Grabe we don’t talk much about EJ’s accomplishment noh? We should start hyping him more..
EJ Obiena has won 9 gold medals in 2026 so far:
1. International Springer-Meeting Cottbus (Germany)
2. Asian Indoor Athletics Championships (Tianjin, China)
3. ISTAF Indoor Berlin (Germany)
4. Czesław Cybulski Memorial (Poznań, Poland)
5. Raiffeisen Austrian Open (Eisenstadt, Austria)
6. Halberstadter Höhenflug (Halberstadt, Germany)
7. Stabhochsprung Meeting Jockgrim (Germany)
8. Golden Sand (Międzyzdroje, Poland)
9. ISTAF Berlin (outdoor) (Germany)
The banana in your kitchen is a sterile mutant that can't reproduce. Every single one is a clone, and nearly the entire global export supply traces back to one plant raised in an English greenhouse in the 1830s.
Wild bananas are stuffed with hard seeds the size of peppercorns. Barely any flesh. Around 7,000 years ago, farmers in New Guinea stumbled on rare mutants carrying three sets of chromosomes instead of two. An odd number can't split evenly during reproduction, so seed-making fails and the plant pours everything into flesh. Those tiny black specks in the middle of your banana are the remains of seeds that never developed.
Perfect fruit, one catch. No seeds means no planting. Growing another one requires cutting a shoot off the base and sticking it in the ground.
A clone.
Back in the 1830s, the Duke of Devonshire's gardener raised one of these plants at Chatsworth House. His family name was Cavendish. Cuttings descended from that greenhouse now make up 99% of bananas exported on Earth, genetically identical from Ecuador to the Philippines.
Identical genes means a fungus that kills one plant kills all of them. And it already happened. Gros Michel, the banana everyone ate before 1960, was wiped out commercially by a soil fungus called Panama disease. The industry quietly swapped in the Cavendish, a lookalike that resisted it, and most shoppers never noticed their banana had been replaced.
A new strain called TR4 kills Cavendish too. No cure exists, the spores survive in soil for decades, and it has spread to more than 20 countries. Late 2025 it reached Ecuador, the world's biggest exporter.
The world already lost its banana once and got handed a body double. The body double is dying the same way.
Imagine growing up in absolute dirt poverty in east Tennessee, daughter of a tobacco farmer, going to school wearing rags your mother stitched into a coat, and when you die the British royal family has its military band play your up-the-workers country-pop anthem in tribute.
The feeling of losing my Aunt Dolly is beyond what feels right to share. Our most sacred moments were private and they’ll stay there behind the stage, beneath the glamour & between our hearts.
What I KNOW is Dolly would want me to feel it, write a song about it, and then continue on and be strong. I have an angel by my side. I always have. One of our last conversations was about music and metamorphosis. 🦋
I will always love her and want to make her proud. My heart breaks for the world, her family and friends who will miss her deeply. We’re in this loss together and we will see her in all of the most beautiful things. 💖 @dollyparton
This is truly heartbreaking. Dolly Parton was an extraordinary person and an irreplaceable champion of the working class. We are a better country because of her.
BUAT YANG BERENCANA LIBURAN KE KORSEL ESPECIALLY JEJU, PLS BACA INI!!!
jadi di jeju itu ternyata banyak banget kasus orang hilang dan kasus pembunvhan tapi beritanya disembunyikan, tau-tau ketemu m4yatnya aja ☠️
OP ini cerita: dulu waktu liburan ke jeju, dia makan ke restoran daging terkenal. pas mau pulang, tiba-tiba pemilik resto (ibu-ibu) itu melarang OP buat pulang jalan kaki dan maksa OP untuk naik mobilnya aja
karena nggak enak, OP akhirnya jadi nebeng di mobil pemilik resto itu. selama diperjalanan, pemilik resto cerita kalau di area tsb sudah banyak orang hilang, pokoknya banyak banget kasus orang hilang/pembunvhan, tapi berita itu ditutupi/disembunyikan
pemilik resto juga ngasih tau kl yang hilang itu semuanya pasti wisatawan/turis, soalnya kan keliatan bgt kl mereka turis, jadi emang sengaja “diincar”
pemilik resto itu jg nyaranin better naik taxi, meskipun jarak ke penginapan itu dekat. terus quote RT dari tweet ini juga banyak bgt yang nyaranin untuk bawa mobil sendiri, soalnya emang se bahaya itu
i saw someone say pinky up is a nihilistic anthem and it made me think abt how gnarly is literally dadaism. went to look it up and ofc someone already wrote about it months ago i hate when i think i’ve had an original thought only to find out someone got there first hahaha
婚約しました。
嬉しい時も、辛い時も、たくさんの時間を共に過ごし、支え合いながら歩んできました。
いつしか、お互いにとってかけがえのない、なくてはならない存在となりました。
こうしてようやく皆様にご報告できることを、心から嬉しく思います。
これからも支え合いながら、変わらず私たちらしく、一歩ずつ歩んでいきたいと思います。
今後とも、温かく見守っていただけましたら嬉しいです。
三浦璃来 木原龍一
We’re engaged.
Through both the happy times and the difficult ones, we’ve shared so many moments together, supporting each other every step of the way.
Over time, we became irreplaceable parts of each other’s lives—someone neither of us could imagine life without.
We’re truly happy to finally be able to share this news with all of you.
As we begin this new chapter, we’ll continue to support each other and move forward together, one step at a time, while always staying true to who we are.
We hope you’ll continue to warmly support us and watch over us.
Riku & Ryuichi
#shesaidyes
Photo by Nobuaki Tanaka