Good morning. Brew Review is our Sunday lifestyle newsletter, but we realize a major global conflict is ongoing and want to keep you updated. Before we get into our regular Sunday programming, here are some links with helpful information.

Israel aims to destroy Hamas. But what happens next is unclear.

A retired US general previews Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza.

Over one million people in Gaza have nowhere to hide.

Young Jewish Americans report intense feelings of isolation since last Saturday’s attack by Hamas.

How our smartphones have become windows into war.

A new poll showing US public opinion around the war.

What you need to know about the laws governing war (yes, they exist).

A guide to understanding the roots of the Israel-Hamas war.

The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

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MOON BUS DRIVER: Scientists found success with a new process that turns lunar dust into a material that can be used to pave roads on the moon. That’s good news if you were planning to move there, but not if you were hoping for lunar bike lanes.

SWIPER, YES SWIPING: A Reddit user jokingly offered their services to swipe Amazon employees’ badges at Seattle HQ if they didn’t want to abide by the three mandatory days in-office. We smell an app.

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BEAVERS IN LONDON: London is reintroducing the aquatic mammal into the city after they were hunted to extinction 400 years ago. The beavers are adapting nicely, but they keep trying to put Big Ben into their dams.

REFINED BRUNCH DATE WANTED: A surge in yacking up overpriced eggs benny forced some Bay Area restaurants to implement a $50 cleaning fee for vomiting in public areas. Throw up in your purse like an adult.

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PREMIUM MEAT: At a Taco Bell??? The fast-food restaurant is reportedly adding “premium chicken nuggets” to its menu in Minneapolis. If you had told us 20 years ago that we would someday be enjoying chicken and fries and washing it all down with a boozy Baja Blast inside of a Taco Bell, we would have doubted society could make such progress.

TOO MUCH PROSCIUTTO: A gourmet gift brand set a record by building the world’s largest charcuterie board in Palm Beach, FL. The board weighed 769 pounds, but you’d be a fool to think we couldn’t Kirby-style hoover up at least the olive spread.—MM, CC

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even have a good cup of coffee 30,000 feet in the air.

CRISPR chicken sandwich. Scientists have used gene editing to breed chickens that they said are “almost entirely” resistant to bird flu in a lab setting. This first-time achievement could help farmers shield their flocks from the disease, which has killed tens of millions of chickens in the last two years alone and can sometimes spread to mammals, including humans. Reducing transmission among chickens would significantly reduce the risk of an outbreak and save some food supply chain headaches, public health experts say. But scientists still need to mitigate potential dangers: As many as half of the gene-edited chickens developed a mutated strain of bird flu when given higher doses of the disease.

Smelling caramel could affect your color perception. Our eyes and our nose are more connected than we thought, according to a new study of how scent affects how we see colors. To test this, researchers sat 24 people in a sensory-limited room, where they inhaled diffused scents for five minutes and then attempted to slide a color wheel to neutral gray. A previous study had already shown that our brains link certain smells to specific colors, and this time, those associations affected color perception: Participants tended to identify neutral gray as slightly more red-brown after smelling coffee, more yellow after smelling caramel, and more pink-purple after smelling cherry.

Coffee that tastes better in the sky is here. Alaska Airlines may have finally created an in-flight brew that’s worth having to climb over the middle seat to use the bathroom. In collaboration with Portland-based roaster Stumptown, the airline has developed a custom blend that it claims stays flavorful at cruising altitudes, where the cabin pressure and air dryness can diminish our ability to taste. If you’ve flown Alaska in the past year and ordered a coffee, you may have been an early sipper of one of the 20 varieties the airline tested. The new Stumptown blend will be served on all Alaska flights by Dec. 1, marking the end of the airline’s decadelong contract with Starbucks.—ML

English-speaking tourists are no longer the primary pests preoccupying Parisians: The French capital has been in an anxious fit over a presumed bedbug infestation for the past few weeks.

The tiny blood-sucking insects have reportedly been spotted beyond their native habitat of discount hotel mattresses in places like the Paris Métro, cinemas, and at least one school.

Bugs in bed are now seemingly as big a part of life in France as brie on baguette.

• Demand for extermination services is surging in Paris, at least seven schools across France have been closed for treatment, and a French TV station had a trained pest-sniffer dog inspect its studio on-air.

The timing of what city hall officials have dubbed a bedbug “scourge” is particularly concerning. On the heels of Paris Fashion Week, the city is currently hosting the Rugby World Cup and preparing to hold the Summer Olympics in July. Locals are concerned that visitors swarming city hotels might get a bad impression of the City of Lights. Plus, citizens of the world worry about bedbugs spreading across the globe: Unconfirmed reports are emerging that the buggers have already made their way across the Channel to disturb Londoners’ slumber (though one entomologist notes that, if so, the UK had plenty of them to start with).

But some skeptical experts and bureaucrats say the cure could be a collective chill pill, since the true scale of the so-called bedbug “crisis” is unknown.

Is it l’hystérie?

It’s possible that France really is suffering from a bedbug epidemic. The critters have been making a comeback globally in recent decades after being nearly eradicated in the 1950s using pesticides. Bedbugs have since developed a resistance to these chemicals, and high levels of international travel also haven’t helped.

However, French exterminators are saying that the public might be overreacting.

