https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13489439/vegetable-oils-hidden-foods-ill-DR-CATHERINE-SHANAHAN-eating-chip-smoking-cigarette.html
Next time you go to the supermarket, read the ingredients lists. In just about every aisle, from dairy to frozen foods and snacks, you will see vegetable oils making repeated appearances on many product labels, including salad dressings, canned fish, ready-to-eat foods, diet drinks and infant formulas.
These oils, usually made from seeds, include sunflower, corn, rapeseed, soy, cottonseed and safflower oils.
Vegetable oil is a global industry. It generated more than £91 billion in 2020, and that figure is forecast to increase to £127 billion by 2027.
Roughly a third of the calories in your diet likely comes from this substance, which has effects on our metabolism that medical science knows little about. The reason why human health is increasingly in crisis is right there on the label, hidden in plain sight.
I'm a doctor with biochemistry training who specialises in family medicine, and I am convinced that these oils will make you sick (if they haven't already).
The amount of cancer-causing toxins found in a serving of French fries is equivalent to those consumed when smoking up to 25 cigarettes. (A 5oz serving has about 25 fries, so eating one chip gives the same exposure as smoking one cigarette)
The link between vegetable oil and poor health is firmly grounded and backed up with hard scientific research. Removing it from our diets can resolve fast-proliferating modern health plagues, such as cancers, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Vegetable oil is an industrial product that didn't exist until a little more than 150 years ago. In the millennia before industrial agriculture changed our landscape, many human populations relied on animal fats such as butter, beef fat and pork fat.
Humanity has been eating animal fats since the Stone Age, and dairy fat for nearly 10,000 years. We've also eaten oils extracted from fatty fruits such as olives and coconuts for many thousands of years.
But vegetable oils are radically different. Making them requires technologically advanced equipment rather than a simple stone press, butter churn or butcher's knife.
Yet despite the complexity of processing these products, they are now the largest single source of dietary fats, accounting for more calories in our diets than sugar or flour.
Heating oils creates toxins
A basic problem with these oils is that they are very high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). These compounds are very prone to reacting with oxygen — a process called oxidation.
This oil oxidation creates new compounds called, collectively, lipid oxidation products (LOPs).
LOPs don't exist in the plants these products came from — and many are mildly to extremely toxic. By consuming these oils we're exposing our bodies to hundreds, even thousands, of different types of toxic LOPs.
Some of these were almost unknown until recently, when they were identified thanks to new technologies.
These toxic LOPs are formed when the oil is extracted during its manufacture.
Still more toxic LOPs can form in oil during storage, as the oil oxidises (breaks down) over time.
Toxicologists who perform real-world tests on vegetable oils in people's homes and restaurants find that even before cooking, the oils contain significantly higher concentrations of toxins than when they were first bottled.
Even more toxins form when the oil is heated to make food, whether in our homes, in restaurants, or in processed-food factories.
And yet more toxins will form if the food gets heated again, as in when leftovers are warmed up. There are volumes of academic textbooks that describe all the toxins you expose yourself to from eating foods made with vegetable oils.
Yet few people ever read these books or learn about the damning information they contain.
Not all are toxic if heated
Martin Grootveld, a professor of bioanalytical chemistry and chemical pathology at De Montfort University in Leicester, has been trying to warn consumers about toxins in vegetable oils for decades.
He studies oxidation reactions using the best tool for analysing an array of molecules all at once: a one and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscope. This machine can determine the make-up of a molecule by examining how its atoms spin when inside a magnetic field.
The toxins he has identified in vegetable oils include acrolein. This inflames lungs when inhaled, which we may do when frying with these oils. He has also found many members of a toxin category called epoxy fatty acids. These are implicated in breast cancer, organ failure and fertility problems.
Professor Grootveld's analyses consistently show that heated vegetable oils are loaded with toxic LOPs.
By contrast, his experiments with heated coconut oil and butter find that they contain hardly any toxins at all.
However, such is the medical ignorance of these dangers that when I asked Professor Grootveld if he'd ever been invited to present his data at a medical conference, he told me he had not.
What's in those fries?
Aldehydes are perhaps the most dangerous category of the many families of toxins in vegetable oils. This family of chemicals includes the cadaver preservative formaldehyde and many of the toxins that make cigarette smoke carcinogenic and irritating to human tissue.
Toxic aldehydes that form in frying oil can end up in the food.
In 2019, Professor Grootveld led research, published in the prestigious journal Nature, which found that a 5oz serving of French fries cooked in vegetable oil (from a well-known franchise) contained 25 times more carcinogenic aldehydes than the World Health Organisation's tolerable upper limit for exposure.
Professor Grootveld told me that the amount of cancer-causing aldehydes he found in the serving of French fries is equivalent to those consumed when smoking up to 25 cigarettes. (A 5oz serving has about 25 fries, so eating one chip gives the same exposure as smoking one cigarette.)
Deep-frying leads to more toxins
The level of damage done to polyunsaturated oils by oxidation follows the same basic principles as burns on your skin: it depends on time and temperature.
Experts warn that the longer the oil is cooked and the higher the cooking temperature, the more toxins will form.
Eric Decker, a professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the U.S., is one of the most highly cited scientists in agriculture.
He focuses on preventing oxidation in our food supply, and told me that when it comes to toxin production, 'the biggest risk factor is deep-frying the oil'.
Deep-frying stresses oils for a long time at high temperatures. Fast-food chains often have rules that tell employees to reduce toxicity by changing the frying oil once a week. Smaller eateries and chains may not.
Roughly a third of the calories in your diet likely comes from vegetable oil, which has effects on our metabolism that medical science knows little about
...But pan-frying is a close second
A report in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2000 identified an alarmingly high rate of lung cancer in non-smoking women who use vegetable oils during pan-frying, deep-frying and stir-frying, both in food service settings and their own homes.
Many people know deep-frying is not healthy and avoid deep-fried foods. That's why Professor Grootveld is more concerned about shallow-frying food in pans using vegetable oils.
He has published several papers in various prestigious journals, including a 2019 paper in Scientific Reports warning that you can generate the same 'extremely high levels of hazardous aldehydes' while making popular pan-fried dishes at home.
So it's not just about deep-fried food, and it's not just about restaurants. This could be happening in your kitchen.
Body fat becomes like veg oil
Dr Stephan Guyenet is an independent neuroscientist who has investigated what our increasing consumption of vegetable oils is doing to our body fat.
In the journal Advances in Nutrition in 2015 he published a review of 50 years of studies on the composition of Westerners' body fat.
This showed that the proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids in it had gradually increased from 9.1 per cent of all fatty acids to 21.5 per cent. This was in line with increasing public consumption of vegetable oils. The lesson was clear: the more vegetable oil people ate, the more their body fat started to look like vegetable oil.
Our reformulated body fat causes a fundamental shift in our body chemistry. This subjects our cells and tissues to a chemical imbalance called oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress unleashes carcinogenic toxins in cells that can damage proteins and DNA.
Is there a link to Alzheimer's?
In 1906, German pathologist Alois Alzheimer examined slices of brain tissue from a woman who died of early-onset dementia. He found unusual clumps of protein, which he called amyloid plaques.
But the origin of the plaques eluded scientific explanation until U.S. and Japanese researchers reported that these plaques are caused by oxidative stress, in 2001 in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. Their research showed that oxidative stress damages proteins, generating tiny blobs of cellular debris.
Our brain cells have garbage-disposal systems that can clean up most types of debris. But not all — and not amyloid. The amyloid that the clean-up crew can't handle will accumulate within the cell, and eventually it starts forming amyloid plaques.
The accumulating plaque slows down cellular activity, which slows down the brain's processing speed — and that's when symptoms usually begin.
Many degenerative disorders follow a similar progression.
Another common disease-inducing protein blob is oxidised alpha-synuclein, which causes Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia (the second most common dementia, after Alzheimer's).
A study found that a 5oz serving of French fries cooked in vegetable oil contained 25 times more toxins than the World Health Organisation's tolerable upper limit for exposure
How to de-pufa your body
While I have no doubt that we can get our PUFA levels back down to normal, it takes a while. One study, from 1960, showed that the half-life of PUFA in our body fat ranged from 350 to 750 days, which means it takes that long to clear out just half of it.
More recent studies, such as a report in the journal Cell Metabolism in 2011, pinpoint a similar figure: 580 days on average. So we're looking at three or four years of avoiding vegetable oils to normalise the amount of PUFAs in your body fat.
However, from my experience with patients, the good news is that usually people feel better within a couple of weeks of cutting out vegetable oils, particularly if they suffer from chronic pain or stomach problems, because their bodies' inflammation levels will have dropped significantly.
So how do you know what to look for? Check the ingredients list of every product that has a nutrition label. Every. Single. One. Because you simply can't predict what will have vegetable oil in.
You might think that dried fruits, for example, wouldn't, but they do. Or peanut butter. Or nuts, rotisserie chicken, mayonnaise and dressings that say 'made with olive oil', granola, canned tuna, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and other vegetable preserves, even random things such as vitamins and spice blends.
Most people who shun vegetable oils tend to use butter, olive oil and peanut oil. For home cooking with healthy oils, you need to choose the oil that matches the cuisine.
I use olive oil for homemade pasta sauces and anything Italian, Mediterranean — or even Mexican (the traditional fat would be lard, which I can't easily get). I also use it for roasting vegetables and making dressings, marinades and mayonnaise. If you like to make Thai and Indian dishes, you might want to add coconut oil.
How to avoid these oils if eating out
Restaurants take advantage of the fact that vegetable oils cost less than traditional fats and oils such as olive oil and butter.
Many use vegetable oil in all deep-fried, pan-fried and batter-fried foods (including crispy noodles, onion rings, fried shrimp, chicken dishes and Japanese tempura). Restaurants love to serve deep-fried food because the process is so simple that you can hire staff without any culinary skills whatsoever.
Avoiding deep-fried food is the number one rule for eating in restaurants and grabbing food out. Anything battered or breaded and fried is typically deep-fried — and in fast-food restaurants and many other establishments, it's often fried twice — once at the factory and a second time before it's served.
More than half of the calories in some deep-fried foods are in the form of the most oxidised and disease-inducing, heat-deformed vegetable oils.
Dishes that are baked or steamed instead are clearly preferable to anything that's fried.
Restaurants also use vegetable oils in sauces traditionally made with butter or olive oil, including hollandaise sauce and aioli.
Most salad dressings contain vegetable oil in place of olive oil or cream. (Any restaurant dish that contains mayonnaise will likely contain vegetable oil, since it is rarely made with olive oil.)
Vegetable oils are also baked into doughnuts, Danish pastries, muffins and numerous other desserts and confections.
My 'hateful eight' oils to avoid

