Rare sharp clarity
While "physics" and "social" "science" have descended into vile genocide and holocaustery, destroying truth and logic and life and science and the whole fucking universe, agriculture remains generally sane.

A routine study of grasslands and insects was aimed at improving our understanding of insect preferences. Important for farmers who want to control insects, and for farmers who want to increase pollinators. The study focused on the availability of SALT in the soil of Okla prairies, comparing grazed vs ungrazed grasslands. Grazed lands have extra salt from cow piss. It turns out that bugs gravitate to a salt lick just as cows do.

Here's a wonderfully clear and ILLUMINATING statement of a basic fact, probably common knowledge among agronomists, but NOT part of common wisdom. I'd never thought about it before.

Sodium is relatively unique among the elements in that it is required by all animals, but not used by plant life. Sodium is a critical nutrient for animal cell membrane functions while sodium is generally a stressor for plants. In other words, plants don't need salt and plant eaters do.

I love illumination, clarity and terseness. This paragraph hits a home run.

A big H/T to author Ellen Welti.

This fact leads to an obvious recommendation that I've never heard before. Vegans SHOULD eat more salt than carnies, and vegans CAN eat more salt than carnies. I've been partially or entirely non-carny for most of my adult life, so I've read and heard the usual advice. This isn't part of it. Online advice says that vegans should try to use iodized salt but doesn't say more salt.

It also leads to a speculation. Does this explain why most plants moved onto land, while most phyla of animals remained in the ocean, and some mammals returned to the ocean?

= = = = =

Later random thought: Hunters sometimes use salt to attract deer. The above article is proposing the same technique for hunting insects.

Why don't we have bug shooting as a hobby? Seems like an interesting challenge for artisanal gunsmiths. Make slugs and barrels small enough and accurate enough to take down a marauding mosquito.
  ¶ 2:14 PM