OK, this is a weird one: getting a “pedicure” by putting your feet in a tub with Garra rufa, a small fish that then industriously nibbles dead skin away. That’s not a pedicure, for one, and two, it probably doesn’t do anything for you, although it does feed the fish, and three…your toenails might fall off, probably due to secondary infections.

The CDC has a few things to say about the practice.

• The fish pedicure tubs cannot be sufficiently cleaned between customers when the fish are present.
• The fish themselves cannot be disinfected or sanitized between customers. Due to the cost of the fish, salon owners are likely to use the same fish multiple times with different customers, which increases the risk of spreading infection.
• Chinese Chinchin, another species of fish that is often mislabeled as Garra rufa and used in fish pedicures, grows teeth and can draw blood, increasing the risk of infection.
• According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Garra rufa could pose a threat to native plant and animal life if released into the wild because the fish is not native to the United States.
• Fish pedicures do not meet the legal definition of a pedicure.
• Regulations specifying that fish at a salon must be contained in an aquarium.
• The fish must be starved to eat skin, which might be considered animal cruelty.

Next step up: dunk your toes in a tank full of piranha.

Except Alex Jones, of course.

BREAKING: Democrats Plan To Launch Civil War On July 4th https://t.co/38AWiUFaag

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 1, 2018

Somehow, we antifa/commie/liberal Democrats are supposed to fire up this war on the 4th of July — in two days — and there has been no communication at all to us cannon fodder. But Alex Jones knows all about it! Apparently, it was announced in the liberal “Elite Publications” last year, but I missed it.

Anyone know what those publications are? Because I’ve also missed out on all of those.

Oh, well, I guess I’ll have to dig up my old uniform — birks, shorts, tie-dye t-shirt, and headband — put a flower in my hair and march off to San Francisco. Or wherever the old hippies have set up a staging ground. I wonder if we can get the Dead back together to play for the Revolution?

Tune in here at noon central time. I’m going to read a couple of mail items, and then open it up to whatever.

If you want to join in on-screen, email me and maybe I’ll send you a link.

I put up this video on my YouTube channel yesterday. It’s short, only 2 minutes long, and is a basic introduction to me.

I was asked why — I’ve been making videos for a few months now, years even, isn’t it a little late to be putting up an intro video? I’ll explain.

• I started this as an experiment, just dipping my toes in the water. I had no confidence that I could sustain it. Now I’m feeling like, yeah, I can put out one or two videos a week, no sweat, so let’s commit to the long run.

• I’m also getting more confident that I can get better at this — I’m not claiming I’m any good at it, but at least I’m recognizing where all the flaws are and can work on correcting them next time. It’s a productive exercise for me.

• There’s a provision in YouTube for including a channel trailer, that is, a video that is shown to unsubscribed viewers when they visit. I figured I’d finally get around to filling that slot.

• There are video creators on YouTube who are confusing — they have so thoroughly absorbed the internet custom of constant sarcasm that you don’t know whether they’re mocking a position, stating a criticism, or are occupying some undefined middle ground where they make stupid arguments with plausible deniability. I hate those guys. So I wanted to stake out where I’m coming from with complete clarity.

• Another thing I’ve grown to detest: people with crudely animated avatars doing all their speaking for them, with terrible names, like “The Adjective Atheist” or “The Pretentious Modifier Skeptic”. I hate those guys, too. So I’m using my real name, and I’m going to commit to at least begin all future videos with my real face on camera, even though it’s not going to win me any beauty prizes.

So now you know. The beatings will continue until you appreciate them more. Sorry. But I’m doing this for me, not for you.

Speaking of ongoing suffering, I’m planning to subject you all to another “Ask Me Anything” hangout tomorrow, Sunday, 1 July, at noon central time. To get the conversation rolling, I thought I’d share with you a couple of mail messages I’ve received in the last month. Real mail! On paper! With stamps and everything! Also, they’re not all bad, but there are a couple of creationist doozies in there.

I guess they were feeling the heat: RateMyProfessors has already dropped the chili pepper category from their rankings.

They still suck, though.

Jonathan Eisen has been ripping on RateMyProfessors lately with a hashtag, #BoycottRateMyProfessors. Good.

RMP is a terrible source for any kind of evaluation of professors — it’s more of a place where disgruntled students can vent, which is fine. I do pay attention to complaints, since they’re information I can use to improve, but they’re more useful when they’re on an evaluation form rather than on a website I don’t read.

But there are two big problems here. One is that Google algorithms take RMP seriously as a source for information on academics.

Send this message to @Google, which continues to use its algorithms to put RMP high on almost any search for an academic. The embedded racism and sexism of these evaluation systems must be acknowledged and challenged.

