All of the major commercial genetic genealogy companies use test kits supplied by and processed by Quest Diagnostics. The test panels focus on autosomal DNA, which are the genes that code for proteins. This DNA is only about 1% to 2% of our three billion total base pairs. Although companies like to advertise that they…

Auto industry forecasts are for the tipping point for EVs to be reached by 2025, which is only five years faster than the conversion from horses to internal combustion. The major delivery companies (FedEx, UPS, Amazon, JB Hunt), and grocery chains are already converting to EV tractor trailers. The problem is the…

Follow King County Commissioner Dow Constantine, who frequently messages (email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to alert Seattleites on local hazards (flooding, landslides and wildfires). Both the County and City track landslide and stream conditions and participate in disaster drills such as Cascadia Rising. If you haven’t…

So sorry for this cat. It’s bad enough to sit on Drumpf’s head all day, but then ham falls on his face. Tragic.

Here’s a missed opportunity for a really important point: the reason we can buy sandwiches for $4, the reason that we can acquire any goods or services at an affordable price, is that we’re part of a huge, interdependent web of human creativity, the value of which we rarely appreciate. Some examples include: mothers…

If you embrace Neoliberal Economics (control of economic factors is shifted from the public sector to the private sector) and think of humans merely as consumers in systems that are measured and quantified, it makes sense to think of a wife as the Chief Operating Officer in your Familial Corporation (as so entitled to…

Less funny: It's affecting human males too: http://who.int/ceh/capacity/m…

I am not reassured to read that someone else has been thinking the same thing. Except that my fever dreams include pitchforks deployed against the oligarchs. That part might be wishful thinking. :(

Fundamental Attribution Error: My mistakes are honest, but your mistakes are because you're malicious, lazy, stupid and generally of bad character. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/real-men-…

No laughing; I moved from Savannah to Seattle after spending one last, awful summer in Savannah with heat, drought and wildfire (when the swamps catch fire, it's really dry). The first year in the Emerald City was not so bad (no blizzards, beautiful summer) but it's been global warming hell since then. Heat, drought…

I'm almost certain that the root cause of 'wonks' dislike of the hoi polloi' is Fundamental Attribution Error. Because, speaking as one of those 'certified improvement experts', the first barrier to improvement is always blaming other people. 'My mistakes are honest, but your mistakes are because you're stupid, lazy,…

$15K a month? Wouldn't it be easier for rich folk to build a desalination plant and sell the leftover water back to public utilities?

From the Editor's Summary: "They identify regions that are likely to yield the best balance between applying fertilizer to increase crop yields versus the resulting environmental impact." Save that without fossil fuels for fertilizer, power and transportation, we can support ~2 B to 3B total population, before taking…

Also, we don't generally get to publically mourn the loss of our fur children with a newspaper obituary and a funeral, but we can grieve on Facebook.

So, the purple wedding. How did it happen? How did Joffrey get poisoned; who did it? Readers of the books might already be in the know, but while the show hasn't outright told us who the culprit is, we all watched the poisoning happen. Most of us didn't realize it, though—but you can catch it if you look closely.

Beau Arts, mid-19th to early 20th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Art…

In my experience, the only way to get teams working together is to take them to the floor and let them experience conditions for themselves. I've never seen people act because someone handed them a pretty chart (and I know from pretty charts). Boy do I know from pretty charts; I'm an Improvement Professional with…

OMG, The Wind Rises! Needed three tissues, had to settle for sniffling after soaking one. Both massive and personal destruction in earthquakes, in war and in love. Wah!