities say, as the grocery staple has become scarce in some areas due to an avian flu outbreak and prices are reaching near-record highs.

The eggs, worth an estimated $40,000, were stolen from egg producers Pete & Gerry’s Organics in Greencastle Saturday night, according to a report from Pennsylvania State Police.

“Pete & Gerry’s is aware of a recent incident in Franklin County, Pennsylvania and we are actively working with local law enforcement to investigate,” the company said in a statement to CNN Tuesday.

(cnn.com)

A new word for you grammar geeks…..’boomerasking’

here’s now a word for the irksome way some people slyly steer a conversation to allow themselves a chance to brag. Cousin to the humblebrag, “boomerasking,” is a play on boomeranging a question so the asker can respond with a boast (as in, starting a conversation with “how was your weekend,” only to launch into a response about more exciting weekend plans), writes Alison Wood Brooks in the Wall Street Journal. Wood Brooks, a Harvard Business School professor who coined the phrase in a study, explains why this particular type of conversation manipulator is a social no-no.

“Asking sincere questions, listening to others’ answers, and following up on those answers may be the easiest and most powerful pathway to shared understanding and interpersonal connection,” she writes. “Boomerasking ruins the magic.” With colleague Michael Yeomans, Wood Brooks classified three types of boomerasks, per IFL Science, after distributing a survey with 155 participants. Along with ask-bragging, people steered the conversation back to themselves by “ask-complaining” and “ask-sharing,” and often with good intentions.

Some respondents believed their tactics helped others feel more involved in the conversation, but Yeomans and Wood Brooks say they are more likely appearing “egocentric and disinterested in their partner’s perspective.” To avoid this conversational faux pas, they recommend “chronic boomeraskers” avoid asking questions they cannot butt into with their own rejoinders, and learn when to organically center the conversation on themselves.

That is it for this Saturday…..go out and enjoy your day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”