happybadger

@happybadger@hexbear.net

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Beans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  In addition to what Darth_Reagan said, it’s for pest control as well. By keeping a plant in the field for more than one season, you provide a food source for pests whose parents went there to feed the previous one. Some diseases only impact certain crops and can stick around in the dead matter only to attack your vulnerable new plants.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cruciferae⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If anything they look the neatest as a plant: i.imgur.com/DyqeN2c.jpeg

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Archaeology⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  side-eye-1 side-eye-2 even if you’re a history geek?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨bugs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Or tell him he’s the Lord of the Flies for being a Hemiptera expert and see what he does.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨nailed it⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  gastrocnemius

  Stomach of the leg. That’s almost reaching the level of Amorphophallus titanum.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨land shrimp⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  montclair.edu/…/cicadas-safe-to-eat-sustainable-d…

  spoiler

  After 17 years underground, billions of periodical cicadas known as Brood X are set to emerge, and we hope you’ve brought your appetite. See, a swarm of cicadas may sound scary, but they’re quite harmless and, in actuality, can be a new food to introduce into your diet. Calling all adventurous eaters! Assistant Professor of Anthropology Cortni Borgerson, whose research focuses on natural resource use, sustainability and food security, says that the fact that they make a tasty snack is just one of the wonders of cicadas. “Brood X cicadas are one of the world’s most incredible animal phenomena,” says Borgerson. “In a year where few of us may be traveling to see natural wonders like Africa’s great migration, or the elephant gathering of Sri Lanka, we are incredibly privileged to have this rare spectacle occurring in our very own backyards. Brood X provides an infusion of nutrients into the ecosystem, and humans have been enjoying this event for its sights, sounds and taste for millenia.” Eating cicadas (and other bugs) is sustainable and nutritious Many may associate the idea of eating bugs with survival reality shows, but consider this: Not only can insects actually make for a great and tasty bite when thoughtfully prepared (see recipes below), they’re also a nutritious meat alternative high in protein and minerals, and are a sustainable food source. Indeed, they may be small, but bugs can have a mighty big impact on humans. “Insects are an important source of food for more than two billion people on Earth, including many food cultures within the United States,” says Borgerson. “These little meats are not only a mainstream food source, they’re also a more sustainable choice than other species of livestock, which can require a lot of land, water and feed. Embracing food diversity and incorporating insects and other traditional foods into our diets isn’t only a great way to connect with our cultures and our natural environments, it’s also a key step toward living sustainably.” Where to find cicadas to harvest Annual cicadas can be found toward the end of the summer, emerging mostly in parks, forests, other wooded areas and even in your backyard. These are safe places to collect them once they’ve shed; basically anywhere you’d feel safe keeping a garden is a good bet. Avoid collecting and eating cicadas from places with a history of industrial use. As for Brood X, you’ll need a map to find these periodical cicadas – and your best bet is to look for where they most commonly popped up last time around. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers a map of where the Brood X cicadas are expected to emerge, by county. For a breakdown by towns in New Jersey, check out this comprehensive list from NJ.com. “You’ll be able to hear when you’re close,” says Borgerson. “These cicadas live as nymphs underground for 17 years, and then tunnel up through the ground to the surface where they shed into their winged adult phase, living only 4-6 weeks. Cicada are tastiest in their teneral stage, which is right after they’ve shed into their adult forms, but are still pale white before their exoskeletons have hardened. “So at dusk, look for those wingless nymphs and enjoy the incredible show as they shed and transform and slowly inflate their new wings. Then pop a few into a bag and take them home to freeze for about 30 minutes before you prepare them.” Cicadas, a gateway bug to entomophagy If you’re curious about entomophagy (the practice of eating insects, especially by humans), cicadas are a great place to start. Unlike other bugs that can have “crunchy exoskeletons and wings,” teneral cicadas have a nutty, green, almost peeled shrimp-y look, taste and texture similar to the crustaceans. “You can add them to any of your favorite dishes,” says Borgerson. “They don’t need peeling or extensive prepping, just pan fry them or parboil and toast them in the oven, and then use them like you would any of their crustacean relatives. Personally, I love them by themselves on toothpicks as an appetizer or in tacos, where you can use the toppings to bring out a lot of their green spring flavors.” Before you know it, you may enjoy eating cicadas so much that you’ll move on to toasted cricket snacks, green ant gin, grasshoppers in chapulines tacos and more. Don’t eat cicadas if you’re allergic to shellfish Cicadas have a similar chitinous exterior as shellfish, so while there’s no overwhelming evidence that those with allergies have had reactions after eating cicadas, there’s not much research in its favor, either. “A shellfish allergy increases the likelihood that you will be allergic to cicada, so it’s better to be safe than sorry and abstain from land arthropods if you can’t eat their sea swimming cousins.” Can animals safely eat cicadas? OK, so what happens if you’re so busy munching on your new favorite snack that you don’t realize your beloved pet just ate a cicada or two (or more)? “Many mammals and birds are about to feast on the periodic cicadas, so don’t be surprised if your pet cat, dog, or backyard fowl indulge a little as well,” says Borgerson. “There’s nothing to be worried about — cicadas are high in protein and their chitin is great for gut health.”

