Tag: peanut butter

Scientists Find the Oldest Material on Earth — it ain’t from here!

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Click to enlarge — Murchison Meteorite

Earth formed alongside the rest of the solar system roughly 4.6 billion years ago. The oldest rocks we’ve found to date are about 4.03 billion years old, but the oldest earth minerals ever discovered were actually found in lunar samples and date to about 4.1 billion years.

Now, scientists believe they’ve discovered the oldest material ever found on Earth: microscopic specs of dust pulled from meteorite dated at 7.5 billion years old, according to research published January 13 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

The meteorite in which the grains were found is one of the most well-studied meteorites on Earth. The 220-pound Murchison meteorite plummeted to Victoria, Australia on September 28, 1969. (There were witnesses, too—a rare treat for studied meteorites.) It’s a type of meteorite called a carbonaceous chondrite…

The scientists took a small sample of the extraterrestrial rock and crushed it into a fine powder for analysis. They then turned it into a paste, which, according to the BBC, smells like rotten peanut butter. The grains were then dissolved out and dated using an isotope of the element neon, Ne-21.

RTFA. A milestone.

Confirming my wife’s theory there are 5 – not 4 – basic elements to the universe. Air, earth, fire, water…and peanut butter.

M&M-shooting drones may save the Black-Footed Ferret

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Click to enlarge — Scott Osler/Denver Post

❝ It’s not often you find yourself rooting for the weaselly masked character picking dog meat out of its teeth. But in the case of the endangered black-footed ferret, conservation scientists have rallied behind the tiny predator — thought to be extinct twice over the past century — by attempting to unleash a fleet of M&M-shooting drones over 1,200 acres of its grassland habitat in Montana.

❝ …That…plan is actually the best shot the 300 remaining wild ferrets have at surviving. The flea-borne sylvatic plague has wiped out most of the ferret’s favorite snack—prairie dogs—and when the dogs die, so do the ferrets. So the US Fish and Wildlife Service wants to use drones to sprinkle peanut butter-flavored plague vaccines over the prairie dog’s habitat.

The plan has to get through a public comment period and a few other assessments before it’s a reality. If it gets approved, the agency wants to start testing the method in UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Montana, where they’ve been trying to reestablish a ferret population for more than two decades….

❝ You wish you got these vaccines as a kid: They’re delivered orally, via delicious, peanut butter-smothered bait…And while they don’t have the hard coating of an M&M, they’re roughly the same size and shape, with the texture of a chewy energy bar. Prairie dogs are big fans, eating up to 90 percent of the goodies in field tests…

❝ Mass-producing an effective vaccine is just one part of the challenge; distribution is a whole other animal…Enter the drone. With his (yet-to-be-built) design, USFW biologist Randy Matchett says a single drone could dispense three baits at a time. A GPS-controlled trigger would launch a mini catapult every 30 feet. With an automatic reloader and a payload of 5,000 doses, a drone might be able to treat 400 acres in an hour – about 50 times faster than a human can dole out baits.

Matchett and his crew hope to have a demonstration vehicle ready for proof of concept in a few more weeks. They’re going to have to demo it successfully – or at least show folks it has a chance of working. Good luck, folks.

Life sentence demanded for company owner who killed 9 with salmonella

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Prosecutors recommended a life sentence for a former peanut company owner convicted in September for a salmonella outbreak that killed nine people in 2008.

Federal prosecutors filed a motion Thursday recommending Stewart Parnell, the former owner of Peanut Corp. of America, spend the rest of his life in prison. He was convicted on dozens of counts including conspiracy and fraud.

He and his brother, Michael Parnell, were each charged with 76 counts for intentionally shipping out salmonella-laced peanut products. Federal prosecutors said the brothers and Mary Wilkerson — a former quality control manager at the plant — cut corners to boost profits for Peanut Corp. of America.

They were also accused of covering up positive test results for salmonella in their products.

In addition to the nine deaths linked to the peanut products, more than 700 people were reportedly sickened.

William Marler, a Seattle-based food safety lawyer representing the victims told the Wall Street Journal, “it was an extraordinary verdict that could result in an extraordinary amount of time in jail for a food crime.”

Anyone who would commit murder using peanut butter deserves life without parole.

Less tongue-in-cheek, the creep is responsible for the deaths of nine people. I hope he gets what he deserves. And his lawyer deserves some time in jail for preventing a timely trial.

Peanut butter test helps to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease

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A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer’s disease, University of Florida Health researchers have found.

Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the UF McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and her colleagues reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

Stamps came up with the idea of using peanut butter to test for smell sensitivity while she was working with Dr. Kenneth Heilman…UF College of Medicine’s department of neurology…She noticed while shadowing in Heilman’s clinic that patients were not tested for their sense of smell. The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline…

She thought of peanut butter because, she said, it is a “pure odorant” that is only detected by the olfactory nerve and is easy to access.

