They’ve got an early-bird special that’s smokin’
Red Hot Chilli Sauce Sparks Chemical Alert
Streets were closed outside the Thai Cottage in London's Soho theatre and nightlife district on Monday night.
The precautions followed a chemical alert in the venue's kitchen.
"Somebody smelled what they thought was chemicals. So we went there, cordoned it off and assisted the fire brigade," said a police spokesman.
The ambulance service dispatched a Hazardous Area Response Team unit following the alarm.
Advertisement
Firefighters dressed in special suits smashed down the doors to discover the source of the smell - chef Chalemchai Tangjariyapoon's fiery signature nam prik pao chilli sauce.
Its creator was baffled by the commotion.
"I was making a spicy dip with extra-hot chillis that are deliberately burnt. To us, it smells like burnt chilli and it is slightly unusual," the chef told The Times.
"I can understand why people who weren't Thai would not know what it was.
"But it doesn't smell like chemicals."
When they say bottomless chilli bowl, they’re not kidding.
A new kind of after-school special
Education levels predict dementia
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Adults who don't finish high school are at a higher risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease than those with more education, a Scandinavian study found.
Dr. Tiia Ngandu of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and University of Kuopio, Finland, tracked 1,388 participants through middle age and late life for an average of 21 years.
The study showed that compared with people with a low education level -- five or less years of education -- those with a medium education level -- six to eight years -- had a 40 percent lower risk of developing dementia.Those with a high education level -- nine or more years of education -- had an 80 percent lower risk, the journal Neurology reported.
"Generally speaking, people with low education levels seem to lead unhealthier lifestyles, which could suggest the two work concurrently to contribute to dementia or Alzheimer's disease, but our results showed a person's education predicted dementia on its own," Ngandu said in a statement.
"It may be that highly educated people have a greater cognitive reserve, which is the brain's ability to maintain function in spite of damage, thus making it easier to postpone the negative effects of dementia. Additionally, unhealthy lifestyles may independently contribute to the depletion of this reserve."
So, if you stay in school, are you obligated to remember everything about it?
What’s passing for science this week? Our Australian division checks in.
Alcohol, lack of sleep, hurts driving
ADELAIDE, Australia, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Low-dose alcohol and moderate sleep deprivation can hurt young men's subjective alertness and performance while driving, Australian researchers found.
Study author Andrew Vakulin, of the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health at Repatriation General Hospital in Australia, studied 21 healthy young men, ages 18 to 30, who all had normal sleep patterns and no sleep disorders.
The study participants completed a 70-minute simulated driving session, which included steering deviation, braking reaction time, and number of collisions and underwent repeated measures with four experimental conditions: normal sleep without alcohol, sleep restriction alone of four hours and sleep restriction in combination with Blood Alcohol Content levels of 0.025 g/dL and 0.035 g/dL.
Steering deviation increased significantly when sleep restriction was combined with the higher dose alcohol and also resulted in greater subjective sleepiness and negative driving performance ratings compared to control or sleep restriction alone, reported the journal Sleep.
"The ability to keep the car in the middle of the lane is critical to safe driving, and is one of the more sensitive measures of driving impairment," Vakulin said in a statement. "Although steering deviation was not significantly affected by sleep restriction alone, alcohol at a Blood Alcohol Content as low as 0.025 g/dL in combination with sleep restriction was sufficient to significantly impair steering ability." (UPI)
So drunky and sleepy don't drive so good. Golly, those guys are really going out on a limb. How about a real dreamy version of “Radar Love" instead? Or maybe Lowell George’s ‘Willin?” You know, that song about “Weed, whites and wine.”
And all this time I thought it was the spandex
High Blood Pressure May Be Due To Excess Weight In Half Of Overweight Adults
Science Daily — As many as 50 percent of overweight men and women with high blood pressure may have hypertension as a result of being overweight, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association's 61st Annual Fall Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research.
Researchers in Italy found that about 50 percent of overweight, hypertensive adults, ranging in age from 29 to 65 years, achieved normal body weight and blood pressure after six months of treatment with a reduced-calorie diet.
"This is important because it means that in these patients with elevated blood pressure who were overweight, the blood pressure was not a form of essential hypertension but was hypertension secondary to body weight," said Roberto Fogari, M.D., lead investigator of the study and professor of medicine at the University of Pavia, Italy.
"These findings apply to western societies in general, but only to overweight patients, not to obese patients, with high blood pressure," Fogari said.
People losing weight on a low-calorie diet. Wow, what an age we live in.
“Judging from this toothless skeleton that I'm holding in my hand, I can state that this dinosaur stood about 5’2’’, liked to dance, had a decent jump shot and prayed for whirled peas. His turn offs were mostly mean dinosaurs who were bigger and faster than he was.”
Duck-billed dinosaur had big bite
A species of dinosaur that packed hundreds of teeth inside its giant beak has just been described by scientists.
The Gryposaurus, discovered in southern Utah, had a distinct duck-like bill and a powerful, strengthened jaw.
The two-legged creature, described in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, was more than 10m (30ft) long.
Analysis suggests that the dinosaur, which lived in the Cretaceous forests of North America about 65-80 million years ago, was a successful herbivore.
"When you combine the 800 teeth with the very large, strong jaw and beak you have a very formidable plant eater," said Dr Terry Gates of the Utah Museum of Natural History, one of the authors on the paper.
Gryposaurus monumentensis was found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.
The park is a favoured destination for palaeontologists, who have previously found other new species in the area including a Velociraptor-like carnivore called Hagryphus and a species of tyrannosaur.
