Category: Science!

My Favorite Foods Are Gonna Kill Me

Food & Drink, Science!

According to !SCIENCE!, two of my favorite foods are dangerous:

Croissants, baguettes and even breakfast cereals could be exposing millions to a cancer-linked toxic metal, French health chiefs have warned.

A major report has raised alarm over levels of cadmium in everyday foods, with experts saying nearly half of the French population may be consuming ‘concerning’ amounts through their diet alone.

The heavy metal, which is found in fertilizers used in modern farming, can build up in soil and enter staple foods eaten daily by millions.

Scientists say products ranging from bread and pastries to pasta, rice and potatoes are among the biggest sources of exposure, with diet accounting for up to 98 per cent of intake in non-smokers.

The findings, published by France’s food safety agency ANSES, have been described as ‘worrying’, with warnings the risks could grow if no action is taken.

Cadmium has been linked to a range of cancers, including those affecting the pancreas, bladder, prostate and breast. It has also been associated with brittle bones, kidney damage and cardiovascular disease.

Géraldine Carne, an expertise coordinator at the agency, warned that long-term health impacts are likely to increase if exposure is not reduced.

Okay, so it’s not just croissants and baguettes that could be dangerous because of this cadmium stuff, but just about every agricultural product we eat.

So in essence, we’re all gonna DIIIIEEEEE from eating because #CadmiumBadShit.

Phew… for a moment I thought I was going to have to cut down on baguettes and croissants.

Just for the record:  French baguette — as made by my local grocery store, Market Street — is the only bread I eat, except when I’m eating croissants (usually from Kroger or Dunkin Donuts) for Saturday/Sunday brekkie.  I seldom put any other breads in my mouth, unless I’m feeling rich and happen to be close to a Central Market store, in which case I get a Batard loaf.  (I wrote about my love of bread back in 2019, in case anyone’s interested, and very little has changed since then. #SetInMyWays #SurpriseSurprise)

Anyway, that reminds me:  I’m running low on baguette, so if you’ll excuse me…

…I’m going to get some on my way back from the range.

Science

Gratuitous Chick Pics, Science!

Finally, an academic study that keeps us abreast of things:

Scientists have uncovered why women’s breasts are so large compared to other animals.

You all know what’s coming next, right?

Color, you say?  Oh, why not…

And finally, a couple of more recent vintage:

I know, I know:  it’s been a shamefully long time since we saw la bella  Sophia on this here back porch of mine.  I apologize for this egregious omission.

…and oh yeah, about that scientific reason why wimmen’s breasteses are so gloriously abundant:

According to a team from the University of Oulu, Finland, breasts may have evolved to help newborns. Human breasts sit at an elevated temperature, protecting a newborn from hypothermia. What’s more, the size and shape of the breast allows for broad contact surface – enhancing the heat transfer from mother to child.

And I always thought it was to help keep men excited and wanting to procreate.  Silly me.

Finishing The Job

Hunting, Science!

This is interesting:

Burmese pythons, one of the world’s largest snakes, are also one of the most problematic invasive species in South Florida. First spotted in the Florida Everglades in the 1970s, the snakes were introduced, either accidentally or intentionally, through the exotic pet trade.

Since then, pythons have become top predators in the local food ecosystem. Despite the fact that they now exist throughout much of South Florida, they remain difficult to track down. That means researchers and conservationists need to find creative ways to lure them out into the open. 

And by creative, we mean really creative—and University of Florida (UF) researchers clearly understood the assignment.

Researchers led by UF professor of wildlife ecology and conservation Robert McCleery have released 40 solar-powered, remote-controlled robot bunnies in South Florida this month. The researchers replaced the plush toy’s stuffing with motors and heaters to imitate the motions and body temperatures of one of pythons’ favorite snacks: marsh rabbits.

I’m no professor of anything, but it seems to me that these boffins are missing a trick, here.  It’s all very well to “lure” these giant worms out into the open, but it’s pretty much useless when it comes to actually killing the loathsome creatures.

My suggestion:  a small explosive charge — it doesn’t have to be greater than, say, that of a large bottle rocket — inserted into the robo-bunnies, triggered by pressure on the outer frame.  This will do one of two things:  blow the snake’s head off when/if it bites the bunny;  or else blow the snake apart when it crushes the thing prior to ingestion.  Either outcome is satisfactory.

Of course, this will never happen because reasons.

Nice Try, Nerds

Food & Drink, Science!

Another breathless warning from some joyless dorks:

Whether it’s a mature cheddar or a crumbly feta, cheese is one of the most beloved foods around the world.  But in news that will concern fans of the moreish treat, scientists have issued an urgent warning about eating cheese. 

For the first time, a groundbreaking study has revealed that these dairy products are ‘ripe in microplastics’.  Scientists believe the tiny plastic particles, measuring 5mm or smaller, could be entering cheese at various stages of production.  Their analysis revealed that the most contaminated products were ripened cheeses – those aged for more than four months – with a staggering 1,857 plastic particles per kilogram.

