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Look.

This is a super easy litmus test.

If you are ever talking about someone in the context of human health and nutrition and they make a recommendation for fluoride-free toothpaste, you can dismiss their perspective on all other subjects relating to human health and nutrition.

If someone wants to improve human health but they're willing to profit off of fluoride-free toothpaste, they're either totally unaware of what they're talking about and are therefore not worth listening to, or they're a scammer and are therefore not worth listening to.

Lead Safe Mama sells a bunch of bullshit through Amazon affiliate links, but the easiest one to see right away as the sign of someone who cares more about their money than your health is fluoride-free toothpaste.

"Lead Safe Mama Says" is not a good reason to do anything except ignore whatever instructions follow.

There is definitely reason to be concerned about the lead concentrations in cassava flour, there are a few products that, if consumed daily, would put you at risk of having higher lead levels than recommended by the FDA.

But Lead Safe Mama doesn't bother with the FDA, the difference between the presence of lead and exposure risk, or the way that lead is actually tracked by people who are looking to prevent heavy metal poisoning.

Lead Safe Mama says "there is no safe level of lead according to the WHO." What the WHO means when they say that is is that there is no known safe level of lead in your bloodstream. What LFM means when she says that is "all lead is scary and coming to turn your children into autism zombies."

Lead Safe Mama was also the one who raised a huge stink about lead in Stanley cups and other thermoses a couple of years ago. There is lead in some of those products - it's present in the solder used to seal things and isn't bioavailable. Lead Safe Mama was also the one who was scaremongering about vintage plates. She tests for lead in paint using dubious techniques then over-states the risk of exposure and possible outcomes from exposure. There was a whole tumblr shitpost that went viral about it.

So this post (descriptions in alt):

Is entirely based on reporting by a lady who believes that childhood lead exposure is being misdiagnosed as autism, and claims that explains the current high rate of autism diagnosis. A lady WHO RECOMMENDS NATURAL CHELATION for autistic children when they are too frail for CHEMICAL FUCKING CHELATION.

There's a similar post by the same blogger circulating about this Consumer Report's survey of lead in cassava flour that says that Bob's Red Mill is showing lead levels that is 2343% higher than the Consumer Reports recommended .5 micrograms per adult per day (that .5 microgram number is itself modeled on California Prop 65 standards).

So that's got to be a ton, right, like a crazy amount of lead, right?

Nope. It's 11.715 micrograms.

That is below the 12.5 microgram per day reference value set by the FDA for people who are pregnant or could become pregnant, but definitely higher than the 3microgram per day value set for children. Probably your child should not consume a cup of cassava flour from Bob's Red Mill per day.

One point I'm making here is that actually Bob's Red Mill and Pamela's are actually probably fine with their CA65 warning labels - there's not an absurd risk of high blood lead levels from eating their cassava products.

The other point I'm making here is get this fucking autism mom and her bullshit bad science and her child chelation recommendations and her fluoride free toothpaste off my dash.

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Heyo! Got very distracted with another post of yours, but I was wondering if you had a post busting myths about rabies without the scary misinformation attached?

I'm worried people will take their time to read through all those stories, think they're learning something, and not make it to your addition because the whole post is quite long. Or internalize too much fear and wrong info along the way

Correcting misinformation from the viral “rabies education” post

Hi, my name is Nessie/Lochlan O’Neil and I am a biologist and actual rabies educator and this post is to dispel some misinformation on a viral post about rabies that has been going around since 2018. (You have my full legal name so you know I’m not just some stranger. I also did a rabies and raccoons panel at Dashcon 2)

Myth: “You have to take an anti allergic shot in order to get the vaccine.”

Fact: IDK where this person got that idea, but that is not true. There is an HRIG (human rabies immunoglobulin) shot, but that just gives you immediate immunity to rabies, stopping the virus in your body in its tracks, and gives the rabies shot time to work. It’s fine, it’s not scary. It’s a regular sized needle and a regular sized vaccine, they just break it up into a bunch of little shots around your wound like they do with dry needling.

Myth: You have to get rabies shots in each limb and in your ass.

Fact: The poster who was spreading this information received improper rabies PEP. For one, the guidelines since the 80’s have specifically stated NO RABIES SHOTS IN THE ASS. Second, the shots go around the wound. And now, in 2025, it’s just one shot every few days.

