Naturally Science & Lore

Edible Exhibit: The Taste of Things To Come
* The Naughton Institute / Science Center *
* Trinity College * Pearse Street * Dublin 2 Ireland *
* http://www.dublinscience2012.ie/2012/02/edible/ * February 10 – April 5, 2012 *

Fermentation

One of the most brilliant natural processes, fermentation is the heart of indulgence, addiction, altered states, cooking, and chemistry. The word comes from the latin “fervere” meaning “to boil” and thought to have come from the science of alchemy in the late 14th century, though not used in modern science until the 1600′s. In food production, it is the conversion of carbohydrates into alcohols, carbon dioxide, and organic acids utilizing yeasts and/or bacteria under anaerobic conditions which is simply put “converting sugar into ethanol”. The process is so brilliant, there is a science totally dedicated to it called zymurgy or zymology. Converting sugars and carbohydrates led to transforming juice into wine, grain into beer, vegetable sugars into preservative organic acids, and carbohydrates into CO2 to leaven bread. In the liquor cabinet, it is used to create cider, mead, grappa, sake, beer, and wine. In the food cabinet, it is utilized for the leavening of bread, creating vinegar, yogurt, sauerkraut, pickling, kimchi, and preservation of some meats. Some popular fermented by-products are alcohol; amazake; asinan; atchara; bai-ming; belacan; burong mangga; bread; cheese; chiraki; com ruou; cultured milk; chicha; dalok; doenjang; douchi; elderberry wine; fermented millet porridge; garri; hibiscus seed; hot pepper sauce; injera; jeruk; lambanog; kefir; kimchi; kombucha; kumis (mare milk); leppet-so; miang; miso; nata de coco; nata de pina; nato; lupin seed; oilseed; chocolate; vanilla; naw-mai-dong; narezushi; Nattō (Japanese soybean food); oncom; pak-siam-dong; paw-tsaynob; prahok; pickling; ruou nep; sake; sauerkraut; seokbakji; shubat (camel milk); soju; sourdough bread; soy sauce; stinky tofu; tabasco; pulque; szechwan cabbage; tai-tan tsoi; tape; tempeh; totkal kimchi; wine; yogurt; yen tsai; zha caivinegar; salami; prosciuto; quark; poi; sago; and many others.

It is an ancient technology, preceding human history, as it naturally occurs in nature. One of the earliest recorded uses of it by humans was found in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, where 7,000 year old jars were found containing “wine”. Archaeological finds of Beer fermented in Ancient Egypt as early as 3,150 BCE and Babylon in 3,000 BCE. The first recorded evidence of the living nature of yeast comes from three publications appearing between 1837-1838 where Cagniard de la Tour, T. Swann, and F. Kuetzing concluded it was a result of microscopic investigations that yeast was a living organism that reproduced by budding. In the 1870′s it was a common term especially in connection with baceria and largely connected with studies of diseases and germs. The world’s first zymologist, was the chemist “Louis Pasteur” who made the connection that yeast was involved in fermentation and labelled the process as “respiration without air”. He theorized that the fermentation of sugar to alcohol by yeast was catalyzed by a vita force called “ferments” that existed within the yeast cells. He originally believed them to funcion only within living organisms and hypothesized that “alcoholic fermentation” was an act correlated with the life and organization of the yeast cells, not with the death or putrefaction of the cells. The truth however, yeast extracts can ferment sugar even in the absence of living yeast cells. This was proved in 1897 by Eduard Buchner who found hat sugar was fermented even when there was no living yeast cells in the mix by a yeast secretion called “zymase”. His theory led him to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research and discovery of “cell-free fermentation” in 1907 as well as the discovery of NAD+. The benefits of this process is 5-fold, in that it (1) enriches the diet with a variety of flavors, textures, and aromas in food substrates; (2) preserves large quantities of food through alcohol, lactic acid, acetic acid, and alkaline fermentations; (3) biologically enriches food substrates with essential amino acids, protein, fatty acids, and vitamins; (4) Eliminates anti-nutrients; and (5) Decreases fuel requirements and cooking times in food preparation.

