OneGuyFromBarlick

The big retailers could tell you a thing or two about mind control! For example, selection of different colour lighting to make products look a different colour, use of different smells in different parts of the store...and don't forget the distorting mirrors in the cubicles where you try new clothes. We aren't much different to maggots really!

I noticed the other day that malt vinegar in shaker bottles was in a completely different location than the larger bottles and at a different shelf height. No accident......

They move the locations of products frequently so that customers are forced to scan shelves and go to to other aisles, and can't just do a `dive in and grab it shop' like I tend to do. It gets people to buy more than they had intended.

I have news for them.... it doesn't work with this kiddy!

I've just been listening to a PHD student at I think Brunel describing how he used three cheap USB microscopes in tandem to get a magnification only normally available with far more expensive kit. See THIS for a report. The nice think is that when Jim Naughty said he should market the idea he said he'd rather it was Open Source.

When the student, Adam Lynch, tells people that he works on snails he probably gets some responding with "Oh yes, another of those time wasting researchers, spending his days looking at snails when he should be doing something useful". And yet this is how science progresses. As the report says: "Expensive tests for measuring everything from sperm motility to cancer diagnosis have just been made hundreds of thousands of pounds cheaper..." ... "The technology also means that studies could be carried out in countries where diseases are rife, but resources low." Furthermore, this is only the spin-off from Adam's research - his main project is on how parasites are transmitted from snails to humans.

I normally have an aversion to smart kids but I am warming to this one....

A good little news item on inventors on Today this morning. Nothing on the web yet but a young lady has invented a fabric that has anti bacteriological properties because it has copper incorporated in the weave. Interesting and it reminds me of the dangers of hot copper. I seem to remember a racing driver in the old Brooklands days dying as a result of a burn he got from a hot copper exhaust pipe. The news item included some surprising figures about inventivity being thin on the ground these days in the young as they are not encouraged to think outside the box.

Copper has long been noted for its antibacterial activity and there's now a lot of research to understand better how it works and to develop new applications. Alloys of copper such as brass and bronze are antibacterial, as are many other metals. The most popular ideas for how copper works are that it (1) disrupts membranes; (2) causes oxidation; and (3) binds with important enzymes in a way that stops them working.

Thinking outside the box...when Mrs Tiz was a secondary school science teacher in the 1980s her school included lateral thinking in the curriculum, thanks to a headmistress who recognised the value of creativity and innovation.

I wonder if she had read Edward de Bono's book published in 1967......

Probably all his books and other people's too! Do you remember the problem in his `Tale Of Two Pebbles' and it's solution? The problem is outlined on this page. For the solution, scroll to the bottom of that page and click the link `Click here to find out what the girl did.'
http://www.debonoconsulting.com/Lateral ... ebbles.asp

Smart Kid!

Scientists analysing data from the Curiosity rover on Mars say they've detected significant amounts of methane. They'd seen a constant low background level but have now detected spikes in the level in the atmosphere (which is mostly carbon dioxide). It's exciting because the methane may be derived from the activity of bacteria, similar to those which produce it on Earth. The other alternative is purely chemical, a process called serpentinization which is named after the rock serpentine. This occurs when the rock changes its composition under the influence of heat and water to become serpentine. Of course that means the presence of sufficient water on Mars for the chemical changes to occur. They've also detected a more complicated organic compound, chlorobenzene, but need to do more tests to be sure it isn't being formed during the analytical tests.

No moths on Mars then?

Only ones that have evolved to be mothball resistant, by analogy with MRSA (mothball resistant staphylococcus aureus).

I mentioned in the above post about serpentinization requiring the presence of water. It occurs on Earth, deep in the crust, when the mineral olivine reacts with water at high temperature and forms the serpentine rock we sometimes see on the surface, such as on the Lizard in Cornwall. Coincidentally a report has just appeared in Nature saying that there is much more water than we expected in the Earth's deep rock - about 11 million cubic kilometres of it (`more water than all the world's rivers, swamps and lakes put together') - and it's between 1 and 2.5 billion years old. It means that there is more serpentinization occurring than we'd thought and that, in turn, means more hydrogen generated as a byproduct of the reaction. This leads to a further conclusion - deep down in the rocky crust there is likely to be much more activity of the bacteria that can use hydrogen as an energy source. All fascinating stuff.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30527357

I heard that report as well and it intrigued me....

Stumbled across this today - can't possibly be true - can it? This was just one of ten reasons to consume it.
Hope so - looks like the answer to my prayers.

"Coconut oil helps combat obesity. It increases the body’s burning of fat and makes it run more efficiently. This leads to weight loss over an extended period of time."

Difficult to say David and I have read a lot about lipids over the last few years. One thing is certain, extended gentle exercise like walking burns fat rather than sugar and so is better for you than brief periods of violent exercise like running which need easily accessed sugar. Recommending coconut oil sounds to me like another of these instant cures. People in Tonga a very fat..... lots of coconuts there!

There was a nice report on World Service from the Rosetta team. They are very optimistic that the lander will get some sunshine to power it up in Jan/March. They also revealed that the images of the comet we have been getting from the mother ship are from the navigational system and nowhere near the higher resolution images they are getting from the science cameras. One thing that is intriguing them are small collections of 'dinosaur eggs'. Their first hypothesis is that these are remnants of the mass of smaller particles that clumped together to form the comet itself. Fascinating stuff and we will no doubt here more from them.

Stanley wrote:Recommending coconut oil sounds to me like another of these instant cures. People in Tonga a very fat..... lots of coconuts there!

Tripps, Stanley's right. The coconut and coconut oil producers have realised that they can do like so many other producers and con people into thinking their product has some special qualities that no other product has. I've heard about it from scientists in New Zealand, they're subjected to the promotion already by being so much closer to the producing countries. Their conclusion is that it's a big unjustified promotional bubble and they're pressuring the government to act. Take no notice of the claims. In fact coconut oil is a saturated oil so it's not the most desirable type of oil for your diet. Stick with the monounsaturates like olive oil and rapeseed oil.

"Take no notice of the claims. In fact coconut oil is a saturated oil so it's not the most desirable type of oil for your diet."

I don't - except to comment on them. I think I knew it was a 'bad' fat already. Just wanted you to confirm it. Thanks.

PS - this is loosely related. Just been to Tesco (very quiet) where I saw the local MP Sir Oliver Heald QC MP (former Attorney General) with his daughter inquiring as to the whereabouts of the coconut milk. I wondered whether to tell him how dangerous this might be but decided against it.

You did right David! Just one small point. You are correct about there being 'bad fats' but I think we should avoid the phrase because it has been polluted by the food processors to include any fat that doesn't help shelf life. This means that the 'good fats' in their view are the ones that are actually bad for us! Sorry about that but I strongly believe that we should be educating people against all the black propaganda that has been pumped out. Good natural saturated fats like butter and beef dripping are essential to health. When did you last hear that?

THIS caught my attention this morning. The development of a universal anti-venom for all snakes in sub Saharan Africa.

The snake venom project is another example of excellent work from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine which has long been renowned worldwide for its contributions to the fight against diseases and other threats to health.

A few more comments to clarify the situation on coconut oil...
I said in my post that "coconut oil is a saturated oil so it's not the most desirable type of oil for your diet" and Stanley then defended saturated fats. This might seem like a contradiction but it isn't. One `saturated fat' can be very different from another, with widely differing fatty acid composition. For instance, milk fat is usually classed as a saturated fat but it only contains about 50% saturated fatty acids; similarly lard is called `saturated' but it has only 40% saturated fatty acids. By comparison, coconut oil has 90% saturated.

The differences go further than that. Let's look at the types of saturated fatty acid in coconut oil and milk fat. The important factor here with regard to health is the number of carbon atoms in the fatty acid molecule which we express as e.g. C16, C18 etc. Milk fat and butter fat have approximately 10% C14, 30% C16 and 10% C18. Coconut oil has 9% C8, 10% C10, 52% C12, 19% C14, 11% C16. Never mind the exact figures but take note of the distribution - coconut oil has much more of the shorter chains compared with milk fat. It is these shorter chain fatty acids that are considered unhealthy. Thus coconut oil has more saturated fatty acids and they are more deleterious to health, compared with milk and butter (lard is more like milk fat in this respect).

One other point. In the UK we should more correctly refer to coconut oil as coconut fat. It melts at 24C and is only an oil in warmer climates. But the coconut producers would prefer us to call it an oil because people tend to think oils must be healthier than fats!

One further clarification. Saturated fats are essential to our diet and like so many other things the key to how dangerous lies in balance. In this case the proportion of Long chain Omega3 oils (fish oils mainly) to the saturated and Omega6 fats. From memory 1:6 is acceptable but many western diets are closer to 1:300 and apart from the saturated fats include far too much Omega6. Many lipid researchers believe that this is the most important factor in diet. That's why I have my Cod Liver Oil every morning and avoid the Omega6 as much as possible......