For comparison, that means a ripened cheese contains around 45 times more microplastics than bottled water.

Yeah, and 45 times “pretty much zip” is still close to nothing.

Since plastics contain chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, scientists are concerned that a buildup of microplastics could damage tissues in our bodies.

“Could”.  Yeah, well at my age I pretty much don’t care, because at some point something’s going to kill me off anyway.  And seeing that these microplastic thingies are pretty much ubiquitous in all food types, I’ll just carry on eating this, my favorite kind of food.

Your opinion may vary, and I don’t care.

Handing Over The Reins

Control Freaks, Corporate Fuckery, Science!

Read this story and see if you don’t get a slow burn, or even an RCOB:

An Australian small business owner says she lost about $50,000 after Instagram suspended her accounts over what she describes as an innocent photo of three dogs.

Rochelle Marinato, managing director at Pilates World Australia, recently received an email from Instagram’s parent company Meta stating her accounts had been suspended because the image breached community guidelines relating to ‘child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity’.

The photo had been mistakenly flagged by an AI moderator which confused the image of the dogs with those of children.

She appealed the decision and sent 22 emails to Meta, but received no assistance from the global tech giant, which owns Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Messenger and WhatsApp.

Ms Marinato claimed her story was just one of many and that the problem was widespread.

She also said it was impossible to talk to a human at Meta to explain her situation.

‘I couldn’t get a human to look at it. Clearly any human that looks at this photo is going to know it’s completely innocent,’ she said. 

‘You can’t contact a human at Meta. There’s no phone number, there’s no email, there’s nothing and you’re literally left in the dark.’ 

To paraphrase Insty:  And Skynet smirks.

Trust Whom?

Health, Science!

The other day New Wife and I were talking about something that affects her school greatly:  peanut allergies among the kiddies — allergies which can be life-threatening.

I said to her:  “When we were kids, nobody had a peanut allergy.  Now it seems to be all over the place.  When did this become so much of a problem, and why?”

Turns out the answer is quite simple:  fucked-up science.  Here’s the story:

The roots of this particular example of expert-inflicted mass suffering can be found in the early 1990s, when the existence of peanut allergies — still a very rare and mostly low-risk phenomenon at the time — first came to public notice. Their entry into public consciousness began with studies published by medical researchers. By the mid-1990s, however, major media outlets were running attention-grabbing stories of hospitalized children and terrified parents. The Great Parental Peanut Panic was on.

As fear and dread mounted, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a professional association of tens of thousands of US pediatricians, felt compelled to tell parents how to prevent their children from becoming the latest victims. “There was just one problem: They didn’t know what precautions, if any, parents should take,” wrote then-Johns Hopkins surgeon and now-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in his 2024 book, Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health.

Ignorance proved no obstacle. Lacking humility and seeking to bolster its reputation as an authoritative organization, the AAP in 2000 handed down definitive instructions: Parents should avoid feeding any peanut product to children under 3 years old who were believed to have a high risk of developing a peanut allergy; pregnant and lactating mothers were likewise cautioned against consuming peanuts.

The AAP noted that “the ability to determine which infants are at high risk is imperfect.” Indeed, simply having a relative with any kind of allergy could land a child or mother in the “high risk” category. Believing they were erring on the side of caution, pediatricians across the country started giving blanket instructions that children shouldn’t be fed any peanut food until age 3; pregnant and breastfeeding mothers were told to steer clear too.

So now we know when, and how.  But what was this based upon?

What was the basis of the AAP’s pronouncement? The organization was simply parroting guidance that the UK Department of Health had put forth in 1998. Makary scoured that guidance for a scientific rationale, and found a declaration that mothers who eat peanuts were more likely to have children with allergies, with the claim attributed to a 1996 study. When he checked the study, however, he was shocked to find the data demonstrated no such correlation.

In fact, the way to prevent your kids from getting a peanut allergy is precisely the opposite to what these assholes insisted upon:

  • when you’re pregnant, eat peanuts
  • after the kid is born, feed it peanut butter (in small quantities, of course)
  • so its physiology can learn to deal with peanuts, like it does with all foods and illnesses.

Fucking hell.

The next time someone suggests that we “trust the experts”, we should tell them to go and fuck themselves.  And if bodies such as the AAP can’t be trusted to do the proper due diligence with the scientific data in hand, they need to be fired, sued and all the other ways that such negligence and outright error can be punished.

I was thinking “mass floggings”, but no doubt someone’s going to have a problem with this.

And if you’re wondering how we can ascertain such incompetence for ourselves, look askance at any suggestion which “errs on the side of caution“.  (See:  Covid-19, reaction to.)

Ditto anything that comes from the UK Department of Health (i.e. those fine folks who brought you today’s NHS).

That’s a red flag, if ever there was one.