Sunday, July 17, 2011

Maybe its the cold?

Maybe its the fact that its winter time here.
Christmas in July the call it with many parties inclusive.
But it makes me very hungry.. Now that seems odd scientifically as my metabolism should slow down when im cold.. but at the same time your body does eat more..
Never mind.

The main point here is I have been looking at many foods lately.
Some good people over at Serious eats have come up with a fairly good build your own big mac recipie. Now there are plenty of big mac recipies out there but I like this one personally. I worked at mcDonalds for a very long time in my youth and I think this one is a really good adaptation of the one we serve at maccas.
So I thought I would share it..
No science today, just delicious burger.
Big mac link 

  • 3.2 ounces boneless beef short rib, well-chilled (2/10 of a pound)
  • 1/4 cup finely minced onion
  • 1 teaspoon onion grated on a microplane grater
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons sweet pickle relish
  • 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon marmite, vegemite, or Maggi seasoning
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 whole Wonderbread brand hamburger bun, plus 1 bottom bun (I dont have wonderbread here but they effect they are going for is soft white bread.. which I also dont eat so i used soft wholemeal bread.)
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seeds (about 600)
  • 1/4 cup shredded iceberg lettuce
  • 4 dill pickle slices (Not a fan of pickles.. and maccas only use 2)
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (Kosher salt means nothing to me I dont know what it is..)
  • 1 slice American cheese (Cheese)
 Its pretty tasty..
Give it a go?? Please.. And post pictures!!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Nightmare

3/4 of all dream emotions are negative emotions.
Now the difference between a bad dream and a nightmare is that a nightmare is something that causes you to wake up where as a bad dream you can just sleep through.

Now bad dreams are very environmental, a person in their own home will have in some cases three times more nightmares than if they where in a sleep study test room.

Now negative emotions in dreams is common because the part of your brain designated to deal with stress is directly linked to the primary visual cortex which is where REM sleep happens.

I have been having reoccouring nightmares lately so just thought I would write out what I knew about nightmares.

<3

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Spud Gene!

Scientists at the Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium (best name ever right?) have finally succeeded in mapping the full genome sequence of the humble spud.
Fun fact potatoes are the 3rd most grown crop and over 309 million tonnes of potato was sold last year? AMAZING!
But back to the Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium!!
They have mapped all 12 haploid chromosomes (the dna bits)and its 840 million base pairs!
The two potato strains they sequenced where
"RH89-039-16 (RH), a diploid, heterozygous potato variety
DM1-3 516R44 (DM), a doubled monoploid."
Now for those of us that dont understand big words like that basically they are two different strains of potato and therefore have different genetic code.

The benefit of having completely mapped a genome is that now we can use it to find similarities too other plants, genetically modify the potatoes to be hardier and grow better, all sorts of wild wonderful things!

Soon is the day where we shall consume an entire meal in pill form and peel a banana to get a carrot.

Google +

Google+
Google+
Google+
hmmm.. well its not really science but its new and funky.
Well I got an invite.. I am just that amazing.
I set it up so when I open facebook it opens too so i can get into the habit of it and I set it up on my lovely android phone.

Well my first reaction is that I like it. Its a combination of facebook and twitter. and its done fairly well.

So far I have put all my RSS feeds over to google plus which is awesome because I love RSS feeds.

As far as social networking goes I really like it, the only feature I feel its missing is the "wall" idea that facespace has. But Its not that big a deal..

Hope you all got your invites, let me know what you think.

Fatty food!

So lets start back with something I consumed allot of lately.
Fatty food!

New research at the university of California suggests that fatty food actual cause a "munchies" effect in our brains causing us to continue to eat.

Endocannabinoids are the bodies natural version of the active ingredient in marijuana, it causes the same effects one gets from marijuana but normally things like dampening emotion and the need to eat.

To study these effects sets of rats where given one of three liquid diets
A protein mix, a sugar mix, and a fat based protein/sugar mix.
To avoid interference from digestive signals a valve as set up in the rats upper stomach to drain the food before digestion.

The rats on the regular diet ate a normal serving of the oil and then stopped, rats on the fat based corn oil continued to consume the oil and then began attempting to get oil out of the dispenser until an artificial chemical that suppresses endocannabinoids was given.

The research is exciting because it shows that we may be able to curb over-eating with a drug that blocks or suppresses endocannabinoids. It also goes to show that fatty food does in fact MAKE you hungry after you eat it. Who knew?

Check the full story at: Sciencenews

Im back!

And im back I think?
Not sure.
Life got hard all of a sudden involving losing a huge amount of friends and a girlfriend.
Since then I have been devoting all of my energy to making new friends and connections.
Which is going well. I am thinking I may run two blogs in parallel but thats all in the cloud at the moment..
I always said I wouldnt make a blog full of posts apologizing for not posting but my two month hiatus was unexpected.. especially just before the endevour launch!