In the study, patients who were coming to the clinic for testing also sat down with a clinician, 14 grams of peanut butter — which equals about one tablespoon — and a metric ruler. The patient closed his or her eyes and mouth and blocked one nostril. The clinician opened the peanut butter container and held the ruler next to the open nostril while the patient breathed normally. The clinician then moved the peanut butter up the ruler one centimeter at a time during the patient’s exhale until the person could detect an odor. The distance was recorded and the procedure repeated on the other nostril after a 90-second delay.

The clinicians running the test did not know the patients’ diagnoses, which were not usually confirmed until weeks after the initial clinical testing.

The scientists found that patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease had a dramatic difference in detecting odor between the left and right nostril — the left nostril was impaired and did not detect the smell until it was an average of 10 centimeters closer to the nose than the right nostril had made the detection in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. This was not the case in patients with other kinds of dementia; instead, these patients had either no differences in odor detection between nostrils or the right nostril was worse at detecting odor than the left one…

Stamps and Heilman point out that this test could be used by clinics that don’t have access to the personnel or equipment to run other, more elaborate tests required for a specific diagnosis, which can lead to targeted treatment. At UF Health, the peanut butter test will be one more tool to add to a full suite of clinical tests for neurological function in patients with memory disorders.

OK. Get out the peanut butter. And no cheating.

Homeless Hotspot at SXSW — stirs debate

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Remove signs which offend undergrad sociologists

A charitable marketing program that paid homeless people to carry Wi-Fi signals at South By Southwest has drawn widespread debate at the annual Austin conference and around the country.

BBH Labs, a unit of the global marketing agency BBH, gave 13 people from Austin’s Front Steps Shelter mobile Wi-Fi devices and T-shirts that announced “I am a 4G Hotspot.” The company paid them $20 up front and a minimum of $50 a day for about six hours work, said Emma Cookson, chairwoman of BBH New York.

She called the experiment a modernized version of homeless selling street newspapers. All of the money paid for Wi-Fi – an often difficult thing to find at SXSW – went to the participants, who were selected in partnership with Front Steps. ($2 was the recommended donation for 15 minutes of use.)

But many have called the program exploitive. Wired.com wrote that it “sounds like something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia.” Technology blog ReadWriteWeb called it a “blunt display of unselfconscious gall.” The topic became one of the most popular in the country on Twitter by Tuesday…

Please, please, save me from middle-class psychologizers who have never spent a penniless day on the streets of their suburbs.

One of the participants, Dusty White said that the experience of talking with SXSW attendees and earning some cash “made me feel proud.”

“I felt like it was a positive thing,” said White. “They could have done this with anyone.”

Mitchell Gibbs, director of development and communications at Front Steps, said he was initially skeptical after being approached by BBH, but was won over by previous work they’ve done with the homeless. He put the offer to participants in the shelter’s Case Management Program, a step-by-step program to move people out of shelters and off the streets.

“Everybody was educated and aware about the process,” said Gibbs. “Everybody was excited by the opportunity to make some money.”

Gibbs said the shelter’s participants roundly enjoyed the experience.

Pompous, guilt-ridden, middle-class twits who complain about patronizing the poor and homeless — usually succeed at the patronizing while patting themselves on the back over their own criticism.

I used to drive a half-mile out of my way to buy my Sunday newspaper from an occasionally homeless dude whose attitude I liked. He lived part-time at a homeless shelter. But, he saved enough money to buy some tools and combining that with odd jobs – aside from his newspaper sales – he was able to start a handyman service that eventually got him into his own apartment. Since I was working for a subcontractor at the time I was able to steer some business his way – and that felt good, too.

He didn’t want charity. He wanted work. That’s what the hotspot project provided. I have nothing polite to say to the critics.

Hide your credit cards from yourself – in the peanut butter jar!

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Worried that you’ll break down and use your credit cards on a frivolous purchase before you pay off the balance? Make the physical cards difficult to access by placing them in a jar of peanut butter. You’ll probably want to put the cards in a plastic baggie before burying them in the jar, but if not you’ll have even more incentive not to use the card.

We’ve all seen the freeze your credit card in a block of ice trick before – hiding them from burglars – but personal finance blog Squawkfox recommends placing your credit cards in a jar of peanut butter. I can see a few advantages of using peanut butter as a delay mechanism rather than ice; it doesn’t take up any freezer space, and while most burglars know to check the freezer, very few of them will take out enough peanut butter to find your cards.