Grypo-saurus? You mean like Andy Rooney?
And just which branch of government would that be?
Lawmaker Shows Nude Photo to Students
NORWALK, Ohio (AP) - A state legislator surprised a high school class when the computer he was using projected a photo of a nude woman during a lecture on how a bill becomes a law.
State Rep. Matthew Barrett was giving a civics lesson Tuesday when he inserted a data memory stick into the school computer and the projected image of a topless woman appeared instead of the graphics presentation he had downloaded.
Police interviewed Barrett and school officials and seized the data memory stick and the computer to determine where the image came from, a state highway patrol spokesman said.
Barrett said there were a few snickers from the approximately 20 students in the senior government class at Norwalk High School when the image appeared. He said he immediately pulled the memory stick out of the computer.
The legislator said he finished his lecture using printouts and then met with the school's principal and technology staff, who examined the stick. He said the school's technology director determined the stick had a directory of nude images in addition to Barrett's presentation on civics lessons.
"I have no idea where these came from," the Democrat said.
Barrett said the data memory stick was a gift he received about three weeks ago from a legislative liaison from the state Library of Ohio.
This gives a whole new meaning to the term “Legislative aide.”
Yeah, but does it have cable?
Astronomers see second Earth in the making
Young planets could be forming in star system's terrestrial
Astronomers have spotted evidence of a second Earth being built around a distant star 424 light-years away.
Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a huge belt of warm dust swirling around a young star called HD 113766 that is just slightly larger than our sun. The dust belt, which scientists suspect is clumping together to form planets, is located in the middle of the star system's terrestrial habitable zone where temperatures are moderate enough to sustain liquid water. Scientists estimate there is enough material in the belt to form a Mars-sized world or larger.
At approximately 10 million years old, the star is just the right age for forming rocky planets, the researchers say. Their finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.
"The timing for this system to be building an Earth is very good," said study team member Carey Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, Md.
If the star system were too young, the planet-forming disk would be full of gas, and it would be making gas-giant planets like Jupiter instead. If it were too old, Spitzer would have spotted rocky planets that had long ago formed.
The star system also has the right mix of dusty materials in its disk to form an Earth-like planet, Lisse said.
Using Spitzer's infrared spectrometer instrument, the team determined that the material around HD 113766 is more processed than the snowball-like stuff that makes up infant solar systems and comets, which are considered cosmic "refrigerators" because they contain pristine ingredients from the solar system's formative period. But it is also not as processed as the stuff found in mature planets and asteroids.
"The material mix in this belt is most reminiscent of the stuff found in lava flows on Earth," Lisse said. "I thought of Mauna Kea [in Hawaii] material when I first saw the dust composition in this system — it contains raw rock and it's abundant in iron sulfides, which are similar to fool's gold."
Earlier this year, scientists announced they had found evidence for one, and possibly two, already formed Earth-like planets around Gliese 581, a dim red star located only 20.5 light-years away. The possible planets, called Gliese 581c and Gliese 581d, are located at about the right distance from their star to support liquid water and life as we know it, but many more observations are needed to confirm this.
To date, planet hunters have discovered more than 250 extrasolar planets, or "exoplanets." Most of the distant worlds, however, are giant gas planets several times the size of Jupiter.
While life is known to exist only on our planet, the range of exoplanet types found so far has astronomers increasingly confident that many worlds in our galaxy could be habitable.
Finding Earthlike worlds in habitable zones is a first step toward the technically challenging task of discovering biology outside our solar system.
“This new earth that’s being built, I hope they’re using union labor.”
Hey Shatner, where's your astroid?
NEW YORK (AP) -- A piece of outer space named for George Takei is in kind of a rough neighborhood for somebody who steers a starship: an asteroid belt.
art.george.takei.gi.jpg
"I am now a heavenly body," George Takei said Tuesday.
An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original "Star Trek" series and movies.
"I am now a heavenly body," Takei, 70, said Tuesday, laughing. "I found out about it yesterday. ... I was blown away. It came out of the clear, blue sky -- just like an asteroid."
The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers in 1994, was formerly known as 1994 GT9. It joins the 4659 Roddenberry (named for the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry) and the 68410 Nichols (for co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura). Other main-belt asteroids have been named for science fiction luminaries Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
The renaming of 7307 Takei was approved by the International Astronomical Union's Committee on Small Body Nomenclature. About 14,000 asteroid names have been approved by the panel, while about 165,000 asteroids have been identified and numbered, union spokesman Lars Lindberg Christensen said.
Unlike the myriad Web sites that offer to sell naming rights to stars, the IAU committee-approved names are actually used by astronomers, said Tom Burbine, the Mount Holyoke College astronomy professor who proposed the name swap.
"This is the name that will be used for all eternity," he said.
Burbine said he suggested Takei's name in part out of appreciation for his work with the Japanese American Citizens League and with the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign. Takei, a spokesman for HRC's Coming Out Project, was cultural affairs chairman of the JACL, and he was appointed to the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission by former President Clinton.
Takei has appeared on NBC's "Heroes" and appears regularly on Howard Stern's satellite radio show.
Under the committee's policies, whoever discovers an asteroid has 10 years in which to propose a name. After that, the panel considers other suggestions, although it warns would-be namers to avoid anything "in questionable taste" and any names honoring political or military figures sooner than 100 years after their deaths. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
The good news is that they didn't name it "Pickles" and Takei's never recorded anything by Dylan.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment