No. 43 of 108
July 26, 2025
Tik Tok has made cottage cheese popular. Sales of the protein-rich product (transformed by influencers into taste bombs in texture-altering recipes) are 20 percent higher than last year. The industry is struggling to keep products on shelves. In other news, after years of research and community vetting, thousands of sterile mosquitoes are being dropped by drones into forested areas of the Hawaiian Islands, in eco-system-wide efforts to cut the wild mosquito population. Mosquitoes, introduced to the islands in the 1800s, probably as hitchhikers on ships, carry diseases deadly to endemic and indigenous birds. The birds adapted by going to higher elevations where cooler conditions deterred mosquitoes. Habitats are becoming warmer, and for the birds to survive and have a chance of further adaptation, the mosquito population will be reduced by wild mosquitoes mating with sterile ones, producing no descendants. In other news, the old-fashioned analog game of mah-jongg has taken off among millennials – Tik Tok tutorials, influencers, celebrities, products, fashion, parlors, game nights, game night drinks. Clack! Click! Pung!
Every day, interesting, puzzling, delightful stuff is happening. And yes, there is plenty of horrific, calamitous, cruel news to be devoured and to devour us. Both are true. It is critical for us to see and be curious about ALL of it and not be drawn into cavernous darkness, hair-on-fire-ness, or there-is-nothing-to-see-here. Today there were three candidates for the “interesting and not horrific” category. Pung!