I really enjoyed watching that video of Father Sarducci's skit on "Life is work", especially the joke about Mafia being born as nuns several times and indicating most nuns are former Mafias. Some take away and a few questions from that video: 1) It pays to live longer as it is $14.50 per day of life (work). 2) The God pays much lower than the minimum wages Bernie Sander's is asking per hour. 3) Does God pay equal wages to men and women? 4) If we dedicate work to God, we still get paid $14.50 a day with sins dedicated to God. No wonder Father Sarducci is promoting that concept. He is probably recruiting people for his church. Viswa
A question arose in my mind after reading this thread: Why was the hunter hunting cats? Why kill or capture a feral one? I thought cats were a protected species in ancient India? I'm thinking of Premchand's story "Prayaschit." I figure if anyone would know the answer it would be Never Minders. Else, never mind. .
Amica, This is my personalized interpretation of the pre-story having read more than one retelling of the action tale to quench my curiosity that the names were indeed Lomasha (cat) and Palita (rat). I was curious to dredge the names of the characters. The hunter was not exclusively hunting cats. He set up the trap for arbitrary prey. His netted trap caught a passing cat incidentally. If the hunter later found a snared cat in the net, he might have released it grudgingly. The cat panicked in the net. Surely, it wanted to escape early, not awaiting the hunter's suspenseful verdict, not knowing if he would timely return. So the cat made a pact with the rat to shelter the endangered rat from the spotted mongoose and owl. The rat hunkered underneath the cat's fur. Thus the negotiations .. Yes, the Never Minders enjoy such excessive challenges.
Marty Jopson explains scholarly science in playful inquiry, tackling questions emerging out of your mind even before you utter, in that, I know what you are thinking. I like such writers...Roger Penrose in another such educator who resolves even before we sense the provocation. So, this week I read Marty's book "The Science of Everyday Life" in which he demystifies the structured science in common observations. Below are my cloud thoughts while reading the book, constricted only to food in this thread though the book ventures into electronic devices and worldly technology in the later chapters.
Table sugar (sucrose)! ...and the research that has gone into replicating the molecular structure of sucrose in lab amenable for the chemical receptors on our tongue. It's like lock-picking; sucrose is the proper key, still you can pick the same lock with a hair pin when bent and jiggled. The synthetic sugars are these hair pins emulating the fit for these locked sweetness receptors on our tongue. A pop-eyed fact noticed during the research is that the sweetest chemical known to human called lugduname does not exhibit the chemical folded structure anywhere close to the sucrose. Then how does lugduname taste sweet and induce the same nerve sensation of sugar. Some clever boffin in France coined the 'multi-point attachment theory' in which the 'sweetness receptor on the tongue detects not one big structural region but up to eight, smaller and spaced apart areas'. As long as the molecule sinks into a subset of this fragmented receptor, the goop we just shoved into our mouth should taste sweet. But what is the optimum match set? 3? 4? 5? how many sub-receptors should match? I was thinking, all the exactitude in replicating sucrose is now toppled with granular match. Just hammer out some nearest (and safe) molecule in the lab that will tickle just 4-5 points. After all, the sweetest compound, that lugduname, which is 250,000 times sweeter than common sugar looks nowhere like the fruity chained ring nor matches all 8-points.
Next spice! Why do we feel a burning sensation when we lick a hot soup or bite into a chilly? The former is heat, the latter is a molecule, how do varying stimuli unify into the same sensation? We are introduced to an ungainly protein called "transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 1" (TRPV1, in short) Lining of tongue, nerve endings, cell membranes with TRPV1 protein. This TRPV1 protein is languishing in the cell membrane awaiting for something to whack it into doing the work to open up the calcium ion gateway to generated a nerve impulse to brain. But what is that whack? (1) Temperature -- above 43 C (hot soup) (2) Chemical trigger -- like capsaisin , piperine , isothiocynate (chilly, black pepper, wasabi) Both such whacks activate our otherwise placid TRPV1 into hurriedly opening up the biochemical gateway. I am amused by these wriggly proteins idling until their prat is on fire or threatened by a bruiser capsaisin into doing some work. Such articulated bio-machinery in our bodies amazes me! Next time I scorch my tongue on a spoonful of piping or spiced biryani, I know my TRPV1 has awakened from slumber.
