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Animals and insects are attracted to warm places and keep them hidden. Unfortunately, your car ticks both boxes, meaning that at some point you will face the unwelcome discovery that some living beings have made their home in your drive.

Such an infestation can not only damage the vehicle (and Your Health), but you could accidentally injure the intruding animals if you turn on the engine. They can be a hazard while driving too – I’m allergic to spider bites, and it is always a bit nerve-wracking if I drop one from the roof of my car while I’m driving. How to remove creepy crawlers and critters from your car and keep them away.

Look for signs of rodents and insects living in your car

You probably won’t find a squirrel in the back seat. Instead, small animals like mice and possums find refuge in the narrow crevices Your engine and other small spaces. When looking for these cozy areas, rats and mice can often chew through wires and rubber hoses, clog filters and otherwise cause serious damage to your engine – and possible vehicle fire. With small living things there come animal droppings – and their droppings can contaminate the interior of the car (or your cabin filters, for example), which can be harmful Your Health. Insects like be crazy tend to make their home in your side mirrors, your car roof, and your vents. (Imagine turning on your air conditioning and getting a face full of spiders!)

Examine your car carefully if you suspect an animal is hiding in it. Modern plague gives a helpful list of signs that a rodent lives in your car:

• Visual sightings of feces and urine, as well as bad smells
• Strange noises, especially the heater or fan, make a humming or vibrating noise that suggests a nest in the heater’s fan motor
• Discover food sources like acorns, dog food, and birdseed that rodents brought into your car to eat. See old snacks like french fries in unusual places
• Occasionally you will see a mouse or rat jumping out of or walking around in your car

If you see signs of mice, squirrels, possums, or even cats, don’t turn the engine on or make noise before getting into the vehicle to scare them away.

Here’s how to prevent rodents like mice, rats, and possums from living in your car

You can keep pests out of your car using many of the same methods that you use to keep them from getting into your home (and you can even get better results). Mice and other animals are very sensitive to strong odors and do not like the smell of cedarwood, peppermint and cayenne pepper. Put cotton balls with essential oils on them Flavors for everything to do with the car as a deterrent or defense Mice. Stuff Steel wool or wire mesh in small crevices and open areas that animals could crawl into to prevent mice from nesting in your engine. And you can always resort to traps and poison – both of which are effective but much less humane options for pest control.

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Animals find your car particularly pleasant when it is parked in one place for a long time. If you don’t use your car regularly, you should make an effort to keep it turned on and take a short drive every now and then. Animals will not find a suitable place to rest if they do periodically in motion.

To chase away animals that you suspect may be hiding in your car, try ringing your keys and honking before turning on the engine. The terrifying sound will likely cause the animal to flee and you can begin your journey. Whatever you do don’t open the hood in an attempt to get the animal out; It can only dig deeper into your car’s engine to hide.

Finally, clean your car as often as possible. Are mice, rats, possums, and other animals attracted to leftover food and crumbs. Regular car washes and vacuuming in the event of a spill keep hungry animals at bay.

This is how you get rid of insects like spiders and ants in your car

Insects can’t chew on your cables or mess up your engine, but nobody wants to find a cockroach in their center console. Your first line of defense here is to keep your car clean. Like mice, beetles like ants are attracted to food waste. Regularly wipe dashboards, vacuum up crumbs, and remove groceries from your car on a daily basis. If you have the means, you get a full service Car cleaning with every oil change. It’s an easy way to remember to clean your car thoroughly, and it’s well worth the cost (around $ 35) if you can swing it.

Don’t forget to clean the floor mats when cleaning up your car. According to website with malware solutions mantis, Car mats are a prime place for bugs to lay eggs and larvae. Make sure to vacuum your mats thoroughly and try not to leave them wet for long periods of time.

Beetles and spiders too don’t like the smell Peppermint and citrus oils, so the same cotton ball method can be used here that is used to deter mice.

