Reclassifying them as a food animal species would piss off the horse people but would be by far the safer option for humans: we know for a fact that we're exposing people to meat contaminated with aminoglycosides and God knows what else.

There's a bunch of regulations on species classified as food animals to make sure that people don't end up consuming milk or meat with drug residues. Horses aren't in that group, but the US just ships them to Mexico to get slaughtered there.

I love how every Labrador I meet is completely on brand

“food? food? I smell food over here, do you have food for me? I have never eaten anything, ever, in my life, please feed me immediately”

Second, when we say “All knowledge is contained in fandom” what I mean is that I once posted “Hey, does anybody know anything about Eastern European wars in the mid-to-late 1880s?” and three hours later had a historian go “I study the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885, can I help?”

How I Got My Laser Eye Injury - Funranium Labs It has been brought to my attention that I have never actually written this story down before, merely told it in person to many students for valuable lessons and also for laughs over cocktails. It is ...

Thanks to you a number of us recognize the dread words “Quanta Ray.”

For those of you who don’t, this is why he has a grudge - it’s an excellent read:

www.funraniumlabs.com/2024/07/how-...

Of course they are, their shadows are black.

No more drops. I am now deadheading flowers and announcing loudly “Gosh, I sure couldn’t do this if it was raining!”

my personal collection of SF recs for teens is probably:
A Wizard of Earthsea
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
The Sirens of Titan
The Fifth Season
Stories of Your Life and Others
The Hellbound Heart
Bird Box
Annihilation
The Book of Love
Small Gods
Akira

That's how you can tell human authors from AI.

AI will put in some em dashes, then apologise and take them out when told off.

Human authors will climb the filing cabinet, hissing, and defend their right to em dashes with a loaded stapler.

A chart showing bigass roots on a whole bunch of plants.

There’s a famous chart from the Conservation Research Institute, which demonstrates this. GAZE UPON THESE ROOTS, YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR.

this is very cool but also contains the truest thing anyone has ever said

"I’m very thankful that I get to blow stuff up with giant lasers for discoveries. And that’s my job, you know."

I let a goat from my local zoo run SQL commands against prod without protection and it nuked my data

The comments: have you tried this other much smarter goat

I’m petrified about today’s science news. Genetically modifying crabs to have cheetah genes? This could go sideways fast.

It’s my belief that absolutely everyone has some gap in their collection of knowledge that makes other people wonder how they’re still alive.
I say this with utmost adoration for humanity. I love us. 🥹

from https://www.tumblr.com/murderpod-diaries Murderbot lying on a reclining chair, Bharadwaj sits on another chair beside it, writing in an open notebook. Caption below: Therapist: and what do we say when people ask us about ourselves Murderbot: I have to check the perimeter Therapist: no

the John Wick universe is what you get if someone explained everything about Vampire: the Masquerade except that the characters are vampires

So the last few days got me thinking about some research I did into horrible ways people die in coal mines, specifically mine gas.

(I read about a lot of coal mine disasters when I was working on the next Sworn Soldier book. Never be a coal miner in the 1800s if you can avoid it.)

Giving ChatGPT an anxiety disorder is a legitimate use case, I guess.

Opposun skunk racoon

Americas starter Pokémon

A little breakfast diner called the Golden Spoon with the most beautiful home fries I've ever had. It closed when I was 10 and I still haven't figured out how to replicate that magic.

Meme of a Nazi saying "Hans...are we the baddies?"

When people keep making really hurtful comments just because your literal job title is "terror tzar"

Psychosis can definitely make people do things that they wouldn't do otherwise--there's a reason that "legal insanity" is a thing. We just don't have enough information yet to parse whether that's what happened here or if people are (unsurprisingly) downplaying a politically motivated hate crime.

Bonds are basically the lowest-risk and lowest-interest investment option available since you're lending to the Treasury: you're getting paid back unless the US government collapses. Investors are now scared enough of that possibility that they're pulling money out of the "safe" option.

Breaking: the wolves are normal,the state of journalism is dire

Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen

periodically we see a brand new food invention

usually it is clear that the inventor should be sent to The Hague, but on rare occasions we encounter one whose inventor should be immediately canonized for their contribution to humanity

this is such an invention

Dr. Genie Clark, perhaps the most famous person ever in my field, was bitten by a shark once in her career: when she slammed on the brakes and a shark jaw in her backseat flew forward 😂

If you're interested in learning more your best bet may actually be veterinary resources--lots of zoonotic exposure risks that are otherwise rare in developed countries. Infectious disease docs love us 😬

I really appreciate your perspective (and, having peeked at your profile, I suspect your patients are a lot less likely to be messing with neurologic skunks and bats than the general population 😁).

It's definitely region-dependent (and profession-dependent--anyone who works with animals is at a massively increased risk of exposure). I live in a US city with a high enough stray population that people show up at the ER needing post-bite prophylaxis almost every day.