Archives for the 'Science' Category
When the Barkeep Has a Circuit Board
Last month I noted how the unstaffed restaurant might be the wave of the future. Speaking of the whole wave thing, you might soon be able to wave goodbye to your friendly neighborhood bartender, Wired is reporting. Or at least one of the human variety, as Chassis, the mobile kegbot (pictured), would probably confirm.
Aficionados of alcohol and androids alike celebrated the first stateside gathering of cocktail-serving robots this weekend at Roboexotica.
Patrons delighted in drink-making droids that ranged from a fire-spewing drink warmer, a fully automated mind-reading mixologist and a shot-pouring conveyor belt built entirely from Legos.
“You have liquor, fire and robots,” said Johannes Grentfurthner, Roboexotica organizer and member of art collective monochrom in Austria. “How could we go wrong?”
The annual gathering of booze-pouring robots is usually held in Vienna, Austria. To celebrate its approaching 10-year anniversary, organizers threw a San Francisco satellite event.
Though the U.S. event was slightly smaller than its Viennese counterpart, the barbots landed with a booze-fueled bang.
What would Pimpbot think about these advanced mixologists?
Thanks to Caleb for the tip. (As a non-robot, I accept tips.)
Dangers of Competitive Eating in Scientists’ Heads, Not Eaters’ Stomachs
“Doctors worry that extreme eaters may be endangering their health,” warns the LA Times subhead. And then this:
The sport’s rising status has some doctors shaking their heads: Such behavior could potentially cause medical problems, they say, such as an esophageal tear or flaccid stomachs. No such mishaps have yet been reported.
Sport or not, I say carry on.
Miracle Fruit Turns Sour Sweet, Blogger into Star
Friend and DC food & drink guru Jacob Grier has become something of a go-to guy when the press needs its fix of miracle fruit, a mysterious berry with the power to turn diners’ palates upside down. Jacob attended a miracle fruit party about a year ago, where he investigated the rumor the
…unusual fruit possesses an amazing property. Eating one temporarily alters one’s sense of taste, making sour, bitter foods taste sweet and delicious. People in West Africa, native home to miracle fruit, have reportedely used it for centuries to make their diets more palatable.
It’s also a literally forbidden fruit. Attempts to market it and its active protein miraculin to diabetics were mysteriously thwarted by the FDA in the 1970s, relegating miracle fruit to underground cult status.
[…]
The fruit itself is mostly tasteless, though slightly sweet. The pit is surrounded by a weird, slick layer of pulp. It’s not bad to eat, but one would get bored with it pretty quickly. The true test came next, as we again sampled the lime. The result? Utter astonishment. The very same lime we’d tried moments before suddenly tasted like it had been dipped in sugar. All the stinging acidity was gone, leaving only the pleasing citrus and an amazing sensation of sweetness that left us craving more.
Indeed, it’s true. I’ve eaten miracle fruit with Jacob, followed by foods I know to be sour tasting richly sweet.
Well, Jacob’s love of the fruit led him to blog about it a ton, which led to a bunch of blog coverage, which in turn led to a front-page article on another of his tasting parties in the Wall Street Journal. Just yesterday, a recent tasting party Jacob put together appeared on BBC Radio, alongside this excellent story on the fruit’s positively wacky effect and history. Check out Jacob’s wrap-up of yesterday’s coverage here.
Bananas, Breakfast, and Baby Boys
What food an expectant mother eats–and when she eats it–may play a role in what gender her kids are, a new report claims.
Having a hearty appetite, eating potassium-rich foods including bananas, and not skipping breakfast all seemed to raise the odds of having a boy.
The British research is billed as the first in humans to show a link between a woman’s diet and whether she has a boy or girl.
It is not proof, but it fits with evidence from test tube fertilization that male embryos thrive best with longer exposure to nutrient-rich lab cultures, said Dr. Tarun Jain. He is a fertility specialist at University of Illinois at Chicago who wasn’t involved in the study.
It just might be that it takes more nutrients to build boys than girls, he said.
More here. Potassium and breakfast, eh? In related news, China’s boy-loving government ordered all pregnant women to eat at least a dozen bananas for breakfast every morning.
Also, if you want a boy, you might want to stay away from too too much radiation.
Baggage X-Ray Machine Hates Indian Food
An X-ray machine that hates Indian food? Sounds like something Lou Dobbs might be behind.
“Less than 60% of baggage [screened at the Hyderabad, India airport] is being accepted because the IBS X-ray machine is rejecting chutney powder, pickles and other food items peculiar to India, identifying them as explosives,” an airport official said requesting anonymity. “The system is made for Western countries. It needs to be modified to suit India.”
More here. Learn how to make a “pickle bomb” here. Pick up some curry powder here.
See Lou Dobbs hate on the rights of people from elsewhere to work in their home country or in this one here.
American Know-How and German Efficiency Could Beget the Unstaffed Restaurant
What do you get when you combine a Rube Goldberg-inspired, student-created hamburger machine that pumps out perfect patties in only 156 steps with a German restaurant that entirely automates not only the ordering process but also the food-service end of the bargain? A completely automated burger chain capable of making and serving juicy burgers without any human cook or waitstaff ever being involved in the process.
Just to keep it real, I’d recommend deus ex machina occasionally drop a hair into diners’ sandwiches. (Hat tip: Paul)
Nougat Fuel!
