“For the first time we got the idea that, in the far-flung future, people who live and work in space might be a bunch of Average Joe slobs sitting around with leftover pizza, smoking and playing cards to pass the time. It captures much of what long duration space flight is about now: dirty, sweaty and claustrophobic with long periods of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror.” UCL space physiologist Kevin Fong, on Ridley Scott’s Alien
“Everyone who has even thought about exercising has heard the warnings about lactic acid. It builds up in your muscles. It is what makes your muscles burn. Its buildup is what makes your muscles tire and give out… But that, it turns out, is all wrong. Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.” Gina Kolata, New York Times
“Some people call me the human calendar while others run out of the room in complete fear. Most have called it a gift, but I call it a burden. I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!!!” “AJ”, on her unique ability to perfectly and instantly recall details of her past, a condition researchers have dubbed “hyperthymestic syndrome”
“By Jove, this is what I wanted to do.” Physicist Owen Chamberlain, on search for antiprotons—a discovery that would later win his Nobel Prize in physics.
“I’m sure the technology is even better now, but I was a -8 in both eyes and came out 20/10. Meaning I can see BETTER than 20/20. It’s awesome… The hardest part was to have my eyes “propped” open for the surgery. It as a little scary after the flap was cut and I couldn’t see anything. It was just black… The three days of healing weren’t painful and they weren’t very difficult. The hardest part for me was to not read newspapers and so on, as instructed. When you aren’t used to being able to see, you want to read EVERYTHING.” Dave Simon, on LASIK
“Louise Boudin was an old lady when the San Franciso earthquake shook her world in 1906. Still, she dashed into her burning bakery. As it collapsed into rubble behind her, she emerged with just one item: a wooden bucket of mother dough. The widow Boudin retired four years later, but the mother dough lives on. The ‘mother’ is a sourdough starter that has been raising bread dough for 157 years. It is put to work every day at the Boudin Bakery & Museum on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Franciso.” Food Editor Susan Sampson, on the live culture of yeast and lactobacilli that is fed with flour and water
“There is definitely a secular bias, because speaking emotionally doesn’t work anymore. There’s a rational, scientific privilege, and all other sorts of language are matters of the heart and don’t have a place.” Munir Jiwa, anthropologist
“Given all the contributions Canada has made to the world, who would guess one of the biggest would be to help build a better banana… the fourth most important food staple in the world—after rice, wheat and corn.” Leslie Scrivener, Toronto Star
“And there lies one of the world’s great food scare conundrums. If MSG is bad for you - as Jeffrey Steingarten, the great American Vogue food writer once put it - why doesn’t everyone in China have a headache?” Observer Food Monthly
“That sameness is the banana’s paradox. After 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty. A wild scenario? Not when you consider that there’s already been one banana apocalypse.” “Can This Fruit Be Saved?”, Popular Science
