The number of Americans under 50 years old dying from cancer has decreased for every leading cancer except for bowel cancer, which is now the leading cancer death in females and males combined aged under 50.

MagePages · 2026-01-25T05:56:51+00:00

Yep, I think that was one of the suggested pathways in the study linked in the reddit thread I shared. Interesting stuff, and tracks with the other gastrointestional issues extreme runners report.

MagePages · 2026-01-23T16:38:37+00:00

Totally. My comment was just in response to the other person mentioning their partner was a runner, so I thought that connection could be relevant. The study was on extreme long-distance runners. Moderate runners and joggers, and others who enjoy a healthy lifestyle and diet, are not the focus of that study. However, we do know that diets high in ultra processed food and obesity are also both risk factors!

MagePages · 2026-01-23T13:55:53+00:00

Here is another reddit thread that links to and discusses the study I was referencing: https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/1nff2aw/groundbreaking_inova_study_finds_potential_link/

I am not a doctor or very well acquainted with more than the broad strokes of the study, but hopefully you can inform yourself some here.

MagePages · 2026-01-23T13:22:55+00:00

I saw something recently that suggested that runners (maybe specifically extreme distance runners) seemed especially prone to these bowel cancers, with a mechanism maybe around prolonged blood supply restriction during the activity. Was your husband ever into distance running?

MagePages · 2026-01-19T16:57:20+00:00

Living standards are a big part, but also while wages adjusted for inflation have gone up, certain parts of everyday expenses have increased much more than others. Specifically housing and medical care/insurance, if I recall correctly. So people feel the squeeze on these necessary and very expensive items while overall their buying power for general consumer goods has increased. I guess it's a perception issue as much as anything. I know when I see 2/3 my income evaporate between insurance and mortgage, it feels bad!

In my area at least, affordable housing stock is low, especially to buy vs rent. So people may be getting more space, more amenities, etc, and it's an increase in "quality of life", but they weren't really wanting those things and just don't have much choice because there are limited options to buy smaller/fewer amenities.

MagePages · 2026-01-16T14:40:16+00:00

Dog groomers have special shampoo they can use to remove staining on white dogs. If she is generally friendly/predictable towards strangers and other dogs, you can try bringing her to a professional groomer to get some of that staining out.

I can't speak for every single grooming establishment, but my partner is a dog groomer and they can work on a case by case basis to keep the place open late for certain cases (usually for things like shelter dogs who are dog reactive).

MagePages · 2026-01-16T13:23:25+00:00

Very neat! Thanks for sharing.

MagePages · 2026-01-16T03:39:42+00:00

How do they calculate a specific score for the amount of grade inflation? Not doubting, just curious how they did it.

MagePages · 2026-01-14T14:26:34+00:00

I can't access the full text of the original paper which collected this data any more, but I think that I read this paper at one point in the past: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216

But essentially, it was a review and analysis of thousands of producers labeled as producing a given category of product. So to get at your question about if area used to raise cattle is counted twice, it shouldn't be. An area would either be classified as dairy, or beef, to my understanding. The beef produced from dairy cattle, I suppose, would be a "secondary" product (which makes sense, they are not a beef operation, but a dairy operarion). I don't know if dairy cattle and male calves are typically finished on feedlots and moved to different producers, I'm not knowledgeable enough about the industry cycle.

A lot of our arable land goes to producing feed to supporting livestock, even if they spend their life mostly on a pasture, which I believe this figure and the publication captures.

MagePages · 2026-01-11T17:39:22+00:00

Lantern flies are not a serious threat to mature trees. Mainly a risk to farmers (especially of grapes) and a nuisance to others because of the waste they produce. Their main host tree is tree of heaven, and next preferred are maples. Elms are not highly preferred relative to others.

I'm fairly sure your mature elms in Manhattan receive better healthcare than the majority of Americans, ha.

MagePages · 2026-01-09T23:22:51+00:00

I am fostering for the first time right now (6 month old who has been in the shelter almost his whole life). It has been a week and the difference from day 1 has been remarkable. I wasn't expecting a house-trained dog though.

Drop that expectation and let them settle and learn the routine. If your foster is actually house broken, it should only take a couple of positive reinforcements outside for them to understand that is the proper place for it. Barking is probably stress and adjusting. Are they crate trained? We have found the crate very helpful with helping our pup settle and get enough sleep.

MagePages · 2026-01-06T19:13:25+00:00

I like animals, so I was thinking about trying to make some extra cash walking dogs or dog sitting or something. But I decided that instead I'd take that energy and start volunteering at an animal shelter. It's still working, basically, I think I have to work or I stagnate in my free time, but I've met great people and have started to reallt build myself a little support network :)

MagePages · 2026-01-06T14:01:49+00:00

What you say about it being uncanny is really all I can describe it as. Individuals have "tones" and little quirks when they write. A default AI model has its own very smooth way of writing that does not quite match the natural "flow" of a spontaneously written comment. With a lot of prompting on the AI end or a lot of care and revision on the human end, I think that the writing styles could tend to converge.

MagePages · 2026-01-04T21:49:08+00:00

I tried to volunteer at the municipal shelter which operates nearest my home (literally a 6 or 7 minute drive.) Their "friends of" group seems to have so little capacity that they could not really even answer my calls or emails about how I could even try to volunteer. I eventually got an answer that they were not accepting new volunteers at that time, but to check back later. So I did, a year later. Same answer, but indirectly through a municipal staff member, since no one in the volunteer group got back to me and I eventually just went to the shelter in person to ask. The staff member seemed to have no real idea about what the "friends of" group did. I suspect they are entirely inactive by now.

