In a lot of languages the word for apple used to refer to all kinds of fruits, particularly new ones from more or less exotic lands. Pineapples also don’t look much like apples, do they?

The “among other things” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Developmental biology seems much more relevant to this case.

Ironic.

Patriotism, as long as it stays just that, is probably not going to do much damage. It’s just kind of there and annoying, but not directly dangerous. But it is still a ridiculous concept to be proud of the arbitrarily drawn lines within which you were born, and being loyal to them simply because you were born there. That doesn’t mean you can’t like your country and want it to prosper. But emotional attachment to and positive attitudes towards a nation by default is cringe at best. Praise a country if it does something good and critisize it if it fucks up. But why would you give one country special treatment there? And patriotism is never far from being exploited and turned into nationalism at the slightest inconvenience. Sometimes, it doesn’t even take an inconvenience, as evidenced by football right now.

One is cancerous, the other is a benign tumor (for now).

I don’t really think of songs as girl songs or boy songs. That being said, I guess La vie en rose by Edith Piaf, I guess? Nothing secret about it, though.

Also, no secret in me liking I want it that way. Never told anyone, but that’s because nobody ever asked me.

It’s just a phase. Once Big Dental has used him up until he burns out, he’ll do the most degrading painting work. If he’s lucky, and doesn’t end up in shoe cleaning or worse.

That mentions something about the Amber codon, maybe that’s it.

It’s useful for lab applications, that’s not the part I’m worried about.