Miracle Berry
The miracle berry, otherwise known as the miracle fruit, is a plant that produces berries. These berries are special because if you eat them, later sour foods then taste sweet (for example lemons). This effect lasts for half an hour to two hours.
These plants are found in West Africa. However they are available for purchase in freeze dried or tablet form, but are quite difficult to get outside of asia.
It is believed to work because the fruit contains miraculin, which binds to the tongues tastebuds. No one really knows how this causes sour foods to taste sweet, but the main theory is that it changes the shape of the tastebuds.
Savant Syndrome
Savant syndrome is e medical condition where people with have a very specialised area of expertise or brilliance. For example Daniel Tammet, who is a savant and has quoted Pi to 22514 decimal places off by heart.
These people usually have other developmental disorders. Savant can be genetic, for example 50% of savants are autistic savants, or developed, like during brain damage.
This medical condition is quite rare, with an estimate of there being only around 50 savants in the world. There are also about five times more male than female sevants.
Tryptophan in Turkey
Well it’s true - there really is a chemical in turkey that makes you sleepy.
I know a lot of us like to believe that it is the boring family conversation that makes us sleepy on thanksgiving, but the turkey is really to blame.
Turkey contains tryptophan. This is an amino acid that helps build up protein.
This means that the healthier turkeys, the wild ones, actually make you sleepier. This is because they contain less fat and more protein, so more tryptophan.
Also the dark meat of the turkey contains more protein than the white meat, so it also has more tryptophan.
However there are plenty of other foods that contain tryptophan, for example soybeans and bananas, and these don’t make you sleepy. So maybe it is really the family conversation…
New Xbox Experience
The new Xbox experience is almost upon us. So what is it?
Well it’s a new update to the Xbox interface, that allows for a lot of new features.
First off it adds a social experience aspect to the Xbox. In this you nca make animated avatars (a bit like mii’s on the wii, maybe this is where they got the idea from). You can use these to chat and host parties, where you can share games, movies and photos with a group of people. Read more
Happy Sacks
This is a new reusable bag for lunches, including sandwiches and snacks.
These bags are made of nylon, and can be machine washed and dried. They can also be simply washed down with a sponge.
Think about the average household. These bags have the potential to replace 1000’s of plastic bags for each one of these happy sacks lifetime. Imagine this over many households.
This is a great item to help save the environment one bit at a time. Check them out at:
http://www.happy-sacks.com/
2010 Mustang
At the LA auto show Ford introduced its new 2010 Mustang. This is a new reworked model of the 2005 Mustang, retaining lots of the great features, and some exciting new ones.
First off it has a new exterior design. The new shape is still muscular, having more curvature in its lines, but at the same time looks more contemporary.
At the same time the interior is much improved. Ford has done away with the cheap materials and hard plastic of the 2005 model. Read more
Trism
Trism is a game for the iPhone, developed by Steve Demeter. The game is basically a puzzle game, much like Bejeweled online, but with an iPhone twist. Depending on the way you turn the iPhone, the triangles reorganize themselves.
This game has already made Steve $250,000, in just the two months that it has been on the market. The great thing about iPhone applications, especially games, is that it’s so easy. Any programmer can build a game for the iPhone, as even if its simples, as long as it has a catchy and good idea, it can make lots of money just like Trism has.
LG Incite
LG has released their first US smartphone, available from AT&T. Although LG has some awesome phones worldwide, this is their first release of a smartphone in America.
And the phone is not to disappoint. It has many features and runs the new windows 6.1 mobile. Some of the features include a 3 inch touchscreen with a cool virtual keyboard on it, a GPs, Bluetooth and great 3 mega pixel camera and a microSD port, to add storage for photo’s or music.
And the most important feature – it looks cool, with a great stylish design. Checkout the full story at:
http://gizmodo.com/5091932/lg-incite-lgs-first-us-smartphone-available-at-att
Air Quality Los Angeles
With all the fires around Los Angeles, the air quality in the city is very low.
Even health officials have issued a warning, telling people to try not to breath in areas where you can small and see smoke (kind of hard not to breathe if you are there though).
There has been portable air monitors setup around these smoky areas, to get data about what the air quality is really like. Later a number between 0 and 500 should be released, which is the area’s air quality index. This basically measures the amount of bad, small particles in the air around Los Angeles.
Authorities have advised that outdoor sports events and activities should be cancelled. And residents should try and stay inside their homes with the air conditioner set to recirculate the air.
The Fires around Los Angeles did not cause too much physical harm to people (it did to houses), let’s hope this bad air quality doesn’t affect too many people either.
Who Invented the First Computer
Ok well yesterday in the US presidential debate Barack Obama said the computer was invented as a government project:
“The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defence purposes, how to communicate”
I’d just like to clear up that the first computers were NOT invented by the US government – so go get a history lesson (actually he was probably thinking about communication through the internet, which was a project by the US defence organization).
Onto who really invented the computer… Read more