Like the rest of the world, I like to play a game

called "What if I had several hundred millions of dollars in disposable cash?"

And I know what I'd do, too, after the donations to charity, and the careful putting aside some money into spendthrift trusts for my entire family, and the buying of a heck of a lot of books, and the paying off of the mortgage. After all that, I'd raise the roof. Lift it a few feet so this third floor had more usable space, and then put a ceiling on it to effectively make a small fourth floor attic for storage. (The roof has a high pitch and really, we could do that part right now if we had the cash.)

My mother has a story she likes to tell, from back when she was driving cab in New Orleans now and again. Apparently, she once got talking with two riders who turned out to be architects from Italy. And she asked them "Have you seen how they add floors to their homes here?"

Apparently, while the rest of the world raises the roof if they want to add a new floor to their home, in Louisiana they jack up the entire house and put the new floor underneath. There are, I'm told, many homes with the water heaters in the attic because when they were installed, that was the ground floor!

So she drove them around town, pointing out several examples of this phenomenon right in her own neighborhood, and got a pretty good tip out of it.

Eva got some maple candy to send to penpals in England and Australia

(We decided the penpal in Ontario probably doesn't need more maple in her life.)

...are you familiar with the idea that I tend to go overboard? Yeeeeeeah. So now I have a question, though ultimately this is all going to boil down to "the maple, grape, and root beer candies we've got sitting in our pantry" anyway: It's easy to find out what American candies you don't have in England and/or Australia. Are there any savory snacks that are lightweight and yummy that you don't have?

(no subject)

Strength of hair inspires new materials for body armor (Samson would be so pleased.)

Astronomer searches for signs of life on Wolf 1061 exoplanet

Conditions right for complex life may have come and gone in Earth's distant past

Blood-repellent materials: A new approach to medical implants

Pitching in: Biologists study development of division of labor among bees

Calorie restriction lets monkeys live long and prosper

Chemists strike gold, solve mystery about precious metal’s properties

Finding may offer farmers a way to reduce harmful emissions from fertilized soil

Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

3-D bioprinter to print human skin (OMGWTF.)

Want to ace an exam? Tell a friend what you learned

Experiment resolves mystery about wind flows on Jupiter

Facts, beliefs, and identity: The seeds of science skepticism (As somebody who has spent more time in comments sections than is perhaps advisable, I'm always interested in even the whiff of a hint of a suggestion of a way to convince people of facts.)

A Fake News Vaccine? Climate Change Misinformation Can Be Fought With ‘Inoculation,’ Scientists Say

Shifting diets in Bronze Age China point to gender inequality

Viruses overheard talking to one another

The world's cities: vital, but fragile

Insects engage in the largest continental migration on Earth, new research indicates. Some 3.5 trillion insects in Southern Britain alone migrate each year – a biomass eight times that of bird migration. The researchers fear that global warming may significantly increase the number of insects, potentially affecting various ecosystems in different parts of the world

Earth’s last major warm period was as hot as today

World still 'grossly underprepared' for infectious disease outbreaks