A brand new month and another Saturday news dump…..you are so lucky….
Locally–weather is remaining spring-like….very little rain….and lots of Mardi Gras parades for citizens to go to…..
Personally–Started my treatments Monday and they are not too bad for a change….but it is early in the cycle and not going to say it will always be good.
Shall we begin?
This is for all my tea drinkers….
In the tea vs. coffee debate, some coffee fans hail the way coffee grounds trap heavy metals in water. Now, tea fans can clap back. Tea leaves, whether loose or in a bag, absorb heavy metals like lead and arsenic, meaning that when you brew a cup, you’re essentially filtering your water, new research suggests. Following up on research that found absorbents derived from tea waste soaked up cadmium, zinc, and nickel, Northwestern University PhD student Benjamin Shindel and colleagues experimented with different teas, brewing methods, and steeping times to come up with what the Washington Post calls “the purest cup” of the most consumed beverage in the world.
Researchers heated water solutions containing lead, chromium, copper, zinc, and cadmium, then added tea leaves, allowing them to steep for a few seconds up to 24 hours, per Smart Water Magazine. They found steeping one cup of black tea for five minutes resulted in a 15% reduction in lead, regardless of the lead concentration. But the more brew time, the better purification. “Brewing tea for longer periods or even overnight, like iced tea, will recover most of the metal or maybe even close to all of the metal in the water,” Shindel, lead author of the study published Monday in ACS Food Science & Technology, tells the magazine.
Though ground tea leaves were better purifiers than whole leaves owing to the additional surface area, and cellulose tea bags performed far better than nylon and cotton tea bags, again due to the higher surface area of the material, such benefits were “marginal compared to the benefit of having more time,” Shindel tells the Post. “We’re not suggesting that everyone starts using tea leaves as a water filter,” senior study author Vinayak P. Dravid tells Smart Water. But “our work highlights the unrecognized potential for tea consumption to passively contribute to reduced heavy metal exposure.” Shindel notes tea might also absorb “other contaminants,” per the Post.
Sticking with the hot beverage thing….bad news for us coffee drinkers….
When I heard that coffee futures were reaching record highs, I got a bad case of the jitters. What would happen to my morning cup of Joe? How expensive could it get? Could I afford enough coffee to get me through the day?
The problems didn’t stop there. Thanks to severe droughts in 2023, major harvests in Brazil and Vietnam did badly, and water in the Panama Canal ran low, slowing ship traffic. Coffee futures started to tick up. Then, this past November, the commodity skyrocketed. Brazil, which exports the lion’s share of the industry’s preferred arabica beans, was beginning its growing season as the country’s worst drought on record stretched into a second year. The clouds that usually shade coffee trees went missing. It would be the second bad harvest in a row. When the news hit, traders rushed to lock in arabica contracts, sending prices to all-time highs in December. Now prices are more than double their 2023 peak. Robusta beans, often used in instant coffee, hit their own record high this month.
Is this the end of coffee as we know it?
Sticking with the beverage meme…..
There’s a whisky war brewing in the UK. Distilleries in Scotland say a proposal to allow their counterparts in England to produce “single malt whisky” is heresy, reports the BBC. The controversy comes as the UK government considers a plan to loosen the age-old rules. “This is an act of sabotage and is yet another blatant attack on one of Scotland’s key industries by a Labour government that simply doesn’t care,” said Graham Leadbitter, a Scottish National party MP, per the Financial Times.
- Current rules: To be labeled Scotch whisky, malt grains must be mashed, fermented, and distilled at one site in Scotland.
- Proposal: Under the new plan for the English version, the booze would be fermented at one site, but mashing and fermentation could take place elsewhere.
- Allowing English whiskies so made to be labeled “single malt” would be “very damaging” to the “long-standing traditions” of Scotch, says the Scotch Whisky Association. The 3-year-old English Whisky Guild says it agrees “that provenance and a sense of place is a critical element of whisky,” but it says consumers won’t object because everything will be sourced from within the UK. The guild also points to the US—which produces whiskey, not whisky—and has its own rules governing “American Single Malt Whiskey,” per the Scotsman. “These differing standards support the creation of quality whisky while fostering innovation and differentiation in each country,” said chief executive Morag Garden.
