Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 105

Coffee and Cow Manure: In Search of the Optimal Inoculum

Man and woman’s yearning for perfection, in this case perfection keyed to the deployment of coffee and cow manure, is the driving force behind this new study:

“In Search of the Optimal Inoculum to Substrate Ratio During Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Spent Coffee Grounds and Cow Manure,” Çağrı Akyol, Waste Management and Research, epub 2020. The author is  at Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and Marche Polytechnic University, Italy.

“Homosexual Necrophiliac Ducks in London”– an Ig Nobel Prize favorite moment

This historic Ig Nobel Favorite Moment video stars Sarah Redmond & Dan Gillingwater, who performed musically in many Ig Nobel events in London.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com.

Coordinator, Narrator, & Typist: Seth Gliksman

Reinventing the spoon [new patent]

“Spoons are used to lift fluids or semi-solids from a bowl, pot or plate. Most fluids are held within the outer lip of the spoon. Traditional spoons include a bowl portion and a handle that extends from the bowl portion. While traditional spoons are effective for preparing, eating, or serving foods, often times liquids drip off of a bottom surface of the bowl portion due to the rounded shape. This can cause stains around the bowl and on the clothing of the person that is eating.

[…]

What is needed is a spoon with a modified bowl portion to prevent or reduce dripping of liquid therefrom. The spoon disclosed in this document provides the solution “

This information is provided in a newly issued (Aug 11th 2020) US patent entitled : ‘Modified spoon to reduce the dripping of liquids’ – in which Californian inventors John Patrick Cockrell and Jessica Sweet Ipina disclose their improved spoon.

“This invention relates to improvements in a spoon. More particularly, the bowl of the spoon has a rounded center area that to reduces or eliminates the dripping of liquids from a bottom surface of the bowl.”

The patent document explains how the new spoon incorporates a central raised ‘divot’ (see dwg.) which, its claimed, can significantly reduce spoon-related dripping incidents.

BONUS Assignment [optional] : Explain, from a fluid dynamics standpoint, why a spoon with a central raised divot would drip less than one without one.

Research research by Martin Gardiner

A nice song about a not-nice virus

A song for the here and now: “Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and his wife, Diane Baker, can’t do their usual volunteering at Camp Fantastic, where children with cancer spend a week together in a camp setting, but with the necessary medical support.” Dr. Carrie Wolinetz wrote the lyrics. The tune is “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” (Thanks to Lyuba Varticovsky for bringing this to our attention.)

 

International Bat Night is Not Bat Day at Yankee Stadium

Tonight, August 29, 2020, is International Bat Night. The UNEP/Eurobats organization explains:

The Bat Night has taken place every year since 1997 in more than 30 countries on the last full weekend of August.

Nature conservation agencies and NGOs from across Europe pass on information to the public about the way bats live and their needs with presentations, exhibitions and bat walks, often offering the opportunity to listen to bat sounds with the support of ultrasound technology. The general date is set for the last full weekend in August; however, local organisers sometimes choose other dates if more convenient. For the 24th International Bat Night the date is 29-30 August 2020.

One ought not confuse International Bat Night with Bat Day at Yankee Stadium.

Bat Day at Yankee Stadium

Bat Day at Yankee Stadium received scholarly attention some years ago, notably in the medical report:

“Impact of Yankee Stadium Bat Day on Blunt Trauma in Northern New York City,” by S. L. Bernstein, W. P. Rennie, and K. Alagappan, Annals of Emergency Medicine, vol. 23, no. 3, 1994, pp. 555-59. The authors sought to determine the incidence of blunt trauma in northern New York City before and after the distribution of 25,000 baseball bats at Yankee Stadium. They conclude that:

“The distribution of 25,000 wooden baseball bats to attendees at Yankee Stadium did not increase the incidence of bat-related trauma in the Bronx and northern Manhattan. There was a positive correlation between daily temperature and the incidence of bat injury. The informal but common impressions of emergency clinicians about the cause-and-effect relationship between Bat Day and bat trauma were unfounded.”

Coffee, Tea, and Mood Experiments

“Coffee, Tea, and Mood Experiments” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. If you indulge in a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, inform yourself—in a tiny and certainly iffy way—as to what you might be doing to your emotions.

Read the article free, online. If you like it, make yourself a cup of coffee, spill a little for luck, and then maybe subscribe to the magazine.

 

 

Instant Coffee: Remove Then Re-Add the Smell

One time-consuming way to make instant coffee from coffee—in a factory—involves removing most of the coffee aroma, then later adding it back to the coffee, so that later still—when someone makes the instant coffee in preparation for serving it to someone who will, still later still, drink  it, it smells like coffee. A new study looks at this smell manipulation:

“Modeling Mass and Heat Transfer in Multiphase Coffee Aroma Extraction,” David Beverly, Estefanía Lopez-Quiroga, Robert Farr, John Melrose, Sian Henson, Serafim Bakalis, and Peter J. Fryer, Industrial and Engineering Chemical Research, vol. 59, 2020, pp. 11099−11112. The authors, at the University of Birmingham, UK, report:

Instant coffee manufacture involves the aqueous extraction of soluble coffee components followed by drying to form a soluble powder. Loss of volatile aroma compounds during concentration through evaporation can lower product quality. One method of retaining aroma is to steam-strip volatiles from the coffee and add them back to a concentrated coffee solution before the final drying stage. [We] present a multiscale model for aroma extraction describing (i) the release from the matrix, (ii) intraparticle diffusion, (iii) transfer into water and steam, and (iv) advection through the column mechanisms. Results revealed (i) the existence of three different types of compound behavior, (ii) how aroma physiochemistry determines the limiting kinetics of extraction, and (iii) that extraction for some aromas can be inhibited by the interaction with other coffee components.

 

“He Came to My Office”– an Ig Nobel Prize favorite moment

This historic Ig Nobel Favorite Moment video stars Dr. Thomas Michel, who played accordion in many Ig Nobel operas.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com.

Coordinator, Narrator, & Typist: Seth Gliksman

You can lead a horse’s ass to wonder, but you can’t make him think

This tiny video, by Gracie Cunningham, is a beautifully subtle example of how to make people laugh, then think. The twitter comment about it, by Alex Turner, is a good example of how you can lead a horse’s ass to wonder, but you can’t make him think.

this is the dumbest video ive ever seen pic.twitter.com/cq3pEisHBR

— alex turner stan (@aIeturner) August 25, 2020

Gracie Cunningham was bombarded, on Twitter, with reactions good and bad. She made this sensible response:

can we blow this one up instead of the one where i sound stupid hashtag math isn’t real pic.twitter.com/HuaEDwqXXP

— gracie cunningham | BLM (@graciegcunning) August 27, 2020

 

 

What does coffee do to your brain: The eternal question

“Coffee and the Brain: Attention, Make, React, Threat” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. It gurgles into the seemingly eternal quest to understand how coffee affects what the drinker thinks and feels, and does not think or feel.

Read the article free, online. If you like it, make yourself a cup of coffee, spill a little for luck, and then maybe subscribe to the magazine.