• The creator of the pest control website badbugs.fr told the BBC that 75% of bedbug inquiries his company receives are false alarms.
• Normandy-based pest controller Romain Morzaderc explained to the Ouest-France newspaper that in 99% of cases, other “nasty black insects” get mistaken for bedbugs.

Government officials have also been cautiously skeptical. French Transportation Minister Clément Beaune assured the public that he’s committed to fighting pests on trains but claimed that none of the dozens of bedbug sightings there had been confirmed as of Friday. He cautioned against letting the bedbug mania slip into “French-bashing,” which he lamented sometimes takes hold in Anglo-Saxon countries (too late).

Are bedbugs really worth losing sleep over?

Even if Paris is full of them, Mississippi State University medical entomologist Jerome Goddard says that the biggest threat from bedbugs is that they’re a nuisance and a mental health liability. He told Morning Brew the insects don’t typically transmit diseases and, though there are rare cases, about 50% of the human population has no reaction to bites.

And he’s personally not worried about the prospect of bedbugs proliferating globally since they’re already everywhere.

But, if you’re not into cohabitating with bloodthirsty bugs, here’s what you need to know.

To avoid bedbug bedlam: Goddard says the bugs like to cozy up in cracks and crevices, so embracing Marie Kondo’s precepts and decluttering your living space is the best way to spot them early. There are also solutions to keep them away from your bed, like pesticide-infused mattress liners.

If you do notice bed guests: Stop shrieking. Goddard recommends that you contact your local entomology program to confirm that it is the pesky beasts. If you’re not sure how to go about that, check out this handy bedbug guide and, if it’s really them, call a trained exterminator to treat the affected areas. Though specialists can be pricey, Goddard advises against trying DIY methods. On the bright side, there’s no need to throw out your mattress or clothes, since fumigating the dwelling and running garments through the dryer on a hot setting should suffice.—SK

Meal prep: Here’s chicken soup for the soul and the immune system.

Travel tip: Avoid cleanup in Terminal B with a cup holder that attaches to your suitcase.

Read: If you read just one book for the rest of the year, make it Demon Copperhead, a modern Appalachian take on a Dickens classic that manages to be both lighthearted and intense.

Watch: Our Flag Means Death, a comedy about an aristocrat-turned-pirate in the 18th century.

Satisfy your sweet tooth: Make spooky ice cream sandwiches.

Listen up: You could say that this podcast about the origins of words, phrases, and slang is all that and a bag of chips.

Pumpkin spice + faster payments: BILL helps you make the month-end reconciliation process easier. Approve, pay, and manage invoices seamlessly. Take a demo and they’ll send you a $50 Starbucks gift card.*

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It’s a big world out there. In this section, we’ll teleport you to an interesting location—and hopefully give you travel ideas in the process.

Orlando International Airport is looking to redefine the travel experience by taking the travel out of the experience.

The airport recently launched a special visitor program for people who would like to access the brand-new $2.8 billion Terminal C without having to board a plane. Up to 50 guests per day can access the terminal’s restaurants, shops, and luxury lounge free of charge by filling out an application and sticking to the rules:

• You must arrive during a predetermined one-hour window between 10am and 4pm.
• While you have to go through security like passengers, you can’t use Clear or TSA PreCheck to do so with this program.
• You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay past 8pm.

So, why is it worth jumping through hoops to hang out at an airport terminal? It might not be. But, Terminal C contains multiple breweries and fine dining for those looking for an enjoyable night out, and there’s also an Auntie Anne’s for people who know the best part of an airport trip is a warm pretzel dipped in sugary frosting.

It’s not just about the food and drink—there’s also art. Perhaps the most intriguing reason to visit Terminal C is its Moment Vault, an art installation that allows travelers and nontravelers alike to stand inside a wraparound video screen that uses AI to provide an immersive experience.

The airport-as-mall trend is taking off. Airports in Tampa, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Detroit, and Seattle have established similar visitor programs. And, with spots like Portland’s airport and New York’s LaGuardia spending billions to upgrade their facilities, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be eating a fancy dinner a few feet from a gate blocked by people who haven’t had their boarding zones called yet.

Last week, we said: Finish the sentence: “Camping is only fun when…”

Here are our favorite responses.

• “When horses are involved.”—CJ from Sturgeon Bay, WI
• “You have to canoe to an isolated spot on an island.”—Cathy from Wyoming
• “You have s’mores for breakfast with your coffee!”—Judy from Columbia City, OR
• “Hanging out with my buddy Jason at Camp Crystal Lake. Always a good time when everyone gets together, like Michael, Chucky, Freddy, Carrie, Regan, Mrs. Loomis…”—Carla from Mesa, AZ
• “There’s a Wendy’s nearby.”—Matt from Sunnyside, NY
• “You’re 8 and a Girl Scout, and all your friends are there, and the weather is perfect and your troop leader is insisting that it’s fun and you get a badge at the end.”—Emily from Virginia
• “When you can cuddle by the fire with your wife of 43 years.”—Alex from Annapolis, MD

This week’s question

If you could know the truth behind any secret or mystery, which would it be?

Matty’s answer to get the juices flowing: “I have a magician friend who does a trick where he guesses an audience member’s dog’s name correctly. I have seen him do it three times, and it’s different every time. I need to know the secret. That is all I think about.”

Share your response here.