• Corn oil
• Rapeseed oil
• Sunflower oil
• Soy oil
• Cottonseed oil
• Safflower oil
• Grapeseed oil
• Rice bran oil

My 'delightful dozen' good fats

• Butteghee
• Extra-virgin olive oil or unfiltered refined olive oil
• Unrefined peanut oil
• Unrefined coconut oil
• Unrefined avocado oil
• Sesame oil
• Unrefined palm oil
• Bacon fat
• Tallow
• Lard
• Chicken fat
• Unrefined tree nut oils (almond, hazelnut, pecan, etc.)

What about refined versions of peanut oil, for example? These oils are not nourishing, but they're not as bad as my Hateful Eight, so fall into a middle category of 'OK but not great'.
You don't need to avoid them, but if a more nutritious alternative is available I'd recommend that instead.
Some people worry about 'smoke point' — this is a term used by the oil industry to sell lower-quality, refined oils, which always have higher smoke points than their extra-virgin (i.e. unrefined) counterparts.
These lower-quality oils also have fewer antioxidants, which means they oxidise at lower temperatures than higher-quality oils, so your food will contain more toxins.
Smoke point simply refers to the temperature at which a fat starts to smoke. It doesn't tell you what you really need to know, which is whether the oil is oxidising or not (only toxicology testing can tell you that).
At the smoke point, you might see a wisp of light blue smoke, and heating the fat past that point will fill the air with bitter smoke and ruin the food.
An oil with a high smoke point allows for higher heat and faster cooking, which makes things go quicker in a busy restaurant. But when your high smoke-point oil is also refined and high in polyunsaturates, you're exchanging speed for toxicity.
The suggestion is that using an oil with a higher smoke point preserves the food's flavour. But a high smoke-point oil doesn't do that.
What does? Using normal cooking techniques such as stirring and turning down the heat. Most foods should not be cooked at super-high temperatures anyway, because heat also destroys the nutrition in the food: the higher you heat something, the less nutritious it becomes.
Adapted from Dark Calories: How Vegetable Oils Destroy Our Health And How We Can Get It Back, by Dr Catherine Shanahan (Orion Publishing, £18.99), to be published on June 13. To order a copy for £17.09 (offer valid to 08/08/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.Next time you go to the supermarket, read the ingredients lists. In just about every aisle, from dairy to frozen foods and snacks, you will see vegetable oils making repeated appearances on many product labels, including salad dressings, canned fish, ready-to-eat foods, diet drinks and infant formulas.

~https://doi.org/10.1158/1538-7445.AM2024-3109~
Abstract 3109: Development of novel mono and bivalent nanobodies against EGFR for targeted cancer therapy

Abstract

Introduction: The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) plays a central role in the tumorigenesis of various solid tumors, rendering it a noteworthy target for cancer therapy. Nanobodies (Nbs) offer an appealing therapeutic approach due to their low immunogenicity, rapid clearance, and high targeting specificity. The aim of this study is to isolate, design, and characterize Nbs directed against EGFR.

Methods: The Nb library was constructed following llama immunization with cells overexpressing EGFR. After three rounds of panning the phage-display library (both in solid phase and solution), individual clones were screened for EGFR reactivity using ELISA against Virus-Like Particles. Positive clones were sequenced, cloned into an expression vector, and then purified by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC). The Nbs were characterized through immunofluorescence (IF), flow cytometry (FACS), and surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The most promising candidates were used to design bivalent constructs, which were subsequently characterized by SPR and in a cell proliferation assay.
Results: We successfully constructed an EGFR-targeted Nb library, which allowed the selection of multiple EGFR-specific Nbs following the optimization of the panning strategy. Two of the candidates exhibit strong binding to native EGFR in cells and outperform the gold standard anti-EGFR Nb 7D12. They demonstrate enhanced binding parameters in surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assays, with fast association and slow dissociation rates. The homo/heterodimeric bivalent constructs show improved affinity and the ability to inhibit cancer cell proliferation.

Conclusion: We were able to develop novel mono and bivalent nanobodies with enhanced binding properties which can be used for targeted cancer therapy.
Before 2024, nanobody was a popular choice for antibody discovery. Hopefully this year we can see more results coming out.

Anybody who hasn't been living under a ship (And maybe even some that have) knows the classification system by now. 1-12, a simple 12 level rating system that determines how inhospitable or hospitable a planet is towards life. Though, some might be forgiven for thinking that, since the higher numbers were more and more dangerous, the lower numbers automatically were more likely to contain life. No, the fact is, a world classified as 1-3 almost never has enough resources or calories in their closed system for life to develop at all past simple single celled organisms, much less sapient life. Sure, deathworlds may be actively trying to kill you, but the sheer amount of energy and life contained on their surface can be a boon to any species, if they figure out a way to harvest it....or happen to have evolved on it, like one particularly randy set of primates with a penchant for trying to kill themselves. And the middle classifications were practically made to be cradles of civilization. But a world with a "perfect" climate, insanely low gravity, no seasons, and almost zero diversity in flora and fauna? You could terraform it into a perfect gardenworld, but nothing intelligent would evolve there on it's own. It was impossible
Until planet 33Z89.
At first, surveyors thought they were motes of dust. Tiny, nearly see through gossamer balls with leading tendrils of white. Annoyances that dissipated with a simple wave of the hand anywhere near them. Hell, if you WANTED to pick one up, you couldn't. Just touching its surface would shatter it into so many particles in the sunlight. Soon enough though, the gardenworlders on the planet started noticing an increase in these dust motes, and some very odd behavior. Any time they would get near a larger clump of whatever this dust was, it was like an exhalation of some unseen beast, hundreds of the little white spots would exit slowly, little rods of barely held together clumped dirt flying from them in lazy arcs in the low gravity, to poof uselessly against even the weakest of low classification species. At that point, it wasn't difficult for even the most skeptical of minds to realize. These motes of dust they'd been carelessly destroying by the hundreds were in fact the first sapient species ever to be found on a class 1 world. A sapient species we'd never be able to really interact with on a significant scale. How can you hold a conversation when just breathing a bit too hard is enough to destroy on of their cities? It was impossible.
Humans had a problem. They were new on the galactic stage, and while it's easy to make people fear you when you're a 6 foot tall hyper dense primate who drinks literal poison, it's much harder to actually make contributions, to say "Hey, we can help too! Let's be friends! I promise not to turn you into a smear by turning around too fast!". Most of the issues we were easily able to fix that other races couldn't were purely human problems. Sure, we had adaptive anti-venom that could fight any deathworlder venom there was. But only humans could survive most venom long enough to ADMINISTER said anti-venom. Same with poison. We had grafts to heal bones within a few hours, but only humans could survive the procedure. Did they shun us, or avoid us? No! In fact many aliens were incredibly nice, helping us adapt to a universe where we felt like we were living weapons, where one wrong jerk of the hand could kill your work buddy, or a mislabeled thermos of coffee could give that nice spider lady(?) you met at the bar last night symptoms similar to alcohol poisoning. But nobody likes feeling useless, and really the only USEFUL skill humanity had was learning how not to hurt people weaker than them while interacting with them.
I'm sure you can see where this is going.
Within 3 weeks of learning the problem with the "Dust Bunnies" as they insisted on calling them, a human ship in low orbit spent 12 hours slowly, meticulously, sliding down a small, multilayered exoskeleton the size of an onion, lovingly called "Shi-relk 1". Each layer hardier and hardier, with sophisticated impact absorption the likes of which the galaxy had never seen before, until the final layer sealed the deal, making the little wisp inside safer than even most humans were from outside harm. Within 3 months a good portion of the population had these suits, or more compact versions of them. Within 3 seasons (Human, of course) most of their infrastructure was resilient enough for the most delicate of gardenworlders to move about on their world without causing significant harm. Within 3 years treatments were available to bring them around to galactic standard in terms of durability even without the suit, and within 3 decades, they were an invaluable part of the Galactic Community, prized for their usefulness in maintenance, engineering, and janitorial jobs, as well as excited to try their hand at so much more.
All because a group of clumsy, destructive primates decided nothing was impossible.
First time posting on here, or even writing anything, lol. Hope it isn't TOO crappy.

