HEAR YE! HEAR YE! HEAR YE!
Today I won
$50
from the lottery!
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From Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 9, R409-R418, 6 May 2013
An Evolutionary Perspective on Food and Human Taste
Summary:
The sense of taste is stimulated when nutrients or other chemical compounds activate specialized receptor cells within the oral cavity. Taste helps us decide what to eat and influences how efficiently we digest these foods. Human taste abilities have been shaped, in large part, by the ecological niches our evolutionary ancestors occupied and by the nutrients they sought. Early hominoids sought nutrition within a closed tropical forest environment, probably eating mostly fruit and leaves, and early hominids left this environment for the savannah and greatly expanded their dietary repertoire. They would have used their sense of taste to identify nutritious food items. The risks of making poor food selections when foraging not only entail wasted energy and metabolic harm from eating foods of low nutrient and energy content, but also the harmful and potentially lethal ingestion of toxins. The learned consequences of ingested foods may subsequently guide our future food choices. The evolved taste abilities of humans are still useful for the one billion humans living with very low food security by helping them identify nutrients. But for those who have easy access to tasty, energy-dense foods our sensitivities for sugary, salty and fatty foods have also helped cause over nutrition-related diseases, such as obesity and diabetes.
Current Biology
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I recently viewed a mind-blowing short video, a four-minute excerpt on youtube video directed by Peter Kuran and narrated by William Shatner.
Castle Bravo was the code name of the first test by the United States, of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb (Teller-Ulam fission bomb nicknamed "Shrimp"), during Operation Castle, on February 28, 1954, on Nam Island in the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Expected to yield 4 to 6 megatons, the device yielded 15 megatons at detonation, causing accidental widespread radioactive contamination. It also led to military personnel, islanders, and the crew of a Japanese fishing boat, being rained on, and exposed to radioactive fallout from the dust plume.
Castle Bravo Thermonuclear Device (15 megatons)
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George Will has another eye-opening column in The Washington Post. It concerns Lois Lerner and the state of the Democrat Party today.
Link
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TRIVIA
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Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
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HISTORICAL EVENT
On this day, June 14 in 1985 TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome was hijacked by Shiite Hezbollah terrorists who immediately demand to know the identity of ''those with Jewish-sounding names." Two of the Lebanese terrorists, armed with grenades and a 9-mm. pistol, then forced the plane to land in Beirut, Lebanon.
Once on the ground, the hijackers called for passengers with Israeli passports, but there were none. Nor were there any diplomats on board. They then focused their attention on the several U.S. Navy construction divers aboard the plane. Soon after landing, the terrorists killed Navy diver Robert Stethem, and dumped his body on the runway.
Mohammed Ali Hammadi, who was wanted for his role in TWA Flight 847 attack, was arrested nearly two years later at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, with explosives. and he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the maximum penalty under German law. He was released on parole in 2005 after serving 19 years.
Since then, the United States has unsuccessfully petitioned for his extradition from Lebanon. Despite unconfirmed reports that Hammadi was killed by a CIA drone in Pakistan in June 2010, he remains on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List along with his surviving accomplices.
More
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WORD FOR TODAY
nuclear
adjective
1. of nuclear energy: relating to, using, or producing nuclear energy through fission or fusion
2. of nuclear weapons: relating to or using weapons that produce a nuclear explosion
3. of atom nucleus: relating to the nucleus of an atom
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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
Donald Trump is an American business magnate, TV personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts.
Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner, and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have made him a well-known celebrity who was No. 14 on the 2012 Forbes Celebrity 100 list.
Marla Gibbs
(born June 14, 1931)
(born June 14, 1931)
Marla Gibbs is an American television and film actress and singer, who in her five decades of television is probably best remembered for playing Louise and George Jefferson's sarcastic maid, Florence Johnston, on The Jeffersons and spinoff Checking In.
Gene Barry
(June 14, 1919 - Dec. 9, 2009)
(June 14, 1919 - Dec. 9, 2009)
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives
(June 14, 1909 - April 14, 1995)
(June 14, 1909 - April 14, 1995)
Burl Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. His movie credits include the role of Sam the Sheriff of Salinas, CA, in East of Eden, "Big Daddy" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Desire Under the Elms, Wind Across the Everglades, The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; Ensign Pulver, the sequel to Mister Roberts; and Our Man in Havana, based on the Graham Greene novel.
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Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb, there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets.
--Edward Teller
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