If starry space no limit knows

Plant of the Day

Friday 17 July 2026

Known for being a cut-flower Anemone coronaria cultivars (garden anemone, florist anemone, poppy windflower, St Brigid's anemone) come in a range of colours including red, pink, violet-blue and white; there are also single and double-flowered varieties. This tuberous perennial thrives in a moist but well-drained soil, in partial shade.

It harms your lungs and it’s especially bad for children (and pets!) or anyone with health problems. There are all kinds of chemicals in that smoke. It’s not only trees that are burning. The heat already makes it harder to breath. This makes it worse.

If any of you are experiencing it, feel free to tell about it in the comments. 💚

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

Philip Prospero, Prince of Asturias, 1659 (aged 2) by Diego Velazquez

This is an example of boy dressed in gowns in the first few years of his life. The more formal of the gowns that children of both sexes wore were based on the fashionable gowns that grown women of the period wore. It can be tricky to tell the difference between girls and boys in portraits, but boys' gowns were often plainer and less decorated, and they might be shown with accessories, toys, or pets meant to declare their gender.

Wikipedia says, "the painting directly admits the little boy's precarious health: from strings criss-crossing his chest and waist hang metal bells and at least two protective lucky amulets, a cornicello, and on the string across his left shoulder hangs a black object, likely a fig-hand carved of jet. By contrast, nearly thirty years earlier, Velazquez painted a robust Balthasar Charles at age two or three with a staff, sword, exuberant sash and plumed hat." You can see Balthasar Charles's portrait here, and I would note that it also includes a gorget, a piece of armor that goes around the throat. Very masculine!

Here is another portrait of Philip Prosper after he was "breeched", or transitioned from skirts to breaches.

Myne it's an England thing but I've just grabbed the closest things to me and they both have an extensive list of ingredients.

Hand cream

Turkish delight/Chocolate

from label 1:

in the US and EU, this is a generic term meaning "something we put in here to make it smell nice" and there is absolutely NO way of knowing if that is a scent you are allergic to or not. some of these can be a mix of up to 200 distinct components.

from label 2:

i think you can probably see the problem here?

Both "Parfum/fragrance" and "flavourings" are often derived from petroleum! There is an entire field of chemistry just for formulating these products!

Below are a couple of screenshots from SpecialChem (link here) about their entry for "Parfum (Fragrance)":

And likewise for their entry on "Flavoring Agents":

Note how it's blurred out if you don't have an account! This is because these are trade secrets.

These trade secrets are still processed, predominantly, from petroleum.

Why is this?

Because the petroleum industry is absolutely massive, and the extraction of crude oil produces products that are not just vehicle fuels such as gasoline (for others: Benzin; products such as jet fuel fall under this classification), but also plastic, many esters on the market, and even pharmaceuticals or chemical reagents used to produce other molecules!

This is, incidentally, why the regulations on naming conventions and even a minimum quantity requirement to include an ingredient on an ingredient list are so stringently debated.

Further Reading

Medication on Wikipedia

Environmental impact of pharmaceuticals and personal care products on Wikipedia

PDF ANALYTICAL METHODS AND TECHNIQUES APPLIED TO CRUDE OIL AND PETROLEUM PRODUCTS by James G. Speight, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems

PDF Black Gold in Medicine: Rediscovering the Pharmacological Potential by Ulduz Hashimova et al., Molecules, 2026

PDF Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Petrochemistry: Exploring Their Interconnection by Caldwell JR Caldwell, Industrial Chemistry, 2025

What Petrochemicals Are Used in Pharmaceuticals? on ChemBridges, 2024