Uncommon Skincare Ingredients Part 1
Let's discuss some skincare ingredients you might not have heard of before, along with their benefits:
✨Blue Lotus Flower Extract (Nymphaea caerulea): it is a versatile ingredient used primarily for its ability to maintain moisture levels. By balancing oil production, it can also help prevent acne. Additionally, it promotes collagen production and reduces wrinkles, contributing to anti-aging effects. The extract also has a calming effect, providing relaxation for the skin.
✨Black Cumin oil (Nigella sativa): known as black seed oil, black onion seed oil, or black caraway oil. This incredible oil is known for its anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antibacterial properties, usually used for acne, psoriasis, and aging skin.
✨Blue Cambrian Montmorillonite (blue clay): Firstly, it effectively absorbs excess oil and impurities from the skin, aiding in unclogging pores and detoxifying the skin. It is rich in minerals that nourish and revitalize the skin. Its fine texture allows for gentle exfoliation, promoting the removal of dead skin cells and improving skin texture.

African-American Female
Low-Income
Regular Public High School
Incoming Major: Film Production
essay: (I'm still in the editing process so bear with me.
I DON’T LIKE MY MOM
Gitu Mengesha - Personal Statement
Mami and I had one thing in common; we didn’t like each other. Not the form of mutual dislike that some found tolerable, but the kind that insufferably enough, could’ve driven us to kill each other.
I was four when I came to this country, chubby with bug eyes and a forehead so big it had my classmates gawking and making jokes. But settling in wasn’t a problem. I learned English, began eating junk food during Tsom, and wore jeans instead of Zurias to family events—sooner or later I became your all-American girl.
But my thick-skinned mother made her Ethiopian heritage her whole personality. Never leaving the house without a netela, only allowing the family to speak in Amharic, and decorating our home in Ye’sus crosses.
Mami had me baking Injera in the hot steam and stirring a pot of onions to make Doro Wot. I didn’t have the privilege to enjoy my youth, instead I worked at my mother's Market front register. On top of school and other activities, I worked 30 hours a week. Zero pay.
She thought she was doing me a favor, and I despised her for it. It felt like I was rotting away in a cell, entrapped by a culture I wanted nothing to do with. Dissociation became my escape. Music, video games, and movies helped me achieve isolation. When I had my headphones in, my eyes glued to a screen, I was able to run away from my reality.
I developed a passion for poetry from my dissociation. Writing or reading became my only form of solace—it took up so much of my time that it became an integral part of my identity. Film For Her, Sia Martinez, Poet X, and countless other works inspired me to celebrate being from a culture no one understands, from being a woman who takes pride in being herself.
In a documentary project, I bravely recorded Mami baking Injera. I was so used to seeing the routine so many times that I thought nothing of it. But seeing it through a camera lens opened my eyes, and I discovered the ire on her face as she rolled the grill with tightened muscle. She breathed through her nose as the steam hit her face. Each time she spilled the batter against the grill, I caught a glint in her eyes. It was then that I asked myself how she must’ve felt, repeating that routine for years, just scavenging by as she cooked her skin in the heat, making hundreds of pieces of injera every day.
I assumed it was her stubborn behavior that drove us apart. But I realized I was too angry at the reality she didn’t choose to notice I was the problem. I wanted something she couldn’t understand, and like a bull locked on a red flag, I was willing to destroy everything in my path to get it.
We didn’t like each other because we didn’t know who we were. But through those lenses, I discovered who she was, and I realized she was once a girl like me too. She grieved the joy she could’ve had if she had stayed back home, but in the end, she stayed here. For me.
There was growth in my mother's flaws. Our disagreements continue over contrasting views of a life she dreams of and a life I despise. But our words don’t hit like fists, nor do they leave scars in their post. I’m sure that one day we can see each other and smile at our differences, that I can be okay with only speaking in Amharic in the house and practicing Tsom, and my mother could be okay with me holding hands with a girl.
A naive wish brightened through a memory that stuck with me—my mother holding my hands as we walked through the gates of Laguardia, in a new country. I remember her sweet whisper. Iwedishalehu.
Love was better than disapproval.

These are reviews of various dictionaries based on my personal experience (though I kinda ran out of steam halfway through):
Unabridged Dictionaries:
Webster's Third New International Dictionary (W3): Basically the unabridged dictionary in the US. A good dictionary overall, but this dictionary is also heavily outdated. This dictionary was published in 1961 and stopped receiving additions to the Addenda (a section at the front where new words or definitions and usages for old ones could be added) in 2002. The Addenda is a bit inconvenient to use, being separated from the main text. Note that the Addenda is where you'll find all the vulgar four-letter words. As for positives, this dictionary has well-written and comprehensive definitions, the most entries of any physical unabridged dictionary (besides the Oxford English Dictionary), and lovely hand-drawn black-and-white illustrations. It has great coverage of words in every area and field and contains even the most obscure definitions.
One oddity of this dictionary is that nearly every word is shown in lowercase, even if it's always uppercase (though initialisms, trademark, and God are the exception to this rule); a label next to the word indicates how often it is capitalized. This makes for a consistent look, but it's overall inconvenient. The definitions also tend to be a bit wordy; for example, consider the definition of "leaf": "a lateral outgrowth from a stem that constitutes part of the foliage of a plant and functions primarily in food manufacture by photosynthesis, that arises in regular succession from the growing point, that consists typically of a flattened green blade which is joined to the stem by a petiole often with a pair of stipules at its base, which in cross section exhibits an outer covering of epidermal cells penetrated by stomata usually more numerous on the lower surface, which has one or more layers of palisade cells beneath the upper epidermis and between these and the lower epidermis a mass of spongy parenchyma cells, both palisade and spongy tissue being ramified by a network of veins, and that is distinguished from a leaflet, cladophyll, or phylloclade by the presence of a bud at the juncture of petiole and stem and from a phyllode by differentiation into blade and petiole" Comprehensive, but a bit wordy and difficult to comprehend.
This dictionary faced quite a bit of controversy over being "permissive" at the time of its release. This controversy was mostly culture war nonsense, and the dictionary is no less descriptive than its predecessor.
This dictionary also has useful usage guidance and synonymies (discrimination between synonyms). Physically, this book is massive but also quite lovely. Overall, most people do not need an unabridged dictionary, but if you need or want one, this is the one you should get.
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: I found this dictionary somewhat disappointing. First, the positives: the illustrations are nice and the formatting is acceptable. It's a bit more up-to-date compared to W3 (released in 1987 and updated until 2001); however, it's still fairly outdated. However, this still gives the Random House Webster's an edge when it comes to slang and newer terms. The essay on avoiding insensitive or offensive language is a nice addition. However, the definitions are somewhat weak in comparison to W3. For example, regret is defined by Random House as "a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, etc." and by W3 as "sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair : grief or pain tinged with disappointment, dissatisfaction, longing, remorse, or comparable emotion." In addition, there aren't nearly as many entries as W3. Overall, a decent dictionary, but the W3 is overall the better package.
College Dictionaries:
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: This is the dictionary most people should get. It is abridged from W3 but is more up-to-date, the eleventh edition having last been revised in 2020. Good definitions, nice illustrations, useful usage guidance and discrimination of synonyms. It's not afraid to capitalize entry words like the W3 was. Overall, if you only want to get one physical dictionary, make it this one. It's pretty cheap on Amazon.
Webster's New World College Dictionary: This is the other dictionary most people should get. In comparison to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate, this dictionary also has good definitions and illustrations; the definitions are a bit easier to understand though not quite as precise or comprehensive. It's a bit less descriptive but not by much. Overall, my recommendation is to make this your second dictionary. Best used in conjunction with Merriam-Webster's Collegiate.
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: This is a great dictionary. Its strongest strength is its formatting, generous margins, and lovely full-color pictures. Unfortunately, it's no longer in print. Famously, this dictionary contains the usage panel; however, this is more of a drawback than an advantage. The usage advice is subpar compared to other college dictionaries. It also has an appendix containing Indo-European roots (probably its best feature in my eyes). Overall, you can't go wrong with this dictionary even if it's not as good as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate or the New World.
Random House Webster's College Dictionary: An abridgment of Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. All of my criticisms for that dictionary apply here.
Online Dictionaries:
Wiktionary: This dictionary is very up-to-date but the definitions are of varying quality. A very useful feature is the very many foreign words treated here. Also, the section outlining translations of a word into various languages is good. Obscure words are treated here too. Overall, I recommend using this in conjunction with Merriam-Webster Online or Unabridged.
Google Dictionary: This is the dictionary you use if you don't care about dictionaries. The definitions are acceptable. One useful feature is a graph showing the usage of a word over time. However, this offers no usage advice or discrimination of synonyms. Overall, if you don't care at all about the dictionary you use, just use this dictionary.
Merriam-Webster Online: The definitions are the best out of any online dictionary. However, due to Merriam-Webster's standards for inclusion, some more recent words might not be here. This is basically a digital version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate but more frequently updated.
Merriam-Webster Unabridged: This is basically a digital version of W3 (see my critique of W3 above). It also includes the Collegiate Dictionary, Collegiate Thesaurus, and Medical Dictionary. It solves the main issue of that dictionary which was capitalization of entry headwords and up-to-dateness. Unfortunately, there's a heavy subscription cost though you can get a free one-year subscription at https://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com/ (though this requires a copy of the Collegiate). This is my overall preferred online dictionary, and I often use it in conjunction with Wiktionary.
Dictionary.com: This is basically a digital version of Random House Webster's Unabridged. My criticisms of that dictionary apply to this one.
American Heritage Dictionary Online: This is basically a digital version of the AHD (see above). My criticisms of that apply here.
If you have any questions or want clarification, feel free to reply to this post.

