Also: the science of regular vs. gluten-free spaghetti, catching high-speed snake bites in action, etc.
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Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed
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To quote the paper:
"The peak velocity of many viperid species was higher than those observed in the elapid and colubrid species included in this study (Fig. 7A). Bothrops asper reached the highest peak velocity in viperids (3.53±0.98 m s−1) and Acanthophis rugosus in elapids (2.21±0.21 m s−1), while the slowest members of each family were Echis ocellatus and Aspidelaps lubricus (0.93±0.20 m s−1 and 0.32±0.05 m s−1, respectively)."
So, 3.52 + 0.98 m/s = 4.5 m/s as the high value. This is 16 km/h which is about 10 miles per hour. The article really has the units messed up. The paper is really clear about what is what.
There is a table in the paper showing time to peak velocity which is between 20 to 200ms depending on species:
"In most Viperidae, the prey was reached within the first 100 ms, with a maximum of 208.3±80.1 ms (mean±s.e.m.; Crotalus scutulatus) and a minimum of 21.7±2.9 ms (Macrovipera lebetina) (Table 1)."
Not sure if I mix up species but this would mean to accelerate to 100 km/h (60 mp/h) would take less than a quarter of a second for the Macrovipera lebetina (6 * 20 = 120). Beating all cars on the list of fastest accelerating cars on wikipedia by a comfortable margin
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I interpreted it as the other way around: 2.5 m.s^-2 would be a very slow acceleration for a snake strike, but 2.5 m/s would be closer to the right range for speed.
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On the salt for cooking pasta… I would be interested in the effect of substituting some of the chloride in NaCl with SO4. This anion can have a big effect (compared to chloride) on how some water-sensitive polymers interact with water.
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Nice to know now. But I suspect Italian grandmas have known this for years. (I'm not Italian)
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I'm with you. I must be a Barbarian as I chop up the cooked spaghetti into 1-1/2 lengths on my plate.
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No idea if this is the actual reason, but my bet is that "most people" probably want both the pasta and chili together in one bite. Combine that with the fact that chili is much easier to eat with a spoon, and you get small spaghetti pieces...
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I'm not Italian either, but I would have thought Italian grandmothers would be aghast at the idea of breaking the spaghetti.
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A more impressive feat would be to scarf them end to end into a single long noodle, as opposed to just scarfing them into your pasta hole...
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Is that right, or is it rather the rise in the number of people knowing they have gluten intolerance?
Because now we have the Charlatan who doesn't know the difference and goes about saying that there's an "epidemic of autism".
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My wife has a theory that most of them who don't have Coeliac disease aren't intolerant of gluten, but of the other chemicals that are in commercial bread products now.
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Start with Cincinnati is a melting pot of a city, and this dish came about at a time when its immigrant residents were acclimating to being "Americans."Chili" is essentially a stew; Cincinnati chili is, at its core, a greek-influenced bolognese, spaghetti is the pasta of choice because it was the most readily available (aka only local option) when this dish was popularized, and it is cut for the same reason Chicagoans don't put catsup on hot dogs: that's not how the custom arose locally. It's only called "chili" because at the time, they wanted something that sounded more American than the Macedonian inspiration.
For that matter, spaghetti is considered a dubious choice for bolognese by Italians, too, because that shape doesn't hold the meaty sauce well; nor would Italians simply pour a sauce on top of a pile of noodles.
Sources: Family in Cincinnati, and a more journalistic take.
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I prefer angel hair pasta in place of spaghetti. Cooks faster and holds the sauce better. As to eating, sometimes I twirl it, other times I cut it up. I would be interested to see how it is twirled with chopsticks... guess I'll go check YT for some examples.
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I think there is a typo in the snake article: “the blunt-nosed viper accelerating up to 710 m/s2, landing a bite within 22 microseconds.”
That should milliseconds based on doing the math for acceleration from 0 for a distance of 10cm.
That should milliseconds based on doing the math for acceleration from 0 for a distance of 10cm.
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The article currently (Sunday morning) has a mix of units:
with the blunt-nosed viper accelerating up to 710 m/s2, landing a bite within 22 microseconds. All the vipers landed bites within 100 milliseconds of striking.
