Tongue’s sixth ‘taste’ discovered? — calcium

Here’s the new taste sensation — your tongue might be able to taste calcium.

The capability to taste calcium has now been discovered in mice. With these rodents and humans sharing many of the same genes, the new finding suggests that people might also have such a taste.

The four tastes we are most familiar with are sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Recently scientists have discovered tongue molecules called receptors that detect a fifth distinct taste — “umami,” or savory.

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There may be a strong link between the bitterness of certain vegetables and their calcium level. High-calcium vegetables include collard greens, bok choy, kale and bitter melon. One reason some people might avoid these veggies, Tordoff suggests, is because of their calcium taste.

Ironically, while milk and other dairy products are loaded with calcium, the mineral tends to bind to fats and proteins, which prevents you from tasting it in these foods…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315648/

FDA: OK to zap spinach, lettuce with radiation

New rule aimed at blasting off E. coli and other dangerous germs

WASHINGTON – The government will allow food producers to start zapping fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce with just enough radiation to kill E. coli and other dangerous germs, a key safety move amid increasing outbreaks from raw produce.

Irradiated meat has been around for years, particularly ground beef that is a favorite hiding spot for E. coli. Spices also can be irradiated.

But there had long been concern that zapping leafy greens with X-rays or other means of radiation would leave them limp. Not so with today’s modern techniques.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26332463/

Man-sized grouper declared new species

Goliath grouper can grow to six feet and weigh 1,000 pounds

The goliath grouper, including the Atlantic variety from Cuba (shown here), sports five rows of teeth in the lower jaw. The teeth help grouper to hold tight to prey, which they usually swallow whole.

A man-sized grouper that trolls the tropical waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean for octopuses and crabs has been identified as a new fish species after genetic tests.

Called the goliath grouper, the fish can grow to six feet (1.8 meters) in length and weigh a whopping 1,000 pounds (454 kg). Until now, scientists had grouped this species with an identical looking fish (also called the goliath grouper, or Epinephelus itajara) living in the Atlantic Ocean.

“For more than a century, ichthyologists have thought that Pacific and Atlantic goliath grouper were the same species,” said lead researcher Matthew Craig of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, “and the argument was settled before the widespread use of genetic techniques.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26334112/

Updated: More Pictures from National Geographic

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080825-new-grouper.html

Satellites track Mexico kidnap victims

QUERETARO, Mexico – Wealthy Mexicans, terrified of soaring kidnapping rates, are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car.

Kidnapping jumped almost 40 percent between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico according to official statistics. Mexico ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as among the worst countries for abductions.

http://thewere42.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

Microsoft launches 3D wonder Photosynth for consumers

Update: 8/22 -  (Computerworld) Within hours of its launch, Microsoft Corp.’s new photo-stitching service went dark, overwhelmed by demand, the company said Thursday afternoon.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9113203&intsrc=hm_listUpdate: http://livelabs.com/photosynth/ works, however http://photosynth.com/ & http://www.photosynth.net/ seems to be down

On Wednesday night, Photosynth, a technology demo from Microsoft Live Labs, is graduating from its “ooh, that’s pretty” status to being a viable Web service for consumers.

The technology, which takes a grouping of photographs and stitches them into a faux 3D environment, can now be implemented with photos you’ve taken on your digital camera or mobile phone, and converted right on your computer. Previously, the process of stitching these photos together took weeks of processing on specially configured server arrays. With its latest version, Microsoft has managed to shrink that into around the time it takes to upload your photos.

Microsoft is giving users 20GB of online storage for their Photosynth collections. Photosynth product manager Joshua Edwards tells me this can easily fit 60 or more “synths” made up of around 150 to 200 photographs apiece–the higher end of what’s recommended for what Edwards calls an optimum or “synthy” experience. Users who are making really neat collections will be granted additional space.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10020637-2.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

The Photosynth service was, however, back up and running by 7 p.m. EDT.

Solazyme: Millions of Gallons of Algae Biodiesel Within 3 Years

While many types of biofuels are far from ideal, there is one that shows more promise than the others: Algae. One of the companies working on algae-based biodiesel is Solazyme (we already wrote about their algae-B100 test-drive), and the latest news is that they are planning to build a new production plant in the next two years with a goal of producing “millions of gallons” of algae oil and biodiesel competitively with fossil fuels within 3 years.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/solazyme-algae-biodiesel-biofuels-3-years.php

New Compound Cuts Ethanol to Hydrogen Catalyst Cost by 35,000 Times

Researchers here have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently.

A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients.

Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, said that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium.

“Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce,” Ozkan said. “Our catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram.”

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news08/next-energy-news8.21.08a.html

Second article on topic

A few weeks ago MIT announced that one of its researchers had made a major breakthrough in the production of hydrogen at room temperature using a cobalt and phosphorus catalyst.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/hydrogen-made-from-ethanol-90-percent-efficiency.php

Texas A&M Process Converts Biomass into Gasoline for $2 a Gallon

A process for turning everyday waste into gasoline, developed through the Texas A&M University System, has been licensed to Byogy Renewables Inc. and could become a reality within two years. Researchers with the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), the engineering research agency of the State of Texas, developed the process to make converting biomass into high-octane gasoline possible, and say it is possibly the only integrated system that does so, as most other emerging processes convert the biomass into alcohol and then blend it with gasoline.

The system is relatively inexpensive and focuses on using biomass waste streams and non-food energy crops, rather than food products such as corn. Excluding all government subsidies and tax credits, and dependent on the type and cost of feedstock and size of the biorefinery, the researchers said that the cost would lie between US$1.70 and US$2.00 per gallon.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news08/next-energy-news8.21.08c.html

New, “Chubbier” River Dolphin Species Found in Bolivia

The Bolivian river dolphin is a separate species from the Amazon river dolphin, scientists announced recently.

Thousands of years ago a powerful drought dried up Brazil’s Madeira River, causing a “radical separation” as dolphin populations were caught on different sides of the newly created rapids, said researcher Manuel Ruiz-Garcia.

The Madeira split into today’s Beni and Mamoré rivers of northeastern Bolivia. (See a Bolivia map.)

“When they separated, [the dolphins] were never again able to return and reproduce,” said Ruiz-Garcia, who heads the Molecular Genetics Lab at Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia.

“Thus isolated, the Bolivian river dolphin, Inia boliviensis, eventually developed,” he said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080820-new-dolphin.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/49504347.html