I just read an article about chronic disease or illness fakers. I am thoroughly disgusted that even more people are more ignorant than I thought possible beyond my immediate family.
Right before the age of 40 I passed out waiting for a table at a nice restaurant, slowly drinking a beer. Luckily I had not been a heavy, medium, or even light drinker for almost 10 years. All I really had physically wrong with me at that time was testosterone therapy, come shoulder surgeries, and chronic,sometimes horrible pain. Oh, I was also told I had a great, really great bronze California tan.
After that incident right before age 40 I had every test I could have done to explain what happened. Witnesses said, im 6'3 195+ lbs, I just turned white, became instantly soaking wet, and fell straight backwards like a 2x4.
After all the tests were completed I discovered my Iron(its really called ferratin) was at a level of 3,900 (normal safe levels are 50 to 200 roughly. I was given a genetic test for hemachromatosis, which is pretty common, and not a super big deal when treated early. In fact, anyone with hemachromatosis cam firmly state that we people,all people, black, while, whatever are related. Black people have a genetic disease called sickle cell disease. If not treated and allowed to run rampart sickle cell turns into hemachromatosis. Nuff said.
The main treatment for hemachromatosis is bloodletting, the amount of blood you need to get out of your body and how much at a time and how often is usually dictated by the level of your ferritin in your blood at time of diagnosis. Most people, fortunately, get detected and treated by 700 to 1500 level of Ferratin. The body is basically killing itself, "rusting away" to say at levels if 1,000 plus of ferritin.
Now five leads later, testosterone implants every 3 months or so, bloodletting (phlebotomy) treatment 4 times a year now ( I started giving over 550 grams of blood 2 times a week for 4 months, and then once a week 4 or 5 months, and so on and on. I have had a pretty extensive cervical neck surgery, cages, holes drilled in arthritic areas and nerve openings opened up, both hips totally replaced, a knee replacement on left knee coming up soon, always a pain in my ass,, literally,, lol. There's other things, I have to get liver biopsies every year, heart tests performed every year, no alcohol, low Vtamin C diet, no more liver and onions, and reduced use of cast iron and other high iron cooking and eating utensils.
Thing is,, if you see me just see me, you'll see a big, strong, agile, balanced man. But what you dont see is how hard it is for me to just get up and drink a cup of coffee some mornings, or how bad both legs ache, hurt, throb, and sometimes especially feel totally exhausted 2 hours after I wake up. Or a serious neck, nerve issue that I just keep massaging and turning my head.
I don't take opiates, except after surgeries, I can't take much Tylenol or ibuprofen and related. Mostly ice pack/machine, heat pads, hot hot bath soaks, stretching (carefully), keeping moving, and pushing myself everyday or at least 6 days a week harder than the day before.
I have half siblings, 17+ years older than me, with bone spurs, maybe knee replacement, obesity related issues, lack of movement/ exercise issues, and on and on.
I'd happily trade places with them, but keep my age, and very few people I imagine get what I'm about to say next . I decided after the first 6 months of diagnosis I was going to "break and fall apart before I rusted and rotted away".
Do you get that? Understand ? I am happy, no I get exited and thrilled inside when I see people with obvious issues, obesity, laziness, bad diet, drinking, etc struggle, not do, or unwilling to do things they should do, much less want to do to make this life more,, make this life better for themselves. I say F' u all those ignorant dumb lazy scared people that say things, think things, act differently when they interact with you, not knowing you closely and really knowing you, when they see this person that looks, moves, and does lots of physical things better than they can,, and they think your faking or putting on or playing poor pity party me,,, no screw you guys,, try, literally walking 10,000 or more steps in my shoes each day and more, yet sometimes not able to even crawl or move for 2 or 3 hours after 4 or 5 or less some days just living life.
Anyone else have similar stories ? Or experiences? I still can't get over the fact that had a been a normal,, or whatever you call a person who drinks a six pack a week, alcoholic drinker I would definitely for sure have had cirrhosis or liver cancer by now for sure and probably be dead. Anyway,, let me know thanks.
P

I just read an article about chronic disease or illness fakers. I am thoroughly disgusted that even more people are more ignorant than I thought possible beyond my immediate family.
Right before the age of 40 I passed out waiting for a table at a nice restaurant, slowly drinking a beer. Luckily I had not been a heavy, medium, or even light drinker for almost 10 years. All I really had physically wrong with me at that time was testosterone therapy, come shoulder surgeries, and chronic,sometimes horrible pain. Oh, I was also told I had a great, really great bronze California tan.
After that incident right before age 40 I had every test I could have done to explain what happened. Witnesses said, im 6'3 195+ lbs, I just turned white, became instantly soaking wet, and fell straight backwards like a 2x4.
After all the tests were completed I discovered my Iron(its really called ferratin) was at a level of 3,900 (normal safe levels are 50 to 200 roughly. I was given a genetic test for hemachromatosis, which is pretty common, and not a super big deal when treated early. In fact, anyone with hemachromatosis cam firmly state that we people,all people, black, while, whatever are related. Black people have a genetic disease called sickle cell disease. If not treated and allowed to run rampart sickle cell turns into hemachromatosis. Nuff said.
The main treatment for hemachromatosis is bloodletting, the amount of blood you need to get out of your body and how much at a time and how often is usually dictated by the level of your ferritin in your blood at time of diagnosis. Most people, fortunately, get detected and treated by 700 to 1500 level of Ferratin. The body is basically killing itself, "rusting away" to say at levels if 1,000 plus of ferritin.
Now five leads later, testosterone implants every 3 months or so, bloodletting (phlebotomy) treatment 4 times a year now ( I started giving over 550 grams of blood 2 times a week for 4 months, and then once a week 4 or 5 months, and so on and on. I have had a pretty extensive cervical neck surgery, cages, holes drilled in arthritic areas and nerve openings opened up, both hips totally replaced, a knee replacement on left knee coming up soon, always a pain in my ass,, literally,, lol. There's other things, I have to get liver biopsies every year, heart tests performed every year, no alcohol, low Vtamin C diet, no more liver and onions, and reduced use of cast iron and other high iron cooking and eating utensils.
Thing is,, if you see me just see me, you'll see a big, strong, agile, balanced man. But what you dont see is how hard it is for me to just get up and drink a cup of coffee some mornings, or how bad both legs ache, hurt, throb, and sometimes especially feel totally exhausted 2 hours after I wake up. Or a serious neck, nerve issue that I just keep massaging and turning my head.
I don't take opiates, except after surgeries, I can't take much Tylenol or ibuprofen and related. Mostly ice pack/machine, heat pads, hot hot bath soaks, stretching (carefully), keeping moving, and pushing myself everyday or at least 6 days a week harder than the day before.
I have half siblings, 17+ years older than me, with bone spurs, maybe knee replacement, obesity related issues, lack of movement/ exercise issues, and on and on.
I'd happily trade places with them, but keep my age, and very few people I imagine get what I'm about to say next . I decided after the first 6 months of diagnosis I was going to "break and fall apart before I rusted and rotted away".
Do you get that? Understand ? I am happy, no I get exited and thrilled inside when I see people with obvious issues, obesity, laziness, bad diet, drinking, etc struggle, not do, or unwilling to do things they should do, much less want to do to make this life more,, make this life better for themselves. I say F' u all those ignorant dumb lazy scared people that say things, think things, act differently when they interact with you, not knowing you closely and really knowing you, when they see this person that looks, moves, and does lots of physical things better than they can,, and they think your faking or putting on or playing poor pity party me,,, no screw you guys,, try, literally walking 10,000 or more steps in my shoes each day and more, yet sometimes not able to even crawl or move for 2 or 3 hours after 4 or 5 or less some days just living life.
Anyone else have similar stories ? Or experiences? I still can't get over the fact that had a been a normal,, or whatever you call a person who drinks a six pack a week, alcoholic drinker I would definitely for sure have had cirrhosis or liver cancer by now for sure and probably be dead. Anyway,, let me know thanks.
P

