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Have a Happy Thought:  You’re not insane for insisting that your cup of tea is made in your very particular way. Specifically if you have milk with your tea. Because it turns out that the tea and milk react differently, depending on whether the tea is poured into milk (milk-first), vs milk poured into tea (tea-first). Being American, where tea is only a hobby and only then for only some people, I don’t fully understand how important this is. But I’m sure some people reading this have capital-O Opinions. Here’s perhaps some of an explanation for why you have those Opinions. So milk contains fats and proteins that are hydrophobic. If you pour milk into tea those hydrophobic globules get all separated, and then scalded by the piping hot tea. That scalding gives the milk fats and proteins a specific flavour (some describe it as kind of a caramel flavour). If you pour the milk into the cup first, the incoming hot tea does not have the same globule-scattering effect, whic...

Have a Happy Thought:  Sometimes the best way to learn something is to have a laugh about it. That’s pretty much the mission statement of the Ig Nobel Prizes. In case you don’t know about these, check out previous Friday emails about them here , and here , oh and here , too. Or go to the Ig Nobel website.   Without further ado, here are some of the wonderful discoveries and research from the past year, announced just last week.   If you’re getting chemotherapy, make sure you eat some ice cream MEDICINE PRIZE [POLAND] Marcin Jasiński, Martyna Maciejewska, Anna Brodziak, Michał Górka, Kamila Skwierawska, Wiesław Jędrzejczak, Agnieszka Tomaszewska, Grzegorz Basak, and Emilian Snarski, for showing that when patients undergo some forms of toxic chemotherapy, they suffer fewer harmful side effects when ice cream replaces one traditional component of the procedure. REFERENCE: “Ice-Cream Used as Cryotherapy During High-Dose Melphalan Conditioning ...

Have a Happy Thought:   You know that time that someone told you an outlandish story, and you kind of believed it but were afraid to actually admit it, in case you were just being gullible?   Well, at least you didn't then go and do a scientific study and publish your results, like the winners of this year's ig Nobel award for materials science. The highlights of their published article are, and I quote: " • An ethnographic account states an Inuit man made a knife from his own frozen feces. • We experimentally tested knives manufactured from frozen human feces. • Knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work. "     Yes that's right folks, for the third year in a row I am pleased to bring you the best of science that makes you laugh, and then makes you think. This year, some of the prizes got a bit 'real', as evidenced by the references being news articles, not scholarly articles. But you do have to hand it to the winners...

Have a happy thought: Wombats are adorable creatures. They’re marsupials, which are just weird anyway. They can run up to 40km/hr (!!). And the name for a group of wombats is a wisdom . “Wow, see that wisdom of wombats over there?” See? You’re smiling just saying it! Image: JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) - Own work, Wikipedia Creative Commons credit But the best part of the wombat is their bum. Here’s why, in two parts: These creatures live in burrows, which have really obvious entrances (see photo below). So they have to worry about predators getting into their burrows and to the young wombats (called joeys, like most other marsupial young). So the wombats will dig extra holes, that don’t actually go anywhere. And when a predator (like a dingo) comes, the adult wombat will “escape” down this fake burrow, and when the dingo chases it down the hole, the wombat will **crush the dingo to death against the top of the burrow with its ...

 Have a happy thought: Apparently art conservators often use their own saliva as a cleaning agent (for specific surfaces of course). Now, thanks to a team of intrepid scientists , we know what makes human saliva such a good cleaning agent: an enzyme called α – amylase   …oh, and the fact is that saliva does actually work !   On behalf of anyone-who-has-ever-watched-after-a-small-child… vindication!   This brought to you by the 2018 igNoble Prizes (“The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology ”)   Other winners included (actual article titles included because sometimes they’re as good as the topic): Could roller coaster rides help in passing kidney stones easily and quickly? (Answer – Yes!) "Validation of a Functional Pyelocalyceal Renal Model for the ...