this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
193 points (99.0% liked)

Today I Learned

30320 readers
834 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

"Alpha-gal syndrome is triggered when a tick bite causes a person’s immune system to develop an allergic reaction to meat, including beef, pork or lamb."

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] stoly@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Ironically they mostly live in and around Texas.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

There's been an entire ass radiolab on this one since a decade ago:

https://radiolab.org/podcast/alpha-gal

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

it's been very well known anywhere within a few states of texas for like a decade, and it's definitely spreading. The US government needs to get it's shit together and then wipe that tick off the face of the map the same way they were handling the screw worm flys and the mosquitoes that carry west nile and the other ones that carry dengu fever.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I dunno. We might find a lot more vegetarians in the future.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago

Imo I think these ticks are cooking and we should breed them and release them into high beef consumption districts.

[–] lemmy_acct_id_8647@lemmy.world 12 points 10 hours ago

It’s been decades in planning by Big Vegan

[–] epicshepich@programming.dev 11 points 11 hours ago

My wife loves beef but if she ever stopped eating it, I would call her my Alpha Gal

[–] chellewalker@lemmy.ca 32 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

My step-dad got bit by one of these. He can only eat chicken now and it sucks.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

huh. i know a dude who got bitten by one and he's had to swear off all meat products, even poultry and fish. he was in cooking school learning vegan cookery when i met him.

[–] BeUnique@lemmy.zip 5 points 8 hours ago

It's so scary that a bite from something the size of a pea can drastically change your life... Does he remember when being bitten and how long it took him to start having side effects?

[–] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] GalacticRobot@lemmy.world 16 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's becoming more common as the carrier ticks are able to expand due to climate change and more people are outdoors. There isn't a good solution/treatment yet either, and it effects people differently. For some it's a 3 month allergy, for many, it's permanent.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Stay inside or douse yourself with cancer chemical bug spray

[–] IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (3 children)

Sunlight is a class 1 carcinogen

almost everything causes cancer, just stop worrying about "carcinogens" and youll be so much happier

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

Yes it does. But thats also a strawman used by large corpos to pour Roundup into our groundwater. Well guess what, we are paying for it now.

[–] 0x0@infosec.pub 2 points 7 hours ago

Sure, and the fish as well while the frogs turn gay

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works -2 points 7 hours ago

Right up until the cancer gets you anyway.

[–] manualoverride@lemmy.world 25 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Somewhere there is a vegan breeding these ticks and laughing maniacally.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 45 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

They wouldnt be too smart if they were, because it's not a meat allergy, it's an alpha -galactose allergy, which is a sugar present in most mammals that people eat, but also many other foods, like carageenan, which is in many vegan products and medicine.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

Nothing our little genetic engineering lab can't fix, crispr is so cheap this days. Ugh, their lab I mean, their hypothetical lab.

[–] Mistiygirl@lemmy.zip 23 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

yep, it's possible. It's called the "Lone Star" tick

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Go figure that a tick with a name reminiscent of Texas would make you unable to enjoy a steak.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

good news! guess where everyone i've met who had it lived.

[–] GalacticRobot@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

Well, it's expanding its reach because of climate change. Same with armadillos.

[–] ramasses@social.ozymandias.club 8 points 11 hours ago

"Theirs only one man who would DARE give me the rasberry. LONE STAR"

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 15 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

Oh good, I’m in danger

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 hours ago
[–] BeUnique@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 hours ago

Yeah, a lot of people are learning about this the hard way and it appears to only be getting worse! The tick population has seen a huge "uptick" in recent years!

[–] Rubisco@slrpnk.net 2 points 12 hours ago
[–] Tim_Bisley@piefed.social 1 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

Do people on the east coast just not care about the diseases ticks carry? I feel like nobody is doing anything about ticks or the diseases. Back in the 80s they used to fly planes a few hundred feet over my house and open the back bay where a cloud of deet would come come pouring out. We'd stand out on the porch and watch and run inside before the cloud hit the ground. They did all that for mosquitoes.

[–] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I seen a weird story where a helicopter was dropping boxes of ticks in fields.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

so i googled alpha gal tick and this is the first map i found. it is not authoritative it came off social media. but i remember when the map didn't include the west coast and lone star ticks were way further south.

so that might be why they don't care, because they don't know they need to care.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 13 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Turns out that horrific for the environment and it's easier to just tell people to stop killing opossums.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 7 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Opossoms don't really eat many ticks. The methodology of that study was flawed because they only fed them ticks.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago


so it turns out Statesians eat nothing but donuts. in this proposal to the IRB i would like to investigate...

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

They are predators of mosquitoes and ticks, they aren't supersoldiers of pest control like the study implies they are however a limiter in the ecosystem along with other animals people tend to kill and not think much about. It's cheaper and easier to educate about not killing x than to eradicate a species and eat the consequences.

[–] Tim_Bisley@piefed.social 3 points 10 hours ago

Well I used that as an example of the effort expensed not that it was a good solution. Similar to how opossums aren't a solution. It's been mentioned a number of times now they don't help as much as first thought. Sounds like chickens or guinea fowl are better

[–] GalacticRobot@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

They care, but there isn't a 'lot' that can be done. These ticks range is expanding due to climate change, and even with proper precautions (sprays, clothing, monitoring) it still can happen. Lyme disease is a big thing in on the east coast, so they do know about ticks.

load more comments
view more: next ›