Rotundus.com

Cereal? Cookies? Oh, What’s the Diff?

The craziest sentence: "It turns out that from at least the perspective of sugar content, many are worse, as a new document from the Environmental Working Group shows. There are at least 44 cereals that contain more sugar in a cup than three Chips Ahoy cookies."

Can the Cans: Why food drives are a terrible idea.

The arguments: horrible economic inefficiency in purchasing, surplus food available to food banks for about 5% of what you'd pay retail, and the need to inspect the results, the high overhead for storage, and the lack of flexibility in purchasing. (See here for what I'd dub a fairly ineffective counterargument - which seems to amount to it being a way to teach children about poverty).

In Defense of Kitchen Gadgets

"In other words, the 'one knife, one pan', 'I don't need kitchen gadgets' snobs aren't a better, purer sort of cook; they're just ignoring most of the contents of their kitchen. How many of them cook over an open fire, rather than using one of those high-faluting fancy stoves with their automatic temperature regulation and their electric lights? Why are they storing all their food in a cold box rather than shopping for each day, the way people do in India?" (of course, as the article notes there are a number of good reasons not to accumulate too many either).

Thai lawmakers submit motion on moving capital

"Experts have said Bangkok, which is built on swampland, is slowly sinking and the floods currently besieging the city of 12 million people could be merely a foretaste of a grim future, as climate change makes its impact felt."

"Here's Botswana. They've done everything the Western donors have asked them to do. They've promoted condoms. They've made testing free of charge. Yet Botswana has the second highest rate of HIV infections in the world. So clearly the formula has not worked."

- Dr. Edward Green, Former Director, Harvard AIDS Prevention Research Project

The Road We Know Trailer from Citygate Films on Vimeo.

This film has a fairly interesting viewing model. Most films of this sort seem to be difficult to track down to view, whereas this one is taking a different approach, where you can watch online and half the fee is donated to charity. Unfortunately, it's currently Windows-only (but I do have a Windows laptop with HDMI and VGA out [plus a 25 foot VGA+audio cable]).

'Miracle' pill takes the bitter with the sweet

"The miracle fruit, “miracle berry,” or more formally Synsepalum dulcificum contains a glycoprotein – conveniently named miraculin - that temporarily fools taste buds into believing that sour and bitter things taste sweet."

Possible Forging of Modern Art Is Investigated

They include photos of a couple of examples so you can see some of the paintings now though to likely be forgeries. The biggest question to me is why anyone would pay $17 million for one of these. Gone through a few modern art museums - some of the pieces are a bit interesting but I really don't care for most.

Hard Plastic Bottles, Reborn as a Bridge

It seems that a company called Axion International has concluded that if you use mash together shredded, recycled plastic with a bit of fiberglass you can replace a lot of steel. The manufacturer is arguing that it's a cheaper material than steel or concrete typically, but twice as expensive as wood (although they're arguing for them as a replacement for railroad ties with a suggested life much longer than that of existing materials).

Shocking News: Men don’t actually think about sex all day long

"Males reported significantly more need-based cognitions overall, but there was no significant interaction between sex of participant and type of cognition recorded. Therefore, although these young men did think more about sex than did young women, they also thought more about food and sleep."

Apparently, the ban on horse slaughter for meat in the US has now been lifted. (Been there; eaten that). The video below doesn't really add much information, but the animation amuses me: