Andean stimulant

Had a good laugh today on this page of miscellany, and particularly on the explanatory note for the 23-Down clue:

The coca plant is native to South America, and is similar in appearance to a blackthorn bush. Coca leaves have been chewed by humans for centuries, perhaps even as far back as 3,000 years ago. Chewing the leaves apparently produces a pleasurable numb sensation in the mouth and a pleasant taste. The most famous alkaloid in the leaf is cocaine, but this wasn’t extracted in its pure form until the mid-1800s. The extracted cocaine was used in a medicines and tonics and other beverages, including the original version of Coca-Cola! Before 1903, a glass of Coke would contain about 9mg of cocaine. Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves, as the flavor is prized, but the cocaine is extracted before it arrives at the bottling plant.

Now I've always thought that the flavoring in your basic bottle or can of coke was strictly derived from sugar, kola nuts, and carbonation. But apparently they're still using coca leaves for flavoring as well. Ah, but "the cocaine is extracted before it arrives at the bottling plant."

Now all that cocaine they're extracting has to go somewhere, doesn't it? Of course those whose job it is to extract it just pour it all down the drain. Riiiiiiiiiight.

Meanwhile Coca-Cola is having afterparties that sometimes last until sunrise.

ἔντομον

Okay, this is the strategy I have for bugs. For summer and probably into early autumn, you gotta have one.

If it's in my apartment, I'll do my best to kill it. I have to live here. I've relocated some moths to the outside in the past, but there's not always time.

If it's already outside, I'll let it be. As an illustration, if there's an ant where my foot is about to come down, I'll do my best to miss it. The ecosystem does need them.

Obviously, those that try to sting or bite me are an exception. And I've grimly accepted that I have to put the kibosh on lanternflies whenever I see them and am able to get to them. Although I'm still hoping our birds acquire a taste for them.

Foxy

Sly Stone hit some lofty heights in the early days of his career. For a while it seemed he could do no wrong. It didn't really last beyond the early 70s. In 2011 he put out an album called I'm Back!, but it didn't really prove he was. That's true in a lot of cases. The downside of achievement is the struggle to equal it. But at least you've achieved.

As to the title of this song, it's still summer, not as hot. Bit better for sleeping.

Up & down

Let me describe a sliver of a dream I had recently, and the effect it had on me. 

There's a balcony or a deck. It's impossibly high up, A sci-fi skyscraper, like out of Metropolis. A cat is out there. It either climbs the guardrail or someone lifts it, that detail is unclear.

And there I shake myself awake. I don't have an irrational fear of heights. I have a very rational belief that you don't mess with heights past a certain point. And while cats are graceful, there are limits. 

Side 3

In short, this is an unprecedented moment in paleoanthropology. For the first time in the history of science, a form has been distinguished by its genes and nothing else. Can it therefore be considered a species?

From The Secret World of Denisovans: The Epic Story of the Ancient Cousins to Sapiens and Neanderthals by Silvana Condemi and François Savatier

As that very brief passage points out, Denisovans have been defined by their genes. Actual skeletal remains have been minimal. Genes can sometimes be a blueprint that wasn't actually followed in construction. Therefore, our understanding of Denisovans is very limited, and will be expanded―knock on wood―by further discoveries. Ideas will have to be revised.

Still, they were a very significant find, and a recent one. The finger bone fragment from which they were identified was only found in 2010. Yet the largest portion of the world's population is probably related to them, if distantly.

This is a good book. It has to take some rather arcane biological subjects and make then comprehensible to the lay reader. At the same time, it's respectful to the general public in a way that surprises me for a book published in 2025.

It also has beautiful, hand-drawn illustrations from Benoit Clarys, who seems to be very familiar with this kind of subject.

Am I missing something?

Science can be cool, when it's not dreary, as it frequently has been in recent years. And it's not a bad thing to try and perceive new things. But this "new color", olo? Man, I just don't know. It's a highly saturated blue-green, which seems to look nice. But apparently you can only really see it when a laser is shot into your retina. How often do you think you can make time for that?

It sounds like something that will be semi-remembered as a crazy fad in a few years. But making a new color name out of the middle three letters in "color" is kind of clever.

They are the eggmen

 

If you see a walrus's snout up close you see all these little bristles. Those are to feel along the ocean floor for food like clams and such. They're very good at surviving in the far North. This video was shot off the coast of Svalbard. They're also quite graceful in the water.

Anyway, just wanted you to see that. There was another walrus video I could have shown, but the background music was a little distracting.