Some big news

 Good news:

First I'm a great grandmother. Didn't have to do a thing. So neat to think my genes are going forward in this precious little girl. I wish her all the happiness and good health possible for a long life!

Baby Kathryn Annalise T-. Born October 11, 2026 at 12.55 PM. 

 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 20 inches 

and Amanda/mommy. Good job~!

 Michael (father and my grandson) is also doing well.

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Now from Chop Wood Carry Water "Extra! Extra! by Jess Craven - (not all of the list!)

Wow! More than one million public comments were submitted in opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, demonstrating overwhelming public support for protecting some of the nation’s most treasured national forests.

Residents of Kentucky’s most populous county will be able to cast their ballot on Election Day without leaving their car for the first time ever.

A new Pew Research poll finds Donald Trump’s approval at 30%, while 68% disapprove.

Donald Trump’s Texas rally was interrupted by repeated protests. Two of the female protestors have reached instant celebrity status.

A soon-to-be-replaced wind farm in Antarctica has saved 122,000 gallons of diesel over the 15 years of its lifespan. It’s also proved that wind turbines can survive and function in even the most brutal environments.

House GOP leaders are now openly acknowledging that their mid-decade redistricting push “didn’t work out as well as they’d hoped.”

Hungary will impose a wealth tax next year, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said, fulfilling a election pledge to make the rich shoulder a larger share of public obligations.

The top super PAC for Senate Democrats raised $151 million in the third quarter, entering October with nearly $112 million in the bank. Both are records for the group. We’re still being outspent by Republicans, but it’s by much less than it could have been.

Rising star Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson (TN-09) and five other promising House candidates were added to the DCCC’s Red to Blue list.

Cornell students staged a sit-in for 7 hours to protest the 7 hours of trauma endured by Jane Doe.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately pull a slate of taxpayer-funded pro-Trump ads that have been running on national television for two weeks.

Ukraine took out more Russian data centers, one of which included a bot farm. Bot traffic in the US has since dropped precipitously.

Ho Yin Mo, the Assembly staffer whose detention by federal immigration authorities prompted appeals from San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and local elected officials, was released from custody after spending more than two weeks in a Nevada immigration detention center.

Across the eight Senate races The Times and Siena polled, Democrats have a 30-point advantage with voters under the age of 30.

Speaker Mike Johnson is now openly entertaining leaving Congress if Republicans lose the House majority.

Former President Obama announced he is headed to Michigan later this month to campaign with Abdul El-Sayed. Woot!

Everytown for Gun Safety announced it will put $10 million into helping to elect former Moms Demand Action volunteers in eight key battleground House districts across Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

(PERSONAL NOTE: my daughter-in-law is not only actively campaigning in Ohio for candidates who support better gun laws, she wears her red "Moms Demand Action" tee shirt as she goes house to house to encourage voting!)

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced it will direct $8.9 million to healthcare nonprofits so they can deliver gender-affirming care for patients under 18, after several major hospital systems caved to Trump and ended their trans youth programs.

Gas-only cars are now a minority of the world’s new car sales.

The DNC sued the Trump administration over their illegal use of taxpayer dollars to pay for political propaganda ads.

Global life expectancy has rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels, per the World Health Organization.

A new study finds that salmon are thriving after the Klamath River dam removal project. The first fall runs of chinook salmon since the project in California and Oregon was completed have wildly surpassed researchers’ expectations.

New York is legislating for electric, battery-powered lawn equipment, climate research, and school energy upgrades. Hochul signed laws creating electric-landscaping rebates, authorizing financing for the Governors Island Climate Exchange, and extending schools’ clean-energy repayment window from 18 to 25 years.

The U.S. exported $6.3 million worth of solar cells and modules to Cuba in the first seven months of the year, a major increase from all of 2025 that has helped residents and businesses keep the lights on amid the island’s energy crunch.

Navi Pillay, a South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief, won the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts that the award committee said “promoted international law as it comes under attack.” She’s incredible!

