A growth industry

Not small potatoes: One of Eastern Washington’s largest farming operations, Taggares Agriculture, hopes to raise $48 million through an initial stock offering, a rare move in the agricultural industry.

As this is new territory for the farmers, the chairman and the rest of the board will be asked to use the boot scraper located just outside the boardroom.

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Up close and too personal: An Olympia man has invented a special lens that turns a cellphone’s camera into a microscope with 15 times magnification, and he’s looking for financial backing to develop a lens that would offer 150 times magnification.

It’s not enough that people post photos of their pets on Facebook; now we’ll have to scroll past selfies of their bacteria, too?

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Remember, darling, don’t vape in bed: A New York hospital is reinforcing its ban on electronic cigarettes, which use a heating element to produce a nicotine vapor, after a patient using oxygen suffered first- and second-degree burns in a fire sparked by her e-cigarette.

Out of an abundance of caution the hospital also is reminding patients and visitors of its ban on sparklers, in-room pit barbecues and torch juggling.

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