Hey gang! Let's go Tigers.
-Lauren |
San Diego Wave, NWSL Sued For Team’s “Abusive And Hostile Work Environment”
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The Not-So-Great Defector Bake Off Conquers Biscuit Week Easily
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‘The Golden Bachelorette’ Is Like A Wildlife Cam But For Old Dudes Who Rock
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One Thing We Liked On The Internet Today:
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Creature Drops: A New Clearwing Moth From Guyana Found in Wales |
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Last February, the ecologist Daisy Cadet spotted an unusual insect flapping around her home in Wales. The moth was black and yellow with clear wings—very unlike the ordinary house moths of the United Kingdom. When Daisy drew closer, she saw another similar, but dead, moth on the windowsill. Daisy’s mother Ashleigh, a professional photographer, snapped a photo of the moth and uploaded it to social media, where the moth made its way to Mark Sterling and David Lees, researchers at the Natural History Museum in London. Sterling and Lees began searching for a match to this moth, poring over the many clearwing specimens held at the museum. They told Daisy to search all of her 85 indoor plants to see if she could find any traces of where this moth had emerged from, but Daisy found none.
When researchers at the museum sequenced the DNA of the moth, they discovered the insect’s closest living relatives were all found in Central and South America. “This finding was a lightbulb moment,” the researchers write in a paper published in Nota Lepidopterologica describing the new species of moth. Ashleigh had just returned from a photographic assignment in Guyana, and when Daisy searched her mother’s bag, she found the remains of two moth pupal casings. “The chances of two clearwing moths from the Neotropics successfully emerging in South Wales, over three months after they arrived, in cold Welsh winter, and being preserved in good condition, is extraordinary,” Sterling said in a press release. “The improbability of this event defies rational explanation.”
By chance, Ashleigh’s bag also contained a small fragment of the plant that the moth larvae had likely eaten; DNA sequencing revealed the plant came from a tree in the pea family. The researchers dissected the moths, which Daisy had saved in her fridge, and compared their genitalia to that of the closely related clearwings. The DNA did not match any other species on record, leading the researchers to dub it a new species: Carmenta brachyclados. The moth, meanwhile, has been going about its business in Guyana without any awareness of its scientific discovery.
-Sabrina Imbler
Image: Daisy Cadet |
Haters Must Respect Other Haters |
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Listen: I am not a Padres fan. In fact, a true joy of my baseball season was watching the Phillies destroy them over and over again. But before I am a fan of anything, I am a hater at heart. To be a true hater is to abide by a code: Haters respect other haters. This is why I accept the opinions of others wholeheartedly when they hate something that I like. And it is also why I choose to support and love Fernando Tatis Jr.
Both Ray and Lauren have written excellent blogs about the Padres and noted how they are fueled by spite and how they refuse to be polite. In her blog, Lauren wrote, "In a postseason that's been filled with a lot of awwwws, there's an edge to the Padres that, when coupled with the victories, commands a different kind of respect."
I agree. Haters must respect other haters, and Fernando Tatis Jr is, first and foremost, a hater. It is unclear to me if he wants to win as much as he wants his enemies (whoever they may be) to lose. It is fun for him to be booed. He is a villain's villain! You may not like a hater, but that doesn't mater. The haters exist to advance the plot, to create intrigue, to make it fun. A world full of Shohei Ohtanis (heroes) might be kinder and more beautiful, but it sure isn't fun. The heroes of every story need villains! And haters are the original villains. Villains do not operate out of goodness or beauty or desire to make the world better. Ursula does not send The Little Mermaid to land in exchange for her voice to help her. She does it because it’s funny, and she doesn’t like Ariel’s dad, and she runs on spite! She wants to steal Ariel’s man! That’s what a good story is made of!
Sure, most people want the heroes to win in the end. But they get to be heroes by having a foil. And no one is a better foil, a better hater, a better villain, than Fernando Tatis Jr. right now. This compilation of his taunts against the Dodgers is all the proof you need.
-Kelsey
Photo: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images |
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