Finally, and perhaps more frighteningly, bed bugs don’t just live in beds and, unfortunately, can infect your car as well. In this case, you need to contact a professional – bed bugs and other hitchhikers Pests like fleas, can be almost undetectable in a car and are extremely difficult to get rid of on your own. However, a professional pest control can do the Heat method or use Cryonite treatments to rid your car of these stubborn pests.

Photo: Pfluegler-photo (Shutterstock)

Since a lot of our modern work communication relies on our inboxes, everyone needs to learn how to communicate effectively via email. This also applies to chemical engineers who doesn’t know a preposition from a door handle.

If you find that your email is somehow missing its target – maybe your coworkers are more confused than they were when you started the thread – there’s nothing to worry: there are ways to make sure your email comes across fluently, and you don’t have to be a literary genius to get the job done.

How to structure your email

Think of it like a rudimentary picture book that you could read to a child: there should be a beginning, a middle, and an end. No cliffhangers or untied knots if you can prevent it.

For example, when reporting to a team about a project that you are leading, first explain what the project is and what you want to achieve with it. Then describe what you have achieved and where the project could lead. Finally, complete it by asking for thoughts or questions, then bow gracefully with a formal signature.

Another way to think about it can be to reduce it to four steps. As Growth Consultancy Partners writes, You can follow this blueprint:

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1. greeting
2. Questions or action requested
3. Concise description of context and effect
4. Shut down

This may sound too simple, but it’s easy for people to get bogged down in detailed prose that deviates from the general meaning of an email. The last thing you want is to confuse the recipients on the receiving end, so use clear, simple language to keep your writing concise.

Always use a subject line in your emails

There’s nothing about email etiquette (at least to me) more despicable than an email that doesn’t deal with a subject line. For example, if you’re just trying to get someone’s attention in a pinch, write, “Can you call me?” in the body of an email – then maybe it’s okay. However, in general, emails without subject lines are annoying, for example when an accountant I used didn’t add one even though they sent me more than 50 emails in a single thread.

So whenever you’re emailing someone about something important, include the topic of your conversation in the subject line. Make it short and readable—no need to pinch yogababble. Your coworkers, who may be combing through a mountain of unread messages, will appreciate your emphasis on clarity.

Keep your emails appropriate

If you work in a corporate setting with a lot of people you only know professionally, don’t assume that everyone understands your sense of humor. If you’re not sure about a joke break, don’t include it in your email. Some jokes are better to be told in person, especially when you know your audience. Things that are said in the real world don’t always translate seamlessly into the digital world, which means you should always curb your need for jokes, especially if you can just leave the sillier conversation for happy hour.

These are just ground rules, but clarity is usually the predominant rule of email etiquette, in addition to common sense when it comes to subject lines and saving your humor for later.

Illustration: Sam Woolley

Squats are one of the very best exercises for your legs, and nearly everybody who lifts heavy weights regularly does some form of squat. But perhaps you’ve heard that squats are bad for your knees, or that you need to do squats in a certain specific way to avoid injury. Let’s break down the specifics so you’ll know what advice to follow, and can rest assured you’re doing your squats the right way.

What muscles do squats work?

Technically, you already squat every day.

Every time you get up from a seated position, you’re effectively doing a squat. You probably feel your quads—the muscles in the fronts of your thighs—bearing the brunt of the work. Your glutes—aka your butt muscles—help to extend your hips while your quads are extending your knees. Besides a handful of other muscles in your legs and hips, the barbell back squat targets your core and back muscles, helping improve your posture.

The benefits of doing squats

While strong legs look nice in shorts and help us do everyday stuff with greater ease, you will appreciate them even more in your later years, as Greg Nuckols, writer and strength coach, points out. We sat down with him to talk about squats, and he notes:

Strong legs and hips, particularly, are crucially important for healthy aging. You can live independently longer, perform activities of daily living without as much strain, and muscle and strength are both strong predictors of longevity.

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We all know it becomes tougher to get up from a chair, toilet, or bed as we get older, but it’s never too late to start benefitting from building lower body strength or getting into strength training in general. A fairly recent study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning found that heavy squats (under supervision) can help postmenopausal women suffering from osteopenia or osteoporosis improve bone mineral density in their spine and neck, in addition to boosting their strength.