Myth: The rabies vaccine is not as effective for immunocompromised people

Fact: Rabies post exposure treatment is just as effective for immunocompromised individuals. You just have to get one extra shot and you're fine.

Myth: Docility is also a very common symptom of rabies

Fact: Docility in rabies is incredibly rare. In reality, animals that are overly docile are more than likely habituated. Or, if they seem sick, they have distemper. STILL DO NOT TOUCH WILDLIFE.

Myth: Rabies makes raccoons’ eyes glow radioactive green

Fact: Distemper makes raccoons’ eyes glow radioactive green (also, I checked with OP who shared this story in the original post, and it was distemper that raccoon had, not rabies)

Myth: “Literally any wild animal is a rabies vector.”

Fact: While any mammal (and some birds) can get rabies, “rabies vector" is a specific term applied to specific species and varies from place to place. In Alaska, arctic foxes are rabies vectors. In Tennessee, red foxes, skunks, and coyotes are rabies vectors. Animals like rabbits and deer and bears are not rabies vectors. The #1 rabies vector world wide is the domestic dog.

Myth: All you need to do to get rabies is come in contact with an animal's bodily fluids through some open wound.

Fact: This one is kind of true, but only certain bodily fluids like saliva, vaginal fluid, milk, eye gunk, snot, spinal fluid, and brain matter. Rabies cannot be transmitted through blood or urine. You can also get rabies through any hole (including your eyes), not just cuts.

Myth: The paralytic stage of the disease is useless for spreading rabies

Fact: The paralytic stage is very useful for spreading rabies to opossums and other scavengers and is just as contagious as any other stage of the disease.

Myth: Opossums are immune to/are resistant to rabies due to their body temperature.

Fact: Opossums are found rabid just as frequently as most other non-rabies vector species. There is no proof showing any kind of resistance due to their low body temperature. Rabies in opossums is likely under reported due to this myth and the fact that they tend to get paralytic rabies and thus are not out attacking people.

Myth: In all of recorded history, one person survived an infection after she became symptomatic

Fact: Dozens of people have survived rabies after becoming symptomatic. You are talking about Jeanna Giese, and even then, we don't actually know if she or any of the other "survivors" actually had Rabies lyssavirus to begin with. There are many lyssaviruses that cause rabies other than Rabies lyssavirus, and there are lyssaviruses that causes survivable diseases that look just like rabies. Although Jeanna’s CSF tested positive for rabies, the test they ran was unable to distinguish rabies lyssaviruses from other lyssaviruses. Lyssaviruses are also under researched and we are still learning about new ones every year. Like frog “rabies.”

For reference, on the left is American treefrog lyssavirus and the right is Rabies lyssavirus. To the test they would be the same.

Myth: Rabies education comes across your dash “because some fuck up calls themselves Rabiosexual.”

Fact: People who jokingly identify as "rabiosexual" are simply having a silly time and have actually been the most receptive to rabies education. Even if the whole rabiosexual meme didn’t exist, you would still be seeing rabies education because I am a rabies educator and I live on tumblr dot com

Myth: If you see any animal other than a dog who’s been attacked by a porcupine? It’s rabid. everything else in the animal kingdom knows better than to mess with a porcupine, unless their brain is being ravaged by something beyond their control.

Fact: Read the actual study. 3 nonrabid raccoons had quills in their face, five rabid raccoons had quills in their face. Small sample size. Anyway, animals are stupid as hell. Raccoons get drunk on human alcohol for fun.

Myth: As a child, Louis Pasteur watched a man from his hometown die slowly, painfully, and unstoppably from rabies from a rabid wolf bite

Fact: It was a dog. DOMESTIC DOGS are the #1 rabies vector worldwide and remembering this fact keeps people safe.

And remember…

Do not get your rabies education from viral posts made by strangers on tumblr dot com

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Since we're on the topic of rabies, I'm curious: do you think we'll ever be able to eradicate rabies? And if so (or if we could at least take it down to "wow, a case of rabies, it's never rabies, we haven't had a rabid animal in this state for like fifteen years" levels), what do you think would be necessary for us to get there?