— Monica H Green (@monicaMedHist) June 28, 2018

But worst of all…the goddamn chili peppers. You’re supposed to rate your professors on their “hotness”. It’s flamingly sexist.

And before the sniggers come in about me being jealous because my students definitely do not rate me as “hot” — I’d be even more annoyed if they had put one of those stupid red peppers next to my name. Sorry, students, “eye candy” is not and never has been in the job description.

---

Here’s a really good summary of the problem from the person who started flaming those peppers.

Student registration went fine — nobody cried! We got everyone into the classes they need!

Everything else in the world sucks, though. So I’m going to go have a burrito and a margarita. It’s the only way to cope.

Oh, this is going to be an interesting conundrum. You see, good ol’ Scienceblogs magically reappeared on the internets a short while ago — you know, the original science blogging network that I was part of for so many years, that was then neglected, then transferred to the control of National Geographic, and then allowed to languish and eventually die. But now, suddenly, all of my old posts there are back again! Along with all those other interesting people who contributed so much over the years. Thanks! Nice to see it still exists, even as a dead, static archive. (But a lot of the comments on my site are still lost forever: NatGeo really botched an update shortly after they bought it out.)

But then to have it owned by the ACSH brings mixed feelings. You see, the ACSH (or American Council on Science and Health) is an astroturf organization, a pro-big-businees propaganda front, backed by the likes of the Koch brothers and other pro-industry capitalist shills, and I’ve said so. I’ve irritated Campbell (president of the ACSH more than a few times.

So that’s the conundrum. He’s now hosting my evil socialist anti-religious rants on his site (oh, and I don’t get a penny from that) — how long will that last? Even more interestingly, he’s now hosting anti-ACSH arguments, like this one from Mark Hoofnagle. Will the ACSH start deleting posts, or worse, editing them, now that they own the code?

It’s not as if I can do anything about it. It’s just remarkably sleazy. Unsurprisingly, since that’s been my opinion of Campbell for years.

It’s another new student registration day, and I get to spend a big chunk of it as an advisor. I hope there are no tears this time, unlike last time.

Yeah, tears. This is an incredibly stressful event for the students. There are two things that promote breakdowns during registration.

• Uncertainty. Some students come in not knowing what to expect, or thinking this is like a greased chute that will give them a job when they slide out of the end. My favorite are the students who are shocked when you tell them they are going to sign up for about 15 credits this term, which is about 4 classes, and they have no frame of reference. Is that a little or a lot? Why am I signing up for chemistry, isn’t there like a pre-med class I can just take and be done with all this? Why do I need to take a history class, I want to be a dentist!

  They don’t quite get that they’re signing on to a voyage of adventure, and they’re going to be completely different people at the end of four years. Or maybe they do. They freak out and are afraid they’ll make a mistake. I just want to tell them that of course they’ll make mistakes, this is a system to help you recover from error — it’s 4 years of dynamic equilibrium in which you learn and adjust. That doesn’t help the ones who want a stable, certain, plodding path.

  (Parents don’t help here. They’re so happy that they’re investing in turning their little girl into a doctor at the end, but she might come out the other end an art historian or statistician, and happier for it. Let ’em find the their true love in the world of the mind!)

• High school. This is the big one. Most of high schools do a fine job, but the number one shock to some students is coming here expecting to emerge with a STEM career, and we discover their schools let them coast and they don’t even have basic algebra mastered. We give incoming students a math placement test, and we know…we know they’re going to flunk out of first year general chemistry if we let them take it (we don’t). We have a remedial path that involves summer school, stuffing their first year with the general education distribution requirements, and a catch-up senior year that’s nothing but solid science courses (can you imagine taking 3 lab course in a semester? I wouldn’t want to), and students are sometimes very upset about that.

  I do wonder what the administrators at those high schools are thinking. At the very least, shouldn’t all their graduates be able to read a novel, write a coherent 5 page essay, know a little bit about their country’s place in the world, and solve a simple algebraic formula? All of their students, not just the ones looking at STEM careers. We’re not asking a lot when we say a high school diploma ought to mean something, but apparently some students and some schools take a laissez fair approach to education, and our Republican overlords like to encourage that.

  I try to let the students know I’m there to help them, and I have a plan that’ll put them right on track, but that’s like criticism, dude, and now it’s panic attack time.

But now I have to put on my positive attitude and brace myself to go in. Let’s hope all the students today are eager and enthusiastic and well-prepared, and that none of the general chemistry lab sections they need to take are not closed. We’ll get through this. I promise I won’t cry, at least not until I get home.

The first underwater film features a staged fight with a shark, and closes with the lifeless body of the innocent animal drifting away.

I’m not too impressed, JE Williamson.