Are squats safe for your knees?

If someone tells you to avoid squatting because “it’s bad for your knees,” this person probably doesn’t know—excuse the pun—squat about squats.

Don’t just take my word for it: A review article in Sports Medicine determined that the stresses of squatting to various depths, even the really low ones, don’t reach the point where they could cause harm to the ligaments in your knees (they’re sturdy like that, after all). In fact, the authors observed that the more you squat (with good form), the more your cartilage tissue can adapt and strengthen to handle the weight, just like your muscles do. The caveat here is that if you already have a history of knee issues, squats could aggravate your injury.

Otherwise, if you’ve got good technique and have healthy knees, squats can actually make your knees stronger and more injury-proof, as supported by the findings in a paper published in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

So, it’s not the squats themselves that hurt your knees; it’s how you squat that’s probably hurting your knees.

How to do a proper squat

When you do a back squat, the weight should be centered over your foot, and stay there as your hips and knees bend. If you feel the pressure mostly in the front of your foot or mostly in your heels, you probably don’t have the bar on the most efficient up-and-down path.

You may have heard the advice that your knees shouldn’t go forward of your toes, but that’s no longer the consensus among trainers. Nuckols explains why:

Normally, people don’t really pay attention to how far forward their knees travel; they tend to balance the forces in the squat between their knees and hips pretty evenly. However, when you tell people to not allow their knees to track forward, or if you artificially restrict forward knee travel, a lot of the load is shifted to the back and hips, away from the quads, making it a less well-rounded movement for overall lower body development.

For the most part, your knees should track over your first or second toe. Having them track a shade further in or out isn’t the end of the world, but excessive knee valgus [caving in of the knees] should be avoided, especially if there’s pain that goes along with it.

Here’s an example of good squat form:

Basically, all great back squats share a few commonalities: they force the hips back, as if you’re sitting in a chair; they keep the chest up and facing forward to keep the spine from flexing (or else you’ll increase your risk of spinal disc injuries); and the knees don’t cave inward.

A good cue is to spread your knees out and wide during the lowering portion of the movement (although a small amount of inward movement coming up, as shown here, is generally okay as long as it doesn’t hurt, says Nuckols). Your feet, especially your heels, should stay planted on the ground, and your core should stay tight (here’s a video to teach you how to “brace” your core) throughout the lift.

How to get started if you’ve never squatted a barbell

The above video by YouTuber Omar Isuf is helpful for familiarizing yourself with squatting techniques, but you may not want to add weight until you can ace a bodyweight squat. “I believe that everyone should be able to comfortably hold a deep bodyweight squat position,” says Cody Lefever, a competitive powerlifter and the man behind a popular training structure called GZCL.

After all, bodyweight squats are a fantastic starting point to train your nervous system to groove to the squat pattern and get used to the movement. Keep in mind, though, that a nice-looking bodyweight squat doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be able to replicate perfect form when there’s a bunch of weight on your back. That’ll take practice, too.

Additionally, Lefever suggests:

Train that [squat] movement through goblet squats and work on both mobility and strength with single-leg work. Things like back-step lunges and Bulgarian split squats are great, as they address balance and coordination as well.

People often have a hard time staying balanced, but after working on goblet squats and the back-step lunge for a few weeks an improvement usually shows. If it is awkward reaching depth with just the bar, then focus on your warm-up routine.

On the other hand, if traditional barbell back squatting causes you pain or you’re not comfortable attempting them, there are multiple squat variations that can be just as effective for building legs, such as the front squat, goblet squats, and lunges. This paper in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research showed that front squats were just as effective for hitting the involved muscle groups as back squats—although keep in mind that front squats have their own learning curve.

Either way, you’ll need to take the time and effort to ease into these squat exercises.

Are deep squats safe?

