Another Saturday and another set of news reports that will mystify and amaze you…..
Locally–all week we were pushing the 110 temps plus there was a tropic depression just off the Coast….after ten days of no rain and 100+ temps we could use the moisture….
Personal–another week free of doctors and hospitals….it is a welcome break but that call changes beginning next week.
Are you bored enough?
Then let’s move on to the meat of the post….
I truly love tomatoes I have them with just about every meal….but some sad news is hitting the street….a tomato tax…
American shoppers may soon find their favorite tomatoes pricier and harder to find as a new 17% tariff on Mexican imports shakes up the produce aisle and reignites a decades-old trade battle, the New York Times reports. The Trump administration imposed the tariff, effective immediately, on most Mexican tomato imports, ending a trade agreement that had kept such levies at bay for nearly three decades. The move is the result of a longstanding dispute: US tomato growers, particularly in Florida, have argued since the 1990s that Mexican producers were undercutting prices and harming the domestic market. While a trade court sided with the Americans in 1996, the two countries repeatedly agreed to suspend tariffs, provided Mexican growers kept prices above a set threshold.
Those days are over, at least for now. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended the decision, saying it was consistent with President Trump’s push for stricter trade enforcement and would protect American farmers from “unfair trade practices.” Mexican tomatoes account for more than 85% of all US tomato imports, according to World Bank data, with $2.8 billion worth imported in 2023. Prices for consumers could jump 10% with the new tariff, an expert tells CNN.
Not everyone is cheering. The Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, a group representing importers and sellers, said the new duty amounts to a “tomato tax” that limits consumer choices and raises prices, since they say Florida tomatoes can’t match the variety and growing methods coming out of Mexico. On the other side, the Florida Tomato Exchange welcomed the tariffs, arguing that past deals failed to protect American growers or the broader food supply chain.
Thank you Mr. Dickhead…..my tomatoes being more expensive should solve the trade problem that you pretend we have.
On the food front still….I enjoy my honey from fruit to nuts to chicken…..and it just keeps getting more expensive….for good reason….
Researchers believe that they have pinpointed the cause of a history-making recent honey bee die-off, and what they found casts a gloomy outlook for the important insects.
Per a study released last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, mites, viruses and insecticide resistance all played a role in the loss of 62% of commercial honey bees in the U.S. from last June through this January. Until a new insecticide or something to attack the viruses is created, honey bees are still at risk.
Parasitic Varroa mites are a known stressor on honeybees, and they are also known to be a vector for viruses, the researchers explained.
https://www.audacy.com/wccoradio/news/national/whats-killing-honeybees-is-worse-than-we-thought
Speaking of bees….
Researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology have turned innocent bees into cyborgs that can be controlled via a 74-milligram insect brain controller.
As the South China Morning Post reports, the controller pierces the bee’s tiny brain with three needles and uses signals sent via electronic pulses to make it fly forwards, backwards, left, or right.
According to the reporting, the bee obeyed these commands nine out of ten times.
The researchers are hoping that the tiny cyborg could allow the military to infiltrate hard-to-access space or be used in search and rescue missions to find survivors in natural disasters, according to a research paper.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/chinese-scientists-cyborg-bees
One of the big trends here is people getting their Ozempic so they can lose weight….but could that be problem?
As weight loss jabs like Ozempic and Wegovy become ever more popular, doctors are growing increasingly concerned about their gnarly side effects.
As Germany’s Deutsche Welle notes, people who take glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist/receptors, the class of drugs that the popular shots fall under, have reported everything from stomach issues and vision changes to erectile dysfunction and even suicide.
Though clinical trials for these kinds of drugs didn’t report tons of adverse effects, King’s College London physician Penny Ward explained in an interview with DW that real-world patients will often experience more — and more disparate — side effects after trials have concluded.
“Rarer side effects may emerge as more patients take these medicines in clinical practice, simply as a result of the much larger number of people treated than were included in the clinical development trials,” the doctor noted. “This is why we continue to monitor the safety of medicines on the market.”
