Hello folks who wonder if you can ask for a refund from your therapist if couples therapy does not work,

Humans have a love-hate relationship with a lot of different things: 

Lunch buffets - You devour all the plates but start regretting your decision when you struggle to get out of your seat.

Netflix - You hate watching the average at best episode but then it hooks you with a little cliffhanger forcing you to watch the next episode.

Vehicles - You love the freedom to go anywhere without having to share your seat with a stranger, but you loathe the idea of annual insurance and maintenance.

Drinking - You love lowering your inhibitions and hanging out with people you hate, but you also despise that driving back home is always a challenge due to your impaired vision.


One thing that everyone loves to have some of, but not too much, is sunlight. Sunlight helps regulate our internal clocks, boosts our mood by triggering the release of serotonin, and helps our skin produce vitamin D, which is essential for bone health. Lack of sunlight can cause mood swings, depression, and other issues that people in Seattle often suffer from due to limited sunlight. 

However, too much sunlight can cause sunburn, skin and eye damage, dehydration, and increased risk of skin cancer. But why does that happen? 

Here is why: Imagine a world where everyone is living in harmony with the advent of the internet. If everyone just limits their time online, things move along fine. It's only when there are no limits on how much time one spends on the internet that problems arise - some people get radicalized. These radicals adopt extreme beliefs, then try to fix all the world's problems through violence and overthrowing norms.


In the case of sunlight, too much exposure to sunlight causes one of the atoms who was previously living in harmony with other atoms to get radicalized and break free. This "free radical" as we like to call it then starts to create chaos and disturbs the harmony of other cells. To stop this we use sunscreen to protect our bodies from excessive sunlight or eat foods high in antioxidants to restrict free radicals from causing further damage.


Wow, who knew Karan was a shill for these sunscreen companies.

I am getting to the point. Can you spare a minute so I can explain the relevance of antioxidants. Jeez, people these days have the patience of a puppy waiting to be fed.

One of the things that people love to take photos these days in the South Bay are unique colored ponds. At first I thought this is how rosé wines were fermented.


However, this didn't quite add up, because then you'd just have people going through midlife crises sitting beside these ponds with wine glasses all the time. So I decided to investigate further. Here is what it looks like when you get much closer


This is what it looks like when you collect a sample of this pond.


You can even see the red ponds from satellite imagery of the Bay Area.


Later that evening, I decided to sip some of it along with some brie cheese. (Yeah, I know my food and wine pairings, FYI.) Too salty - I would not pay for this at BevMo! So what gives it that distinct red color?

You see, pink or red colored salt ponds appear only when the salinity levels get really high. At this level, most living things cannot survive. But some organisms take advantage of this moment to establish themselves.

Introducing Dunaliella algae, known for producing large amounts of carotenoids, particularly beta-carotene. This pigment gives them the bright orange-red color.


These carotenoids absorb excess light energy and act as antioxidants to prevent damage to cell structures. Stressors like high light intensity and high salinity cause Dunaliella to produce more carotenoids, influencing the intensity of the orange-red color of the pond.

Observe the two flagella on Dunaliella at 1000x magnification. These assist with locomotion and sensing environmental conditions in the ponds.


Here is one that seemed like it started with the happy hour a little too early in the day.


Dunaliella is used commercially to mass-produce beta-carotene as an antioxidant health supplement and natural orange-red food coloring agent.


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