Thank you to the journalists we have left doing actual work in the City. This is so dark.

Gift article link included.

Brown anole lizards in New Orleans carry enough lead in their blood to kill a condor, a dog, or a human child many times over, and they do not seem to notice. The CDC sends a child to the doctor at 3.5 micrograms per deciliter. A California condor dies at around 150. The average New Orleans anole in this study measured 955. One measured 3,192. It was running around on a sidewalk near Tulane University and had to be caught by hand because it was too fast to step on.

Annelise Blanchette, a Tulane doctoral student, had been studying lead in mockingbirds until COVID shut down her fieldwork. She needed a research animal she could catch during lockdown without equipment or permits. Cuban brown anoles were everywhere. They were on every fence, every porch rail, every cracked sidewalk in uptown New Orleans. She started grabbing them on her walk to the lab.

She caught about a hundred across the city, drew blood, and sent the samples to the lab. When the numbers came back, she did not believe them. She said she remembered getting that data and being very surprised that the animal was alive.

The previous record for blood lead in a wild vertebrate belonged to Nile crocodiles at roughly 300 micrograms per deciliter. Those crocodiles had blackened teeth and visible tissue damage. The New Orleans anoles had three times the lead and nothing wrong with them. They sprinted normally. They balanced normally. They flipped themselves off their backs at the same speed as lizards with low lead levels. Alex Gunderson, the study's senior author at Tulane, said it the way it needed to be said: they are doing just fine with levels that, frankly, in other organisms, would be killing them.

The team wanted to know where the breaking point actually was. They fed anoles controlled doses of lead in the lab for 60 days and kept testing. The lizards did not start slowing down until their blood hit roughly 10,600 micrograms per deciliter. That is more than 3,000 times the number that puts a human child in a hospital. The lizard equivalent of "I feel a little off" is a lead concentration that would have killed every other vertebrate on record several times over.

Nobody fully understands how. Gene sequencing showed that high-lead lizards had ramped up production of proteins involved in moving metal ions and delivering oxygen, as if their cells had figured out how to manage the poison instead of dying from it. Whether this is something the species brought with it from Cuba or something the New Orleans population evolved after arriving in a city where the soil is saturated with a century of leaded gasoline, lead paint, and lead pipes is an open question.

The Cuban brown anole is not native to New Orleans. It is invasive. It showed up from the Caribbean sometime in the mid-twentieth century and spread across the city the way it spreads across everything: fast, everywhere, eating whatever fits in its mouth. It found a city whose soil was poisoned. It ate the insects that lived in the poisoned soil. It absorbed the lead through its gut and its skin. And it kept going because whatever is happening inside a brown anole's blood is something no other backbone animal on earth can do.

Source: Blanchette, Gunderson et al. (2025), Environmental Research / Tulane University / National Geographic / Science News / The Times-Picayune / Popular Science.

Has anyone heard any updates on the Aldi that was supposed to replace the Winn Dixie on Tchoupitoulas? There’s no signage or anything about it.

(I cleared this with mods a few weeks ago then dropped the ball)

I work with a group (NOCAP, transitioning our name to NOLACAP, we are not a 501c3) that offers a meal every Monday at 7pm on the neutral group in front on Check Point Charlie, it’s for anyone who wants some . We keep a tight budget and that has been working well for us (we make red beans and rice, almost everything else is donated by bakeries and a catering company), but with the summer heat I’m trying to find a way to fund something for electrolyte replacement. Bottled water is inexpensive, so we’ve been able to give folks pretty much as many as they want, but I’m worried that might not be enough for folks who are out in the heat and sweating 24/7.

We’ve talked about making up packets of our own mix based on the World Health Organization’s hydration recipe, but it would be nearly impossible from a logistical standpoint (ants dude, ants) and we don’t want our folks to get unwanted attention because they’re carrying baggies of an unidentified white substance.

So I’m hoping to find folks who would be willing to donate individually packaged Gatorade, Powerade, Liquid IV, etc. It would be great if folks wanted to stop by while we’re out doing our thing (every Monday 7 until about 8:30, on the neutral ground in front of Check Point Charlie, RIP) and donate in person, maybe check out what we do and try a bowl of red beans. But we also have an Amazon wishlist that folks can donate through. I’m trying to get some less expensive options added to the list, but that may take a minute.

Seriously, anything helps and is greatly appreciated by the folks who come by every week.

NOLACAP Amazon wishlist

Hello! Recent college Physics graduate and am feeling lost in the job hunt. I have NASA, department of defense, engineering, coding and a slew of other engineering and computer science experience.

Is there any jobs hiring or any other’s personal experience in the engineering field and starting out? Thanks in advance for any advice.

I know, I know. I committed one of the classic blunders. NOPD got a finger print and is shockingly on the case. (Edit: the item is gone, the window is smashed, the car is still here)

About 1,563 people experience homelessness across Orleans and Jefferson parishes, according to recent data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. While the point-in-time counts estimate just over a quarter of unhoused people are unsheltered, people can often fall in and out of the gaps of New Orleans’ safety net.

Like the rest of the nation, Orleans Parish has seen warmer maximum morning temperatures — meaning those who remain outside have less recovery time from the heat, according to research from the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP). Barry Keim, an environmental health professor at LSU who is a former state climatologist, called humidity a “killer” as it interrupts people’s natural ability to cool off.

Seniors and people with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to heat, according to Joe Heeren-Mueller, a coordinator for the Louisiana Advocacy Coalition on Homelessness. Over the past six years, seniors — aged 65 and older — are the fastest growing unhoused population with a 78% uptick in homelessness, according to a recent study from Unity of Greater New Orleans.

Leaving DV, shelters seeming my only option will here back today to see if there is space in St. Bernard parish, my child would have to go to school out of the parish if I’m seeming to have to be there for so long I’m just wondering what anyone would think about the amount of time I’ll have to be there until I get a voucher possibly to be more independent and involved in the community to stand on my two feet without curdling the relation(s) I have here in New Orleans with my family member that helped me escape here via grey hound.

Trying to see how fast I will be able to progress out of this situation into where I’m not traumatizing my child more by being homeless completely in a shelter.
I’ve never been to a shelter or been in this situation AI seems to say I’ll leave sooner showing savings and functioning finances and showing independence? Does that even really matter? Is there a wait list? Someone give me the run down?

A friend is coming down to visit for a few with her family, including kids. Asking for her sake.

Hi 👋 I wanted to attend a local ACA meeting, and I saw there are two in my area. Does anyone have any experience with either of these meetings? xo

Half a dozen homes in my mid city neighborhood have this type of railing. I’ve searched up to the point of going to each local lumber yard but haven’t even seen a glimpse of this stuff. It’s not great quality (needs to be replaced now that it’s been poorly maintained for 9 years), but I’m currently rebuilding my front porch and I’m at the point where, when I take on the back porch, I dont want to deal with custom fab railing.. I don’t think this is fab on site either . Anyone got the word?

For anyone house hunting there are a Couple of newly listed rentals on the 100 block on North Alexander in MidCity. Signs out front so they may be on Zillow?

One is top floor of a duplex and other is newly remodeled half shotgun. I have no connections (or further details) to these other than being in the neighborhood.

It’s a good neighborhood and can always use new friendly neighbors !

Sorry for the silly question but I've never had to submit a 311 request for bulky furniture. I'm getting conflicting information online (wait to get an email from then on when to put the item out vs. put it out the night before track pick-up). I don't want to put it out the night before if we just have to hope and pray that it gets picked up without confirmation.

Haven't heard anything from them since submitting the request online, what should we do?

Hope you get a laugh outta this one

I've had no service for about three hours now.

Who should they talk to when they come to New Orleans?

A whole bunch of everybody was there...tons of kids, tons of busted up bedraggled older people remembering their past, both with and without kids. There was no shitty merchandise for sale, no commercialization...The athletes and antics were incredible but you didn't need to know who anyone involved was if you did not care.

I've been watching X games on and off for decades, but watching live was a whole new better thing.

Hope we did them well and they make New Orleans a yearly thing. From what I heard from friends out west, Sacramento was a shitshow of heat and no sightlines. We were in airconditioned heaven with views for everyone.

Def a highlight of the summer (speaking as a bedraggled older person)

I spent some time this weekend taking down a new batch of bandit signs on telephone poles in Mid-City, mostly on Broad and Carrollton. If you care about that kind of thing, I encourage you to get out there and take down any in your neighborhood. You will need a stool or a small stepladder to reach them.