Thursday, September 14, 2006
- Scientist discover a serotonin-controlling gene in mice called TREK-1, which, if inactivated in the embryo by gene manipulation, creates a depression-free, happy-happy-joy-joy optimistic mouse. After all, who needs Gleemonex when you can have a molecular lobotomy? [FuturePundit, also, see the full 90-second version of Folgers Coffee's "Happy Mornings" ad on YouTube]
- A splendacular site I recently came upon: Slashfood, which does for foodies (and drinkies) what Slashdot does for techies. Very nice. Very tasty.
If you think technoculinary giants like Moto's Homaru Cantu and Alinea's Grant Achatz are the bomb, check out the work of Ferran Adria, head chef-wizard of Spain's El Bulli. If you can't visit España just yet, don't despair - the website has an extensive photo catalog of El Bulli's creations from the past 23 years, such as #165: gelée of local sardines and pig’s ear with crudités, a 1992 vintage tapas. [Visit the site, if you think I'm pulling your leg about the pig's ear.] With recent advances in kitchen science, the post-Millennium series of dishes called "Morphs" are really interesting - including a 2001 creation called white chocolate air. So, yes, you can have your air and eat it too. My favorite? 2004 edition Morph "Liquorice Nitro-Dragon," pictured here, which appears to be a gaseous candy cube that lets you spout smoke from your nostrils. Adria and El Bulli are also affiliated with the Lavazza coffee chain, who've made recent headlines with their solid (well, pudding-like) coffee concoction, "espesso" [sic]. [via ChicagoIST]- Punk legend Lenny Kaye starts out his reminiscence on the end of an era, "Downer at the Rock 'n Roll Club" like so:
It's always the same ritual unfolding, load-in to load-out, sound check to sonic overload, visiting the stations of the rock-and-roll cross. Hauling the equipment in past the pinball machine. Positioning the amplifier on the splintered stage. Tuning the guitar, hearing the first chord seep into walls that have been tempered to the sound of electric noise. Shouting into the microphone, knowing it's never going to approximate the rebound of the audience throwing it back at you, after you've waited backstage for hours in that cramped lean-to of a dressing room with no door—somehow fitting in a club of such an egalitarian nature—and illegible layers of band stickers and graffiti letting you know who else has done their time here, a grand continuum. [read the whole thing at Village Voice]
- And, you really have to feel bad for this guy, Mardin Amin, who was arrested at O'Hare after a TSA security screener thought he said the strange, black, vaguely grenade-shaped object in his luggage was a "bomb." Actually, it was - as Amin and his lawyer insisted all along he said - a "pump." To be specific, the kind of pump used for men's self-pleasuring. Amin was whispering because his mother was standing next to him in line, and he didn't want her to know about the device. Now, even though federal charges against Amin have been dropped, the whole sordid tale - and Amin's mug - are posted all over the World Wide Web. Yhe Chicago Sun-Times quotes Amin,
A beaming Amin said he will now travel sans penis pump. "Hell no," he said. "That pump give me a lot of trouble."
And as we all know, Google is forever.
farkleberries Links du Jour 158: The Pump It Up Edition