Nougat is one food I’ll never get sick of. Especially when it can fuel my car.
[A]t the United Kingdom’s University of Birmingham, researchers have diverted gooey nougat, caramel and other confectionary waste from the nearby Cadbury Schweppes plant.
Who knew that Cadbury Creme Eggs could be good for the environment?
Who knew? They’re good for everything, dammit.
In other nougat news, Daniel Boulud fitzes nougat here, and — since you were wondering — Time reminds us Iranian police aren’t going to fall for the old nougat/heroin switcharoo.
That’s Captain Ahab, Dude
Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Of course you do. It’s the latest craze, and you’re all about the latest craze. In that case, reports a new study touted by the pro-whaling Norwegian group High Northern Alliance, it’s time you booked your ticket on the low-carbon, whale-meat express!
“People can eat whale meat with a good conscious (sic),” says Rune Frovik of the High North Alliance, which has conducted the study.
The study compared the carbon foot print of Norwegian minke whale meat and farm raised meat. It found that the carbon foot print of beef was eight times higher than that of whale meat. “Put simply, one meal of beef emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as eight meals of whale meat,” says Frovik.
When expressing greenhouse gas emissions as CO2 equivalents, whale meat ends up with 1.9 kg per CO2 equivalents while the corresponding values are 17.4 for lamb, 15.8 for beef, 6.4 for pork and 4.6 for chicken.
The CO2 equivalents for other types of meat were done through other studies.
The High North Alliance has for years argued that abundant whale stocks make whale meat a sustainable and ecological sound option. International scientists estimate that there are more than 100,000 minke whales in the areas where the Norwegian commercial whale hunt takes place.
“Now it is also confirmed that whale meat is low carbon and good for the climate,” Frovik says.
Reuters has more. Crispy covered all things whalicious — from whale recipes to Hayden Panetierre to Fudgie the Whale — here.
Post title reference hails from here.
Touchscreen Dining: Lose the Waitstaff
Sick of surly waiters who still expect 20% tips? Equally tired of waiting for the advent of the robot waitstaff?
Enter the e-waiter.
Restaurants in Europe, the United States and Japan are testing technology to let diners order their food direct from a screen at their table instead of depending on a fellow human being to note their choice — sometimes grumpily or erroneously.
Besides cutting costs, companies that sell the “e-menu” argue the bytes-for-bites approach has a novelty value that can lure younger customers, and boost revenues as tantalising photographs of succulent steaks and gooey desserts tempt diners to order more.
[…]
In Israel, privately owned start-up Conceptic has already installed e-Menu technology in sushi bars, pubs and family restaurants. The system is based on touch-screens already used in self-service canteens or for ticketing in airports and cinemas.
[…]
In Japan, a company called Aska T3 has produced a similar system. But the field is attracting more than startups.
Microsoft says its new Microsoft Surface system, which transforms an entire table into one big touch-screen, is due to go live in spring 2008 in some U.S. hotels and casinos, letting customers order food direct as well as play music and games.
The Seattle-based giant says on its Web site it will “transform the way people shop, dine, entertain and live”. Both Conceptic and Microsoft argue their examples of interactive and communal technology represent the future.
Reuters has more, including video. Conceptic site here. Microsoft Surface here.
Via MarketingVox.
A Helping of Salt with Pork-Barrel Spending
Despite the fact that research — now more than decade old — shows that the alleged health detriment of salt is overblown, England’s government is buying up bacon sandwiches — known as butties or sarnies — so it can sound the alarm about how much salt they contain.
[T]rading standard inspectors… discovered customers at certain roadside vans in York were eating more than their entire daily quota of salt by munching through just one bacon sarnie.
The shock revelation was made during a survey of salt levels in the bacon and sausage sandwiches sold in catering vans across Yorkshire.
[…]
Professor Graham MacGregor, of the campaign group Consensus Action on Salt and Health, said: “This research demonstrates just how much salt may be lurking in take-away foods.”
More on that here. MacGregor’s group is pushing a Salt Awareness Week — coincidentally running right now! Ignore them, and take this literally sound advice on building a better bacon buttie. (”Sound” like on the decibel level , as the bacon should reach when you crunch into it.)
Clams Eat Air, We Eat Clams
Used to be that plants were the only organisms that can turn air into food. No longer. Add clams to the list.
[S]cientists at Ocean Genome Legacy in Ipswich, Mass., and their colleagues at Harvard Medical School have shown that animals, too, can convert air into food…
The animals are marine clams called shipworms. They burrow into and eat wood, causing more than a billion dollars in damage to ships and piers each year.
“Wood has very little nutritional value,” said biologist Dan Distel, executive director of Ocean Genome Legacy. “It contains almost no protein. But these clams use bacterial symbionts living inside a special organ in their gills to convert dissolved air [which is about 80 percent nitrogen] into the protein they need.”
Before this discovery, Ipswich, Ma. — located just a few miles from where I grew up — was best known not for its air-eating clams but for its fried-clam eating visitors, who flock to stand in line for hours, to have their blood drained by giant mosquitoes, for the pleasure of paying more than $20 for a helping for fried bivalves at the eminent Clam Box. (I’m partial to the clams and view and cold on-tap beer at Farnham’s in nearby Essex.)
The Phantom Gourmet has the lowdown on where to get your fried clam on in Massachusetts here.
