C8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 , 2019
ACROSS
1 Cuba, por
ejemplo
5 Uncanny
10 Hard-to-
describe
sensation
14 Évian evening
15 Levels of society
16 A party to
17 Facial feature
with a bridge
18 MI5 headquar-
ters named for a
London river
20 From Canada’s
capital
22 Genre that
represents
things as
they are
23 TV show intro
tune
26 Asian kebab
27 “Who wants my
jellyfish? / I’m
not sellyfish!”
poet
28 Seeker of
“the way”
31 Door hardware
33 Amount defined
by a small
sewing gadget
37 Play a part (in)
38 Boardroom VIP
40 The Beatles’
“ Mine”
41 Santa winds
42 Boss Tweed’s
caricaturist
46 Splash sound
47 On the same
wavelength
48 Meticulous
to a fault
50 Humana rival
53 Pushed-in
bulletin board
hardware
57 Stars and __
60 Dragster, e.g.
61 Bouquet garni
bunch
64 Maggie
Simpson’s sister
65 Avatar of Vishnu
66 Chef’s array
67 Browse
(through)
68 What “lama”
has, as opposed
to “llama”
69 Implant (in)
70 Type of prof.
DOWN
1 Childish
comeback
2 Truth, to
Shakespeare
3 Hears out
4 Tourist’s guide
5 Prefix with
centric
6 Historic time
span
7 Los Angeles
NFLer
8 Old Roman road
9 Let up
10 Break, as laws
11 Aleut relative
12 __ nova:
Brazilian dance
13 Foe
15 Hidden loot
19 Red tape, e.g.
21 Director Craven
24 Utmost degree
25 Moo goo __ pan
29 Fail to include
30 “Big Blue”
31 Bowler or derby
32 Otto’s “Oh!”
33 Theater award
named after
Antoinette Perry
34 Misconceptions35 Game with Wild
Draw Four cards
36 Drink like a cat
38 Savory finger
food
39 Wits’ end?
43 Least possible
44 Tiny army
crawler
45 It might be
elementary:
Abbr.46 Kneecap
48 Stockpile
49 “Will & Grace”
network
50 The Jetsons’
dog
51 Wharton’s
“__ Frome”
52 “I’m almost
afraid to tell
you” response
54 Encouraged55 Barcelona
abodes
56 Cheez Whiz
maker
58 In __: existing
59 Inbox
annoyance
62 Spice mix
for ribs
63 Limited-life
sculpture
materialLA TIMES CROSSWORD By Craig StoweMONDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION© 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 8/6/19kidspost
TODAY’S NEWSPresident Trump said Monday that
he wants a law providing “strong back-
ground checks” for gun users, but he
provided no details, and he has not
followed through on previous promis-
es to strengthen gun laws.
Shootings in El Paso, Texas, and
Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend left
31 dead and dozens wounded. Trump
tweeted Monday that a background-
check bill could be paired with his
effort to toughen the nation’s immi-
gration system.
But he didn’t say how or why he was
connecting the two issues. Two sus-
pects in the shootings are U.S. citizens.
Congress has proved unable to pass
substantial gun-violence legislation
this session, despite several mass
shootings, partly because of resistance
from Republicans.
In March, a poll by the Associated
Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs
Research found that a majority of
Americans favor stricter gun laws. Six-
ty-seven percent of Americans sup-
port making U.S. gun laws stricter,
while 22 percent say they should be
left as they are, and 10 percent think
they should be made less strict.
— Associated PressMARK RALSTON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
A memorial outside a Walmart
honors the victims of a shooting
Saturday that left 22 people dead.Trump backs gun
background checks
CHIP SAYS
A mosquito’s average life span is two weeks
to six months, depending on the species.
There are more than 3,000 mosquito species.TODAY
Partly sunny skies, hot with high
temperatures near 90 degrees, and
small chance of rain later in the day.KIDSPOST.COM
Atlantic puffins are likely to
set a record for the number
of breeding pairs, an Audubon
ILLUSTRATION BY TESSA JOHNSON, 6, ARLINGTON Society scientist says.Whether you’re playing
soccer at the park, hiking
in the woods or taking a
walk along the beach,
everyone knows the tiny
buzz next to your ear
means that a mosquito is
probably near. But have you ever
wondered how an insect no bigger than
a pea is able to track you down?
Mosquitoes don’t just use one sense to
look for dinner. They have evolved a sort
of Swiss Army knife of tools that tells
them when fresh blood is close by.
“The first thing is that they smell us,”
said Clément Vinauger, a scientist who
studies mosquitoes at Virginia Tech.
When humans and other animals
breathe, they exhale a gas called carbon
dioxide, and mosquitoes have sensors
that can detect this scent, like a pie
cooling on a windowsill.
