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Links - August 11, 2011 #SciAmBlogs Food Day edition.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Today was Food Day here at #SciAmBlogs, and although I did not participate, there are a lot of great posts around the network that are worth reading. You can read the link roundup by Bora here. Some of my favorites are:

Food waste in the land of "Man vs. Food" by David Wogan. "Food waste at consumer level in industrialized countries (222 million ton) is almost as high as the total net food production in sub- Saharan Africa (230 million ton)." Nearly half of the edible food produced in the USA is never eaten.

You become as you eat by Razib Khan. Biology influences culture, and culture influences biology. Agriculture and animal husbandry changed what and how we eat, but our digestive physiology also had to adapt to process things like wheat and dairy.


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How probiotics may save your life by Rob Dunn. Probiotics are thought to help many digestive ailments, but the actual data to support these claims are slim, and the physiological mechanism for how they might work is still unknown. However, recent research in mice shows a potential mechanism for how one probiotic strain can out-compete harmful H. pylori in the gut.

Will carrots help you see better? No, but chocolate might by Cheryl Murphy. Experimental data suggest that flavonols in dark chocolate increase vision and cognitive performance. I have a post about chocolate in the works for next week as well. :)

Organic honey is a sweet illusion by Alex Wild. "A standard jar of honey from the supermarket requires bees to make a million flower visits. A colony might produce 50 to 100 such jars per year." Because honey production requires so many flowers, bees often stray up to 5 km from their hive when foraging for nectar, and when resources are scarce they can double their radius. It is beyond the power of many organic farmers to restrict the use of pesticides within such a large radius of their hives.

"Life creates [the Force], makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter," Yoda explains in The Empire Strikes Back, gesturing to Luke's physical body. This quote is striking because of the apt juxtaposition of the wonder of life with its often disgusting vessel. Like many other animals, we secrete, excrete, expectorate, defecate, flatulate, regurgitate, urinate, circulate, masticate, menstruate, ejaculate, and ventilate. We are filled with gas and feces and blood and guts and mucus and any number of rude things. Life as we know it is possible because of the countless impolite things we do every day. Are we luminous beings? Perhaps, but that's neither here nor there. This blog is about the crude matter that keeps us alive.

Michelle Clement has a B.Sc. in zoology (with a minor in American culture studies) and a M.Sc. in organismal biology from The Ohio State University. Her thesis research was on the ecophysiology of epidermal lipids and water homeostasis in house sparrows. She now works as a technical editor for The American Chemical Society. Her broader interests include weird human and animal physiology, obesity and enteric physiology, endocrinology, sexual and reproductive health, personal genomics, anthropology (physical and cultural), sociology, and science education and communication. She lives in Ohio with her boyfriend and two cats.

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