Washing your produce, Google Maps tricks, and a good TSA dog's goodbye: Lifestyle news roundup

A recent analysis from advocacy organization Consumer Reports is the latest to highlight the potential threat of pesticides in our produce. It suggests that around 20% of commonly sold fruits and vegetables in the U.S. could contain unsafe levels of pesticides. Given that concerning news, you might be wondering how to lessen your risk of exposure. Rinsing produce under the tap is a common practice, but does it actually remove significant amounts of pesticide residue? Here’s what the research suggests.

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A retired Pennsylvania school teacher got an opportunity to move to the Philippines to teach English. After failing to offload his old pickup truck online, in an effort to sell everything off before moving, Will Cramer decided to throw a For Sale sign in the window to let passersby know it was on the market. One day his 1987 Chevrolet had a ticket under the wiper stating he’d run afoul of a local ordinance forbidding “parking a vehicle in public for the purposes of selling it.”

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Urban exploration is one of the coolest hobbies out there. It gives folks a new perspective on the cities where they live, and uncovers secrets long buried. But what do you do when you run out of urban environments to explore? When your city holds no more secrets to reveal? Well, you sneak onto an abandoned Soviet aircraft carrier kept under guard in China. Obviously.

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I have always used Google Maps but never cared enough to look beyond the basic features. It wasn’t until today that I made an effort to explore the app and ended up going down a rabbit hole of all the cool things it’s capable of. You might already know some of these, but you might have missed a handful of interesting hidden features.

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Game emulation has been a tried and true pastime on PCs and Macs for a while now, but it’s a whole new frontier for folks who are only used to their regular, unmodified iPhone. Apple updated its rules earlier this month, and now there’s a building wave of old console emulators streaming onto iOS. If you’re getting ready to surf the wave and it’s your first time on a board, you might need a quick rundown of just what you’re getting into.

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When it comes to actually saving money on gas, you’re going to be better off in the long run buying the most fuel-efficient vehicle that you can. If it also happens to cost a lot to fill up, who cares? The amount of money you spend in a year is much more important than how much it costs to fill up at the pump. All that really means is that you bought a car with a big gas tank.

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Unlike its predecessor Curiosity, NASA’s Perseverance rover is explicitly intended to “search for potential evidence of past life,” according to the official mission objectives.

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The year is 2024 and technology is doing incredible things. For the first time ever, you can purchase a walking robot dog with a flame thrower on its back. Yes, the Thermonator, which was announced late last year, is finally available for purchase in the United States. Shockingly, the product can be yours for a mere $9,420 — which is a lot of money but still seems like a weirdly low price for a fire-breathing robot. I’m not sure what you’ll do with this fire-spouting contraption once you’ve bought it, but I know one thing: you’ll never, ever, ever use it to cause anyone any problems, right?

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One of the Transportation Safety Administration’s “bomb-sniffing” dogs at Reagan National Airport was thrown a retirement party last week after working his final shift and leaving the force after long years in public service. The golden retriever named Messi has been diligently working for nearly a decade, and now that he’s retired will finally get to spend the rest of his life doing whatever he damn well pleases. Dogs, much like humans, do not dream of labor.

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Food and Drug Administration officials reported this week that lab tests have found genetic material from strains of H5N1 avian influenza in samples of store-bought pasteurized milk. Officials say these samples do not appear to contain live virus and that the commercial milk supply should still be safe. But the results suggest that the virus has spread further across dairy farms than previously indicated.

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