3/27/26 - Hacks, Fish Meat, and Space Potatoes

Friday 3/27/26 

Celebrate:

Celebrate Exchange Day

International Whisky Day

National Joe Day

National Scribble Day

National Spanish Paella Day

No Homework Day

Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day

World Theatre Day

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No Kings Day protests are tomorrow.

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Dash Crofts, best known for creating the 1972 hit song, "Summer Breeze," as a member of Seals & Croft, has died at 85.

Seals & Crofts’ biggest projects also included 1971’s “Year of Sunday,” 1973’s “Diamond Girl,” and 1976’s “Get Closer." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQQbjpomexo

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What’s a small life hack that works every time? What the internet said:

• Don’t just set it down. Put it away.

• Do things today that make life easier for you tomorrow.

• When you walk room-to- room, take something with you. Something that’s misplaced, trash, dishes, laundry, etc. Full hands in, full hands out.

• The five-minute rule. If you need to do something but feel lazy, set a five minute timer on your phone and just start. By the time the timer goes off you’ll probably want to keep going.

• Do a 60 second tidy before leaving the house. It really makes a difference coming home to less junk laying all over the place. It’s amazing what one can put away in 60 seconds.

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A team of researchers from China explored the question: What if our clothes could be washed without detergent?

Researchers introduced a versatile self-cleaning fabric coating that could eliminate the need for detergents in everyday laundry. They created a dense hydration layer that allows dirt and microbes to be washed away using only water.

The coating remained effective for over 100 wash cycles, and it made laundry quicker and reduced water and electricity consumption by ~82%.

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The future of fish is looking a lot like… salami? And meatballs. And fried chicken. And breakfast sausage. And, of course, spareribs and burgers. This is America, after all.

Here's the headline - The seafood industry bets Americans will finally eat more fish if it looks more like meat.

“Our Taiwanese magic is making tuna taste like fried chicken,” said Jack Chi, a spokesman for Tuna Fresh, a Taiwan-based company that sells tuna as fried “nuggets” and breaded chicken-tender-like strips. “We wanted to be able to engage in the U.S. market, and we found that fried foods are the way.” (and this is a sad commentary on our food)

Americans have a notoriously limited appetite for seafood, consuming just about 19 pounds a year -- a number that has budged only a bit in a century -- most of it as shrimp and salmon. The global average is 45 pounds, while some European countries clock in closer to 90 pounds. Iceland leads everyone with around 200 pounds per year.

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NASA astronaut Don Pettit grew potatoes aboard the International Space Station during Expedition 72, and the internet is losing its mind. He nicknamed his crop "Spudnik-1"—a clever play on Sputnik—and shared photos of an "early purple potato" with bizarre, alien-like root growth growing in all directions due to zero gravity.

Social media reactions ranged from "I thought this was an egg hatching" to "Kill it with fire!!!" Pettit explained that potatoes are one of the most efficient plants for space nutrition, giving a nod to The Martian.

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Late-night host and noted Tolkien superfan Stephen Colbert is taking his fandom to the next level. Colbert is set to appear in an upcoming "Lord of the Rings" film project, marking his next venture into Middle-earth . Details on the project remain under wraps, but given Colbert's encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien's work, fans are eager to see what role he'll play 

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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - That specific "old book" smell has a scientific name: Bibliosmia. It’s caused by the chemical breakdown of compounds in the paper, which releases hints of vanilla, almond, and grass.