The debates on the internet over how deep someone should squat are legion, but the gist is that deep squatting (or squatting “ass to grass”, as some lovingly call it) isn’t for everyone. We have a guide here to answering the question of how deep you should squat, depending on your goals in the gym.

Deep, ass-to-grass squatting does have a few more pronounced benefits. The deeper you squat, the more effectively you work the muscles involved and the greater the improvements in strength, as this study from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research explains. And as we already pointed out from the knee analysis study earlier, deeper squats don’t increase the risk of injury to your knees either.

But just because deeper squats are safe and demonstrably more effective at building leg strength, not everyone can (or should) squat ass-to-grass. Whether you do or not will largely depend on your history of injury, how your body is built, and your training goal, since different squats can work on different things. For example, partial squats (lowering yourself just a little) can be great for getting some serious power behind a jump, or for helping more advanced lifters work past difficult points in their squat. “The only people who need to squat [very] deep with weights are Olympic-level weightlifters,” Lefever says.

If you’re keen on squatting deeper, the good news is that you can learn to do so with practice. One way is by doing goblet squats, which give most people an easier time to “get to depth” since the weight is in the front of the body and changes the mechanics a bit. Once you’re comfortable with those, you can move on to the more challenging front squats. “By prioritizing range of motion and control of the lift more than the load on the bar until [they] master the movement, most people can squat deep if they’re willing to invest the time and effort,” Nuckols said.

How to make sure you’ll have a great squat workout

To be able to perform squats comfortably and effectively, you’ll first need decent flexibility in your hips, ankles, and upper back to help you get into the squat position with a barbell on your back (or in front of you if you’re doing front squats). Beyond that, here are other crucial tips to keep in mind:

• Squat first: You want to avoid being fatigued when you squat, or else you could increase your risk of injury and/or have an unproductive squat workout. If the day’s workout calls for heavy squats, you should probably do them first. The only lifters who routinely buck this trend are olympic-style weightlifters, who train the competition lifts when they’re fresh, and then squats afterward.
• Always be safe: If you’re squatting alone, make sure you can bail out of a bad lift when you need to. One way to help you do that is to set up the safety bars (adjustable bars that run perpendicular to the barbell on either side of you) to an appropriate height, just above the barbell’s lowest point. So, if you’re having trouble driving back up, you can tilt your back slightly more upright and roll the barbell onto the safety bars instead. (Omar Isuf teaches you some “bail out” techniques in this video.)
• Strengthen your core: A strong core helps keep you stable and lift more weight safely. While some people argue that squats are an amazing core exercise, they’re not enough. Core exercises, like bird dogs, pallof presses, or “stir the pot”, should be done separately and in addition to squatting.
• Keep your torso tight: You need to make sure your torso, or core, is engaged before starting the squat. “While I’m squatting, I’m just thinking about bracing my abs and torso as hard as I can,” said Lefever. Here’s where a weightlifting belt can be helpful to create the abdominal pressure for your core to “brace against” in a heavy squat, to protect your spine, and to let you lift a bit more weight. There’s no evidence that wearing a belt makes your core weak either. For more information, Nuckols has a great article on the matter.
• Squeeze your shoulder blades together: Imagine squeezing your shoulder blades together to keep your upper back and traps stable. It helps to keep your elbows pointed down and towards your butt, not just pointing them backwards.
• Ditch the foam pad: Some people like to keep a foam pad cushioned between the bar and their traps, but the pad doesn’t let you properly rest the bar where it’s most comfortable for you.
• Focus on moving fast: Speed is integral. It keeps the movement fluid and gets you past trouble spots. If you find yourself struggling, keep your chest up and imagine relentlessly driving through your heels and pushing your traps into the bar.
• Adjust your grip: Most people would do well by having a wider grip to keep the bar steady, but feel free to play around a little bit. The more important thing is to have your wrists in a neutral position.
• Try weightlifting shoes: Weightlifting shoes provide feet and ankle stability during a squat, and they can help you squat a little deeper because of the raised heel, too. Shoes are a pricey investment, though, so make sure you really, really like squatting.
• There’s no one way to back squat: We’ll all squat a bit differently due to the way each of our bodies is built. These differences in anatomy will mean that a comfortable and safe squat may look differently for you than it does for me, including how deep you squat, how wide your stance is, where your hands are, or how far forward you lean.