Mosquitoes also have eyes that can
see shades of black and white, as well as
movement. Still more sensors allow the
insects to zero in on heat.
“The thing is, we didn’t know how
they combined all of this information in
their brain so that it made sense to
them,” Vinauger told KidsPost.
That is, until Vinauger and his team
started performing experiments on live
mosquitoes.
With a setup that is part virtual
reality and part flight simulator, the
scientists let mosquitoes fly inside a
chamber that offered them different
sights and smells and then recorded
how they reacted. They also created tiny
plastic mosquito helmets that provided
images of the insect’s brains, giving
insight into how they think.
The result? Vinauger said that when a
mosquito gets a whiff of carbon dioxide,
the smelling part of its brain begins to
send messages to the visual part telling
it to be on the lookout for food.
On the other hand, if the mosquito
doesn’t first smell something yummy, it
doesn’t waste time looking for a meal.
The two senses go hand in hand, in
other words.
Amazingly, mosquitoes can learn
from their experiences.
In another study, Vinauger found that
mosquitoes can smell the difference
between someone who is sleeping and
someone who is awake and trying to
swat them. And when he offered a
choice between the two smells 24 hours
later, the bloodsuckers were smartenough to choose the easier, sleeping
target.
Now most people are probably not
going to read this and fall in love with
mosquitoes. But at the very least,
perhaps we should give this insect a
little more respect than we do.
After all, when mosquitoes bite us, it’s
nothing personal. Mosquitoes requireprotein so they can create eggs, which is
why only the females drink blood.
(Males eat plant sap and nectar.) And
every time that momma mosquito goes
on the hunt, she risks her life for the
sake of the next generation.
Think about that the next time you
feel the urge to swat.
[email protected]As they search for food, mosquitoes are itching to use their senses
Ever
Wondered?
JASON BITTEL
JAMES GATHANY/CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A mosquito gets blood from a human. Only females consume blood, and they use more than one sense to find it. For example,
when the insect smells carbon dioxide breathed from a human, the visual part of its brain is alerted to look out for food.Adapted from a
recent online
discussion.Dear Carolyn:
Like that New
Yorker cartoon
about a guy
making plans —
“How about never
— is never good for you?” — I
find myself in a pickle. A
longtime friend lives with a man
who makes my skin crawl for
many reasons — financial
vampire on her, drinks too
much, always in a sour mood,
always fighting with her family
— but most of all, it’s hard to
watch her bend over backward
to “make” him happy when he
does zippo for her. Every few
months, she will want me and
my husband to meet them
halfway between our cities for
lunch or go to their apartment
for dinner and stay overnight.
I know I can’t change her
choice in men or make her go to
therapy to discern why she
chose this guy, but I’m running
out of excuses for why we can
never get together. I’m also not
sure what to say when she says
none of our mutual friends ever
visits — they feel as we do about
her beau.
I try to see her solo for brunchonce a month to make sure she’s
okay, but otherwise, I dread
having the “couples date” convo
when it crops up. Advice?
— Never Is Good for MeNever Is Good for Me: Is there
any reason not to say to her, at
this point, next time she
complains that none of your
mutual friends ever visits: “I
can’t speak for anyone else, but I
have my own reason. Would you
like to hear it?”
And then if she says yes, to
tell her you are not comfortable
with X, with X representing the
least subjective of the
complaints you have about her
boyfriend.
For example, “He makes my
skin crawl” is about as
subjective as it gets, but “He has
at least six drinks at a clip and
then gets belligerent” is a matter
of fact. Stick to facts so she
doesn’t have room to rationalize
it into your problem — even
though she might still try to,
since that’s the nature of the
denial beast.
Make sure you include
assurances of your commitment
to your friendship and your
openness to another
interpretation of what you’ve
witnessed.
If you’re not doing thisalready, then please keep an eye
out for signs she’s unhappy. The
main reason is maybe not as
obvious as it’s going to sound:
Her boyfriend may be terrible,
but if she is happy, then it’s not
really anyone’s place to object to
her taste in men. There’s no
saying, really, what works for
someone else.
You can keep saying no to her
invitations, of course, but
otherwise it’s appropriate to
leave a peaceful friend to her
choices.
The other reason is that if she
is showing signs of distress,
talking about those directly is a
lot more productive than
criticizing the guy, which tends
only to make people defensive.
An “I noticed you’ve seemed
stressed lately about [fact-based
item here] — are you okay?” can
end up being the dots she needs
to start making important
connections.
Your brunches are ideal for
this, not to mention a
compassionate way to stay close.Write to Carolyn Hax at
[email protected]. Get her
column delivered to your inbox each
morning at wapo.st/haxpost. Join the discussion live at noon
Fridays at live.washingtonpost.com.A friend dates the elephant in the room
Carolyn
HaxNICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST