You probably won’t see a tick as it clings to a blade of grass, but it can see you. The tiny parasites are opportunists that spend their days waiting for humans, dogs, and other mammals to brush against them so they can latch onto exposed skin and feed on blood. As the climate warms and tick populations proliferate, there’s a good chance that in many parts of the U.S., you’ll get intimately acquainted with one this summer.

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Most people who get bitten by a tick will be perfectly fine, says Michel Shamoon-Pour, a molecular anthropologist at the Binghamton University Tick-borne Disease Center in New York. But a small percentage develop serious symptoms related to Lyme disease and other illnesses, including anaplasmosis and babesiosis. “The best thing you can do is avoid a tick bite—and, if you find a tick, remove it quickly and safely,” Shamoon-Pour says. “That’s the closest we get to not having to worry about diagnosing or treating an infection. Just put..

There are two straightforward—and simple—ways to respond to social invitations: Tell the host you’ll be there, or that you won’t be. Yet people find all kinds of offensive ways to reply instead.

The worst one of all is becoming increasingly common, especially by text, says Jamila Musayeva, an etiquette coach who posts videos about modern manners on YouTube. She’s lost track of the number of times someone has responded to an invite by asking who else will be there—which is code for questioning whether it’s actually going to be any fun. (It’s even more insulting than asking what kind of food will be served.) “It’s usually like, ‘I won’t come unless there’s someone there I want to see,’” she says. “It’s degrading the whole experience to just wanting to hang out with one person,” or a specific group of potential guests who are…not the person issuing the invite.

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Read More: What to Say When You Forget Someone’s Name

No wonder hosts take this kind of respo..

Public-health experts have warned for months that the COVID-19 virus isn’t gone—and, far from waning, SARS-CoV-2 has mutated yet again into a new variant. Called NB.1.8.1, it’s causing a spike in infections in China. A few cases also recently appeared in the U.S. when people arriving at airports tested positive, according to a statement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The World Health Organization has also designated it as a “variant under monitoring.”

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Here’s what to know about the new variant.

Where did NB.1.8.1 come from?

Data from GISAID, a global database of genetic sequences of major disease-causing viruses, show the first known cases of NB.1.8.1 toward the end of April, appearing in travelers from China, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

NB.1.8.1 is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in China, where it is contributing to spikes in emergency room visits and hospitalizations..

Sometimes the most important relationships are the hardest to maintain. If you fall off track—and many people who were once close do—it’s possible to find your way back to each other with time and effort. “I have so many clients who have strained emotional relationships,” says Jenny Shields, a psychologist and bioethicist in Houston. One of the most common refrains she hears: “I used to be so close with mom or dad, and now I don’t even know how to talk to them in a happy, healthy way.”

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If you want to rebuild and reconnect, Shields suggests starting by asking the other person these five questions.

1. “What kind of relationship do you want us to build from here?”

Shields recalls clients who thought their parents were perfectly content with the widening chasm between them—only to discover that mom or dad didn’t know how to express they actually longed for a closer bond. Until you talk about what you both want out of your relationship, hold off on any a..

When you get invited to a wedding or a party, “yes” might feel like the only socially acceptable response. If your RSVP is something short of that, you might put off responding at all—or stumble into a response that’s unintentionally rude.

“We’re raised to be polite or not rock the boat and to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, and yet in trying to be nice, we end up being vague and unclear and often more hurtful than if we were just candid,” says Priya Parker, a conflict resolution facilitator and author ofThe Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters. “There are so many ways to decline with grace, but instead of saying we’d rather not, we flake, or we’re ambivalent and say ‘maybe,’ which is horrible for the host.”

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When opting out of a gathering, Parker recommends following this formula: acknowledge the invitation; honor something about it, like the host’s creativity or vision; express gratitude for the fact that they thought of you; and then..