Blue has molted!

Today I’m catching up with lab work, and the first thing I spotted after coming through the door was that our tarantula, Blue, had molted overnight. I’ve been keeping their molts as a record of their growth.

Top left is the molt from this past summer; top right is the latest, looking a bit crumpled. Human skull in the frame as a size reference.

Blue is in the background. They look smaller because they’re farther away, but trust me, Blue has grown! Also, they’re a bit cranky because I don’t think their cuticle is fully hardened yet.

My sister Lisa

I had my birthday the other day, and my birthday brings sadness and depression with it. Not because I’m getting older, that I’m used to, but because every year around this time I think of my sister, Lisa. We had almost the same birthday, the 9th of March for me, the 11th for her, so the dates sort of collided, but she was so much younger than I was that it didn’t cause any conflict. She was my baby sister, 11 years younger than I was. I was a neglectful brother to her, and that always stirs up regret around this time of year.

I have to tell this story in reverse, because it ends in grief, and this way as I work backwards it gets happier. Also, there’s a big gap in the middle, because I was living so far away from my family as everything fell apart for her.

She died in September of 2001 at the age of 33. It was not a good death, if there is such a thing. She was homeless, living day by day, and she picked up a massive systemic infection — neglect and drug abuse played a role here — and seemed to be tangled up with a street preaching group. The first I knew of it was when I got a call from my mother to say she was unconscious in the hospital. She lingered for a few days and died.

I flew to Seattle for the funeral. It was open casket, unfortunately. She’d been a pretty young woman, but the edema from the infection left her barely recognizable. I did meet the woman preacher who’d been ministering to her in her last days, and that left me furious. The preacher used the funeral to proselytize, and ask for donations, and invite everyone to join her in praising the Lord there in the funeral home. I refrained from punching her in the face, out of respect for the fact that my sister had at least found some comfort in her ministry in her final days.

I knew little else about her life before that. I’d regularly call my mother, and ask what my brothers and sisters were up to, but they didn’t know much about Lisa. She wasn’t allowed to come to my parent’s home anymore. She’d been caught stealing checks and doing petty pilfering around the house, all to feed her drug habit, so she couldn’t be trusted to not rob them blind, if given the opportunity. She spent some time in jail. There was over a decade in the 1990s where I was out of touch, living a thousand miles away, and all I knew of her was short mournful whispers from my mother or my sisters, no direct contact, even when I visited the Pacific Northwest all I’d hear is that they didn’t know where she was living, and she wouldn’t come visit me.

There was some happy news, though: she had two sons, Ben and Dylan, who have turned out just fine and are doing well today.

Otherwise, I was out of touch for the entirety of the 1990s. The 1980s were when we drifted apart — I moved out in the 80s, when I turned 18 and went off to attend university. She was only 7 when I left, and that’s how I mostly remember her, as a shy, sweet little girl. I only caught up with her now and then as she became a teenager, and a young woman. Then it seemed like I turned around and she was gone. I had missed so much of her life.

This year, though, I inherited a collection of 8mm film recordings from my family, and some of them were from the mid- to late 1980s, taken by my father during family visits and on vacations. This was a time when all of us, her brothers and sisters, had moved out and started our own families. She was pretty much an only child for those years, and it made me glad to see that at least some of the time she was happy with mom and dad.

I spliced out all these short clips of my sister and strung them together in a short video — a very short video. I’m afraid my dad was a terrible videographer. He’d film family members very briefly and then cut away to spend most of the recording panning across the landscape, and when I cut out the scenery, there wasn’t much left. But still, it’s all I have left.

She was a sweet kid and a troubled woman. I miss her.

The line goes down?

I know absolutely nothing about stocks. My eyes glaze over if you try to explain the stock market to me. I could be wrong, but isn’t it bad when the line goes down?

I also suspect that it is bad when prices at the grocery store go up, as they’ve been doing lately.

I’ll try not to fall asleep if you explain to me what I’m getting wrong.

I did try to puzzle it out for myself, so I went to some site called Marketwatch to read some articles. This is what it looked like this morning.

I tried, but I got bored. Maybe I’m misunderstanding this, but it doesn’t look like good news for the stock market.

Oh no! Our school is failing!

We got another memo from the president of the University of Minnesota, Rebecca Cunningham. We’re failing!

I am writing to you today, as our Twin Cities campus is now the subject of two federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism: a U.S. Department of Education investigation and a pending U.S. Department of Justice task force campus visit. We also received a failing score on the Anti-Defamation League’s latest campus antisemitism report card.

This is a response to Trump’s search for reasons to punish every university. He doesn’t care about human rights, and neither does the ADL. This is not about antisemitism; it’s a right-wing policy to silence anyone opposing the genocide committed by Israel or promoting the rights of the Palestinian people. I’m sure there is antisemitism to be found on campus, because this is America and it’s simmering everywhere, but the university administration does not endorse it and it is not the majority view here. I support this part of the memo.

There is absolutely no place for antisemitism at the University of Minnesota. In accordance with our institutional values, we firmly and aggressively reject any and all forms of hatred directed toward members of our Jewish community.

Good. That’s official. But what we’re witnessing is a conflation of opposing the actions of the state of Israel with antisemitism, and we have to also defend the right or our students and faculty to oppose and protest the criminal actions of Israel.

The disappointing part of this memo is that it nowhere even mentions Palestinians or the policies of Israel — it just buries them under the label of “antisemitism”. I hope this isn’t their approach when the federal Trumpian investigators descend on campus. Be forthright: we defend the rights of both Jews and Palestinians to exist.