It has however been involved in cases of botulism, especially in Alaska which is caused by a process of fermentation used by the Eskimo allowing animal products such as walrus, sea lion, whale flippers, beaver tales, whole fish, fish heads, seal oil, and birds to ferment for an extended period of time before eating them. In the modern era, this is intensified by the use of plastic containers in the process instead of the tradition grass-lined holes as the botulinum bacteria thrives in the anaerobic conditions created by air-tight enclosures such as plastics.

Fermentation is also used popularly in bio-chemistry, creation of fuels, industry, bio-chemicals, and chemistry. It can be used to create more exotic compounds such as butyric acid and acetone. It naturally occurs in mammalian muscle structures during periods of intense exercise when oxygen supply is limited and thereby creates lactic acid. The Chemical Formula for Ethanol is C2H5OH (C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2). Hydrogen Gas is also produced in many forms of fermentation, especially mixed acid, butyric acid, caproate, butanol, and glyoxylate fermentations which regenerates NAD+ from NADH.

Bibliography/Recommended Reading:
• Berg, Linda R. 2007 “Introductory Botany: Plants, People, and the Environment.
• Dickinson, J.R. 1999 “Carbon metabolism”. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis.
• Klein, Donald W.; Lansing, M.; Harley, John. 2006 “Microbiology”. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Soyinfocenter.com. “A brief history of fermentation, East and West”. Website referenced May 2012.
• Technogypsie.com “The Spirituality of Alcohol”. Website referenced May 2012. http://www.technogypsie.com/reviews/?p=1080.
• Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. “Fermentation”. Website referenced May 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_(food)

Edible Exhibit: The Taste of Things To Come
* The Naughton Institute / Science Center *
* Trinity College * Pearse Street * Dublin 2 Ireland *
* http://www.dublinscience2012.ie/2012/02/edible/ * February 10 – April 5, 2012 *

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Current Mood:  impressed

Eustrephus latifolius in * Canberra, Australia Capital Territory, Australia * – April 2011

Eustrephus latifolius:
* Wombat berry *

Common Names: Wombat berry
Taxonomy: Kingdom: Plantae; Angiosperms; Monocots; Asparagales; Asparagaceae; Lomandroideae; Geitonosplesiaceae; Eustrephus laifolius.

Location/Environment:
Native to Malaysia, Eastern Australia (especially Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria), New Guinea, New Caledonia, and the Pacific Islands. Common in sclerophyll dry or wet forests, woodlands, heaths, marginal rainforests, and gallery forests.

Description:
Coming from the Greek “Eustrephus” meaning “to twist” and describing its twining habit of the vines. Latifolius meaning having broad leaves. A monotypic genus of the Asparagaceae and Lomandroideae families it is a sole species that is an evergreen vine that vigorously twines and scrambles as ground cover. Vine gives sprout to lamina variable shaped elliiptic, lance-shaped, to linear leaves ranging from 3-10 cm in length and 3-35 mm in width. The veins of the leaves are equally distinct. The leaves in the Spring give blossom to 15 mm diameter pink, mauve, and/or white flowers with 1-2 cm diameter yellow-orange globose capsules with black seeds set in a white aril. The fruits remain on the plant for several months.

Cultivation:
Propagated best from fresh young seed.

Common Uses:

Culinary:
Fleshy roots are edible. Tubers are baked and eaten. They are notable to have an earthy sweet flavor.

Medicinal:

Folklore and Magic:

Mythology:

NOTE: This article is in constant state of research, updating, and evolution. If you have information to add, please submit to science@technogypsie.com

Bibliography/Recommended Reading:
• Chase, M.W.; Reveal, J.L.; Fay, M.F. 2009 Botanical Journal of Linnean Society 161: “A subfamilial classification for the expanded asparagalean families Amaryllidaceae, Asparagaceae, and Xanthorrhoeaceae”; pages 132-136.
• PlantNET: “Eustrephus latifolius”. Website referenced May 2012.
• Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. “Eustrephus latifolius”. Website referenced May 2012.

