Australia has a complex relationship to nuclear issues. They are a major exporter of uranium for nuclear fuel to global markets, but they have rejected the use of nuclear reactors for the generation of electricity although that policy is currently being debated. There are scattered stores of low-level nuclear wastes at over one hundred sites that should be consolidated.
Ambient office = 78 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
You're probably sick of the attack ads and all of the flyers at your house (unless you use them to line your bird cage or something), have already been asked if you know where your polling place is and have a plan to vote already... but do you really? Election Day is rapidly approaching and I just realized it's a day I don't have a car. We have a one-car home and my husband works that day, so it will be gone from 5 AM until 6:30 when he gets home. In the spring, we were able to just barely make it for the primaries, but I just don't know about this one.
Water bears are a big thing in my house. We even joke that Sally, our cat so fluffy she has no neck, is one, calling her "Tardigrade," among other things. Family Guy featured a new character last night known as Vernon the Water Bear, and if you didn't already hear, Kyrie Irving, point guard of the Boston Celtics, voiced the character! Of course, the tardigrades in the episode aren't nearly as cute as the real thing; in fact, they look like pink, fleshy monsters more than anything else, but they're pretty funny.
House Beautiful just put out a list of great adult party games, and while I must admit that many of them aren't as lewd as the ones my friends and I play, they are a fun batch of games that deserve checking out. They list some old standards like cards and Clue (Game of Thrones edition), but they also suggest some newer games like Cranium Dark and The Voting Game. These are milder versions of some of the games I like to play but the goal is the same: to laugh as hard as possible.
As a white woman unpacking a lot of mistakes, wrong thoughts and assumptions carried over througout my life, there's still a lifetime of learning ahead of me, and I'm okay with that. I'm trying to be a better, more aware person every day while I raise a daughter in this world who has both her own privilege and patriarchal misogyny to deal with. So while this story is an older one, I just ran across it tonight and it was another one of those wide eye-opening ones.
While traveling, there are certain foods that Seattle natives long for the most. Every state has its own specialties but Seattle's known for quite a few, ranging from the best apples across the nation to President Obama's own favorite chocolate. This piece at Spoon University really illustrates the top 21 foods that most people crave while they're not at home, but it's not an exhaustive list.
We often talk about great drinking recipes here at Good Drinking, but sometimes you just don't feel like being a mixologist and want something prepared for you by a professional bartender. The Dollar Zombie, an "infectious rum cocktail," is shuffling its way toward Applebee's this Halloween. The cocktail, which only costs $1 (which could vary depending on your area liquor laws) is blue and topped with a gummy brain for full fun effect.
This is not an argument against Eddie Money's amazing song, "Take Me Home Tonight." It's one of the catchiest songs ever written and we all love to sing it. That said, the lyrics themselves are so cringe-worthy that I do wonder if they would have held up as well had they been presented today. It's not like today's songs are all without their ridiculous lyrics, but just look at these gems.
Do you know why frogs can leap so powerfully and high? The fact that frog legs act like well-oiled hinges is pretty well known, but there's really more to it than that. The power, according to Dr. Chris Richards, who has studied the movement via simultion in order to determine if it was an evolutionary need or not, comes not from the joints themselves but from the frogs' own leg muscles.
You know you're a lover of the Grateful Dead, but how big of a Deadhead are you? Could you ace a comprehensive test about Garcia and the gang? It's perfectly fine to be a non-knowledgeable fan who simply appreciates a good song; the world is full of too many geeks who enjoy out-geeking each other and calling out "fake" fans. But if you are a rabid fan and you think you want to test your trivia knowledge, these quizzes might be a fun place to start:
None of these animals are particularly weird, especially when it comes to all of the different weird animals out there, but all of them eat in ways that might surprise you. Did you know that snails have some pretty fearsome-looking teeth, or that katydids hold their food with their appendages? This video depicts different animals eating in different ways and some of them might surprise you. Just watching the beta eat mosquito larvae made me wish I had beta surrounding my house.
I snicker every time someone asks me, "What day is Halloween again?" The same day it was last year! It's a fair question if you're wondering what day of the week it falls on or if your town is honoring it a different day, of course. All of these deals are good for the day of Halloween only so be sure to grab them while they're here!
From Cornerstore Carol to Barbecue Becky, white women are going viral with their racism and it's about time. Having excluded women of color from feminism and calling the police as if they're customer service for a long time, white women are now experiencing the backlash from their actions that they should have been experiencing all along, getting called out for their atrocious and inhuman behavior, sometimes even being fired from their jobs for their racist attitudes. Who stalks a man all the way to his own apartment even after he's used his own key to let himself in?
Elections can be confusing, no matter your age. I remember not understanding the Electoral College, not having remembered it from any class I'd ever taken, and just registering can be confusing in 2018 in a time when some politicians won't even let you vote if there's a discrepancy in one letter of your name or you don't have a physical address. That's why it's so important to teach civics from an early age, and right now is the perfect time to be reding books about the government and elections in general.
Are you a squash or pumpkin soup fiend? Pumpkin soup is one of my favorite fall treats. It's so creamy and inviting, and it warms you to your toes if you eat it while it's hot. My all-time favorite squash soup is at the restaurant Salt and Smoke, but you never know when they're going to have it because it's one of their daily side specials, so you just take a chance to see if they have it. I also don't mind some butternut squash soup from a can if it doesn't have much added: just the puree and spices for me, thanks!
We're all fond of telling kids about all of the tiny microscopic organisms that live on our skin, and the craze for "good bacteria" and probiotics in the gut has everyone reaching for yogurt or making their own kefir (confession: I do that, but still prefer the flavored versions better!). But did you know that, like Pigpen from the Peanuts gang, there's also a cloud of bacteria that swarms around you at all times as well? It's a little unsettling when you think about it, but it'll probably become just another fact of life once we get used to the idea.
If Halloween means nothing more than candy, pumpkin carving and cute costumes of super heroes and princesses to you, you might want to skip this nightmare-inducing list of scary makeup ideas for the big night. If Halloween is your excuse to buy as much fake blood as possible and scare anyone who lives in the double digits, it might be just what you are looking for!
If you love your gardening tomes, this book is one for you! A History of Botanic Illustration is a collection of botanical art that's 300 years old. Most plant lovers know that drawing plants was once our primary means of recording them, passing down their information through illustrated journals and diagrams before we could take photos, make field guides and create cool apps that identify plants in seconds.
