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Environment
Newscripts
Popcorn under Pressure, Mercury Fish, Anyone?, Hot, Hot, Hot--or Not, Chocolate Cures Cough
by Rachel Sheremeta Pepling
December 6, 2004
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 82, Issue 49
A research group has determined a method for bigger, better popping. The pop secret? Lower pressure.
News@nature.com reported on Sept. 28 that popcorn theorists Paul V. Quinn of Kutztown University, in Pennsylvania; Daniel C. Hong of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.; and Joseph A. Both of Stanford University School of Medicine tested their low-pressure theory by modifying a pressure cooker with a vacuum pump.
Quinn, Hong, and Both reasoned that lowering the external pressure extends the expansion process, yielding larger pieces of popcorn. Popcorn popped under lower pressure yielded nearly double the volume of popcorn of conventional popping methods. The team also found that the lower pressure resulted in fewer unpopped kernels.
Canadian scientists of the collaborative Mercury Research Network took research into their own stomachs last month at their annual general meeting in Gimli, Manitoba.
For three days, 60 scientists participated in a study to determine the effects of black tea on mercury absorption. Half of the group ate two meals a day of Lake Winnipeg fish--known to contain average amounts of mercury--and drank six cups of black tea. The other half also ate the fish but drank no tea.
Tea is a strong chelating agent because it has flavonoids that bind with heavy metals, preventing absorption by the body. Tea-drinking Japanese communities that are exposed to high mercury levels through fish consumption show unusually low levels of absorption.
Participants in the study provided blood samples before and after the experiment. Results should be available by January 2005.
Pepper lovers who can't take the heat may rejoice. Pepper purists may just be peeved.
Ralph Blumenthal reports in the Nov. 21 New York Times that Kevin M. Crosby, a plant geneticist at Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station, Weslaco, has developed a mild habañero.
Crosby developed the not-so-red-hot chili pepper by crossbreeding a regular hot habañero with a wild heatless pepper from Bolivia. On the Scoville scale of pepper hotness (based on capsaicin levels), the mild habañero registers at only 2,300 units. In contrast, the original, turn-your-mouth-on-fire habañero averages around 300,000– 400,000 units.
Crosby aimed to develop a pepper that delivers the beneficial chemicals of peppers--including capsaicin, flavonoids, and carotenoids--in a more palatable form. But by taking away the pepper's punch, Crosby takes some heat from pepper devotees. "I'm not going to take away the regular habañero," counters Crosby in the Times article. "You can still grow and eat that, if you want to kill yourself."
A new study brings more good news for chocolate fans. Theobromine, a cocoa-derived compound, shows promise as a suppressant for persistent coughs.
As reported on Nov. 22 on http://www.newscientist.com, volunteers participating in a study at Imperial College London were given tablets containing theobromine, codeine, or a placebo. They were then asked to inhale a gas containing capsaicin in order to induce coughing.
Volunteers who were given enough theobromine to equal two cups of cocoa needed about one-third more capsaicin to induce coughing than those given codeine. Theobromine, unlike codeine, which can cause drowsiness and constipation, seems to be free of side effects.
This week's column was written by
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