  If you’re curious about entomophagy (the practice of eating insects, especially by humans), cicadas are a great place to start. Unlike other bugs that can have “crunchy exoskeletons and wings,” teneral cicadas have a nutty, green, almost peeled shrimp-y look, taste and texture similar to the crustaceans.

  “You can add them to any of your favorite dishes,” says Borgerson. “They don’t need peeling or extensive prepping, just pan fry them or parboil and toast them in the oven, and then use them like you would any of their crustacean relatives. Personally, I love them by themselves on toothpicks as an appetizer or in tacos, where you can use the toppings to bring out a lot of their green spring flavors.”

  Cicadas have a similar chitinous exterior as shellfish, so while there’s no overwhelming evidence that those with allergies have had reactions after eating cicadas, there’s not much research in its favor, either. “A shellfish allergy increases the likelihood that you will be allergic to cicada, so it’s better to be safe than sorry and abstain from land arthropods if you can’t eat their sea swimming cousins.” Can animals safely eat cicadas?

  I’m definitely giving these a try this year.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*sad laughing noises*⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m going to pad my H-index score by refuting all of the 19th century science saying that plants grow because ghosts stretch them overnight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*sad laughing noises*⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I hurt me when I didn’t study anthropology instead. At least then I’d be poor and could comprehend what I’m reading without googling half the words.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*sad laughing noises*⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m gonna get a PhD and be $100k in debt and change the thing so obscure that nobody else has bothered studying it yet so that in 50 years someone cites the paper in an essay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mmm yesss⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The illustration from the full study: i.imgur.com/2sS64b6.png

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨archaeology 101⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  soypoint-1 [old human shit] soypoint-2

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨EVE Online dev CCP's blockchain "survival experience" Project Awakening is getting a closed playtest in May⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  CCP’s CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson was a lot more down-to-Earth when Jeremy spoke to him last October. In particular, he offered the following, spirited defence of the game’s blockchain functionality, which can sort of be boiled down to “trust me, bro”, but is at least upfront about the many bad uses to which blockchain and cryptography technologies have been put.

  “People do stupid things with everything. Like in the 1700s in Holland, people made [speculative] bubbles with tulips. Are tulips bad? The tulips are not to blame. People are to blame. People do stupid shit with new things all the time. It’s just what we do. Look at any industry; there are people doing bad things, people doing nefarious things, people doing stupid things, and people doing very cool and wholesome things. I just don’t care how bad people have used [blockchain] in the past. If people hate me for something they’re assuming I’m going to do that I’m not doing. Not my problem; it’s their problem.”

  I love when crypto dipshits can describe how irrational it is but are so blinded by greed that they’re oblivious to that. Yes, the blockchain is analogous to the tulip mania. What happened to the people who built their business off tulip speculation? At least the farmers had a pretty flower to sell for a few pennies after the bubble burst and all the fetish value was lost. Anything crypto is completely alienating to normal people because it’s a clear scam being artificially soypoint-1 hyped by the most obnoxious weirdos on the internet. I won’t want to play a blockchain game because it’s a game despite the blockchain features, and I won’t want to engage with the blockchain features because you’re selling me overpriced tulips through an overly-convoluted system. If all crypto and NFT shit is stripped out and it’s selling the blockchain to non-crypto people as a public ledger, that has no use to me in a survival game and I’d just play EVE if I wanted to look at numbers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨STEM⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve taken multiple advanced trigonometry courses and still can’t really say what trigonometry is. Mathematics is just the fake thing that made puzzle kids feel smart before chess was invented. Oh wow you can make little symbols and they’re a special language only you can speak showing how clever you are. Neat they make a circle I thought I could draw one of those but I need a fucking PhD apparently.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total War: Pharoah's High Tides update is the first of Creative Assembly’s free DLC apologies for messing up Total War⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just give us Medieval 3, Shogun 3, or Empire 2. CA could spend ten years improving Pharaoh and I wouldn’t want to play it because the unit diversity is all of the shitty factions from Rome 2.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Humanities be like⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve taken like four or five advanced trigonometry courses and I still can’t really define what trigonometry is. Mathematics is like Andrew Tate’s Hustler University scam. If you take one class, it only exists to prove that you’re a mark and sell you more classes.