As with deadlifts, squats are highly technical and highly individual. Of course, the most important thing to remember is to avoid going heavier than you can safely handle. And don’t fret if you can’t squat to a certain depth—just keep yourself mobile and keep working on it. It took me a long time to get comfortable with the squat, and I’ve finally just broken into the 200s (90 kilos) myself after nearly a year!

This post was originally published in February 2016 and was updated on June 11, 2021 by Beth Skwarecki to update links and information and align with current Lifehacker style.

Photo: sdx15 (Shutterstock)

Android 12 Beta 2 was rolled out to all beta participants this week and has a number of new features and settings for testers to play around with. While the Android 12 beta is still only available for Pixel devices, don’t let the FOMO infect you. Android 12 is still a few months away from a stable release, and this latest build sounds like it’s the most buggy yet.

That said, there is a lot of cool stuff in this update. Below we tick off the biggest new tweaks in Android 12 Beta 2 that every Android user should know about.

Android 12 brings new privacy monitors and blocking tools

Android 12 Beta 2 improves the security of the operating system with several privacy-oriented features.

The first is the new privacy dashboard, which makes it easy to see what high-level permissions have been granted to each app on your phone. The donut chart at the top of the page shows the number of times your device’s camera, location data, microphone, and other major functions have been used in the past 24 hours. Below that is a list of all possible permissions that apps can request; Tapping any of the categories will bring up a list of third-party apps that have permission to use this feature, making it easier to manage app permissions from a single menu. System-level apps, like your phone’s default camera app, don’t appear in the list by default, but preinstalled apps like Google Maps do.

Similarly, a privacy indicator will now appear at the top of the device’s screen whenever an app is using your camera, microphone, or any other feature that could pose a privacy issue. When the warning first appears, you will see icons for each of the functions used for a few moments before they minimize to a simple green dot. Tapping the dot will open the quick settings menu, which now includes toggles to block camera and microphone access.

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Visual changes and new interface elements in Android 12

One of the biggest changes in Android 12 involves a visual overhaul of the Android core interface. Android 12 takes the design aesthetic from Google Material, and Android 12 Beta 2 enhances the look with “Material You” themes that match the color of your phone’s user interface, notifications, and other elements to match your wallpaper.

The aesthetic redesign extends to the media controls and volume controls, which now take up less space on your lock and notification screens and adapt to your Material You theme. Likewise, the weather and date home screen widget has a bolder font.

New shortcuts in Android 12

Rounding out the notable additions in Android 12 Beta 12 are new shortcuts – including a new, smaller power menu. Pressing the power button in Android 11 brings up a small menu with shortcuts for device settings, your Google Pay wallet, and power controls. On Android 12, that menu now includes the Power Off, Restart, Emergency Call, and Lock buttons, while holding down the Power button itself brings up the Google Assistant. You can also call up this menu via a new “Power Button” switch in the quick settings.

Image: Google

To take account of the new power menu, Google moved the links for the Google Pay wallet and the device control to the quick settings (they were in the power button menu on Android 11). There’s also an Internet button that lets you quickly switch between WiFi and cellular data, view and connect to available networks, and jump into your device’s full network settings. The previously mentioned privacy locks on your camera and microphone are also shown in the quick settings menu.

Download and try Android 12 Beta 2

Android 12 Beta 2 is only available on Pixel 3, 3a, 4, 4a, and 5 smartphones, including XL and 5G models. Anyone can register their device for the beta program, however We advise you not to install it on your main phone until it’s in its final stages – preferably until it’s full release in the fall. Each iteration of the beta brings with it new unfinished functionality, and so far it appears beta is 2 the least stable beta build to date.

That said, if you have a secondary Pixel device – or don’t mind fixing app crashes and other bugs – you can Join the Android 12 beta program here.