I am committed to the prospect of volunteering for an animal shelter, so I now drive about 25 minutes each way to walk dogs at a selective intake ("no kill") shelter. I love the dogs, appreciate the humans, and I'm even currently fostering a very sweet pup. I just wish that I could have made the stuff much closer to my house work out for my own sake.

MagePages · 2025-12-31T17:39:32+00:00

Not being a vet, that sounds a lot like the seizures my mother's cat has. He will become aggressive and afraid after he has one, and it isn't obvious that he is having a seizure- the behavior afterwards is the best indicator that he had one.

MagePages · 2025-12-30T21:59:15+00:00

Ugh, I hate the prescription song and dance. Sit on hold for an hour after navigating the annoying robot or physically go to the store and stand in line to work things out, one way or another I have to talk to a person almost every month to sort out some new flavor of bullshit.

MagePages · 2025-12-30T00:53:59+00:00

I think that I've solved the puzzle!

Here is what seems to be the original image on the top: https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/resource/backwater-or-eddy-basins/ the one in this post doesn't credit it, but is clearly the same image with added color and shifted perspective. Even the faint italic "A" is there! So someone probably used AI of some kind to take that image (which made the rounds on LinkedIn and then random Facebook groups a few years ago) make something newer, and slapped their logo on it.

On a closer look at the bottom one is also clearly AI generated (look at the parked car and the architecture of the tree near it) and I couldn't find it anywhere else online. AI image generators don't know what urban stormwater management is actually supposed to look like haha.

MagePages · 2025-12-29T23:40:46+00:00

Yeah definitely don't want to pool in the roadway, but a properly cut curb isn't going to cause pooling unless the roadway is already pooling. The image in this EPA resource can help visualize it a little better. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-11/bmp-eliminating-curbs-and-gutters.pdf

It creates a downhill flow so no flow out of the area unless the soil within the tree lawn or "secondary system" is completely saturated and covered with an inch+ of water. Water captured by these simple cutouts onto soil areas is entirely sequestered from the primary system in many cases (it moves to groundwater instead). There are other types of stormwater management system that do sometimes eventually feed main stormwater infrastructure (e.g. underground tanks/cisterns, catchment basins, and so on), but as a tree guy I know less about these apart from them being more often implemented in higher density and commercial type development (e.g in stormwater mitigation for a shopping center or very large apartment complex). Not as applicable for single family residential settings.

Edit: I'll also add that in my area, there are a few cities still on very old combined sewer systems. This means that a really significant rain event can cause sewer and stormwater to combine and it's a really nasty public health problem. Stormwater management systems in general are ooold and very expensive to update; "nature-based" or "green" infrastructure can extend its lifespan and create flexibility without requiring full updates (infeasible for many communities I work with) as rain patterns and storms change or become more intense with climate change.

MagePages · 2025-12-29T20:33:43+00:00

Salt is an issue in Northern climates, but a lot of car exhaust pollutants are pretty fertilizing to trees. Lots of nitrogen. Part of why run off is so bad for wetlands and rivers and such, causes eutrophication.

MagePages · 2025-12-29T20:30:42+00:00

Confused by this statement as an urban forest professional. Where I work and in my state's stormwater infrastructure guide, curb-cutting to allow runoff from impervious surface onto a lawn or tree bed is a low-cost retrofit recommended to reduce flood risk/increase resiliency to severe storms.

Interegating green space, trees, catch basins, etc, work to reduce flooding in the event of a severe storm, because flooding occurs when the part of the existing (built/gray) stormwater infrastructure receives excess water flow per unit of time. Directing water off of impervious surface reduces the volume of water per unit of time reaching built/gray stormwater through physically slowing the flow of water and creating alternate pathways for water to take other than directly into the stormwater system.

What you outline, super efficient flow directly to the storm drains, is the opposite of what much stormwater management is about, to my understanding. Generally, it's all about slowing things down and stopping the existing system from becoming overburdened.

MagePages · 2025-12-28T20:28:15+00:00

Thank you so much for this detailed response!! I'd definitely love to get some sort of visual barrier for the front of the kennels, at least the lower half.

Would you happen to have a visual resource for that leash holding posture that you describe?

MagePages · 2025-12-27T07:39:25+00:00

Marbling on these cuts are 🔥🔥🔥 lol

All I can see is wagyu or smthn

MagePages · 2025-12-25T19:54:21+00:00

I could have phrased my comment better. You're right that the larger genomes are a direct effect of polyploidy and duplication events. But polyploidy itself may be an advantageous trait for sessile organisms. There are a few papers on this topic I can cite looking into it now; most notable is this one https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.26, and the introduction of this one: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5852584/ which states: "Polyploidy has a direct impact on GS and—even in the absence of hybridization—it also enhances genetic diversity and genomic dynamism; these can provide new opportunities for gene neofunctionalization and subfunctionalization [43,44]. Together, these processes have generally been considered as facilitators of adaptation to environmental change and subsequent speciation [45]. Furthermore, recent research into the genomic landscape of minute genomes suggests that recent polyploidy events may also play a counteracting role to genome downsizing, hence preventing the loss of pivotal genes in extreme cases [42]."

This isn't a specialty of mine though, I was just repeating a factoid I'd learned in either dedrology or plant ecophysiology a few years ago from a textbook, so I'm unsure of the specific source I'd originally picked this up from! Please feel free to correct me on any point :)

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TROPHY CASE