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+---
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+title: Existential Threat of Cheetos
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+slug: existential-threat-cheetos
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+description: Today I learned that Cheetos are an existential threat to humanity.
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+<!--- authors:
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+ - name: David Windham
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+ title: Something Else
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+ url: https://davidawindham.com
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+ image_url: https://davidawindham.com/wp-content/themes/daw/img/opengraph_image.jpg -->
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+tags: [nature, health]
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+image: https://davidawindham.com/wp-content/themes/daw/img/opengraph_image.jpg
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+hide_table_of_contents: true
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+---
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+
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+Today I learned that Cheetos are an existential threat to humanity.
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+
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+<!--truncate-->
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+
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+I mentioned this to my better half this morning after seeing a river otter in our backyard pond. I've seen him or her a couple times before, but this time out of the water which makes it much easier to confirm. She reminded me that our home owners association had previously trapped one in an effort to trap beavers and so we started looking up their benefits to the ecosystem in an effort to discourage it since it's fun to watch the river otters play from my hammock.
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+
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+And while doing so I was reminded of a couple recent headlines and conversations about the complexity of our ecosystems. I recently two articles on bats and just put the two together for the headline here. The first described the serious impact the a bag of dropped Cheetos has on the bat population in Carlsbad Caverns[^1] and the second referenced a recent study linking child deaths to the aforementioned bat fungus[^2]. The study found that US counties with healthy bat populations have an 8% lower infant mortality rate.
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+
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+Not that we didn't already know that Cheetos are pretty much toxic... monosodium glutamate,tert-Butylhydroquinone, Butylated hydroxytoluene, silicon dioxide, guanylate and disodium inosinate? I mean come on... and that's aside from the fact that they cause heart disease. The flaming hot version that keeps sending folks to emergency rooms and that's not even the reason California is banning them in schools[^3].
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+
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+I don't really think Cheetos are an immediate existential threat to humanity as much as our own stupidity which might as well be represented by a bag of Cheetos. It's a delicate balance and there are an assortment of associations such as that people born in cicada years have lower test scores and were more likely to drop out of school and that the collapse of India's vulture population may have cause half a million human deaths. Even knowing all of this won't stop me from eating a bag of Cheetos.
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+
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+Our neighbors just laid out fresh sod and we discussed the fact that it's tough to maintain without herbicides. I've been threatening my wife with the cost of new sod or our neighbors with a native pollinator lawn since we've gone herbicide free and I'm mostly cultivating crabgrass now. It's been hard for me to do given my propensity towards tidiness but I like the challenge.
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+
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+I'm sure my little otter friend is carrying plenty of unwanted parasites. We just recently got our Covid boosters since we've seen the uptick in cases in our area. Although zoonisis[^4] spurred the very first vaccine against smallpox, it's also the cause of a host of other viruses. The balancing act in nature is infinite and, understanding my own stupidity, I mostly just don't want to upset it. And hopefully I'll remember this next time I go to open a bag of Cheetos.
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+
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+
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+---
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+
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+[^1]: _US cave system’s bats and insects face existential threat: discarded Cheetos_ - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/10/cheetos-carlsbad-caverns-national-park
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+[^2]: _Loss of bats to lethal fungus linked to 1,300 child deaths in US, study says_ - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/05/loss-of-bats-to-lethal-fungus-linked-to-1300-child-deaths-in-us-study-says-aoe
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+[^3]: _California is cracking down on Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Twinkies_ - https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/29/california-flamin-hot-cheetos-twinkies-ban-00176816#:~:text=The%20California%20Legislature%20just%20passed,Twinkies%20and%20other%20fluorescent%20snacks.
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+[^4]: Zoonosis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis
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+
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