Meet the blood clam, also known as blood cockles. Hailing from the shellfish family Arcidae, they’re so named for their dramatic coloration. The blood-red is really just that, blood, but you would do well to take it as a bit of a warning.Eating blood clams is considered one of life’s more dangerous delicacies because of the significant risk they’re packing something other than their curiously red blood. Like other shellfish they can contain harmful toxins, bacteria, and viruses, including hepatitis A.What are blood clams?Blood clams are species of ark clams found across the world, but they are heavily cultivated in Southeast Asia where they’re considered something of a delicacy. Traditionally, blood clams are eaten raw and have been compared in flavor to geoducks, the ocean’s bizarre giant burrowing clam.Why are blood clams red?The blood-red coloration of these curious clams comes from hemoglobin, the same protein that makes our blood red. Most clams don’t look like this because they don’t have hemoglobin, but blood clams are packed full of it, giving them a rather spooky but undeniably eye-catching appearance.Consuming blood clams can carry a risk of hepatitis A.Image credit: adriefoto / Shutterstock.comWhy are blood clams dangerous?If you live outside of Asia and this is the first time you’re seeing blood clams, that could come down to the fact that importing them has been banned across much of the globe due to health concerns. According to the New York Times, shipments have even been seized by governments in some parts of the globe, demonstrating how seriously some people take the risks of blood clams.Like other bivalves, blood clams are filter feeders, and with great sieving comes great risk. This is because if a shellfish is living in contaminated waters, they become the perfect little vessel for accumulating pathogens.This is, of course, true of other such delicacies. After all, who doesn’t know someone who’s fallen foul of a nasty oyster? But there is generally stricter regulation around where oysters are grown and harvested, making the risk of viruses like hepatitis A slightly lower. However, that's not to say that hepatitis A is always present in blood clams, and in some areas it's thought treating them for contaminants can make them safer.Hepatitis A spreads through feces so can wind up in waters contaminated with human and animal waste, and outbreaks of the illness have been connected to the consumption of clams. There’s no way of knowing just by looking at the blood-red pulp of a raw blood clam if it’s contaminated, and if you eat it, you could develop serious illness.Perhaps the blood clam is better left as food for the eyes.

I try to keep an open mind. This is the world of videogames, after all. Strange things happen. You can never predict what tomorrow will bring. But even though I’m jaded, wizened, and almost immune to surprise these days, this one caught me off guard. 27 years ago, in the same halcyon age that brought us the first Fallout, the original Age of Empires, and The Curse of Monkey Island, the bizarrely named Whoopee Camp launched Tomba. An action game with 2.5D graphics and evil pigs, despite a cult following, for almost three decades it’s been relegated to the dustiest shelves of the proverbial library of videogame history. Until now. Continue reading After 27 years, ‘90s cult classic Tomba is somehow suddenly back MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best old games, Best Metroidvania games, Best upcoming PC games

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to splash out on a new OLED gaming laptop, then now is the time to dive in. This OLED gaming laptop deal on Best Buy enables you to save $400 on an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, bringing the price down to $1,599.99. Amazingly, that buys you a great spec too, complete with an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, an AMD Ryzen 9 CPU, and a 1TB SSD as well. We fell in love with the exact spec of this machine in our Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review, where we particularly praised the quality of its screen, and awarded it a place on our guide to the best gaming laptop. Our main criticism of it was Asus’ decision to use soldered RAM that can’t be upgraded, but that isn’t an issue with this 32GB spec, giving you plenty of memory for both gaming and work in Windows. Continue reading This Asus OLED gaming laptop has an incredible price right now MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ review, Asus ROG Raikiri review, Best gaming motherboard

Hype has been swirling for a while around the potential power of AMD's upcoming Strix Halo gaming laptop CPU. However, this new AMD Strix Halo die size leak really hammers home the potential power of this new chip. The single chip contains both a CPU and GPU - known as an APU - and houses a GPU die that's larger than the AD104 chip used to make the RTX 4070, hinting at the grandeur of its graphics grunt. This new AMD chip should in theory unlock a whole new category of best gaming laptop contenders, potentially strikinh a balance of gaming power and compact, portable design. Continue reading AMD’s next gaming laptop CPUs contain a GPU larger than the RTX 4070 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Ryzen 7 7800X3D review, Best gaming CPU, Radeon RX 7800 XT review

If you’re on the hunt for a new deck-building game after Balatro and as we await Slay the Spire 2, you can’t go too far wrong with Dune: Imperium. A stellar adaptation of the already excellent board game set in Frank Herbert’s sci-fi universe, it’s quickly earned itself the ‘overwhelmingly positive’ Steam rating with 95% of reviews recommending it. Now, its first expansion pack Rise of Ix has arrived, and a Steam sale lets you snag the base game at a tasty discount, too. Continue reading Fantastic deck-building strategy game Dune Imperium launches first DLC MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best card games, Best strategy games, Best multiplayer games

As of late, I've found myself falling off of the online multiplayer bandwagon. Where my life was once consumed by Overwatch, Valorant, and League of Legends, I've found myself leaning into indie games like Indika and Animal Well, or trying out new live-service experiences like Warframe. Maybe I'm just getting old, but competitive PvP just doesn't give me the adrenaline rush it used to - at least, not in the games I used to play. Supervive, however, has caught my attention because it does reignite that fire in me. Why? Because it's doing something new. Continue reading League of Legends rival Supervive drops new alpha, playable now MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best MOBAs, Best battle royale games, Best multiplayer games

We have seen lately that politicians are simply empty bottles, waiting to be filled by whatever potion they think is palatable to the public.

From Aaron Burr to Teddy Roosevelt, vice-presidential selections have mattered a lot — and many of them have been bad.

Let’s take a break to celebrate the death of another evil terrorist.

One of our major political movements — Trumpism or wokeness — will be humiliated this fall. Might the loser learn important lessons?