Optimise your gut microbiome with diet and lifestyle changes

Wondering how to improve your gut health? We should all know, a thriving gut microbiome is crucial to your health.
As we’ve written before, booze can wreak havoc with the communities of essential benign bugs in your gut. Of course, the best way to mitigate this damage is to limit your alcohol consumption. And whether you cut the booze or not, there are also some dietary and lifestyle strategies that can help optimise your microbiome and minimise the ongoing/historical costs of alcohol.

The Importance of Dietary Fibre and Diversity: Boosting Fibre Intake

Eating a diet rich in dietary fibre is foundational for gut health. Fibre-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains provide the necessary nutrients that fuel gut bacteria, promoting a healthy gut environment.

Embracing Plant Diversity

Increasing the variety of plant-based foods in your diet can significantly impact your gut microbiome. Aiming for 30 different plant foods each week can improve microbial diversity, which is linked to better health outcomes.

The Role of Prebiotic Foods in Gut Health

Prebiotics are dietary fibres that the human body cannot digest. They serve as food for beneficial gut bacteria, particularly promoting the growth of bifidobacteria and lactobacilli. These fibers are found in many fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Key Prebiotic Foods

• Bananas and Apples: Easy to incorporate into any diet, these fruits are excellent sources of soluble fibres.
• Garlic and Onions: Rich in inulin (a fibre indigestible to you, but great for bacteria) and fructooligosaccharides (a substance plants use to store carbohydrate) which enhance bifidobacteria in the gut.
• Whole Grains: Foods like barley and oats are not only high in dietary fibre but also contain beta-glucans (which plants use to fight of microbes, maintain rigidity in their cells, and stay hydrated) that have prebiotic benefits.

For more about incorporating prebiotic foods into your diet, check out Zoe.

Benefits of Probiotics for gut health

Probiotics are live bacteria and yeasts that are good for your health, especially your digestive system. They help restore the natural balance of bacteria in your gut and are crucial in preventing and treating gastrointestinal issues.

Key Probiotic Foods

• Yogurt and Kefir: These dairy products are excellent sources of lactobacilli, a type of bacteria that can benefit your gut.
• Sauerkraut and Kimchi: Fermented vegetables that provide a rich source of probiotics and enhance gut flora.
• Miso and Tempeh: Fermented soy products that offer a unique blend of probiotics and nutrients.

Learn more about the benefits of probiotic foods here.

Minimising Ultra-Processed Foods

Ultra-processed foods are high in sugars, fats, and additives that can disrupt the gut microbiome. Limiting these foods is crucial for maintaining a balanced gut flora.

Cutting Down on Sugars and Fats

Reducing the consumption of excessive sugars and fats is essential for gut health. These components can favour harmful bacteria and upset the microbial balance. Tips for reducing fat intake for a healthier gut are available here, but one of the best ways to cut excess calories is to limit your booze. Check out our blog on alcohol and calories here.

Lifestyle Changes for Gut Health: Improving Sleep and Hydration

Quality sleep and proper hydration play a critical role in maintaining gut health. Hydration helps keep the digestive system running smoothly, while sleep has a direct effect on the microbial balance.
Want to improve your sleep? Once again, limiting your alcohol can help on that score. You can find some practical advice for improving your sleep in our journal, here & and here.

Want some help cutting down on alcohol?

Many of our customers have turned to SENTIA to help them reduce or eradicate their alcohol consumption. If you want to head down this road yourself, go to this SENTIA page to see what's available.

I know most of the community doesn't care much for the Pikmin 4 Rescue Corps cast, at least relative to the Pikmin 2 main-stays. But I honestly think that is in part due to them not having anything to say in the Piklopedia. I know I didn't care much for the Pikmin 3 cast until they gave us a Piklopedia for them to express themselves in. So I thought it might be fun to think about what the Rescue Corps might write. I'll do Shepard's, Yonny's, and Dingo's entries for the Bulborb, Fiery Blowhog, and Red Pikmin. You're welcome to write entries for different creatures or officers in the comments, or just tell me how much of an idiot I am for suggesting the reason people don't like these guys is because they needed even MORE dialogue.
-Bulborb
*Shepard: Those beady stalk-eyes immediately remind me of a breed of Space Dog popular on Hocotate. As big and brutish as these guys are, I would be lying if I said they weren't a little cute. The way they sleep in the sunlight and gulp down their snacks reminds me so much of Oatchi! Of course, those "snacks" are usually [Y/N]'s Pikmin. If they weren't such a valuable commodity, however, I would gladly feed every last one to a hungry Bulborb.
*Yonny: If you look very, very closely, you'll see how those white spots pulsate as the creature sleeps. I'm positively itching to figure out why that is! I'd love to carve off a sliver or two of the beast's skin and look it over. Though, the spots stop quivering soon after the creature is deceased. Looks like I'll have to do this the hard way! Ehehehe... Now where did I put those earplugs?
*Dingo: It's big, it's brightly colored, and it likes to sleep in the middle of everything. Talk about arrogant! It's like this shrimp is TRYING to get me to pummel it! It's a pretty sound sleeper too. You gotta get right up on it to wake it up. (Thank goodness... I'm just gonna go the long way around).
-Fiery Blowhog
*Shepard: This little, Oatchi-sized creature spews out enough fire to light up a skyscraper! The Rescue Corps naturally keeps plenty of fire extinguishers at the ready, but to pit them up against all the fire this creature puts out? It just isn't practical. The Red Pikmin are fire resistant, so they're probably the best extinguisher to use against this fire hazard. And, honestly, I'd rather those bugs take care of the fire than Oatchi. Even with his Scorch Guard, I make sure he drinks plenty of water when he and [Y/N] return every evening.
*Yonny: A creature that stores milliliters of volatile chemical compound in its gut!? Oh, yes please! I absolutely HAVE to know how that slimy thing doesn't blow itself up with all that stuff sloshing around as it trots along. I can have Russ build me a machine and tell him it's for mixing large vats of solution. I'll shake it for hours- days if I have to!
*Dingo: This grub probably thinks it's unbeatable, with it's big, scary flame-thrower nose. But here's what it did not consider! It's my master strategy! Moving out of the way!! You can't fry what you can't catch, sucker! Remember, knowing when to avoid confrontation is the true mark of courage. (That sounds legit, right? Yeah, they'll fall for that).
-Red Pikmin
*Shepard: Ever since [Y/N] unearthed that first bug, I've been miserable. If it weren't for Oatchi's cuddles every night, I wouldn't get a wink of sleep. Even then, those things will forever haunt my nightmares. Every night, I squirm helplessly as those awful things pin me down and stab deep into me with those massive needles on their faces. I can never tell if all that red I see is their skin or my... Nope, that's enough writing for now.
*Yonny: For a creature made up of purely plant cells, their fire resistance is remarkable. What's their limit? How much heat can they take? I know some guys who work with reactors... maybe they can hook me up. Of course, Collin won't let me get near the Onion. He has no respect for medical professionals! Where do you think your vaccines come from, hmm?? (Sigh)... Glow Pikmin are also immune to fire. I could probably get away with some tests on them, but... it's just not the same.
*Dingo: I love these little guys! Not only do they have excellent taste in... skin color (?), but they also know just how to get you pumped up. The way they stamp their feet and beat the air with their fists gets you ready for battle like nothing else! It's like you're all soldiers ready to go out in a blaze of glory. And speaking of blazes, it doesn't end there! They're also completely flame resistant! But the best part of all? These sucker have weaponized their faces!! Right on! (I bet they're willing to do the heavy lifting for me).