The math for a 710m/s^2 acceleration from 0 for a distance of about 10cm produces milliseconds.
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I was holding off on commenting but Mr. Guy's comment prompted me.
Anyway, spaghetti is not very exciting. Everyone should eat bucatini. However, please do not overcook it as the last two restaurants I visited did...it should NOT FEEL LIKE SPAGHETTI.
*Sometimes under. WHY would someone put "toppings" beneath the patty?
** Or 7g/L
I am suspicious of this answer. I have far-too-often seen shredded lettuce on hamburgers.* When asked, I'm always told "the customers preferred it that way." Leaf lettuce is far better because it doesn't immediately all drop onto the plate. So take that not as an "official answer" but with a grain of salt.**
Anyway, spaghetti is not very exciting. Everyone should eat bucatini. However, please do not overcook it as the last two restaurants I visited did...it should NOT FEEL LIKE SPAGHETTI.
*Sometimes under. WHY would someone put "toppings" beneath the patty?
** Or 7g/L
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The whole area around Luxor is full of amazing sites. My favorite was the Temple of Hatshepsut, which is in extraordinary condition. We spent three days in Luxor and there was plenty more to see. My friends and I are planning to go to Luxor for the 2027 eclipse. It will be brutally hot in August, but a once-in-a-lifetime event.
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It's an excellent, long eclipse, over six minutes of totality near Luxor, with pretty much a 100% chance of clear skies. Unfortunately right around noon local time, so extremely hot. Pick out some nearby shade, save your stamina for totality itself - when you'll be under a VERY large shadow.
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shredded lettuce provides a much more texturally consistent bite though. It's much nicer. Also idk I haven't found dropping all over the plate to be that much of a problem.
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"...the blunt-nosed viper accelerating up to 710 m/s2, landing a bite within 22 microseconds..."
That seems HIGHLY optimistic. Since they were recording at 1,000 fps, their timing resolution would only be 1 ms at best. Nerve impulses travel far too slow for that short of a reaction time.
That seems HIGHLY optimistic. Since they were recording at 1,000 fps, their timing resolution would only be 1 ms at best. Nerve impulses travel far too slow for that short of a reaction time.
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My nephew had stomach trouble with bread and my sister thought he might be celiac. Then the pediatrician said to try fresh bakery bread with no additives. Nephew was fine with the fresh bread.
I’m fond of pointing out that soy lecithin and guargum are not traditional bread ingredients.
I also wonder if some people on low gluten diets might feel better just because it tends to overlap heavily with a low proportion of highly processed carbs. Simple carbs such as sugars and starches tend to cause high blood sugar fluctuations (both spikes and dives) as well as heartburn and other types of GI irritation.
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That's because you are just not serious enough! Check with Sam about that.
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An old software project, REVERSE BOGGLE ENCODER, is still available for free (with source code if you want) at professorguy.com/software. You can try to stuff a list of words into a gird of letters. It uses a simple genetic algorithm (almost ridiculously so) and lots and lots of iterations to try to come up with a solution from a set of random grids. Once you read the description of how it works, the fact that it does work is, to me, mind-blowing.
Also, in the final sentence of the snake story, you meant 'ensuring' not 'ensuing.'
Also, in the final sentence of the snake story, you meant 'ensuring' not 'ensuing.'
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Play that game long enough and you'll be hearing that long after you stop.
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Those vipers accelerate at about 70 g. Yet another reason I have an irrational fear of any snake.
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7 g/L of salt seems too little for pasta. That's like 0,7% concentration, less than a standard saline solution. The recommendation I follow is to make it taste it like seawater, which Google says is around 3,5% concentration.
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Actually, if I remember correctly, torsion while bending was the recommendation from that research, but I don't remember if that analysis was for a whole bundle or just one strand. Seems like you've experimentally worked out a bunch of other variables in the bundle branch of that research field!
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As Samin Nosrat footstomped in her book, don't make it ACTUALLY as salty as the ocean, it's supposed to taste as salty as your MEMORY of the ocean, which is closer to around 1%.
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Depends on the lettuce. Iceberg lettuce is trash and deserves anthing you can do to it
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Because putting the toppings under the patty provides a barrier that helps to prevent the bottom bun from getting soggy and disintegrating.
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