Thanks to the recent good weather, I’ve been eating a lot of Tangle Twisters lately. Last week I noticed in the ingredients that they’re coloured using the chemical “Curcumin”
Curcumin is found in tumeric and is what causes curries to be yellow. It’s sometimes written as the E number E100. Scientist love curcumin because it’s been shown to have anti-cancer, anti-arthritis, anti-alzheimers, anti-malaria and ant-HIV effects.
So if you want to avoid all these horrible diseases, tangle twisters and curry are the way to go.
Went to see Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down on Sunday night. It was possibly the emptiest gig I’ve ever been to. There was about 30 people there. Thankfully we were rewarded with a river of free mojitos by some bacardi promotions dudes. Support was Paul Hourican who is a great singer/songwriter (and hails from my hometown!).
I really didn’t know what to expect from Thao. She came on stage with a toothbrush in her pocket and seemed generally enthused that more than 10 people had showed up. Although her singing style made the lyrics even harder to make out live, she really rocked the house and is a little demon guitarist.Thao possessed some sweet kooky banter that was very much in style of her songwriting. After the gig we chatted with her and she was really nice and appreciative. It’s really great to meet nice bands.
Albert Hoffman has died at the ripe old age of 102. In 1945, while synthesising a lysergic acid compound, he accidentally absorbed some through his fingers (always wear gloves kids!) and noticed his perception changed remarkably. Being the well balanced, careful scientist he was, Hoffman then ingested 250mg of this chemical (now known as LSD) and went for a cycle home.
Hoffman was a strong advocate for the medicinal and mind expanding effects of LSD and was annoyed at the irresponsible use of the drug in the 1960’s. He called the drug “medicine for the soul” and commented on its positive use in psychoanalysis. As well as LSD, Hoffman also later discovered the chemical active ingredient in magic mushrooms. He also wrote a book called “LSD: My Problem Child.”
For a good read, jump over to wikipedia which has detailed description of Hoffman’s “Bicycle Day“
Too lazy to write anything properly lately so I’ll recycle this “How cool shit works” article I wrote for Trinity News 4 years ago. It’s about Laser Eye Surgery. Reading over it again it made me laugh in some parts but mostly cringe deeply that I could ever publish such waffly non-sequitir nonsense. Can’t say I’ve learnt much since.
Reading: Amber Spyglass, The Book Thief, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Thunderbolt Kid
Listen: new albums from Elbow, The Raconteurs, Crystal Castles, New Pornographers Stephen Malkmus and Band of Horses (not very new). Older albums just got into: Halo Blenders, Brendan Benson, Battles, Destroyer, Elliot Smith.
Cinema: Rambo, Black Sheep, Junebug, Lars and the Real Girl, The Lives of Others, No Country for Old Men.
DVD: Freaks and Geeks, The Complete Series.
Science: 2D clean ups, 4 prep gels, 8 DIGE gels, fix the mass spectrometer, get some travel funding and start drafting paper.
Apparently “[o]nce the [flu]virus enters a host, the outer protective coat “melts like an M&M in your mouth”, and enables the virus to enter the host’s cells.”
Thanks to the recent good weather, I’ve been eating a lot of Tangle Twisters lately. Last week I noticed in the ingredients that they’re coloured using the chemical “Curcumin”
I really didn’t know what to expect from Thao. She came on stage with a toothbrush in her pocket and seemed generally enthused that more than 10 people had showed up. Although her singing style made the lyrics even harder to make out live, she really rocked the house and is a little demon guitarist.Thao possessed some sweet kooky banter that was very much in style of her songwriting. After the gig we chatted with her and she was really nice and appreciative. It’s really great to meet nice bands.
Albert Hoffman has died at the ripe old age of 102. In 1945, while synthesising a lysergic acid compound, he accidentally absorbed some through his fingers (always wear gloves kids!) and noticed his perception changed remarkably. Being the well balanced, careful scientist he was, Hoffman then ingested 250mg of this chemical (now known as LSD) and went for a cycle home.