Navi Pillay, the winner of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, took an immediate shot at Trump after she learned she had won the award, saying “Thank you very much. If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump.” The whole audience laughed.

According to Tom Bonier, 23 days out from election day, the most notable trend emerging from the early vote is large turnout increases among voters of color relative to the same point in time in both 2022 and 2024. In fact, in every state reporting thus far the white vote share is lower than '22/'24.

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Personal note:

I've got a new boo-boo to deal with, a stye on one eye. I haven't ever had one, strangely enough. But I did get some ointment to apply 4 times a day, as well as need to do warm compresses also 4 times a day. My reading has been greatly reduced as that eye is acting like a real invalid and gets tired easily. Add to that the extra several hours of treatment daily for a week...and now trying to cook my meals rather than just toast or microwave something easy...I'm having trouble getting half done that I usually want to, including reading blogs and commenting.  So I'll try to see ya when I can!

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"Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." ~Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Best beans...

Cooking notes again...

What are the best beans based on nutrition?

 I enjoyed this article which appeared on FaceBook from TDVI (https://thisdishisvegetarian.com/about/)

Soybeans - top of the list?

Now we’re in the part of the list most “healthiest beans” articles quietly skip. Plain cooked soybeans carry the most protein of anything ranked here, a serious 16.9 grams, plus a field-leading 4.8 milligrams of iron and a 274.3 score, all per 100 grams. That’s not a nudge past the pantry beans. That’s a different weight class.

Simmer them into a Japanese-style nimono, fold them into a hearty stew, or blend them into a spread. They’re denser and richer than a standard pulse, so a smaller scoop goes further.

White Beans

Transparency note before the praise: the federal dataset doesn’t break out navy, Great Northern, or cannellini as separate beans. They’re all folded into one “white beans” bucket, so treat this as the whole white-bean family, not one specific variety.

As a group they’re a mineral powerhouse, topping the entire list on potassium at 497 milligrams, with a 222.6 score at 211 calories per 100 grams, measured from canned and reduced-sodium. Creamy, mild, endlessly useful. Smash cannellini into a Tuscan-style rosemary spread, or drop navy beans into a brothy soup with kale. This is the bean that makes cheap ingredients taste expensive.

Black Beans

If this were a fiber contest, we could stop right here. Black beans deliver the most fiber of anything on the list, a hefty 9.8 grams, next to a 218.5 score at 178 calories per 100 grams, measured from canned with fat. That fiber is a big reason a bowl of black beans and rice feels filling and steady instead of gone in twenty minutes.

Tacos, a smoky black bean soup, a burrito bowl with lime and cilantro. It’s the bean I reach for most, and the numbers say that instinct is fine.

Chickpeas

Hummus, falafel, the crunchy roasted snack you physically cannot stop eating. Chickpeas are the extrovert of the bean world, and they’ve got the numbers to back the confidence: a 217.1 score with a strong 162 micrograms of folate at 163 calories per 100 grams, measured from dried with no added fat.

They also hold their shape better than almost anything else, which is why they survive a hot oven and a long stew without dissolving. Roast them crisp with smoked paprika, blend them into hummus, or drop them whole into a coconut chickpea curry.

Pinto Beans

The soul of a burrito and the reason refried beans exist. Pintos score 213.6 with 152 micrograms of folate at 191 calories per 100 grams, measured from dried with a little fat. Nothing here spikes and nothing’s weak, which is exactly why they’re the default bean in so many kitchens. Mash them with cumin for tacos, or simmer a pot borracho-style with onions and peppers.

Lentils

Not technically a bean to a botanist. Absolutely a bean to anyone standing in a kitchen, so they’re staying.

Here’s their case. Among the beans here that aren’t soy, lentils lead on iron at 3.3 milligrams, and they pull it off at just 115 calories, the lowest of anything ranked here, measured from dried with no added fat. Add 171 micrograms of folate and a 210.9 score and you’ve got the efficiency winner, big nutrition for a small calorie footprint.

Red lentils melt into a silky dal. French green lentils hold their shape for a warm salad with roasted vegetables and feta. Same aisle, two completely different textures.