You know what’s interesting? A Holocaust scholar summarizes the antisemitism he witnessed in the White House.

Florida is taking pride in what they’re good at

I guess that’s good, to put a positive spin on what you have a demonstrable skill in doing, even if it is something most of us would be embarrassed by. There’s a company putting on what they call Florida Man games, a series of competitions where Floridians can show off their unique talents.

For instance, there’s an “EVADING ARREST OBSTACLE COURSE” where

Floridians are chased by police after stealing copper pipes and catalytic converters. Find the frozen iguana and chuck a gator through a drive thru window to earn a victory, and your freedom.

Very good. These are all useful skill to have when living in a crumbling dystopian swamp that is slowly sinking beneath the sea. Sure. Polish Florida’s reputation while you’re at it.

Don’t listen to RFK jr

You don’t need a medical degree if you can do this

The latest “health” craze is all about condemning “seed oils”. I’m a guy with a family history of heart disease, so I pay attention to doctors’ dietary recommendations, and I never heard anything about “seed oils” until recently, and the complaints were always coming out of the mouths of fools.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new health secretary, has said Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils and has called for fast-food restaurants to return to using beef tallow, or rendered animal fat, in their fryers instead.

Recommendations from RFK jr tend to make me run in the opposite direction, but apparently there are a lot of gullible Americans who readily adopt any claim made by an anti-scientist. And then every corporation stampedes to follow the money.

In response to consumer concerns, some food-makers have stripped seed oils from their products. Restaurants like the salad chain Sweetgreen have removed them from their menus. Many Americans say they now avoid seed oils, according to a recent survey from the International Food Information Council, an industry trade group.

The seed oil discussion has exasperated nutrition scientists, who say decades of research confirms the health benefits of consuming such oils, especially in place of alternatives such as butter or lard.

“I don’t know where it came from that seed oils are bad,” said Martha Belury, an Ohio State University food science professor.

I know! I know! It comes from wellness influencers. All you need is a tiktok channel and a lot of unfounded confidence, and you too can promote weird random ideas under the guise of making people “well”. You don’t need a medical degree! You don’t even need to be a college graduate! Wellness isn’t a real scientific/medical discipline — it’s just a buzzword that has no regulatory oversight or any basis in empirical data. We all want to be well, but to have any authority in medicine requires years of training and constant updating from real sources.

I found something called Your Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Successful Health and Wellness Influencer. It’s revealing. The way to become a wellness influencer is a) find something you’re passionate about, b) connect with a community of wellness influencers, and c) land a brand deal. That last one is obviously the most important. Nowhere does it say you should study medicine or nutrition, or read scientific studies, or even be capable of understanding scientific studies. Just promote whatever random bias is floating around in your head!

It also helps to be young and slender and capable of doing yoga poses. Here’s a whole page of wellness photos you can use to build a page promoting your brand. Take a look and let me know if there’s anything illustrating knowledge or expertise; there is a common theme, and that’s not it.

In that article dismissing the seed oil obsession, you instead find studies and numbers.

Belury, who has studied fatty acids for three decades, says that claim is based on an oversimplification and misunderstanding of the science. Studies have shown that increased intake of linoleic acid, the most common omega-6, does not significantly affect concentrations of inflammatory markers in the blood, she said.

“Scientists who study omega-6 and omega-3 think we need both,” Belury said. “Seed oils do not increase acute or chronic inflammation markers.”

In addition, research from the American Heart Association and others has consistently shown that plant-based oils reduce so-called bad cholesterol, lowering the risk of heart disease and stroke, especially compared with sources high in saturated fat.

That’s found in new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital scientists as well. A study of more than 200,000 adults over more than 30 years released Thursday found that people who ate the highest amounts of butter had a 15% higher risk of dying than those who ate the least. People who ate the most plant-based oils — including seed oils — had a 16% lower risk than those who ate the least.

Dr. Daniel Wang, who led the research, said new modeling data suggests that swapping less than a tablespoon a day of butter for equal calories of plant-based oils could lower premature deaths from cancer and overall mortality by 17%. Such a small daily change could result in “a substantial benefit,” Wang said.

Gosh. Belury and Wang are never going to be rich, famous, and popular at that rate. Americans don’t want to be told about data, they want to see a glossy image of sexy people sipping a drink with an umbrella in it while sitting on a beach in Costa Rica. That’s wellness, not a bunch of studies showing what’s actually effective in reducing mortality.

I think I’ll just listen to boring doctors in Minnesota who tell me to eat less red meat and consume more olive oil and salmon. It seems to be working; most of my ancestors seem to have died in their 50s, and I’ve made it to almost 70, and I haven’t made any major sacrifices in my lifestyle. A Mediterranean diet is delicious and good for you.

Unfortunately, I don’t look like a 20-something model and I don’t have a wellness supplement to sell.

I may have just turned 68, but I still have a little dignity

I’m not wearing one of these things, or obsessing over the hundred pills I choose to swallow every night, or comparing myself to my sons. I’m not Bryan Johnson, the current joke of a man aging poorly.

According to my calculations, it ain’t worth it. But he also has the penis of a 22-year-old.

He should give it back. To be clear, he has the penile health of someone 25 years younger.

How would you even measure that? By the number, duration and quality of one’s night-time erections.

And how would you even measure that? With an erectile tracker – you wear it to bed and it sends the data to your phone.

So your phone tells you your penile age? After a fashion, yes.

Where can you get one of these devices? Asking for a friend. You can buy them online for £150, but the company that makes them is oversubscribed, so there’s currently a seven-to-eight-week waiting list.

If anyone wants to buy me a present, don’t get me an erection tracker.