Hello, I'm currently not feeling well mentally and it feels like my life is going down a drain.
So first a little backstory, I'm male currently in my mid 20s. I have an older sister. We are 3 years apart.
When I was young, my father was never really at home. (A house, 2 stories) He was often at "work". I don't remember a lot, just a few occasions, but they were good memories mostly. I was an energetic kid but still pretty quiet and never cried or screamed really. I was interested in a lot of things. I got an electronics and chemistry set for kids and had a lot of fun. I used to built technical things with legos without the technic sets. (I loved lego) I was also interested in history and always went to the library to research. Which lead to me role playing with army men toy figures. My father often fought with my mother and my sister jumped in so my father wouldn't hit me.
As I grew up, there were a few things going on. My grandfather expected me to do everything perfectly and know everything. But he also helped me with homework and learning. Yet when I didn't understand something, he'd be quite harsh and some would consider it overreacting. Now I have a fear of failure. My grandmother on the other hand was overprotective. When I was dancing around on a small wall (i loved that as a child) she shouted and told me to get down. Now I have a fear of heights. My dad "worked" a lot upstairs in his office. Distancing himself so hard that he even sometimes refused to get down to the dining area to eat with the family. My mother was truly working a low-paid job and then did the chores at the evening and cooking. Trying her best to raise 2 kids alone. She always refused when we'd try to offer help and had no structure for our daily life. Now I'm missing experience and routine of simple chores. My sister was bullying me and annoying me quite often but not more than other siblings would. She sometimes just had a bad judgement on things that were fun to her, but not to me.
I got a PC and a bit later a playstation (alongside the gameboy my sister used before). Maybe (probably) as a distraction. My interest in videogames and the internet started.
My dad then got sick. Brain cancer. He was in theraphy a lot but it also put even more pressure on my mom and us as kids. Had an motorcycle accident right in front of my house, in front of my window and I was the one rushing to him when I was 8 or 9 years old and calling for help. His dad died not long after. A day before me and my dad tried to visit him at his own fast food restaurant.
A few years later, I believe I was 12, my father passed away. We got the call minutes before we wanted to visit him. He was in a hospice during that time but I didn't understand what it was. So my mom was now completely alone with us but my grandparents (mother's side) tried their best to support us. My dad, unfortunatly, left with nothing but debts which is why we refused the inheritance.
Life went on and my mother struggled a lot to keep the house running. But she managed. With a lot of strain. She even started a job training as a kindergardener while working her minimum-pay job at the same time. The parents and the kids there loved her. And she loved to work with kids.
Earlier my sister moved out to pursue her studies at the university so I was living alone with my mom in a big house with leftover things from my dad.
Jump forward. 2018 My mom has pain in her legs and visits a lot of doctors. She was smoking like my father but ate really healthy. Having her own garden with homegrown potatoes, peas, tomatoes, onions, a lot of berries, cherries, cucumbers and so on. A lot of fish and chicken with fresh eggs from my dad's brother's own farm.
She got notified she had cancer. Lung cancer. But it was still localized and hasn't spread. So she worked out a lot, had an even healthier diet and eventually, the doctors removed one side of her lung with the cancer in it. She still had to go to therapy. Thats when they found metastases at her head. Not on or in the brain. She got therapy again but got a little weaker because of the treatments. She "tripped" a few times/fell a few weeks before scheduled surgery. They did surgery to remove a one of the cancer cells which had been pressing against her brain and caused headache. Shortly after my mom couldn't really move her left hand as much as before. They were looking for a cause. They found out there was a metastases on her spinal chord which caused the disability with her hand. It also caused her increasing amounts of pain. One week I went to visit my mother. ( i visited her regulary before also). She got a bit worse so I decided to visit everyday until she got better. It was wednesday. After spending the day with her (she got a lot of pain meducation and could barely form a sentence) she told me and the end that she loves me [too]. It was great to hear, especially considering that she had trouble speaking before. The next day, I arrive alongside my sister and her husband who were staying inside a hotel for the week. We got into the room and all I could see was my mom with her mouth open, half open eyes, and couldn't even speak a word. It was horrible. It was clear that this was going to be the end. And I had a hard time to process that day. The next day after work (wasn't allowed to take time off), my sister and her husband picked me up from work again and drove me home to get something to eat. After asking why we wouldn't visit my mother. They told me she died yesterday while my sisters husband was in the room and my sister was speaking with the nurse. This was in october last year. 8 months ago.
Fast forward. I'm alone in a big house with a garden. My sister is 2 hours by car away. ( dont have a licence) My friends are all occupied with their lives. My grandpa is in his 80s and his health is not the best right now. Probably because my grandmother tripped for the 4th time in 3 years and broke her leg again which is why he has trouble sleeping. I got fired from work a month after my mom passed away due to covid and mental issues. I have nightmares every time I sleep and I can fully remember each of them. I never experienced the routine of doing chores. I have problems paying for rent and everything since I don't have a job. I get increasingly tired every day that passes to the point where I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again.
I currently want to apply for university to study game design since as a kid I was a bit talented at computer science and I've got more interested in it over the years. But given my financial situation and the lack of freetime from balancing household, family, finances, my own mental health and what's left of my parents, this is going to be unlikely.
I'm a young man who just wants his life to not get harder every year for once. I'm highly interested in a ton of topics and I have a lot of fun learning and researching. If they are to trust I have an estimated IQ of 128 by multiple sites. Yet I feel like the dumbest person ever for not being able to figure out how life works. I'm bad in socializing due to trust issues with past friends and girlfriend. I'm bad at handling my emotions. I'm bad at organizing and scheduling things. I'm bad at accepting that I need help managing things and refuse to accept any help I get from family. I'm bad at balancing my life. And I'm bad at living life. And now I'm feeling im at the worst point and I'm responsible.
I don't want any of my closest ones to think I can't do this but now I think they are right. I think I'm too bad at life to do this.
Help me.

I'm on my last brain cell. I'm sure I should be able to Google this, but I've tried and I'm too user-error to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
I just need a veggie-and-bechamel pasta bake recipe WITHOUT tomatoes. My parents are lacto-ovo-pescatarian and low potassium, and I've been feeding a meat-and-potatoes man for so long that my algorithm won't give me a plain cheese-and-vegetable pasta bake.
I prefer to cook from scratch ingredients-- milk, butter, flour, stock and I have homemade pesto. And to include plenty of veg, aside from tomato, onion and potato due to dietary constrictions. I'm very comfortable modifying recipes.
I'm drowned at work to the point of multiple teary breakdowns and I don't have any close friends to lean on. Please, Reddit friends, could you recommend a recipe?