Black-Eyed Peas

The good-luck bean. New Year’s Day, a pot of Hoppin’ John, the whole superstition. Their real headline is folate, 184 micrograms, one of the highest here, wrapped around a 205.0 score at 166 calories per 100 grams from dried. They cook fast and stay a little firm, so they shine in a cold marinated salad with diced tomato, red onion, and vinaigrette that only gets better the next day.

Kidney Beans

The classic chili bean, and also the one on this list that comes with a real safety asterisk when it’s raw or undercooked.

Kidney beans score 192.8 at 177 calories per 100 grams, measured from dried with fat added. Cooked properly they’re a workhorse. Raw or undercooked, they’re a different story, and this is the one safety fact I want everyone to walk away with.

The one bean warning worth knowing: Raw kidney beans carry a natural toxin called phytohaemagglutinin (PHA). Food-safety authorities including the FDA note that raw beans hold far more of it than fully boiled ones, and eating even a small handful of raw or undercooked beans can trigger nausea and vomiting within a few hours.

The fix is easy: give them a hard, rolling boil before you do anything else. And skip cooking dried kidney beans in a slow cooker on their own, because it may never get hot enough to knock the toxin out. Canned beans are already fully cooked, so none of this applies to them.

Once they’re properly cooked, load them into a three-bean chili or a rajma over rice and forget the drama entirely.

Split Peas

Bottom of the list, and I’ll defend them anyway. A score of 152.9 sounds like a loss until you remember these turn into dinner for about a dollar a bag. Measured from dried with a little fat, they run 168 calories per 100 grams and stick to your ribs.

They fall apart when you cook them. That’s the point. Simmer them with smoked paprika and a bay leaf, or push them into a thick dal over rice.

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Why beans make you gassy (and the actual fix)

Time for the question everyone’s too polite to ask out loud.

Beans are high in a fiber-type carb called GOS (galacto-oligosaccharides). Your small intestine can’t break it down, so it travels to your colon, where gut bacteria ferment it and produce gas. That’s the whole mechanism. It’s not a flaw in you, it’s chemistry.

The easiest fix costs nothing: drain and rinse your canned beans, and toss the soaking water from dried ones. Ditching that liquid carries off a meaningful share of the GOS, which is often enough to take the edge off. Building up your bean intake slowly helps too. If beans reliably wreck you no matter what, that’s worth asking your doctor about rather than something a food article should diagnose. 

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Edamame

Yep. The bar snack. The thing you squeeze out of the pod and eat by the fistful is the healthiest bean on this entire board.

Edamame tops the ranking at 287.8, clear of every classic pantry bean, and its standout number is folate at a huge 286 micrograms, far above the rest of the field. All that for 140 calories per 100 grams cooked.

And you basically can’t overthink it. Steam the pods, hit them with flaky salt, eat. Or shell them into a grain bowl, a stir-fry, or a bright edamame and mint smash on toast.

The tastiest bean to eat mindlessly is also the one that wins on paper. That almost never happens.

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I left out a few beans that I don't eat myself. After all, this blog is a reference that I hope will be around when I forget these details. I did edit the original article.

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Written bySarah Rose Levy Covering vegetarian food, restaurants, and grocery finds across the U.S.

Pardon me, I'll be in the kitchen

 

I  haven't had a slow cooker in a while. Then Prime did it's special sales days, and I had a gift certificate which covered all but $3 of this gadget. Now I even have a pressure cooker, which can make yogurt too. Thanks to family who really gave it to me as a birthday present.

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I had a great talk with our new UU minister, Rev. Jamie Boyce. It was kind of personal, but also I needed to find some helpers, so she channeled me towards the right people. I think I'd rather try a new mechanic for my old car based on their recommendations rather than FaceBook.

Nobel winners find light responsive cells in algae that may help brains

I find some science interesting to consider, from a creative viewpoint. I've been having some eye difficulty, and have a friend with another eye problem. Just saying, I'm interested in vision in a new way these days. So this article caught my attention. 

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 How pond algae led to a Nobel prize and a new way to study the brain

Published: October 5, 2026 in The Conversation

Scientists who worked out how to control brain cells with light have won this year’s Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were honoured for their research into “light-gated ion channels and optogenetics”.

Peter Hegemann, at Humboldt University of Berlin, and Georg Nagel, at the University of Würzburg, wanted to understand how a tiny, single-celled alga called Chlamydomonas senses light. Light-sensing is not unique to animals with eyes: organisms throughout the living world use light to detect their surroundings and respond to changes in their environment. Even single-cell organisms have proteins that respond to light. These proteins are used to move towards or away from light, to generate energy and to respond to the various demands of a 24-hour day.

Hegemann and Nagel discovered that Chlamydomonas has a beautifully ingenious mechanism of light detection that relies on a single protein called channelrhodopsin.

Channelrhodopsin is built into the outer membrane of the algal cell. Part of the protein faces the water outside the cell and part faces the inside. The protein also contains a small molecule called retinaldehyde, which is able to absorb light.

When light hits the retinaldehyde inside channelrhodopsin, it changes shape. This makes the channelrhodopsin protein change shape too. That change opens a tiny passage through the cell membrane. Positively charged particles, including sodium, can then flow from the water outside the alga into the cell. This movement of charged particles sends a signal inside the alga that helps it swim.

How fantastic to have solved such an interesting biological question, but why the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine? The answer lies in the way nerve cells work. Nerve cells use the movement of charged particles (called “ions”) across their membranes to control their activity. When positively charged particles flow into a nerve cell, they can make it more active.

The researchers realised that if they could put channelrhodopsin into nerve cells, they might be able to switch those cells on simply by shining a light on them. That is exactly what Hegemann, Nagel and the third Nobel-prize winner, Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and bioengineer at Stanford University in California, went on to do.

Switching on nerve cells with light

The ability to control nerve cells with light is called optogenetics. It has become a powerful research tool because scientists can use it to switch specific groups of nerve cells on and off and see what happens.

First, scientists deliver the gene for channelrhodopsin to the nerve cells they want to study. The gene is usually carried into the cells by a virus that has been altered so that it cannot cause disease. The cells then make the channelrhodopsin protein, which makes them respond to light.

In animals such as mice, scientists can shine light into the brain through a thin optical fibre. When the light reaches the cells, channelrhodopsin opens and the cells become active. Nearby nerve cells that do not contain the protein are unaffected.

Light can be aimed at a very small part of the brain and switched on and off extremely quickly. This makes optogenetics a powerful way to investigate how the brain works. For example, if scientists want to know whether a particular group of nerve cells is involved in memory, sleep, sensation or movement, say, they can switch those cells on with light and see what happens.

In one experiment in 2012, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave mice a mild electric shock in a particular cage. They used optogenetics to tag the nerve cells in the brain’s memory centre that were active during that the fear-conditioning experiment. Days later, in a different cage, they switched those cells on with light. The mice froze in fear, as if they remembered the shock.

Mice that were not shocked did not freeze, which showed that the light was reactivating a specific memory. Deisseroth was one of the study’s authors.

Optogenetics has transformed scientists’ ability to investigate how the brain and nervous system work. It may also have a future as a treatment. Optogenetics is already in early-stage clinical trials for people with retinal degeneration. In these trials, researchers introduce light-sensitive proteins into nerve cells that remain in the retina after the cells that normally detect light – called rods and cones – have been lost. This can make surviving cells respond to light and restore some vision.

Researchers are also investigating whether optogenetics could eventually be used to treat neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s and epilepsy.

This year’s Nobel prize celebrates work that started with a question that may sound esoteric: how do Chlamydomonas swim toward light? This question has no obvious practical importance. It doesn’t address an urgent need in human health, nor is it a clear route to riches. The success of optogenetics is an illustration of the importance of continuing to ask questions simply to understand the world around us because it’s impossible to predict where knowledge will take us.

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, winners of the 2026 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. 

Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach, CC BY

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