The stories have become horribly familiar. Houses so overrun by bed bugs that the bloodsucking insects pile an inch deep on the floor. An airport shutting down gates for deep cleaning after the parasites were spotted brazenly crawling around. Fear and loathing during Fashion Week 2023 in Paris, with bed bug detection dogs working overtime when the insects turned up in movie theaters and trains.For reasons that almost certainly have to do with global travel and poor pest management, bed bugs have resurfaced with a vengeance in 50 countries since the late 1990s. But recently, the resurgence has brought an added twist. When exterminators swarm out to hunt these pests, they might encounter not just one but two different kinds of bugs.Besides the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, which has always made its home in the Northern Hemisphere, there are now sightings of its cousin, the tropical bed bug, Cimex hemipterus, in temperate regions. Traditionally, this species didn’t venture that far from the equator, write entomologists Stephen Doggett and Chow-Yang Lee in the 2023 issue of the Annual Review of Entomology. But in recent years, tropical bed bugs have turned up in the United States, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Finland, China, Japan, France, Central Europe, Spain — “even in Russia, which would have once been unthinkable,” says Lee, of the University of California, Riverside.Like the common bed bug, the tropical version has grown resistant to many standard pesticides — to the point that some experts say they wouldn’t bother spraying should their own home become infested. It has been estimated that the fight against bed bugs is costing the United States alone $1 billion annually.
If bed bugs do invade a home, “the biggest mistake is to try and get rid of them on one’s own,” says Doggett. “The average person doesn’t appreciate how challenging it is to control bed bugs and will use supermarket insecticides that are labeled for bed bugs but don’t work. The infestation will spread, and the costs escalate.”
One of four versions of "The Scream" that Munch created, this is the only one not in an Oslo museum and the first to ever come up at auction...No way I could "stare at it for the rest of my life and be happy," but it's still interesting. More at the link, and note BTW that the scream is not coming from the man in the painting.
Top clients have visited the picture privately at Sotheby's in New York, sitting in high-backed chairs set a short distance from the work inside a locked room. "One of the world's great collectors said, 'I could sell all my pictures, put this on my wall, put my chair here with a cup of coffee and stare at it for the rest of my life and be happy,'" says Mr. Shaw...
The version of the "The Scream" up for sale at Sotheby's is a bright mix of 12 different colors, with the skeletal character in the foreground sporting one blue nostril and one brown one. The third in a series created between 1893 and 1910, the work was created with pastel on rough board. Some art dealers view the pastel as a mark against the work, though others say the lines and colors are more electric than even those found in the painted versions. The picture offers another standout feature: its frame, inscribed with the original 1892 poem Munch wrote that is said to have inspired the work. In it, he describes walking along that fiord, "trembling with anxiety" and sensing "an infinite scream passing through nature."
“I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun was setting—I felt a wave of sadness——the Sky suddenly turned blood-red... [continued at the link]
"She has not moved, her eyes have dropped to watch her feet when she hears it fall from her mouth, the truth about [her son's] father, she is explaining the illegal arrest and detention, the efforts being made to get him before a judge, the fact that nothing will happen before Christmas. Her heart grows pained as she watches the boy's frowning disbelief, the sliding look in his eye, how his mouth slopes and then he buckles silently to the floor ringing his arms about his knees. What she sees before her is an idea of order coming undone, the world slewing into a dark and foreign sea. She holds him in her arms, seeking in her whispers to rebuild for her son the old world of laws that lies broken at his feet, for what is the world to a child when a father without word can be made to disappear? The world gives to chaos, the ground you walk on flies into the air and the sun shines dark on your head..." (45)"She finds herself staring into a face that does not alter from its single expression, the colourless eyes, the mouth and what it says although the mouth does not speak - your husband is in detention, Mrs Stack, you have been deemed a security risk. It is then she is struck with the sense that some wild animal has entered behind her and is pacing the room, she takes the form and slowly folds it, places it into her bag, watching the supervisor leave the chair hearing the silent steps of the animal, sensing its rank breath on her neck, she is afraid to turn around. The silent, seated faces gaping into phones." (53)"The detective inspector looks across and finds her gaze and there is a moment between them where he puzzles at her and then he smiles and it is the smile of somebody you know to say hello to on the street, a husband, a father, a volunteer in the community, and yet behind that smile lies the shadow of the state..." (60)"... let me tell you, whatever-you-call-yourself, your husband is where he is because he is an inciter, an agitator against the state during a time of great threat to this country, you people have no idea what's happening outside in the world, what is coming our way, you will see us all destroyed, this should be a time of unity for our nation but instead there's civil unrest up and down the country and we have to face down the likes