Dear Dr. Boli: I read somewhere once that a human being is worth like ten quid in chemicals, or, what, about thirteen “bucks” for you Yanks? But I was thinking that doesn’t seem to take into account what makes human life, like, worthwhile, you know? I mean, there’s more than chemicals, right? It’s about what you do with your life, right? So I was wondering: what is the real value of a human life? —Sincerely, name withheld, Lambeth Palace, London.

Dear Sir or Madam: Since, coincidentally, we were talking about privacy policies and other legal paraphernalia foisted on consumers by car companies, it seems reasonable to mention the findings of two United States Senators about one particular car company.

Between 2020 and 2024, Honda shared data from 97,000 cars with Verisk, which paid Honda $25,920, or 26 cents per car, and it did so without obtaining informed consent from consumers, according to information Honda provided Senator Wyden’s office.

Verisk is a company whose business is “data analytics and risk assessment,” according to its Wikipedia article, which appears to have been written by someone at the company. In other words, Honda sold every piece of information that could be known about you from your interactions with its electronic services, which includes things like your sex life and your genetic information, for 26¢.

Actual sales figures seem to Dr. Boli to be the only realistic and objective way to determine the value of a thing. On the open market, a human life is worth 26¢.

Probably not, to judge by this little notice on a page Dr. Boli was just looking at.

This is the sort of thing that makes Dr. Boli incandescently furious, thus qualifying him for a place in social media if only he would get over his prejudice and open an account with one of the various billionaire supervillains’ social-media empires. “Inclusive language” indeed! In most American textbooks there are six kingdoms of life, yet the Fauna Flora Funga Initiative thinks “Fauna, Flora, and Funga” is inclusive enough. Because who cares about Protista, Archaea, and Bacteria?

Well, Dr. Boli cares, and he thinks the people at FFF (“We are unthinkable without fungi”) ought to consider where they and their precious fungi would be without the three apparently unmentionable kingdoms of life.

Don’t be a tool of regressive special interests! When you say or write “flora, funga, and fauna,” keep going and add the P, the A, and the B. Join the FFFPAB Initiative today.

Scarlet Honeycreeper.—In spite of its bold coloration, the Scarlet Honeycreeper (Certhia coccinea) has evolved the astonishing ability to become completely invisible to predators by standing directly behind another Scarlet Honeycreeper.

Dear Dr. Boli: I understand that the steers that give us beef are castrated male cattle. But the dictionary says that oxen are also castrated male cattle. What is the difference between an ox and a steer? —Sincerely, Old Farmer Haystack, Schenley Arms Apartments.

Dear Sir: A steer is just an ox wearing a beef jerkin.

New York.—Scientists have recently focused on certain minerals in the otherwise excellent New York water supply as the possible cause of a congenital speech defect that renders native New Yorkers unable to pronounce the name “Carnegie.”

If you value your life, stay away from these top five riskiest food groups, identified by nutritionologists as the most dangerous foods in the supermarket today.

1. Meats and seafood. Meat-processing plants are havens for listeria, a bacterium that makes its home in meat and reacts violently to home invasions. Seafood is simply meat grown underwater.

2. Dairy products. Salmonella, which is basically murder in bacterial form, can infest milk, cheese, and other dairy products, rendering them unsafe for human consumption. Stay away.

3. Eggs. Eggs can not only be infected with salmonella but can also transmit bird flu, which is especially dangerous for people who eat like a bird.

4. Plant-based foods. Plants are the most frequent carriers of E. coli, which is fatal in four out of five serialized television dramas. Avoid vegetables, fruits, grains, and fungi, which count as plants for the purpose of food-risk awareness.

5. Salt. Salt is collected either from the sea, which is full of pollution and dead fish, or from the ground, which is nothing but pure dirt. Yeah, right, like I’m going to put that in my mouth.

No explanation is necessary: the photographs, taken yesterday in a forest near Pittsburgh, are enough to make the point that Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) is the Lugosiest of all our native plants.

Dear Dr. Boli: My duct tape broke. What should I use to fix it? —Sincerely, A Mad Scientist (or at Least One Who Isn’t Too Pleased About It).

Dear Sir or Madam: You are asking a dangerous question. Duct tape is the universal restorative. To repair the repairing thing is something like dividing by zero. It might have unintended mathematical, philosophical, and even theological consequences. It could lead you into a conundrum from which there is no escaping.

But you might try chewing gum. You’d be surprised how many things chewing gum properly cured can take care of.

You just missed it.

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Gates’ Paradox: People know that Microsoft Windows will frustrate them, cost hours of lost work time every day, and eventually destroy their data, yet they still choose it as the safe alternative.

The Gasoline Fallacy: Gasoline prices are always posted in figures ending in nine mills, even though, logically, if such a convention were genuinely usfeul in marketing, it would have been adopted for every other product.

The Trolley Conundrum: Even though the streetcars run on a regular and predictable schedule, the answer to the question “When does the next car leave?” is always “Thirty seconds before you get to the stop.”

The Paradox Paradox: Intelligent readers will peruse a list of paradoxical human behaviors on the Internet and nod sagely, and then go back out into the world and continue committing all the same fallacies and absurdities.

Boli’s Disappointment: People know the punch line will not be a sufficient reward to compensate for the effort, yet they still read the joke through to the end.