A single malt scotch is lovely and that uniqueness should be protected.
There is an old wives tale that says you can fight the common cold with spicy food….
For centuries, capsaicin — the natural compound responsible for the kick in spicy food — has been used as a health remedy. It’s been applied to wounds and used as anesthesia.
It’s appealing to think that a few glugs of hot sauce are all it takes to cure a cold — at least to those who enjoy chugging hot sauce — but in reality, it’s more of a band-aid than a cure.
The quick answer is no. Colds are caused by a virus, and capsaicin can’t fight viruses. There is currently no cure for the common cold. If there ever is one, we’ll be the first to tell you about it. However, it’s possible for spicy food to alleviate some cold symptoms, so read on.
Would like to be taller? If so then there is a solution for you….
If you’re a guy who’s long yearned to be just a few inches taller, Dr. Kevin Debiparshad says he’s your man. The Harvard-educated surgeon based in Las Vegas is the subject of a profile by Brittny Mejia for the Los Angeles Times on the time-consuming and often cringe-inducing process of leg lengthening, which the 43-year-old doctor became interested in as a med student at a pediatric orthopedic clinic in Vancouver two decades ago. At the time, he worked under a more senior doctor who could “grow kids’ legs.” “It seemed almost magical,” recalls Debiparshad, whose patients call him “Dr. D.” “When I saw that, I knew that I had to do this somehow.”
That “magic” doesn’t seem like a comfortable process: A surgeon first wedges a chisel-like tool called an osteotome into the patient’s leg bone, hits the tool with a mallet dozens of times to weaken the bone, then moves the leg until it snaps “like a wishbone.” A titanium rod is then placed in the patient’s leg, and they’re directed to use a small device to stretch the rod a tiny amount per day (about a millimeter) over a stretch of months. “People think about breaking a bone and sticking a rod inside and slowly stretching you out—it sounds like a torture chamber,” Debiparshad says, adding that it’s “a lot more palatable than people think.”
So how much does this all cost? Insurance doesn’t cover it, and it can run around $78,000 for the femur and $84,000 for the tibia—and that doesn’t count the $15,000 to remove the rod. Debiparshad says complications can include rare blood clots that work their way up to the lungs, though he says none of the 100-plus patients he treats annually (mostly men) have had that. More here, including the story of an Indiana teen who had the surgery—also useful for shortening limbs—to boost his height from 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10
Finally my favorite news item for the past week….and it comes out of California….
California has dozens of official symbols, including a state fish, a state fabric, and even a state slug. State Assembly member Chris Rogers wants to add Bigfoot to the list. Rogers introduced AB Bill 666 last week to make the creature the official state “cryptid,” a term for creatures that people claim to have seen but whose existence has never been proven, KCAL reports. Rogers, a Democrat, represents a district that includes Humboldt County, a hot spot for Bigfoot sightings. His bill will have to get at least 41 votes in the 80-member Assembly and pass the state Senate before it can proceed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Bigfoot researcher Matt Moneymaker tells SFGate that he initially thought the bill was a joke, but he was all for it when he discovered it was real. “Apparently, a state can have an official cryptid. So why not?” he says. “And obviously, Bigfoot’s the biggest one of all among cryptids, and California is where the term Bigfoot was popularized, so it makes sense.” Moneymaker, president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, claims that the creatures, also known as sasquatches, inhabit “many parts of California” and he has gotten close to them a few times. The BFRO says the most recent Bigfoot sighting was in Humboldt County in September.
“The question of ‘which mythical creature best represents California’ is a hairy one,” Rogers tells the New York Post, “But we feel like it’s time to ‘sqautch the beef. It’s not the Tahoe Tessie or El Chupacabra that generates buzz and interest from outdoor enthusiasts, it’s Bigfoot.” He adds that the bill “was originally intended to be a spot bill—which would disappear (like Bigfoot) when we amend it but given the heaviness of some of the challenges our state is facing, it has been a fun moment of levity for my colleagues and community.”
That does it for me on this lovely Saturday….I hope everyone will have a chance to go out and enjoy the day…..and as always….Be Well and Be Safe……
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”