I don’t think we’ll ever be able to eradicate rabies due to how good it is at evolving and finding new hosts to become endemic in.

But if we wanted to get further to seeing it vanish?

More funding into Lyssavirus research. Especially in places like India where thousands of people die of rabies each year. We still don’t know what birds can and can’t get rabies, and we are continuously discovering new lyssaviruses and then nothing happens because there is no funding.

Also people need to stop being fucking stupid. The anti vaxxer crowd is jumping on rabies vaccines for their pets now. So that’s bad. And there was that whole situation in Colorado where dog rescuers were offering to take in puppies with rabies so they wouldn’t be put down.

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Oh!

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There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

It probably wouldn't mind.

[i-just-want-to-read-things]

you can't become a gm (game master) until you become a gm (chess grand master), to prove your mastery of games

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In the D&D campaign I'm running with my wife's siblings, one of them learned about how trolls regenerate within minutes of any damage not caused by fire or acid, and then asked why people don't just like. Cage them and eat them, forever. Why there aren't troll meat dungeons in the king's castle as a safeguard against sieges or famines.

And you know, I thought it was a fair question, so I said that if you eat enough troll meat, you start getting troll-y. And then I went further and just treated it like troll flesh is a general contaminant - if you eat enough troll, you'll turn into a troll, but if you bury enough dead troll flesh in a forest, the trees will start growing in strange ways, and will scream and heal and bleed when you hit them with axes.

I liked this idea. So as we played further, I just played around with the idea of Troll Origins, and I came up with something sort of like the Odyssey, but instead stealing Helios's cattle, it was Hathor's, and the horrible, awful, unending immortality was her curse of the army that pillaged her lands. A god of healing does not condemn you to die, she condemns you to live.

And then I got this fun idea for maybe the king that led the army is still kind of alive in the troll taint. Like a sort of literal fisher king. The kingdom is sick because he is, literally, the kingdom. The trees that bleed, bleed his blood and their screams are his screams. He is both the faintly green bear running down the mountain and the faintly green deer and there is no way past this without suffering. He is the entire ecosystem, and he eats nothing but himself and he dreams nothing but death and yet still, on and on and on and on, he lives.

Anyway they're traveling next session so I'm throwing this shit at them. I already have some gross ideas for like. Describing everything like it's a body (flowers red as blood, white as bone, pink as meat, grass fine as hair) then finally throwing horrible living things at them. Trees that grow eyeballs that turn and stare at them, or flowers with teeth instead of petals and trolls that speak in long dead tongues about how they wish they'd never tried to rob a god.

Anyway I'm passing this on because this is my new troll lore and I want it to become canonized in the way that all D&D lore becomes canonized: By having eople read it and go "oh, neat" then start doing that too.

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real wizards don't support transphobes :-)

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People on twitter have been saying this website is extremely white and tbh its making me very curious what the demographics of this site are (of my own reach anyway) so

DISCLAIMER: Race is a non scientific concept with no exact definitions. It is a social construct primarily characterized by how society treats you and thus this is an imperfect poll. If you feel none of the options here reflect you and your experience I implore you to reblog this with your experience as I am curious about that and want to hear about it.

[i-just-want-to-read-things]

Cat and kitten door knocker, Clun, England

This unusual door knocker from Clun, England, features a mother cat carrying her kitten — sculpted in cold, weathered bronze, yet full of tenderness.

Equal parts whimsical, eerie, and adorable, it feels like something out of a forgotten fairytale.

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Latin had six noun cases, but in all Romance languages except Romanian, nouns only have one singular form and one plural form left. What happened? This extra large infographic tells you in ten steps how the Latin case system collapsed – and how the accusative case emerged victorious.

What caused the case system to collapse in the first place? There were multiple factors. Regular sound changes did a lot of damage: many endings had come to be pronounced the same: -ō and -um; -is and -ēs; -us and -ōs; -a, -am and -ā; -e and -em. This obfuscated the system a lot.

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cracking myself up thinking about the movement towards simplified forms in cave paintings

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hah, he’s clearly one of the devs favorite. No, they’ll just keep nerfing the little guys and booting them to “all saints’ day” like that’s enough.

When are they going to nerf him