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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • I’m a big fan of trichogramma wasps, myself.

    I had a pantry moth infestation as a result of having birds (inherited from my mother - I’d never keep birds of my own choice, and I rehomed them after a few years)

    Anyway, because I had birds and cats, bug bombs were out of the question, but I found trichogramma wasps. They are stingless wasps about the size of a grain of sand, 1-2 mm tops, so you can barely see them, and they lay their egg inside moth eggs (and some 100 other species of mostly pest insects, but they prefer what they hatch from which is typically moth eggs) their daughter eats the moth larva, hatches, and can immediately lay fertile eggs in more moth eggs. No males in the species due to a gut bacteria, so all wasps hatch fertile.

    If anyone reading this needs this info, you can buy trichogramma wasps online, they aren’t expensive, you’ll want ~5k eggs for up to 2k sqft indoors (most sites I’ve seen this is the minimum order anyway, and back when I did it 8 years ago or so, cost me about $12/order, including shipping). They will escape through the window screens, and just die off if there aren’t enough target species’ eggs around, which is fine and not a problem. They can wipe out up to 95% of a targeted species when outdoors, but moths have a long life cycle so you need time to work through all the waves in your enclosed space. Just open the little cup inside, set it down somewhere near the kitchen or where you have the most moths, and that’s it. Repeat every 2-3 weeks until you don’t see moths anymore, which takes about 4-6 months. After that, for two more years, any time you see a moth inside, order another round and release them. This is a precautionary measure in case you still have a residual population hiding somewhere.


  • Unless this one works differently than the one I read about a month or so ago, which isn’t at all clear from this article, no, probably not something we can get as kids.

    The reason is that, at least at the moment, you need a sample of the cancer itself and protein markers for each individual, and each cancer type, so it’s a vaccine that you get only after you get the cancer. Plus it’s multiple doses over the course of several weeks.

    They also aren’t sure if the cancer will come back after being eradicated, so for now they have no idea how effective it will be, nor how long it’ll last.

    But this is a technology very much in its infancy. The first trial ever was earlier this year, so… who knows where it’ll go from there. Maybe they will be able to isolate enough common markers for enough cancers to have a childhood vax for prevention. Almost certainly a long ways off tho.










  • You, umm… might wanna think about not talking while us vast-majority-of-the-working-class are discussing how we are going to eat the rich… just a thought. I know people in your tax bracket, and they are all wildly out of touch with society, just like you appear to be. The most I can make in my area, degreed and with skills and all, is 40k, literally 10x lower than what you make. And you have the absolute audacity to complain.

    So… like… Nobody cares about your “struggle”. At all. Literally nobody ever. You are part of the problem as far as most people are concerned. And you probably actually are part of the problem to be whining like this, anyway.


  • We also need smaller houses damnit! Or more duplexes of reasonable size. We need more 2-4 family properties.

    Not tiny houses, not 300sqft nonsense buildings that cost more to have as standalone units…

    We need more 1-2 bedroom starter options, and fewer of the 4-6 bedroom micromansions that everyone builds because it’s more worth the money from a development side. Nobody can afford those things as first time buyers.

    And while we are at it, we need more apartments that can be purchased like condos or houses. Rent is all well and good for short term, but people should have long term ownership options even in big cities if they will be there for a while. It’s absurd your choices are basically rent and be at the whim of your landlord, or buy a standalone.



  • Other than maybe a few more jokes about being hot and bothered, I don’t really see any reason much of it would need to change…? I mean either you have eye candy for straight women/gay men, or you have eye candy for straight men/gay women.

    It’s not like they made Carter some one-dimensional thing, why would they do it with the other cast?

    They’d probably need new lore tho to explain why it’s all women.

    (Admittedly I’ve only watched sg-1 and the movies, so this may not apply more broad-ly)


  • Huh… I’m gunna have to try that. I have an unkempt Druid yard (tiny town lot, everyone around me has well manicured spaces, meanwhile I just plant stuff and hope it takes off with a healthy dose of neglect - the lilacs shading my brick wall have gone crazy!) with bird feeders for my cats to sit and watch, so I have a lot of rodents (rabbits to mice and all between).

    I may have a fox den now though, we’ll see what happens with that. Fox would be way better than fake snakes.




  • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoScience Memes@mander.xyzHoney
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    1 month ago

    Have you ever tasted flower nectar?

    I grow gladiolus sometimes, and they produce a lot of nectar, but there aren’t any pollinators for those flowers around me, so I remove the nectar myself with a syringe. There isn’t a lot in each flower, but it’s nice in a cup of tea.

    It doesn’t really taste like honey, even dilute honey. It doesn’t taste like just sugar water, either, though. I’m sure each flowering plant produces a subtly different flavor, like fruit.

    And indeed, honey apparently tastes different depending what the bees are feeding on. But I’d say it’s probably a mix of something bee-specific and the nectar itself.