SpinnyNuNu

This wasn't Alex the therapy bunny's first major outing. He's attended a NASCAR event and has gone tubing at Lake Tahoe.

Trevor Wilkinson's pushback led to a welcome change in his Texas school district's policy.

What do you think it might be?

Give your email that extra oomph it needs

During the pandemic millions of people have had to adjust to their jobs, schooling, childcare, and anything else that would regularly happen face-to-face being conducted pretty much entirely virtually. After over a year of living life under lockdowns, it’s to be expected that we’d all be feeling a little technology burnout. So to help reinvigorate your day-to-day, here are some alternative email sign-offs and signatures you might want to consider.

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Stoically while staring out at the sea,

See you in Hell,

Baby bye bye bye (bye bye bye),

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH,

Stay fresh, cheese bags,

Await the signal,

Take care or else,

Flatulently,

Softly and tenderly like Julie Andrews holding a baby bird,

Stuck inside a computer beep boop beep boop,

Hail Cthulhu,

BEGRUDGINGLY,

Watch the skies, traveller,

Please be nice I’m sensitive,

Still deeply confused by Tenet but too afraid to ask at this point,

Sent from my iPhone OR WAS IT,

And if you don’t know, now you know,

Naked and afraid,

New York Times #1 Bestselling Author,

Respond at your convenience but know I will be panicking until you do,

Deputies in El Dorado County arrested a man after finding multiple living and dead dogs in his vehicle, authorities say.

An associate of Rep. Matt Gaetz's is working toward a plea deal with federal prosecutors investigating a sex trafficking operation, potentially escalating the legal and political jeopardy facing the Florida congressman.

Jack Hanna has been diagnosed with dementia, according to a letter shared by his family.

Christianity should never be a Get Out of Jail Free card.

California is greatly expanding eligibility for COVID-19 vaccines in April as supply increases.

Britney Spears' attorney is requesting a judge to remove her father from overseeing her medical decisions.

The Jesuit priest who presided over an inaugural Mass for President Joe Biden is under investigation for unspecified allegations and is on leave from his position as president of Santa Clara University in Northern California, according to a statement from the college's board of trustees.

In case you needed another reason to get the COVID-19 vaccine once you're eligible in your area, Krispy Kreme just announced a very sweet incentive this week.

A skydiving facility in San Joaquin County has been ordered to pay $40 million in connection with a deadly jump five years ago.

You must be this quiet to ride this ride.

Turning a classic corned beef and cabbage dinner into a shepherd’s pie makes a lot of sense, especially if you like your food piping hot. It also makes sense if you get nervous slicing and serving meat while a bunch of hungry people look on, monitoring your accuracy, as well as your... to read the rest of Chef John's article about Corned Beef & Cabbage Shepherd’s Pie, please follow this link to become a member.)

Follow this link to get a complete, printable written recipe for Corned Beef & Cabbage Shepherd’s Pie!

And, as always, enjoy!

If you want more information about why the blog format has changed, and why we're now offering complete written recipes, please read all about that here. 

PHOENIX — A lawmaker persuaded the Arizona House to let businesses ignore mask mandates to stem COVID spread partly by arguing they weren’t needed decades ago to stop the spread of AIDS. 

On a 31-28 party-line vote Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House approved legislation that says business owners need not enforce any state, city, town or county requirement for people to wear a mask. The measure now goes to the GOP-controlled Senate...

The sponsor, Rep. Joseph Chaplik, a first-term Republican legislator from Scottsdale, said his House Bill 2770 would give businesses the choice of whether to enforce the mandates that many communities already adopted...

Chaplik, however, argued that the mandates are an overreaction and that society has managed to survive other viral outbreaks without masks.  For example, he cited HIV “that was going to wipe our global destruction of human bodies with AIDS.”

“We heard about that in the ’80s,” Chaplik said. “Yet no masks were required.”

Chaplik went on to tell colleagues to look at what’s happening elsewhere, as he tried to disprove the claims that masks help prevent COVID-19 spread.  “Nebraska never had a mask mandate,” he said. He said the same is true in places like Mississippi and Georgia.

“I would think that based on these arguments these states would have dead people piled up all over their state because no one else would be living because no one has masks on,” Chaplik continued.

Rep. Bret Roberts, R-Maricopa, made a similar claim. Roberts said he’s heard a figure that something like 90% of Arizona is covered by some local mask mandate, even though there is no statewide mandate.

“If they work, how are people still catching COVID?” Roberts asked.

I love anything involving potatoes, and after some initial skepticism that includes potato-topped pizzas. Unfortunately, they’re not that easy to do, since you need to slice the potatoes thin enough to cook through by the time the crust is done, but if they’re too thin, you don’t really get enough... to read the rest of Chef John's article about Potato Chip Pizza, please follow this link to become a member.)

Follow this link to get a complete, printable written recipe for Potato Chip Pizza!

And, as always, enjoy!

If you want more information about why the blog format has changed, and why we're now offering complete written recipes, please read all about that here. 

