bigpEE @bigpEE@qoto.org

Yes, yes, we should all dump on the poor Hampton Jitney riders, but messenger aside: private Intercity & regional buses should not be forced to pay to congestion charge.

Doesn't seem like a sane policy decision: these services get cars *off* the road.

Taylor Swift adopted one of Elon Musk's worst moves: launching lawyers at a student who's doing a totally legal (and useful) thing: tracking of her highly polluting private jet. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-legal-threat/

It's kind of difficult to describe from a still photograph, but when this desert blister beetle (Pleuropasta sp.) walks forward, it looks *exactly* like a red harvester ant dragging a large seed backwards. It's a really tremendous mimic.

Photographed in Anza Borrego.

#Meloidae #Desert #Insects

Whenever the "free fare transit" conversation comes up in US circles, I am always peeved with the big problem of transit in the US: whether from the left or the right, *everyone* agrees "buses are for poor people", so it doesn't get proper funding so anyone using transit ends up waiting an hour at bus stops with no seating or shade next to 6 lanes or traffic and changing three lines to get where they need to, because "poor people's time is cheap and they don't care about quality".

Woho! We are not parasites anymore!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2024/01/01/nejm-reverses-itself-on-research-parasites-as-nih-beefs-up-data-sharing-rules/

New study: bees species that survive in urbanized environments have larger brains.

#Bees #Entomology

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2023.0296

On Marketplace, I explained why those who believe in capitalism should support regulating car bloat:

"For decades, people who buy enormous, heavy cars have been creating societal costs that they aren’t paying for. That’s what’s called a market failure."

https://www.marketplace.org/2024/01/04/the-hefty-costs-of-heavier-cars/

#cars #safety

Inside a leaf nest of Polyrhachis robsoni rattle ants. The big one's the queen.

#Polyrhachis #Ants #Insects

Arthropod Photo of the Week: January 3, 2024
Ant tending treehopper nymphs
Ectatomma tuberculatum
Hymenoptera: Formicidae
By Tom Myers, Kentucky, USA
#arthropodPOTW
#entomology #insects #photography

From the archives: How To Bike Through a New England Winter

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/12/05/how-to-bike-through-a-boston-winter

lol god DAMN this is the entirety of the White House statement on the death of #henrykissinger.

This is about as close as I think you could get to Biden publicly saying "fuck that guy I'm glad he's dead."

Here's a short video from Latvia showing why you shouldn't treat railway lines as a playground.

#MetroTrains

This is possibly the funniest social insect study of all time. To keep them from eating all the food, female wasps stuff male wasps head-first into empty cells and threaten to sting them if they try to escape.

#Wasps

https://www.nature.com/articles/38931

blowing fat clouds of leaded solder fumes

The Daily Beast is reporting that Elon Musk ordered engineers to switch off his Starlink satellites just as Ukraine was preparing to attack the Russian naval fleet with drones. He said he feared nuclear retaliation by Russia. It’s high time we ask the question: How much power and influence does it make sense to hand just one person?

'We’re speaking out—despite pressure from the WVU administration to remain silent—because we’re impelled by our responsibility as employees and stewards of this public university to safeguard its integrity and its future.'

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/an-open-letter-from-faculty-at-west-virginia-university/

Al Jazeera’s Defence Editor Alex Gatopoulos explains how Ukraine's troops appear to be nearing a breakthrough.
Ukraine’s months-long counteroffensive at the crossroads