Mar. 29, 2003
Crying In Your Beer
By Radley Balko. Earlier this month, an organization called the Educational Development Center hosted the 13th Alcohol Policy Conference in Boston. In attendance: a panoply of alcohol researchers, academics and advocates. The subtopic for this year's conference was "Environment and Accountability: Who Is Responsible?" To the conference participants, the question posed in the subtitle is rhetorical. They believe "the environment" is undoubtedly responsible for all of society's alcohol-related problems. The alcoholic isn't to blame. And so, they conclude, we must go about changing the environment of alcoholism. Representatives from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse - or "CASA" for short - attended the conference. Over the last few years, CASA has published a number of alarmist studies addressing America's alcohol habit. CASA's work has been called into question by serious social scientists, health workers and editorial boards. They published a study declaring that half the alcohol consumed in the United States is consumed by underage and/or excessive drinkers. But as the Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out in an editorial accompanying the study, CASA's definition of "excessive" may surprise you - "more than two drinks a day," not accounting for the timing of those drinks, metabolism, body weight, gender, or food eaten before or after consumption. Two people sharing a bottle of wine would by CASA's definition have engaged in "excessive alcohol consumption." Brian's Belly Commentary: This is a very interesting read. We've started a thread on this in the Bar. Read the full story at Tech Central Station
Party Hearty at the Old Folks Home
OSLO, Norway (AP). Residents of five retirement homes in Norway drank a toast to the police this week, thanks in part to the 2,000 cans of free beer they got from them. Police in Vaagsoy, 373 miles northwest of the capital, Oslo, confiscated the Germany beer earlier this year, but weren't sure what to do with it. They didn't want to dump it, but they couldn't keep it for themselves, either. Read the full story at Guardian Unlimited
Mar. 24, 2003
Fat Guy from Animal House Loses Weight
by James Hagengruber. In the classic comedy flick "Animal House," Dean Wormer had some advice for the overweight fraternity pledge, Kent "Flounder" Dorfman. "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way go through life," Wormer advised. Off the set, the actor who played Flounder, Stephen Furst, had little resemblance to his character. Furst doesn't drink, and, with dozens of movie and television roles to his credit, he probably doesn't qualify as stupid. But, at 320 pounds, Furst was fat. His body was also being ravaged by diabetes and required two shots of insulin per day to function. Nearly two decades after Animal House was filmed, Flounder was finally able to prove Dean Wormer wrong. He cut his weight nearly in half and was able to control his diabetes. Read the full story at Billings Gazette
Mar. 20, 2003
Beer Baron Dead at Age 85
Wolfgang Saxon, The New York Times. Joseph Coors Sr., who helped make his family's beer a nationwide brand and who used his fortune to support conservative causes, notably the Heritage Foundation and Ronald Reagan's climb to the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where he had moved in retirement. He was 85 and formerly lived in Golden, Colo. The cause was lymphatic cancer, his company said. A grandson of the company's founder, Adolph Coors, Joe Coors was a former president, chief operating officer and vice chairman of the Adolph Coors Company, based in Golden. He retired from management in 1987 and from the company board in 2000. Going national, the Coors brothers produced more than 20 million barrels annually by the time Joe Coors retired from the business. Read the full story at NY Times
Alcohol May Stop Mental Illness
Moderate drinking may protect against the onset of mental illness in the elderly, according to new research. A long-term study of more than 700 people, aged 65 and over, found that moderate drinkers had a much lower risk of developing mental health problems than either heavy drinkers or teetotallers. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, reported that subjects drinking six units or less a week were 54 percent less likely to develop either Alzheimer's disease or a milder form of dementia than the teetotallers. Read the full story at news.com
Mar. 17, 2003
Male Sweat Brightens Women's Moods
Reuters. Sweating it out over a big date this weekend? If you're a guy, that could be just the ticket, according to a human biology study released by the University of Pennsylvania. Biologists said they found male perspiration had a surprisingly beneficial effect on women's moods. It helps reduce stress, induces relaxation and even affects the menstrual cycle. "This suggests there may be much more going on in social settings like singles' bars than meets the eye," said Charles Wysocki, an adjunct professor of animal biology at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine. Read the full story at CNN
Mar. 15, 2003
Better Beer Through Technology
By Peter Singer. Lab-on-a-chip technology, which uses semiconductor-like microfabrication techniques to build interconnected fluid reservoirs and pathways, has shown great promise in the biomedical field, particularly for cell assays such as those required for DNA analysis. Now there's a new application sure to improve mankind: brewing better beer. A brewer who wants to produce good beer needs to have a lot of experience, but even then, success is not guaranteed. For an optimal result, the fermentation process must be interrupted at a certain point. Thus far, however, there has been no analytic system that can inform a master brewer continually of the alcohol content of the malt liquid or the stage the fermentation has reached at any given point. Instead, the brewer has to take frequent samples manually and analyze them. That approach could be history. Read the full story at e-inSITE
Mar. 07, 2003
Crunch! Giant Chee-to Spurs Online Frenzy
By Jeordan Legon, CNN. It's believed to be the largest Chee-to in the world. The cheesy glob of fried cornmeal that Navy Petty Officer Mike Evans found last week in a bag of the snacks is about the size of a small lemon and weighs in at about half an ounce. Evans, 41, a fervent user of online auctions, posted his find on eBay. He never expected the flurry of attention that followed. Radio stations from around the country interviewed Evans. Giant Chee-to T-shirts and Chee-to puppet auctions sprung up online. And pranksters bid up the Chee-to into the millions of dollars. "I was absolutely astounded that something like a Chee-to could become a pop icon," said Evans. "It's international. I've even seen it online on a Russian site." So how did this one Chee-to get to be a behemoth? Chee-tos Development Manager Kevin Cogan's job is to ponder such mysteries. He believes that some of the cheddar seasoning in the company's machines built up and plopped out in a big blob that sneaked past inspectors. "We call it Seasoning Accumulation," Cogan said. "If you love cheese, this is the Chee-to for you. It's beyond dangerously cheesy." Photo available here and at CNN. Read the full story at CNN
Mar. 03, 2003
Priest Uses Washing Machine to Make Beer Suds
Berlin, Reuters. A German priest has developed a novel way to brew beer -- in a washing machine. Michael Fey, 45, a Catholic priest from the western city of Duisburg, came up with the idea of converting his 35-year-old toploader to provide beer more cheaply for youth outings he organizes. "All I needed was something that could be used to heat and stir the mix -- so why not a washing machine?" said Fey, who now uses another machine for his clothes. Read the full story at Sun-Sentinel.com
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