This is a digital PDF file with tons of pictures and instructions so you can make your own Dr. Fauci Crochet doll. Once your payment has been made, Etsy will send you a link to download your crochet pattern file.

This is my favorite immunologist – Dr. Fauci! What a crazy world we live in. Luckily we have smart, caring people to help guide us through this time!

Now you can make your own Dr. Fauci crochet doll. He’s super cute, and pocket-sized at approx. 7 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide. He’s perfect to take with you on the go.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is facing sharp criticism after she posted an anti-transgender sign outside of her office.

In the British Drama, Years and Years, they imagine the very near future. I do wonder what someone from 2010 would have thought about a tv show accurately depicting 2020. In any case, one of the throw-away lines of the show was that there are no more bananas. The writers did their research – that the Cavendish banana will disappear sometime in the 2020’s is extremely likely. It is being threatened by a fungus called Tropical Race 4 (TR4), which a century ago wiped out the previous commercial dessert banana, the Gros Michel (it’s not extinct, but cannot be grown commercially anymore).

TR4 is now on every continent that grows bananas. It is literally just a matter of time before the entire commercial Cavendish market is wiped out. TR4 and similar funguses also threaten other banana varieties (more like plantains) that provide a staple source of nutrition for large segments of the world (about 400 million people). So this is not just about no longer having access to a favorite dessert fruit – this can create a serious threat to food security in parts of the world.

Part of the problem is that all Cavendish banana plants are clones. The plants are triploid hybrids, which is why they don’t produce seeds. This also makes them sterile. They are reproduced by taking new shoots that grow off the underground bulb (or corm). For this reason the entire Cavendish industry is basically comprised of clones. This is the ultimate monoculture – which leaves them particularly susceptible to disease, such as TR4.

One solution is to do what they did after the Gros Michel crop was lost – cultivate a new banana that is resistant to TR4. But few cultivars have all the traits necessary for a commercial banana. It has to ripen slowly, so it ships well, and has to taste good. Cavendish bananas, apparently, are a pale comparison to their tastier predecessor, and many were concerned they would not be accepted. There are many local varieties of dessert bananas, some are quite tasty (I have tried a few, like apple bananas, which are good). But these varieties don’t ship as well as the Cavendish, which is why they are mostly available locally.

The other solution is to breed or genetically engineer the Cavendish (or the Gros Michel, for that matter) to be highly resistant to TR4. Then we could at least get another century out of the banana, hopefully. A research group in Australia is working on a CRISPR edited version of the Cavendish that is resistant to TR4. Fortunately, nature already has a partial solution – some wild type bananas have a gene, RGA2, that provides resistance to TR4. In fact, the RGA2 gene is already present in the Cavendish, it is just expressed 10% of that of the resistant varieties. So all the scientists have to do is activate the expression of the already present RGA2 genes in the Cavendish. They have done this and are already in field trials, which are showing enhanced resistance.

There is also a gene from a nematode, the Ced9, which confers resistance to TR4. This is not being used by the Australian group, but is another path to resistant bananas. We may end up needing this gene as well at some point.

There is a bit of news in that Del Monte has agreed to fund the Australian group developing the Cavendish with enhanced RGA2. Hopefully this will help bring the resistant banana to market in time to save it. And of course, there are anti-GMO activists who against this banana – for no legitimate reason. They just oppose everything GMO for misguided ideological reasons.

Clearly we are in an arms race against infectious disease. This extends beyond the banana – our entire farming infrastructure is a constant battle with pests and diseases. We need to use a multi-pronged defense, something called “integrated pest management”, for example. We need to maintain output to feed the world, but at the same time adjust our practices to minimize the threat of crop disease. This will be a never-ending battle. Also, we will need every tool we have, including genetic engineering, in order to keep up. Without genetic modification, the banana industry is going away. Other crops are similarly threatened – genetic engineering has already saved the papaya industry in Hawaii. Citrus greening threatens our citrus industries.

I do wonder what this will be like in 50, 100, or 500 years. Can we get into a sustainable loop, where we abandon certain crops for resistant ones, but eventually can return to them once the diseases that were specific to them wane (similar to antibiotic resistance)? Or perhaps we will need to develop farmland on the Moon or Mars, or in orbiting stations, that are entirely sterile except for the crops themselves and beneficial bacteria in the soil – but no pests. They could be run by robots, and entirely sealed off from any possible contamination.

Another benefit to off-worlding our food production is that more of the Earth’s surface can be returned to natural ecosystems. Right now about half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. This is perhaps the biggest negative effect on other species, the loss of habitat due to agriculture. This, of course, is a far future (at least a few centuries) solution, but I do wonder if this will be an ultimate solution.

In the meantime, genetic engineering is probably our best chance to keep one step ahead of the worst pathogens like TR4.

The post CRISPR-Edited Bananas first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Cloris Leachman died Jan. 27 at her home in California at the age of 94.

Dominion Voting Systems, the election technology company that has been the focus of debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud, is suing MyPillow and its CEO Mike Lindell.