* Canberra, Australia Capital Territory, Australia *

Photos from:

Australian National Botanical Gardens*
Canberra, Australia Capital Territory, Australia *

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Current Mood:  chipper

Jeanie Johnston
Dublin, Ireland

One of Ireland’s most famous ships is the Jeanie Johnston which is moored off the Custom House Quay in Dublin along the River Liffey. It is a replica of the three masted barque that was originally built in 1847 by Scotsman John Munn in Quebec, Canada. The original ship was bought by the Tralee merchants John Donovan and Sons from Kerry County as a cargo vessel that traded between Tralee and North America for many years bringing emigrants from Ireland to North America and timber back to Europe. Her first maiden emigrant voyage went from Blennerville in Kerry to Quebec in 1848 with 193 emigrants on board due to the Potato Famine that ravaged Ireland. From 1848 until 1855 she made 16 voyages to Quebec, Baltimore, and New York. On average the trip was accomplished in 47 days and her largest number of passengers were 254. No crews or passengers were ever lost on board thanks to the captain James Attridge who would not overload the ship and made sure doctor Richard Blennerhassett was on board for every journey. In 1855 the ship was sold to William Johnson of North Shields in England, but during a 1858 trip to Quebec from Hull carrying timber became waterlogged and slowly sank – crew was rescued by the Dutch ship Sophie Elizabeth. This replica ship, is reduced in size by 30%, and is only licensed to carry 40 people. The replica was made from indepth research of the original, and took from 1993-2002 to build. It was constructed by a international team of young people who linked Ireland North and South, the U.S., Canada, and other countries costing approximately 16 million Euro (4 times the original estimate of 3.81 million Euro) which was paid for by the Irish government, Kerry County Council, Tralee Town Council, the European Union, the American Ireland Fund, Bord Failte, Shannon Development, Kerry Group, the Training and Employment Authority Foras Áiseanna Saothair and the Irish Department of the Marine, most of which later agreed to write off their losses. It was built with larch planks on oak frames and was altered to apply with current international maritime regulations by adding some modern concessions including two Caterpillar main engines, two Caterpillar generators, and an emergency generator that is located above the waterline in the forward deckhouse fully compliant to the highest standards of modern ocean-going passenger ships, with steel water-tight bulkheads, down-flooding valves, and fire-fighting equipment. The replica shiped sailed in 2003 from Tralee to Canada and to the U.S. She raced in the 2005 tall ships race and finished 60th out of 65 from Waterford to Cherbourg. The replica is owned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority who bought it in 2005 for 2.7 million Euro. Today it is not in seagoing condition. Today she is primarily used as an Onboard Museum and evening venue.

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Current Mood:  calm

Climate change is already harshing the weather | Grist.

Things are getting weird around here. (Photo by Zach Frailey.)

In a sane world, a 2011 filled with spectacularly bizarre weather followed by a winter and spring that are record-shatteringly hot – out of control hot; Biblical hot – would have everyone in the U.S. freaking the f*ck out about climate change.

We never quite get there, though. We don’t seem to be grappling with the fact that this kind of volatility is rapidly becoming the new normal — or that we are totally unprepared.

If the public does tune in to what little media coverage there is of the climate-weather connection, they end up wading through technical discussions about attribution. Take this piece from Andrew Freedman at Climate Central. It is an excellent piece of reporting, thorough and judicious, but it is occupied almost exclusively with pinning down exactly what portion of this particular heat wave can be attributed to climate change. Some scientists say only a small portion. Some say it wouldn’t have happened without climate. Freedman’s lede says the heat wave “bears some of the hallmarks of global warming.” It’s not exactly galvanizing stuff.

Brad Plumer follows up with a similar piece. At the end, he asks:

So why does any of this matter? Isn’t it enough to know that the planet is warming and that unseasonably sweaty conditions are the sort of thing we’re likely to see more and more frequently if we continue belching greenhouse gases into the air?

