It's National Lemonade Day! Do you have big lemonade plans? Lemonade is probably my all-time favorite drink, and I'll make it any way--from lemon shake-ups to keto lemonade, lemonade-tea (Arnold Palmer) drinks to cocktails. YUM. Plenty of businesses are having lemonade celebrates today in honor of the holiday, so why not take them up on them?
As a kid, I always wanted to be a veterinarian. Don't all kids at some point? Who doesn't love animals? If you had allergies, you might not have the same desire, but most kids do like at least some animals. The idea of putting them to sleep deterred me, as I'm sure it did many people.
I have often blogged about the spent nuclear fuel that is piling up at the commercial nuclear power plant sites in the U.S. For the moment, the spent fuel is kept on site in cooling pools or dry casks made of concrete and steel. The U.S. will not have a undergrounds geological repository to permanently dispose of spent nuclear fuel until 2050 at the soonest.
Ambient office = 69 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 113 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 118 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Ambient office = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
Ambient office = 92 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 98 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Nuclear fusion for energy generation is an area of intense research today. The ability to harness the process that keeps the sun burning in the sky would be a major leap in the search for cheap and clean energy. Many companies are working on the development of commercial nuclear fusion reactors.
August is ALL about peaches for me. Even though my kid and husband aren't into them, they humor me, go peach picking with me on the first of the month and generally support my love of all things peachy. Now that my aunt has a peach tree in her yard, you can bet it's even sweeter! The two of us love us some good peach drinks, but I think peach lemonade has to be my favorite.
It's so much fun to find out what which 80s lyrics you made up once upon a time just because you couldn't understand them actually are on the Internet. There are plenty of websites, not to mention YouTube videos, to explain what our favorite singers were really crooning, which helped me to understand that when the Thompson Twins sang "Hold Me Now," they were singing "my cold and tired heart," and not "my cold Italian heart," which made absolutely no sense to me as a kid.
Do you love a good tart? A yummy berry base with a flaky crust is the BEST, especially with a nice tea or even coffee. This lemon-blueberry version with almond cream, or Blueberry Frangipane, is fabulous, especially if you're a low-carb eater like me. One slice has under 7 net carbs (a little over 12 total carbs) and I wish I had more to enjoy today! If you've never enjoyed frangipane, definitely give this one a go because you'll want it again and again.
Remember the Obamas? Oh, it seems so long ago, Talk readers, and it's almost like a good dream that you hate waking up from--especially since, you know, the current Administration has gutted so much that the Obamas accomplished, brought back our national embarrassment and shame, ushered us into Holocaust-like practices and is currently doing everything from trying to let women who are pregnant but not married get fired for "religious reasons" to destroying the Endangered Species Act.
For anyone who lived before the Internet, mishearing song lyrics used to be a condition you couldn't recover from. There weren't websites or YouTube videos where you could look up the song lyrics to determine what was actually said, so you got people making up lyrics to Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone" like "Aliens are in my house, feels like they're stealing Floam!" That's a true story, by the way; my family used to love to make up lyrics to that song. We also love to assign our own meaning to songs like "A Whiter Shade of Pale."
As a terribly nearsighted writer, I am sometimes envious of people who don't need glasses, or who wear them conditionally for minor needs. My dad has 20/20 vision and I can't even drive well because of my vision. My poor kid inherited my sight as well. So the idea of contact lenses that let you zoom in on things makes me so excited--not just for me, but especially for my teenager.
It honestly sounds like an adorable cartoon movie that I would pay to see! Tardigrades? In space?
Are you at the point where you don't care if we colonize another planet or not? We know that only the rich people will be able to afford to go anyway (perhaps along with people they select as their slaves), and that doesn't sound like a world I even want to be part of. We're already in a world where the 1% runs everything, so why spread that across the universe? As exciting as space exploration is, part of me just doesn't want it to work for humans. We've had our run; let the octopus have a go of running things!