Welcome back to another episode of Stynek's bizzare adventure. Today we get to continue where we left off as she begins slowly learning more of her new housing and her hosts' intentions.
As usual, thanks to SpacePaladin15 for his own great work and letting fanfiction flow, and everyone who supported and enjoyed the fic thus far. Your appreciation is distinctly appreciated~
First - Prev - [Next]
Memory transcription subject: Stynek, Venlil Test Subject
Date [standardized human time]: July 16th, 2136
Waking up next time was scary. Wrapped in the sheet and left in the dark made it feel like I was completely trapped inside something, so on instinct I started flailing and struggling until I found myself falling off the bed and laying on the floor. Ow. This is what I get for falling asleep wrapped in a bedsheet...
As I looked around my pen, I realized that lights were actively brightening up. Did predators see me waking up and raise light levels? I doubt they’re keeping that close a watch on me. Arxur had lights all over their ships go dimmer on a schedule, maybe I just caught it mid-cycle.
And as I tried to stand up, I was met with a hurdle... I was still missing a leg. Everything about trying to even balance myself felt wrong. I used the bed to try and balance on it, but couldn’t without my whole body feeling off. Feeling... lighter, in absolutely horrid way. I could actually balance on one leg before by raising other, but now as I tried to do that, I just found myself tumbling and needing to catch myself. I... I’ll have to get used to this... Won’t I...?
I couldn’t allow myself to cry. If I couldn’t even stand on one leg and hop... At least I won’t be reduced to crawling on the floor. I gripped at the bed tightly and used my arms to hold myself up as I carefully hopped closer to the little bedside stand, switching my arms to hold onto that. Hopping like that felt so off, it felt like so off, so wrong, I shouldn’t feel this light...
Alright. I am now in front of the bedside stand. Next... I need to make my way across the room. First order of business is checking out the contents of the closet. I needed to know what’s in there. By hopping and clawing my way over to desk in the corner of the room, then by simply clinging to the wall, I manage to approach it and open the sliding door to reveal...
A bathroom. It was not a closet. It was a bathroom. Attached to my cell. Sure, the shape of the devices inside left a lot to be desired, sink was too high and the toilet didn’t have any tail room to it, not to mention complete lack of body drier for the shower. But it was recognizably a bathroom. Part of me was frustrated that there was bathroom instead of closet as a room should be... But another part relieved that I will no longer have to use The Hole like I had to back in the arxur pens. After that business was done, I used a small stool that was probably forgotten in here to use the sink.
Other paw left me very confused as to predators’ true motives... But whatever it is, it can’t be good, they’re predators after all. But since they’ve given me the chance to actually use real cleaning facilities... I will just take it and make use of it. Water valves on the sink were configured in a familiar way, so I managed to wash my paws and even my face, finally getting the stinging dry patches under my eyes out. There was no dryer so I just used a towel to try and dry my face.
With that done, I left the bathroom, barely avoiding falling as I hopped and closed the door behind me, before turning and examining my cell again. Something was different.
It appears in time it took me to use the bathroom, the predators entered the room and left something on the table. A large tray with a whole bunch of small bowls, and a... sheet of paper and a pen? What? Wait, the bowls, those look like... food!
I actually fell over as I lost my balance, before quickly crawling and pushing myself closer to the table, and climbing into one of two chairs next to it. I forgot the last time I ate food that looked like food and not gravel!
Still, hesitation gripped me. It’s predators giving this to me. There has to be some ulterior motive. Pushing back my hunger, I decided to investigate the paper in front of me. It consisted of two halves. One had pictures of contents of all the trays besides empty rectangles, while another had... A bunch of small pictures of venlil? There was nothing actually written on either sheet. Maybe these predators don’t have a language? Not that it matters, I wouldn’t understand it anyway. Closer look revealed that pictures were actually a small comic.
First the venlil is shown taking a bite out of some vague circular food. Then from that picture three lines are drawn to three different outcomes. One has same venlil shoveling multiples of that food into its mouth hungrily, as well as that same food piece beside a rectangle, inside of which two lines were drawn at an angle. Second has venlil just taking few more bites out of the food, and rectangle has a circle inside it. Last one has venlil spitting the food out and throwing it away, with two crossed lines in the rectangle.
Looking between two parts of the sheet for a bit, realization hit me. It’s instructions... For trying all the food. They want me to try everything... And... Mark whether I like it or not? Using these symbols?
“But why...?” I muse out loud, but there’s nobody in here to answer me. Well... If it means I get to eat real food, I guess I could try filling this sheet out. Part of me wondered if I should lie on all the answers, and that its predators figuring out which is the most disgusting food to feed me, but I doubted I’d be able to hide my reaction if it was disgusting and they were probably watching anyway. I felt powerless...
Well, I also felt rather hungry. Feeling of hunger has become way too familiar with how underfed I was with the arxur, but sight of what might be real food made me salivate for first time in forever. Without further ado, I reached out to first thing on the tray.
It was some sort of root, I think, but peeled. It was a stark orange color, thankfully not too reminiscent of blood in shade... I felt an itch in the leg I no longer had at the thought of blood. No, stop, don’t think about that... For a test, I gave the root a little lick. There was a hint of sweetness, so it probably wasn’t bad, right? So I put it in my mouth and bit a piece off, starting to chew. The root turned out to be rather crunchy and mildly sweet... And yet it felt incredible. I was suddenly much more acutely aware of my hunger, food with actual taste reawakening the feeling in force. I swallowed the chunks and bit into it more and more until it was all gone. It was nice to eat something like that. I considered marking it with the angled lines in the sheet, but then realized that I should try at least two things to know how all this stuff compares before making that call.
So I reached my hand towards the next piece of food, what looked like some light red fruit. It was smooth, but test of my claws also showed that it was rather hard. First food wasn’t poisoned, so I doubt rest will be... And I want more! So I just bite into the fruit.
And instantly delicious juice flows into my mouth! It’s not as crunchy as the root vegetable, but its firm enough to need chewing, and yet with every move of my teeth, it seeps delicious sweet juice into my mouth! I couldn’t stop so I kept biting and munching on it. I missed taste of something truly sweet! So much! It took me less than a minute to destroy the fruit. It was the perfect meal. Seeds were a bit bitter, but the rest was worth it.
Now I get why there are three categories. I pick up the pen and draw out the symbols. Angled line for the fruit, and a circle for root. Alright, I’ve got my reference, I guess. But I’m definitely not full and there’s more to try.
Next I reached for green stalks. I wasn’t sure what they were, but they looked like oversized, solid grass. Yet again, lick on the outside showed no clear taste, so I bit on it. It... wasn’t anything, really. It was slightly sour and had this herbal sense to it, but beyond that, didn’t feel like much of anything. I marked that one as a circle too.
Next I thought to try one of the fruits again, this one deep red. It seems like nothing around here has a taste on outside, as yet again, taut skin did not have a taste. I did almost choke when I bit on it though, this one not having any chew to it at all and was practically filled with juice! Worst thing is, juice wasn’t even sweet. I can’t say I disliked the taste, it was rather decent, but the way it basically sprayed my mouth when I bit on it was not something I appreciated. Circle for this one.
Next... what next... Oh, that green thing. I didn’t even bother tasting it on the outside, just biting on the prolonged green fruit. This had no surprises, being as crunchy as that root I tried first, but its taste was even vaguer, even the juices were tasteless. Circle.
Hm... Well that left three items. A white fruit-like orb, a bunch of small nuts and an oblong... thing that I had no idea about. I reached for the orb and, with no hesitation, took a big bite. First thing I felt was slight hint of sweetness and taste of juice in my mouth. Second was pain as I regretted every decision so far. It burned my mouth! It burned my eyes somehow! Instantly, tears burst out of my eyes, and I found myself coughing out the disgusting thing. It pretended to be sweet but it just burned afterwards! Was this a trick after all? Eugh... Disgusting!
I threw the thing away, towards the door, letting it roll on the floor. Stupid predators... I mean, it’s clear they have no clue what to feed me to keep me alive but least they could do is not feed me whatever that is! My eyes hurt now... Through tears I spotted glass of water on the tray and quickly washed the foul taste down. I made sure to draw several sets of crossed lines in the rectangle for this thing. I just hoped that won’t make the predators only feed me that...
Well... One great, a bunch okay, one bad. Let’s... try the rest. I thought that nuts won’t hurt, so I tried a few... And they just tasted like nuts. Nuts are fun snacks, but not my personal favorite. I gave those a circle.
That left only the oblong off-white thing. It was slightly soft to touch... I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be some fruit or something I don’t understand? Carefully, to avoid any more errors, I only take a small bite. Okay, no juice at all, only the nice chewy fiber of the thing... It was sweet! Very sweet for something so juiceless. I took a larger bite and there were no issues. It tasted like weird, juiceless fruit, but was delicious and sweet. Still, texture felt off enough that I gave it a circle.
And... that was it. I ate everything, I rated everything. One great, one terrible, rest are fine. I wiped at my eyes again, as they were slowly watering still from just the memory of that terrible thing now laying on the floor by the door.
Question arose in my mind. What now? I actually felt sated. Not full, definitely, I could go for double what I was given, but at least I didn’t actively feel hunger anymore. I wasn’t that thirsty thanks to how juicy some of those were and that glass of water. And I didn’t feel like sleeping... Normally in arxur pen I’d just huddle to someone willing to let me near and cry. Sure, this place seems nicer, but at least with the arxur I knew what to expect. Here? No clue. I looked down at the stump of my leg, still bandaged over. I... I wanted to cry. All the panic and the confusion completely made me stop thinking about home... Mom and dad... I hope they weren’t caught up in same raid. I... I wonder if they held a funeral already... I remember how mom attended official funeral for someone who got taken by the arxur one time.