Um … yes! It is enough! As Brad notes, there may be some legal issues down the road that hinge on precise attribution for individual events, but it’s hard to see how it has much bearing on policy or public sentiment.

The recently released IPCC report on extreme weather isn’t much better at clearly conveying the big picture. As Joe Romm notes, it’s a bland, least-common-denominator document:

Unfortunately, the IPCC continues to conflate uncertainty in future emissions of greenhouse gases with uncertainty in the climate’s sensitivity to those emissions.  This means they present a very large range of possible overall impacts — and that allows the deniers to trumpet the low range with their powerful fossil-fuel-funded megaphone and induces the media to provide “balance” in their stories between the mid-range and the low range.

The net effect is that an accurate picture of the current range of scientific opinion does not reach readers. Michael Tobis sketched out this graph to try to represent the skewed nature of public discussion:

Anyway, getting back to weather: What the public needs to know is that volatility like we’ve seen recently is on the rise because of climate change. Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, global average temperature would continue rising for a good half-century just in response to past GHG emissions. Rising temperature will drive more and more extreme weather. This will create all sorts of health, agricultural, energy, and economic issues for which we are grossly unprepared.

That’s it. Why can’t that simple message seem to capture the popular imagination? How much freaky weather does it take?

Australian National Museum, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Sir William Colin MacKenzie ~ 1877-1938: the surgeon, anatomist, philanthropist, orthopaedist

From the Australian National Museum display: ” Colin MacKenzie was a Melbourne surgeon who studied marsupial anatomy in order to understand human anatomy. Like many other scientists, he believed Australian animals would soon become extinct. MacKenzie wanted to start a native animal sanctuary in Canberra to help with his research. It never happened, but he later founded the Healesville Sanctuary …”

“Colin Mackenzie” or “Bricky” was nicknamed as such for his red hair was a man of great repute in Australia especially as a benefactor, museum administrator, anatomist, and director. He was born on March 9, 1877 in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia. He was the youngest of six as son to his Scottish parents John MacKenzie a draper, and his wife Anne nee McKay. He educated at Kilmore State School and on to Scotch College in Melbourne where he graduated with honors in Greek on December 1893. He graduated from Medical school from the University of Melbourne in 1898. He was first-class honors in surgery, women’s diseases, and obstetrics. He studied in Europe in 1903. In 1908 he tackled the extensive epidemic in Australia of people suffering in need of orthopaedic skills. During World War I he spent three years in England at the Royal College of Surgeons assisting Sir Arthur Keith in cataloging specimens of war wounds for the army and helped bring out the new edition of Treve’s Surgical Applied Anatomy. At the same time he continued his studies of comparative anatomy of Australian fauna. MacKenzie dissected dozens of Australian animals to help him understand human anatomy. For example, he thought dissecting and examining the shoulders of a Koala might help him improve techniques for human shoulders in surgery. He became council member of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. By 1918, he returned to Australia and converted his house at 612 St. Kilda Road into a laboratory and museum which he called the Australian Institute of Anatomical Research devoted most of his time researching Australian animals from 1919 until his death in 1938. By 1920 He had 80 acres of bushland at Badger Creek as a field station for his research. The facility was fenced, had a 6-roomed house for a curator, a cottage for visiting scientists, workshops, animal pens, and a staff of assistants. This eventually became the Sir Colin MacKenzie Sanctuary in 1934. His collection of specimens became world famous, and was gifted to the Australian goverment in 1924. He married his assistant Winifred Iris Evelyn in 1928. He was knighted in 1929 and spent a good portion of the remainder of his life in Canberra. There he served as a member of the Medical Board and by 1933 became the second president of the Canberra-based Royal Society of Australia. His health began to decay and he retired in 1937 upon returning to Melbourne with his wife. He died on June 29, 1938 of a cerebral hemorrage at his home in Kew and was cremated.

Australian National Museum, Canberra, ACT, Australia

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