In the few years since GLP-1s have flooded the market, changed American food consumption, and utterly upended the weight loss industry, a handful of studies have looked into some of their scarier side effects — and their results aren’t exactly inspiring.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/ozempic-side-effects-doctors
The quick fix for those too lazy to do the hard work to lose weight.
As a cancer sufferer I am always looking for any encouraging news on the treatment….here is the latest…..
Cancer treatment is on the “cusp of a golden era”, according to NHS England’s outgoing national medical director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis.
He expects that the development of drugs harnessing the body’s immune system to fight the disease will bring “great advances in cancer survival”.
In his final interview before retiring, Sir Stephen, 64, told The Times: “We are at the cusp of a golden era in terms of the way we treat a range of cancers.
“For many cancers now, people should be confident that it’s not a death sentence and that more treatments will become available.”
He said the rise in people living longer and surviving cancers would continue, alongside cures for some forms of the disease.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/stephen-powis-cancer-cure-disease-b2788413.html
This is from my running meme of ‘can’t fix stupid’ files….
An Australian thrill-seeker’s bid for a cliff-diving world record ended in major injuries but an unbroken spirit. Vali Graham, 21, attempted to break the døds—or “death diving”—record by leaping from the 140-foot Minnehaha Falls in the Blue Mountains, ABC Australia reports. There’s footage of Graham throwing himself off the cliff face, freefalling for a few seconds, then hitting the waterhole below in a pike position. That knocked him unconscious and left him with a burst eardrum and fractured vertebrae, sternum, and skull. After regaining consciousness, Graham dragged himself out of the water and walked three-quarters of a mile to his friends’ car.
Graham, of Newcastle, later posted updates from his hospital bed. He’s had surgery on his back and sternum and said he was walking just two days after the procedure. His posts expressed gratitude to “God” and his family and friends for their help with his recovery, calling the ordeal a “gift of suffering.” He added that he’s “ready to rebuild my body better than ever and come back stronger, a long way to go but excited for the journey.” Some people who responded to the posts marveled at Graham’s ability to walk so soon.
Others were critical of his choices and for leaving the medical staff out of his thanks. “God didn’t give you that suffering, you did that yourself,” one person posted. “Lots of thanking god but not the humans that actually operated on you,” another wrote. Others found the sport in pursuit of world records too dangerous. One user told Graham that he’d jumped from the height of a 13-story building, “and now my taxes have to pay for your dumb choices.”
Adrenalin junkies make stupid decisions.
The best protest songwriter and artist ever was Woody Guthrie and now some ‘lost’ music has been located….
A stash of homemade Woody Guthrie recordings from the early 1950s is set to see daylight, reports the New York Times, offering fans a rare glimpse into the folk icon’s creative process at home on a primitive tape machine. In August, Guthrie’s estate and Shamus Records will release Woody at Home, Vol. 1 and 2, featuring 20 tracks and two spoken interludes—among them, a fresh take on “This Land Is Your Land” with added verses and 13 songs never before heard outside the family archive.
There’s also an especially relevant gem included called “Deportee,” notes Rolling Stone, which sounds “eerily familiar.” The song describes migrant workers being “rounded up by immigration officials, put on a plane and transported to a deportation center and, ultimately, Mexico. The shocking twists, however, are the year it happened—1948, in Fresno County, California—and the tragedy that ensued: The aircraft crashed, killing everyone onboard, including the 28 workers.” The song has long been covered by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, and Pete Seeger, but the version included on this album is the only known recording of Guthrie himself, notes Pitchfork.
Armed with a rudimentary reel-to-reel tape recorder and a single microphone, Guthrie made these recordings from his Brooklyn apartment while minding his kids. The tapes, long tucked away by his publisher, have been revived through modern sound technology, which was able to separate Guthrie’s vocals from his guitar and clean up the background hum. The result, producers say, is an intimate portrait of Guthrie’s quieter, more contemplative side—a contrast to his better-known studio work. The recordings capture the raw, unfiltered moments of songwriting—children in the background, guitar lines being worked out, and Guthrie himself tinkering with verses, never quite satisfied.
I will be there to buy the album when it is released…..and in closing one of my favorite songs by Guthrie….
A little extra…
That does it for me on this Saturday….enjoy your day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”