Assorted Links
- details of home energy usage. For example, how much energy does a rice cooker use?
- Chocolate lowers blood pressure only if your blood pressure is high
- Identical South African twins test different diets. (Ignore the misunderstanding in the first sentence: “My identical twin sister and I have genetically high cholesterol.” Maybe their cholesterol is high because of what they eat.) What’s important is that their cholesterol levels are similar and their genes are the same, making it easier to detect environmental influences on cholesterol.
- surprising value of cooling hands and feet after exercise
Thanks to Tucker Goodrich and Allan Jackson.
September 11th, 2012 at 6:05 am
That cooling apparatus is really interesting. Will sports governing bodies ban it? Is it really as amazing as the authors say? Is there (dun dun dun) danger?
The part at the end where the authors disclose their financial interest really dampened the magic for me.
Seth: I saw it as putting your money where your mouth is.
September 11th, 2012 at 6:11 am
Cooling hands isn’t new: my father taught me it in the 50s. I was to put my hands, palm upwards, under the cold water tap so that the water ran down from my wrists across my palms. It worked a treat.
September 11th, 2012 at 6:13 am
I should add that however hot I was, and however hot the day was, the cold water came from high moorland and was always cool.
September 11th, 2012 at 6:49 am
When I read about the NZ twins, I assumed they meant they had FH (Familial hypercholesterolemia).
Seth: Yes, maybe so.
September 11th, 2012 at 8:34 am
You do know that inherited high cholesterol is a thing, right?
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/hypercholesterolemia
September 11th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Seth, this blog is a goldmine of aggregated blog links. I clicked thru and read 3 out of 4 items.
September 11th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Make that 4 out of 4.
September 13th, 2012 at 8:53 am
Re home energy use, here is the kind of thing I obsess about: you can line a baking sheet with foil before use, and it won’t need washing. But then the foil is dirty and can’t be recycled. Washing the baking sheet requires (heated) water and soap. Which is more energy-efficient? Which is more environmentally sound? Which is cheaper?
(Sometimes you can slip the dirty baking sheet into a “full” dishwasher, which you have to run anyway. And dishwashers are more energy-efficient and cost-effective than washing by hand. I think.)
I have never seen any comparisons of this kind of thing and wish someone would do one; I can’t, as I don’t have the expertise. How much does it cost to produce, package, ship, and advertise a foot and a half of foil? How do you figure this out?
September 13th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
>How much does it cost to produce, package, ship, and advertise a foot and a half of foil? How do you figure this out?
75 sq.ft of AL foil is about $2.50 in a grocery store. 1.5 sq.ft are 5 cents. That of course includes all the costs to produce, package, ship and advertise.
Washing the baking sheet in the dishwasher ~= free if washed with other stuff. Does not happen that often.
Washing the baking sheet manually = cost of water and detergent + time spend. Water is $1.5/1000 gallons -> negligible, detergent = ~1 cent, time = about a minute of vigorous scrubbing. So if you’re getting paid more than $3/hour or getting more than $3/hour worth of entertainment by not doing the washing, then washing the baking sheet manually may not make sense.
September 14th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Thanks, Alexey! One less thing to obsess about. I do feel kind of DUH now that I see how simple it is…