“Without yeast there would be no beer, and Heineken has been cloning the same secret strain since 1886.”

“Wheels are the archetype of a primitive, caveman-level technology. But in fact, they’re so ingenious that it took until 3500 B.C. for someone to invent them. By that time — it was the Bronze Age — humans were already casting metal alloys, constructing canals and sailboats, and even designing complex musical instruments such as harps. The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It’s figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder… but why it took so long to invent the wheel.” w/ photos

“Remember when you had a bad cold as a kid and your mom made you chicken soup? It always made you feel better, right? Though many have chalked it up to an old wives’ tale, it turns out that there may be some science behind the soup remedy… Even putting the study results aside, when breaking down chicken soup into its various ingredients, it’s easy to see why it may be a potent weapon against a runny nose.” w/ photo

“Researchers found dark-haired women are more decisive, better at finding bargains and more likely to find the item they set out to purchase. Blondes on the other hand make rash decisions, end up with clothes they don’t like and often buy for the short term rather than ‘investing’ in clothing that will last. The study, which was commissioned by online market researchers OnePoll, also found brunettes usually spend less on a shopping trip than the average blonde and are far savvier when it comes to the sales. And brunettes are the more decisive of the two, despite taking shorter shopping trips on average than their fair-haired counterparts. The research examined 500 natural brunettes and 500 natural blondes to determine just who can claim to be the queens of retail… though it’s not know how thorough the researchers were in fact-checking the natural status.” w/ photo

“The trouble, says Nobel Laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman, is that we’re often confident in our intuitive judgments even when we have no idea what we’re doing.”

“Have you ever wondered what ‘malt’ really is, and how you get malt from barley? And what about hops, and why d­o we need yeast? Barley, water, hops and yeast — brewers combine these four ­simple ingredients to make beer. But it’s not just a matter of mixing the right amount of each ingredient and voila!… you have beer. A complex series of biochemical reactions must take place to convert barley to fermentable sugars, and to allow yeast to live and multiply, converting those sugars to alcohol… Read on and find out how beer works.” w/ photos

“Teenagers are more susceptible to cocaine addiction than adults because of how their brains are wired, scientists say. A team from Yale University said those who started abusing the Class A drug when they were young were far more easily affected by it and more likely to become dependent. Writing in The Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers said this was because the adolescent brain launches a strong defensive reaction to minimize the drug’s effect, with neurons and synapses changing shape when first exposed to the cocaine. Because of this, teenagers needs only a third as much of the drug to experience a high. The researchers have now found the gene which regulates this response – and by changing it have dramatically increased the sensitivity of mice to cocaine, reports the Journal of Neuroscience. Tweaking it in the opposite direction could reverse the effect, they say.” w/ photos

“Think about a munching on a bag of your favorite potato chips. Let that image sit in your brain for a little while. How does it feel? Are you craving chips right now? Sometimes, a single mention of a word is all it takes to trigger a craving, and unfortunately, cravings often entice you to do things that aren’t good for you. What if you could change that? In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can rewire your brain and use those cravings to your advantage. We deal with cravings on a daily basis, but — whether you’re craving something as simple as a bag of potato chips or as abstract as a shopping experience—the basic science behind your cravings is the same. Before we can look into how you can use that science to better yourself, we have to understand how cravings work on a physical and psychological level.” w/ photos

“New car smell,’ a grand perk for first-time car owners, might be harmful, according to a new study. The smell, often thought to be a combination of new leather and ‘fresh from the showroom’ fabric from seats, is in some cases toxic fumes, The Ecology Center’s report found. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based group surveyed 200 of the most popular car brands in 2011 and 2012 and tested parts of the car — the steering wheel, seats, dashboard and arm rest — that are often the source of ‘new car smell.’ ‘Research shows that vehicle interiors contain a unique cocktail of hundreds of toxic chemicals that off-gas in small, confined spaces,’ said Jeff Gearhart, Research Director at the Ecology Center. ‘Since these chemicals are not regulated, consumers have no way of knowing the dangers they face. Our testing is intended to expose those dangers and encourage manufacturers to use safer alternatives.” w/ photo

“A breakthrough in controlling graphene could see the highly conductive and super-strong ‘wonder material’ replace silicon and change the face of electronics, leading to faster, thinner gadgets. Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago have made a giant step in overcoming one of the hurdles blocking the development of graphene for use in everyday devices – that it’s difficult to electrically ‘turn off’ the flow of current through it. Now scientists have found a way of chemically altering the material to ‘tune’ its electronic properties and make it more functional.” w/ photos