I have grown up with the household tact 'when in doubt, always refrigerator.' Across the years, I found out a lot of comestibles that are not supposed to be refrigerated. But the common sense again has been 'if something can be frozen, it definitely can be refrigerated also'. Well, that's sharpshooting common sense. If frosty cold is okay, then chilling cold could not adversely affect. ....till I read the chapter on bread which enthusiastically probes about the constituency of bread (flour, water, yeast) and the jiggery-pokery of flour (bran, germ, starch, gluten). After much insights and elaboration on how the ground wheat grass is turned into squidgy dough and baked bread, the process "retrograde" unfamiliar to me was stated. Dough grade (I coined the term to offset): Starch mixed in water, glucose chains forming a crystalline structure break apart. The dough becomes softer and gelatinous. Retrograde: Water is squeezed out of the gelatinous starch making the bread dry and stale. Everything is so credible and interesting yet uncritical so far, then what's wrong with refrigeration over freezing when both suck out moisture? "the process of retrograding is dramatically increased at temperatures between -8C and +8C. If you put bread in the refrigerator at 5C the starch will retrograde and the bread will go stale. The starch does not retrograde much below -8C, so the freezer at -20C would prolong the life of bread." When I read such preservation finesse in a book languidly spotted in the library, I feel as if the carpet under my chair has been yanked out. Intuitively, what is good for goose is also good for gander but there's delicate and finer everyday science that is so counter-intuitive amidst competing factors. I feel nice when science writers put much effort in explaining counter-intuitive notions of interpolated science.
I am beginning to suspect that I have uncritical taste in non-fiction books! How can I like all these random books?! I thought hard ... I am extremely picky about fiction, but non-fiction must be undiscerning for me as I love every non-fiction that I casually rummage in library. Today I read Why does E=mc^2 by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. Again, I was blown away by one connecting chapter in particular. (Page 57 - 102) I again thought hard ...why is it that I admire every published narrative ascending from Euclidean to Hyperbolic space. The content of this chapter must have been read and watched by me across a slew of tutorials, yet every time I stumble on another labour to explain the minus sign in the casuality of the spacetime invariance, I am stunned! These science writers are persistent in ensuring that these breakaway concepts are accessible with not much advanced knowledge of mathematical modelling. I have read enough books on this spacetime minkowskian derivation but this explanation of the baffling minus sign is the best. Good vocalized chapter, okay book!
I found Maggi noodles at the supermarket, not the Malay Laksa flavour but the Indian Masala flavour. Been a long time since I slurped Maggi noodles. Growing up, Maggi was an eased lure in its 2 minutes catchphrase. I don't know if anyone successfully boiled Maggi instant noodles in under 2 minutes as I timed today in the microwave which took exactly 12 minutes al dente. May be with the pesticides and toxic gunk, it takes longer now. Those were goodwill times when betrayed households didn't sue a class action or anti-trust on Maggi sellers. Which Maggi cooks in 2 minutes? Has anyone ever demonstrably cooked Maggi in 2 minutes? Maggi was specialized and exclusive in noodle stalls outside college premises. Every college would host at least one instant noodle stall for the emaciated hostlers. The menu read: noodles and maggi. You see, Maggi was elite warranting a special mention (we boil maggi too here!). The noodle worker would swirl and flip the maggi noodles charging extra bucks for scrambled egg garnish, or some horrifyingly crimson burnt sauce over plain Maggi. I have never seen them agreeably take up the Maggi challenge and whip across the noodles under 2 minutes. I don't know if Maggi is still advertised with that 2 minutes slogan. My 12 minutes Maggi in microwave tasted okay.
No one can overlap scientific insight with social behavior like the way you do! Hehe! True ..true that ..
