Certified Organic, Hamster Power, Fruit with Fizz, Electrifying Fashion

Certified organic

"The word 'organic,' so popular in designating foods produced 'without chemicals,' has now come full circle," writes author, columnist, and University of Pittsburgh chemistry professor emeritus Robert L. Wolke in a brief note to the Newscripts gang. "The label on De-Solv-It, a sticky-stuff solvent, brags that it is '100% organic.' Among its listed ingredients is 'organic hydrocarbons.' " Wolke has an eye for absurd labels. He collects "labelingo"—silly stuff written on food labels—to share with the readers of his syndicated kitchen science column, "Food 101."

Hamster power

Elvis the hamster likes to run at night. That wouldn't be a problem except that the noise from Elvis' exercise wheel was keeping his roommate, Sarah Ash of Lawford, England, awake at night.

But what's irritation for some can be inspiration for others. Sarah';s complaints about Elvis' late night loping gave her brother Peter an idea. He decided to turn the hamster wheel into a mobile phone charger. "I thought the wheel could be made to do something useful, so I connected a system of gears and a turbine," 16-year-old Peter Ash told Ananova.com. "Every two minutes Elvis spends on his wheel gives me about 30 minutes talk time on my phone."

The young inventor submitted the hamster-powered phone charger as a science project, but his teacher was less taken with it than the media has been. He only got a C on the project and a D in the course.

Fruit with fizz

Isaac Newton's gravitational break- through came courtesy of a falling apple; Galen D. Kaufman's brainstorm arrived via a fizzing pear. Kaufman, a neurobiologist from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, was snacking on the fruit during a sailing trip when he noticed that his pear was unusually effervescent. Recalling that he had packed the pear in a cooler with dry ice, Kaufman concluded that the solid CO₂ had sublimated into his snack, and Fizzy Fruit was born.

According to the October issue of Wired magazine, the Fizzy Fruit Co. plans to offer carbonated apples, grapes, strawberries, and pineapples to U.S. elementary schools this fall. The company hopes that fizzy fruit will make fruit more fun for kids and notes that adding fizz does not alter the fruit’s nutritional value. Rumor has it that fizzy vegetables are in development.

Electrifying fashion

Frtank Clewer, a 58-year-old office cleaner from Dennington, Australia, got the shock of his life when he learned the polyester jacket he was wearing was surging with more than 30,000 V of static electricity.

According to the Warrnambool Standard, Clewer first noticed something was amiss when he heard a "mighty crack" in the reception area of a Warrnambool, Australia, office where he was interviewing for a job. After Clewer was led away for his interview, the office staff noticed dime-sized burn marks in the carpet and called the fire department.

Firefighters evacuated the building and tore up the singed carpet but failed to find the source of the burns. With his interview cut short by the building evacuation, Clewer went back to his car, where he found burn marks in some plastic beneath his seat. He returned to the office and told the firefighters about the burns.

The officers heard the loud cracking coming from Clewer and ordered him to strip. The static charge of the polyester jacket he had been wearing beneath a woolen overcoat measured 36,000 V.

"We have concluded that it was a build-up of static electricity on Frank generated by the clothing he was wearing at the time and his movement," firefighter Henry Barton told Melbourne Australia's Herald Sun newspaper. "I have absolutely never heard of this happening in more than 30 years in this job," he added.

Clewer was a little stunned but more or less unharmed by his electrifying outerwear. He joked with reporters, "My wife has told me I'm not allowed to put on the electric blanket tonight, and I'm going to have to lay off the surfing because I'll stun the sharks and we'll have fried flake in the bay."

This week's column was written by Bethany Halford. Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.