“farmers have come to rely on a few varieties of olive…these trees, some of them over 2,000 years old, are succumbing to a bacterium, imported on ornamental coffee plants“
The global transport of random pants just to be pretty in our gardens is a major factor in the spread of infectious diseases and invasive species. We (EU) need to legislate to stop garden centers encouraging people to plant infected/invasive species in our gardens which then spreads to our important food crops. Especially as there’s an abundance of native species that will not only brighten your garden but also support our ecosystem?
This is an issue that the colonies of Europe dealt with 100’s of years ago as European settlers brought seeds and livestock to the Americans and Australia which got a foot hold in the new world and still to this day cause havoc.
It’s speculated that invasive plant species flourished Australia and the Americas because of the initial advantage of seed arriving on the hoofs of livestock. It took much longer and even to this day less voracious, for species of the New World to invade Europe.
An interesting cavet of human interference is the introduction of the Cane Toad to Australia in the 1930’s to combat an accidentally introduced beatle which was decimating the sugar cane harvest. It was only realised after the toad’s introduction that the beetle spent most of its life up high on the sugar cane while the toad living its life on the ground couldn’t reach it.
The toad to this day causes havoc to the native species of Australia and has spread rapidly with no natural predators.
Most interesting of all there is relatively recent evidence of Australias native fire ants adapting their behaviour and as a social species carry an entire toad back to their nest and consume it!
I quit my job as a data scientist in 2019 and spent about 6 months cycling around Europe. It was a great move it really built my confidence and enforced my since of self reliance. I was on my own things would go wrong bike trouble, bad weather, difficulty finding a place to camp, loneliness, but I could overcome them all and realised I can solve any problem the world throws at me.
I was a little worried about finding a job after, and having a gap on my CV but I easily found another data science job and have changed jobs no one even asks about it.
If like me you have an urge to take a bicycle tour do it you won’t regret it.
I’ve gotten really into touring in the last couple of years, and a Euro bike trip is in my plans for next spring/summer. Any suggestions for what season and where you’d recommend for a month-long tour? I’m currently thinking May, perhaps the corridor from Normandy thru Brussels onto Amsterdam. But I haven’t visited enough of Europe to know if temperatures/wind/weather will be amenable for that.
Of course I’m also considering dropping my job at some point and biking for 6+ months.
I would probably have gone with June for that, but on the other hand I once spent an entire July biking in Spain, which to be fair was a bit hot.
To see historic weather I use wunderground.com, for example, here[1] is the weather for May 2021 in Amsterdam. I usually check a few years to avoid one-off years.
That's what I do after spending time in Finland.
The funny thing is, everyone else in the pool looks at me like I'm crazy for showering and using soap before I get in the pool, they just get themselves wet in their swimming trunks before going in.
Three weeks on my work machine I disabled the arrow keys and am now forced to use C-, M-, for navigation, the first week was a bit slow I had to keep stopping and thinking, But now just three weeks later my screen movements are much more efficient and faster.
I recommend you give it a try.
That's precisely where I'm at currently -- 2 days into having the arrows disabled. It tells me what key I should have pressed relative to the arrow I pressed, but you take a second to stop and think "is that REALLY what I wanted? could I do this more efficiently?"
Hemp seed has 36g of protein per 100g and is a lot cheaper and environmentally more sustainable to produce, contains omega acids in the perfect ratio for humans (but dose not have the same bio-availability), dose not have high levels of mercury (that's more of a problem with farmed fish not wild).
This seems like one optimal protein source, since we could also squeeze out its oil and use it for diesel fuel. Then, Spirulina, can act as another protein source which can also provide bio-available essential fatty acids.
