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A concrete playground slide in Bucharest, Romania, looks more like a piece of brutalist architecture than a place for children to play. Built in the late 1950s or 1960s in the Floreasca area, the towering structure has become an internet curiosity because of its unus…

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In 1996, beverage maker Clearly Canadian introduced Orbitz, a clear soft drink filled with brightly colored edible spheres suspended throughout the bottle. The unusual appearance made it look more like a science experiment than a soda, and the company leaned into the co…

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A dockside owl rescue turned into a successful wildlife handoff after several young barn owls were found nesting in a loft above the water. As they neared the age to leave the nest, there was concern they could fall into the water during their first attempts at flight and drown. Ke…

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Psyllium husk has been rebranded by the internet as “nature’s Ozempic,” which is unfair to nature, Ozempic, and this extremely beige powder that mostly wants you to drink more water.

The evidence is decent for digestion and modest for cholesterol and blood sugar. Studies suggest around 10 grams a day can slightly reduce LDL cholesterol and may slightly improve blood sugar levels, especially in people with high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, or prediabetes. The weight-loss claims are weaker: a 2020 review found that psyllium did not outperform placebos for body weight, BMI, or waist circumference.

Psyllium is the “go-to fiber supplement” for gastroenterologists, given that it has been shown to help with constipation and irritable bowel syndrome, said Dr. William D. Chey, chief of the gastroenterology division at Michigan Medicine.

When it travels through the stomach and intestines, it absorbs water and forms a viscous, gel-like substance, which softens and bulks up stool and speeds its passage through the colon. This can help alleviate constipation, including in people with I.B.S.

Paradoxically, psyllium also helps with diarrhea, another common symptom of I.B.S., by absorbing fluid in the gut, said Kate Scarlata, a dietitian in Boston.

NY Times

When intermittent fasting, I use psyllium husk as a midday snack to get my fiber and fill me up for a few hours. A glass of water with psyllium mixed in keeps me satiated for quite a while. It also helps you stay regular when reducing your caloric intake, which is big.

The gut wanted fiber. TikTok gave it branding.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo spent 35 years in the United States, raised three sons, built houses, built his own home, and was shot by ICE before work.

His son Ronaldo said he did not learn about his father’s final moments from the hospital or law enforcement. He recognized his father from videos on social media, not by sight but by the sound of his voice, crying in the street as he bled.

In the emotional press conference, Ronaldo described his desperate scramble to find out information about what happened to his father. When he first heard about an interaction with ICE, the reports were conflicting. He hoped his father had simply been detained, so his first plan had been to find his father’s white work van and deliver it to his crew so that they might be able to finish work and get paid.

As time went on, Ronaldo remained in the dark. He did not learn about his father’s final moments from a hospital or law enforcement. Instead, confirmation of his death came in the cruel form of videos on social media.

“I recognized him immediately: not from his appearance, but from his voice crying in the street as he was bleeding out,” Ronaldo said through tears.

Bulwark

The detail that stays with you is the lunch. For more than thirty years, his wife made it before he left for work. The morning after ICE killed him was the first time she did not. That is what state violence looks like after the press release: a work van without its driver, a crew without answers, a kitchen where the routine stops.

Thirty-five years of building a family in America ended with two words: “illegal alien.”

Tale of Two Wastelands might just be the best Fallout mod of all time, and it’s pretty inarguably the most influential. On its surface, the idea is simple: Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas both use the same iteration of the same engine, so why not combine them together into a single megagame you can play for 200 hours? That, of course, do…

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As has been discussed to death both here and on the Internet at large, Fallout: New Vegas is one of the best RPGs ever made. Although it started life as a contracted-out amuse-bouche to keep Fallout fans happy while Bethesda was all hands on deck with Skyrim, Obsidian — an RPG studio formed from the sa…

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Denis Villenueve’s first two Dune (or DUNC depending on how badly you misread the poster) movies, with love to David Lynch, have been by far the best adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel. Evidently, Villeneuve has taken a little time before the next Bond film to hammer out a third Dune, this time adapting the original novel’s sequel Dune M…

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Just when we thought we were safe, Max Fosh returned. The only good YouTube prankster on the Internet (a title I have no authority to bestow) has made a career out of taking the most absurd ideas possible and making them a reality. Previous exploits include becoming a British royal, legally becoming his best friend’s grandpa, and getting a horse to bet …

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According to IP over Avian Carriers, the internet’s standards body once published a straight-faced proposal “to carry Internet Protocol (IP) traffic by birds such as homing pigeons.” RFC 1149, written by David Waitzman and released on April 1, 1990, was one of several April Fools’ Day…

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According to the account of the 1947 crash of the airliner Star Dust, the British plane left Buenos Aires for Santiago on 2 August 1947 and vanished over the Andes. Four minutes before its planned landing, the radio operator tapped out a final Morse message ending in …

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According to Milbenkäse (”mite cheese”), the German specialty is made by flavoring balls of quark with caraway and salt, drying them, and leaving them “in a wooden box containing rye flour and cheese mites for about three months.”

An enzyme in the digestive juices excreted by th…

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According to the Wikipedia entry for British Army officer Adrian Carton de Wiart, he “was shot in the face, head, stomach, groin, ankle, leg, hip, and ear” across the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was blinded in his left eye, survived two plane crashes, an…

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In 1966, apprentice printers in Beccles, Suffolk revived a pub game for the town’s summer fête, claiming its rules came from a 1585 manuscript rediscovered in an attic. The game was dwile flonking, and the manuscript never existed. According to Wikipedia, “the Suffolk county archivist was unable t…

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On a single day in January 1982, a Cuban cow named Ubre Blanca (”White Udder”) produced 109.5 liters of milk — “more than four times a typical cow’s production,” according to Wikipedia. Guinness World Records recognized that mark, along with her 24,268.9-liter output in a single lactation period.…

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According to Action 52, the unlicensed 1992 cartridge crammed 52 original games onto one Nintendo chip and sold for US$199, becoming “one of the worst video games of all time.” Businessman Vince Perri founded Active Enterprises after watchi…

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33 Thomas Street, a “550-foot-tall (170 m) windowless skyscraper” in Tribeca, has no windows at all — its walls are “entirely covered with precast concrete panels clad with flame-treated textured Swedish granite,” according to Wikipedia. One observer claims it “featu…

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Tom the Dancing Bug: A Busy, Busy Day at Washington DC’s Freedom 250 Celebration

-> Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this hostile Trumpverse! JOIN US IN THE INNER HIVE, and be the first kid on your block to get each week’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic – before it’s publish…

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