Tears started welling up properly now and I pushed them away by trying to stand up... holding onto the table with my hands to not fall over again. Is this going to be my life now...? Unable to even move around without gripping at everything, or crawling on the floor? I want to go home...
As I pulled myself over by clinging to walls, I grabbed the blanket off the bed along the way and made my way over to the desk in the corner, pushing its chair aside and climbing under it. I don’t know why, but crawling under there and wrapping myself up in the blanket just felt safer. And once I felt a bit safer, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
I miss my home! I miss my family! I miss my school! I miss my leg! Tears flowed as I sobbed and cried into the soft blanket. I didn’t want to be a test subject for weird predators... I didn’t want to be the reason they know more about the venlil... I wanted to taste normal food from home again, not weird predator vegetables and fruit... I wanted to walk on two legs again... I wanted so much I knew nobody could give me...
Click!
My ears perk and instantly my eyes are focusing on the door that just unlocked. It slowly opens and there it is... The same predator as before. I can tell for certain it’s the same, no way all of them look that similar. Of course, the moment it walked in, it locked its gaze on me in my hiding spot. Naturally, I recoiled, further shuffling myself under the desk... Maybe whatever it wants to do, it won’t bother if I’m in annoying to reach spot like that.
It does seem to be working, as first thing the predator does after staring at me for a bit is slowly reach down for the discarded foul food thing and pick it up, stuffing it in zip lock bag it brought with it. Oh... It’s here to... clean? I guess? The suspicions were confirmed when it put the bag on the now-empty tray and gathered the paper with food evaluation that I filled out. But... Instead of taking the tray and leaving, it turned around and approached me.
Lowering itself in front of me, the presence of this huge creature was imposing... But after seeing it cry before, I don’t think I was that intimidated by it, at least. Moreso by what unpredictable things it could do... It just sat there, staring at me... What’s with the staring? Is it considering eating the rest of me finally?
Then that hand reached out. I flinched away, trying to stuff myself deeper under the desk, but there was no deeper to go. The hand moved slowly, predator knowing full well I have no escape route. So as it gets close to my head I close my eyes and hold my breath, not sure what to expect, but bracing for it anyway. Instead of a tight grip... there was a touch, that hand lowering itself on top of my head and just ruffling up my greasy hair. The digits felt strong and dexterous, actually feeling good when they rubbed against my scalp. But just because the touch felt good doesn’t mean I felt good in this uncertainty. A predator was rubbing my head... What was it trying to do? Why would it do that?
The moment lasted a bit before the hand pulled back. I slowly opened my eyes to see the predator’s lips curl up as it whispered something in its language. Or at least I can only assume it’s a whisper with how shushed it was compared to when it actually spoke before. Why is it trying to speak to me when I can’t understand it?
Then... it stood up and turned around, grabbing the tray and heading for the exit. Just like that. It did stop for a moment to turn and give me another look. This time I expected it and didn’t flinch, but I did pull the blanket up higher, using it as a shield. The predator didn’t mind, same expression of curled-up lips and slightly lowered eyelids on its face as it left the room, and another click signifying the door locking.
I let out the breath I was holding with relief. It was gone. I was safe again. And alone...
I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself, pulling my leg up against my chest. That way I could imagine I am cuddling up to someone. In the pens, that was at least possible. Here I was alone. Predator’s touch was surprisingly nice to feel, but knowing it was a predator that... did that... It made me feel so conflicted. And yet the idea of close contact to someone, hugging and cuddling up was still reawakened with that touch.
I wish I could have my mom... But I couldn’t, so I just curled up under the desk and decided to rest until something made me move again.
Memory transcription subject: Dr. Erin Kuemper, UN Secretary of Alien Affairs
Date [standardized human time]: July 16th, 2136
“So, what’ll happen to the guy who replaced the pumpkin with the onion last minute?” Sara asked, sitting beside me.
“Already got a talking to, and honestly, Noah getting to him will be more punishment than anything I could do. I can’t even fault the guy, tasting platter was supposed to be varied.” I responded.
In front of us was a screen, displaying paused footage of venlil child tasting the things we prepared. We made sure to avoid anything even remotely connected to animal product, with what we know of the Federation species culturally, but figuring out actual diet beyond had us stumped. In the end we settled on setting up a few tasting platters. thankfully, the kid was intelligent enough to figure out what was wanted pf her and marked her opinions of the food on the sheet. But even if she hadn’t...
I fast-forwarded the footage a bit and rewatched her reaction to biting the onion. While her facial expressions were rather different from human ones, it was easy to tell which foods she was excited about, which she found just okay, which were whatever and which were... onions. Apples being delicious was almost expected, but somehow I doubted giving her just apples would be nutritionally sound. For the first test, we intentionally avoided anything cooked, but we might try some things like potatoes or bread next time.
“Okay, Erin, I tried, but since you’re not talking about it, I have to. Are you really okay with it? The announcement today?”
That was something I’ve been waiting for ever since Sara offered to join me on analyzing the alien girl’s behavior during meal. She tried to stay distant from anything related to the child so far until now.
The announcement went well. Thing is... it was crafted carefully. The reactions of public were supposed to be mixed and uncertain, and they were. We needed to manage the expectations of the masses carefully. Me being given new position didn’t matter that much yet, as I would mostly still be handling this lab and the alien child until the first trade with the arxur goes through.
“We did what we have to do, Sara. We can’t afford alienating the only people who are our chance at survival. Even if...”
“Even if they’re monsters? Erin, when you spoke on the broadcast about ‘not taking sides in a galactic war where we’re incompatible with both sides’ you conveniently forgot to mention that the side we’re ‘establishing non-committing peaceful cooperation’ with eats fucking children!”
Sara’s anger was understandable... She was lashing out ever since the landing. I understood her perspective and why she was angry, but...
“Okay, so what? You want us to condemn them and cut all contact? Abandon the only source of intel we have? Potentially risk them just coming here and forcing us to cooperate once they decide we’re not fit to govern ourselves if we publically oppose their fundamental beliefs?”
“Okay, fine, whatever, nazi lizards versus genocide squids and whatnot. Their war, we aren’t involved, just using arxur until we can establish ourselves. I hate it, but sure. But then what about the child? Why is she suddenly classified and not mentioned in the broadcast at all? Why is she even still here?”
I simply sighed, rubbing at my eyes. First Noah practically demanding death sentence for the onion guy, now this... And she was still going too...
“We should just pack her up on the Odyssey, set automated course for their homeworld and let her go home. Sure, her parents are likely long dead and eaten, but she should be with her people. Why are we keeping her here at all? Why are we studying her like a test subject? And I know we’re keeping her for a while, I’ve seen the team working on language teaching lessons already.” Sara stood up and walked in front of me, getting in my face even. “Erin... We can’t keep her here.”
I swatted at Sara, pushing her away as I myself stood up. I was tired. These last few days were a constant rollercoaster, and I got more sleep during exam weeks in college than I got lately. I am not taking Sara’s bullshit here.
“This is precisely why we didn’t announce her presence, Sara. Because the moment we do, there’ll be millions of people demanding what you’re suggesting. I have enough on my plate already, and I don’t want to worry about a flash mob of idiots from internet Naruto-running towards the facility to try and ‘rescue’ her.” I adjusted my labcoat and stared back at Sara sternly. “And let’s say we do send her on her own. First, we have to assume that the craft makes it safely, which is not guaranteed. Odyssey was our first manned FTL voyage. Who knows what problems are yet to be discovered? But okay, it makes it to Gliese. Then it gets shot down by local orbital defenses due to being a mysterious unmanned craft barreling towards their homeworld. But sure, let’s assume the kid doesn’t get rest of her limbs blown off by orbital cannons and successfully lands. You know what happens next? They track the ship’s trail back to Earth, come over here and burn us all down for being born with needs for wrong proteins! Is that what you want?”
I didn’t even notice that halfway through my rant I transitioned to yelling. I tried to calm my breath and stepped back, Sara staring back at me in shock, though responding slowly still.
“I’m sorry... I know it’s stressful on you, just as much as it is on me, I just...” Sara mumbled, rubbing at her shoulder apologetically.
I focused my thoughts. Right. No need to get irritable. Sara is vulnerable after events on the Odyssey. She’s lashing out and I shouldn’t stoop down like that.
“Sara... I know you have a hard time knowing she’s around, but simply put, we can’t send her home. Best we can do now is make sure she is safe and well taken care of. Arxur are uncooperative, and until we manage to either obtain some stealth tech for FTL or figure out a way to peacefully communicate with Federation, we just cannot send the venlil back to her people.”
She sighed. I could sense she accepted defeat here, but there was still frustration on her face. She was still unsatisfied, but as long as we moved on from the topic, I’d take it.
“Could you at least get that prosthetic installed for her already? Seeing her completely ignore the crutch we prepared her and crawl and hop her way over by clinging to things, it’s...”
“We’re worried about doing it before establishing at least some sense of communication with her. Noah will start the attempts to do some language training tomorrow. If that works out, we will probably do that once we can explain to her that we mean no harm.”
“How’s the bionic one going? Could we skip straight to that?”
“No. We’d need more surgery to prepare her for something like that and that’d definitely require more trust than we have now.”
Sara nodded and returned to her seat, grabbing the remote. She rewound all the way to the end of the footage and switched to the camera that could see the girl huddled under the desk, as well as Noah petting her, telling her that it’s okay and safe. The moment was touching, but... The way she recoiled from Noah reaching out to her at first showed us more than any words we don’t understand could. She was still very afraid.
Earning her trust will be hard. I just hoped Noah’s compassion for her will overcome the fear she has of humans. After all... She might just be our main hope for finding a place of peace in the galaxy full of war.
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