Yes

Diquat bonds strongly to mineral and organic particles in soil and water, where it remains without significant degradation for years. However, bound to clays, diquat is biologically inactive at the concentrations typically observed in agricultural soils.

Unfortunately, the “just don’t eat it” idea doesn’t work so well when it persists in the environment for so long

This isn’t exactly a comprehensive literature review, and totally misunderstands what a LLM is and does

Did you read the article, or is this just a hot take on the headline

The federal government has been dismantling weather systems left and right. Those systems could have given valuable minutes of warning. Flash floods do happen, but even 10 minutes of warning can pretty much save everyone.

All this is true

The reason they did not have this warning is because of Donald Trump. And then after him every single republican politician.

This is not clear. What does a warning from the NWS look like? Because they issued them:

At 4:06 a.m. the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio posted on X: “A very dangerous flash flooding event is ongoing.” It ended: “Turn Around, Don’t Drown!”

Then, at 5:15 a.m. the National Weather Service San Angelo posted on X that there was a flash flood emergency. The Austin/San Antonio office posted on its X account about the emergency at 5:23 a.m. This type of alert is “exceedingly rare” and used when there is a “severe threat to human life and catastrophic damage,” according to the National Weather Service.

But how does this message get to people who are asleep? The best answer is the Wireless Emergency Alert system. I haven’t seen any information one way or the other indicating whether this system was activated in a timely manner. If it wasn’t, that was a serious mistake that costed lives.

Let me be clear that cuts to the NWS are going to end up costing lives. There is no doubt about that. But I think it’s important to understand the reality of a situation rather than reflexively blaming Trump

Edit to add the NYT is reporting on specific vacancies at the local NWS offices that were dedicated to communicating with local officials. Probably a serious contributing factor here to the word taking longer to get out

I very much agree

Unfortunately, even with better forecasting, it wouldn’t have been possible to predict exactly how much rain was going to fall or where in a storm like this, but just two days before all this started, they were literally predicting sunshine this weekend in Central Texas.

There’s a huge element of randomness in this kind of storm, where one area gets 15+" of rain while 30 miles away they only get 3", but a warning that excessive localized rainfall was a possibility would’ve been helpful.

I also blame the local government. Central Texas is flash flood central due to our geography, and all local governments should have emergency preparedness plans to send out push notifications to people in their areas. This all went down in the middle of the night and happened so fast that the local government got caught totally off guard though

I’m right there with you as far as how our government is functioning on the whole, but everything I see indicates state and federal officials are taking this one seriously. Remember, this threatens the beef and dairy industries, which are not exactly politically passive

There was an outbreak in Florida in 2016, which was quickly contained. We know how to stop it. They used to be widespread across all of North America

But right after it mentions supply chain issues, it talks about unauthorized migration through the Darien Gap and the illegal cattle trade in Central America. Just saying, criticize where it’s due, and Trump’s due criticism for almost everything he’s done, but this problem is complex and exists independently of him and independently of the United States

I’m not saying they didn’t do damage, but did they cut funding for this? There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that. There was an outbreak in Florida in 2016 before the 2022 outbreak

No concrete reason for the northward spread has been given, and Dr. Chancey said it is likely “multifactorial.” She noted that surveillance of NWS is limited in hard-to-reach areas across Central America, and livestock often are transported through unmonitored or insufficient checkpoints.

but that was cut as part of the “government efficiency” fiasco

I hate Elon, Trump, DOGE, and MAGA as much as the next comrade, but I have seen no evidence this is the case. Where did you get this from?

This article also makes this sound like a brand new endeavor, as if this hasn’t been an ongoing project for 70 years now

I’m increasingly convinced that this is yet another in a series of moves overtly intended to destroy the federal government’s legitimacy.

This has been the Republican game since Reagan

Many paper wasps have very painful stings. Red hornets and yellow jackets are just two species of paper wasps

They are! Those are all paper wasps, which feed on nectar in addition to other insects, like caterpillars.

Nope, there are thousands of native wasp species in North America. Most of them are small, have no stinger, and are vegetarian. You might glance at them and think they’re flies. There are tens of thousands of plant species that rely on them for pollination.

Honey bees, on the other hand, are actually invasive in North America after they were imported from Europe.

It should be noted that most wasps are vital pollinators

6/21 was a Saturday, 6/30 was a Monday

We still have all of July, August and September and most of October to go…