of you, get out of my house this minute. Eilish sees in the woman's face the superior look of the party..." (63)".. maybe there's two men in a car and one of them doesn't like how you look, maybe you're just wearing white [a protest color] because you like the look of it or maybe you're trying to say something else, something provocative, something the man doesn't like, maybe he stops and gets out and takes your name and address and creates a file with your name on it, maybe you'll be quiet or maybe you'll say the wrong thing and instead of taking your name and address he takes you, puts you in the car, and where's that car going to, Molly, have a think about that, maybe its going to where all the other cars go, the unmarked cars that pull up silently and lift people off the street because of one thing or another, the people who do not return home again, you think because you're fourteen years old you can do what you like that the state isn't interested in you, but they arrested those boys and those boys haven't yet been released and they're your age, you think I'm not doing anything, that I'm just standing about waiting for your father to return, but what I am doing is keeping this family together because right now that is the hardest thing to do in a world that seems designed on tearing us apart..." (76)"What she sees outside are three men in the driveway, a white SUV parked with a running engine. Something is thrown against the porch glass and there is a bang behind her as the bedroom door meets the wall, Molly tumbling into her arms shouting about men trying to get into the house... Through the curtains she watches a man climb the Touran, tattoos emblazoning arms and throat, another man bent to the side of the car. The man brings down a bat upon the windscreen then takes out his sex and urinates on the car, the apish laughing teeth as the man zips up and jumps dow onto the gravel. Across the street a bedroom light turns on and then off again as the SUV powers away." (138)"She drops the clothes in the basket and looks down at her hands and does not know why she remains so calm, another door has been opened, she can see this now, it is as though she were looking out upon something she has been waiting for all her life, an atavism awakened in the blood, thinking, how many people across how many lifetimes have watched upon war bearing down on their home, watching and waiting for fate to come, entering into silent negotiation, whispering and then pleading, the mind anticipating all outcomes but for the spectre that cannot be directly looked at. The electricity stutters and the lights grow dim..." (182)
But this was not the blue-green algae that had appeared in the lakes before. Early analysis identified the cause of the green tinge as an algal outbreak of Synechococcus... As summer took hold at the end of 2008, what happened surprised everyone – a new species called Noctiluca Scintillans began to prosper, by feeding on the Synechococcus.You can read the rest of the story at Phil Hart's webpage and see additional photos in his gallery (via Neatorama).
In contrast to the widespread bright green of the Synechococcus, Noctiluca Scintillans was visible during the day as localised murky red patches, often building up on sections of shoreline facing the wind during the day. At night though, Noctiluca Scintillans produced a remarkable form of bioluminescence (popularly referred to as ‘phosphorescence’) – the water glowing brightly wherever there was movement – in the waves breaking on the shore, in ripples in the water and wherever people played in the water.
"Generated most likely by the bacterium Vibrio harveyi, this awesome display of flamboyant biological chemistry happened on a vast scale: The researchers estimate that it took a bloom of 40 billion trillion (4 X 1022) bioluminescent cells to generate the milky sea that the Lima had encountered."
- which your brain will see in full color (reversed from the top embed).
The effect is probably similar to the Troxler's fading that I blogged back in 2011.
I thought I had blogged this one before, but I couldn't find it in my archive of optical illusions (84 to date, but some are undergoing linkrot over the years, so don't delay forever in browsing them).
One bettor at Caesars Sportsbook is looking to win big on a $100,000 bet, paying out at -105, which would profit $95,238.10 if they are correct.
Bettors at TheScore Bet can also wager on the odds of Swift being shown during the national anthem (-200), during the halftime show (+120) and more than 5.5 times on the CTV broadcast (+120). Another popular Swift prop across Ontario sportsbooks is the odds of her being mentioned during the Super Bowl MVP's speech after the game.
Update: Here's how the conventional prop bets paid off.
Whitney Houston recorded a soul-ballad arrangement of the song for the 1992 film The Bodyguard. Houston's version peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record-breaking 14 weeks. The single was certified diamond by the RIAA, making Houston's first diamond single, the third female artist who had both a diamond single and a diamond album, and becoming the best-selling single by a woman in the U.S. The song was a global success, topping the charts in almost all countries. With over 24 million copies sold, it became the best-selling single of all time by a female solo artist. It was also the world's best-selling single of 1992.
I said, 'I'm really sorry,' and I cried all night. I mean, it was like the worst thing. You know, it's like, Oh, my God… Elvis Presley.' And other people were saying, 'You're nuts. It's Elvis Presley.' …I said, 'I can't do that. Something in my heart says, 'Don't do that. And I just didn't do it… He would have killed it. But anyway, so he didn't. Then when Whitney [Houston's version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland. 😀
Here's the Whitney Houston version [1.5 billion views]