The idea being that if it’s too difficult for burglars to steal your credit cards it’s unlikely you’ll spend less-motivated energy schlepping them out of the peanut butter yourself and cleaning them up to use for an impulse purchase.

I know. It’s a pretty dumb idea. Lots wrong with it. But, every time I wander past it in the file I keep for blog ideas – I can’t help smiling. Maybe you will, too.

Recall issued for Skippy reduced-fat peanut butter

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The possible discovery of salmonella has prompted a limited recall of Skippy reduced-fat peanut butter spreads sold in 16 states.

Unilever issued a press release detailing a voluntary recall of Skippy’s “Reduced Fat Creamy” and “Reduced Fat Super Chunk” brands. The recall applies only to these branded items distributed in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

While there have been no known illnesses, the recall was issued for fear that some of the peanut butter now in stores had salmonella…

The recalled products are sold in 16.3-ounce plastic jars, have UPC codes of 048001006812 or 048001006782 and have best-if-used-by-dates of May 16-21, 2012, on the top, the company statement said. Those with such jars should throw them away and call Skippy at 1-800-453-3432 to get a replacement coupon, according to Unilever…

Salmonella is a bacterial infection that usually lasts four to seven days. About 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported each year in the United States, according to the CDC.

Those who get it typically develop fever, abdominal cramps and diarrhea between 12 and 72 hours after becoming infected. Most people recover on their own, without needing significant treatment. But salmonella in very young and very old people, as well as those with weakened immune systems, can lead to severe illness and even death.

Cripes. This prompts a couple of thoughts.

I ate a ton of Skippy peanut butter growing up. The only change in my adult peanut butter life is switching to organic brands from markets I know run their own checks on food quality.

Wonder if there were as many or more – or fewer – instances of salmonella and other food poisonings in the good old days. Are they just better reported nowadays? Is it only the increase in production servicing a larger population that seems to include a calculated risk of food poisoning?

Hmmm?

Peanut processor files for bankruptcy – so much for liability!

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peanutbutterjar

The peanut processing company at the heart of a national salmonella outbreak, Peanut Corp. of America, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in court in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The bankruptcy papers were signed by Stewart Parnell, the president of Peanut Corp., who invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions this week in a congressional hearing.

Bacteria found in the company’s Blakely, Georgia, peanut processing plant have been blamed for more than 600 cases of salmonella, including nine deaths.

The Texas Health Department on Thursday ordered products from the company’s plant in Plainview, Texas, to be recalled after discovering dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in the plant…

“It is unacceptable for corporations to put consumers’ health at risk and then simply declare bankruptcy and go out of business when they get caught,” said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports.

“PCA’s declaration of bankruptcy will, among other things, shield it from liability suits filed by consumers who became sick or whose loved ones died as a result of eating PCA’s peanut products,” she said.

There goes liability, responsibility. Nothing more than a slap on the wrist coming from the Feds.

The FDA is still the FEMA of food. And the Texas versions of the FDA ain’t even up to laughable.

List of tainted peanut butter items points out commodity sleaze

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Daylife/AP Photo by Elliott Minor

For the nation’s grocery shoppers, the list of foods that might contain salmonella-tainted peanut butter has grown so quickly that keeping up seems daunting.

There are boxes of Valentine’s candy, frozen cookie dough and dog biscuits, chicken satay, peanut butter cups and stuffed celery.

The large and varied list of products points up the many layers involved in producing packaged foods…

Investigators tracked the salmonella outbreak to the Peanut Corporation of America, a factory in Blakely, Georgia, that makes peanut butter and peanut paste. It sells to institutions like schools and nursing homes and to other companies, like Kellogg’s, which turns the butter or paste into products like peanut-butter-filled crackers.

The plant, which is closed, packed peanut butter in bulk ranging from 5 to 1,700 pounds, much of which was shipped to institutions. Phew! Does your school cafeteria buy a 1700-lb jar of peanut butter?

“The piece that hasn’t come out yet is that peanut butter isn’t like spinach or ground beef because it has a really long shelf life,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

DeWaal and other critics of the federal food safety system said that because peanut butter was considered a low risk for contamination, plants could sometimes go without inspection for a decade.

I imagine one of the reasons peanut paste is so often a filler in food products is the long shelf life. Like, why worry about freshness?

UPDATE: Hiding out in bankruptcy.

KB’s Encouraging Word

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In this day of peanut butter contamination, isn’t it nice to know that you can still enjoy the wholesome, delicious taste of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Why not buy some today?

“No products made by The Hershey Company, including items and brands in the iconic Reese’s franchise, are affected by the recent recall related to peanut butter. Hershey does not purchase any peanut butter, peanuts or peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America. Peanut butter for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is made in Hershey facilities under the most stringent safety and quality standards. “