Super spinach
Spinach is a disappointing vegetable. Nana Feedback鈥檚 early attempts to wean us on to the slimy green stuff by pointing to Popeye as a role model were undermined by our discovery that its iron content has regularly been overstated by a factor of 10, chemist Erich von Wolf .
Hence our arched eyebrow at a headline in Euro News, . Indeed, this turns out to be a limp reheating of , reported at the time by 快猫短视频, of spinach plants genetically engineered to fluoresce when they encounter certain chemicals in the soil. The emails are sadly not directly typed, but sent automatically by infrared detectors trained on the spinach. Nice try.
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Very fun and forward looking, on the other hand, is a linked to in the Euro News story, 鈥淪pinach-Derived Porous Carbon Nanosheets as High-Performance Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction鈥�. Xiaojun Liu at the American University in Washington DC and his colleagues used a recipe involving spinach, melamine and salt 鈥� oddly, three substances much in use in Nana Feedback鈥檚 1970s kitchen 鈥� to fabricate porous carbon nanosheets doped with spinach鈥檚 trace-metal goodness. They suggest the spinach-based sheets could be layered into future metal-air batteries, taking the place of expensive platinum-based catalysts.
We wholeheartedly approve, having read of wider movements to mine precious metals from plants recently in these pages (9 January, p 42). Meanwhile, platinum-based catalysts are just the thing to give that lasagne an added zing.
By any other name
As we pick the remnants of that story from our teeth, Simon Goodman from Griesheim, Germany, arrives with dessert, and a story about the chocolate that is too chocolatey to be called chocolate. The confectioner Ritter has produced a new line called 鈥淐acao y Nada鈥� whose sweetness is derived entirely from the mucilaginous pulp that surrounds the beans within a cocoa pod. This falls foul of Germany鈥檚 notoriously strict food and drink regulations, which stipulate that , it must contain sugar. So a 鈥渃ocoa-fruit bar鈥� it is instead.
Admirably consequential, in an inconsequential kind of way. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quotes Ritter鈥檚 CEO Andreas Ronken saying: 鈥淚f sausages can be made of peas, chocolate doesn鈥檛 need sugar. Wake up! This is the new reality.鈥�
Sausages made of peas? That really would be a wurst-case scenario.
Ethical animals
Feedback recently expressed confusion as we tried to envisage Australian printer cartridge waste expressed in multiples of northern hemisphere blue whales (30 January). As a magazine-backwards reader, we weren鈥檛 to know of the byzantine analogies being served up just a few pages further on.
In a 鈥淕reen and Ethical Checklist鈥� advertorial, Jan Rossiter points out, payment provider EML committed to cut plastic consumption in payment cards by 鈥渢he weight of 56 elephants, 10 humpback whales, 1,250 lions and the height of 5,000 giraffes across its global portfolio鈥�.
Giraffes don鈥檛 tessellate well in our recollection, and we join Jan in straining to picture 5000 of them stacked up. Moreover, while accepting the portfolio is global, we consider it neither feasible nor wise to bring all those animals together in the same place at the same time.
This big boulder
Linda Jared draws our attention to a no-nonsense approach to matters of scale adopted by the San Miguel sheriff鈥檚 office in Telluride, Colorado. 鈥淎 large boulder the size of a large boulder is blocking the southbound lane Hwy 145 mm28 in Stoner Creek area of Montezuma County,鈥� the office . 鈥淓xpect delays. #largeboulder.鈥�
We note this follows on from the same account of a 鈥淟arge boulder the size of a small boulder鈥� blocking the same highway some 80 kilometres further on. Fortunately, there is a picture of the offending rock with a sheriff鈥檚 car parked close by for scale. Although we are unsure whether it鈥檚 a large or small sheriff鈥檚 car. That rather depends on the size of the boulder.
Wandering whale
London-based singer has garnered acclaim from the likes of Earmilk and Atwood Magazine to name a few, and we reject the assertion that we aren鈥檛 cool enough to know that and are just reading from a press release.
Buckle鈥檚 latest work, Wonder, is inspired by the story of Whale 52, the 鈥渨orld鈥檚 loneliest whale鈥�. Its distinctive, unique 52-hertz song was first heard in the north Pacific in 1989 鈥� although the last time we checked in on the story, age and the slackening of vocal cords had lowered the call鈥檚 frequency to 47 hertz (19 March 2016, p 35).
We are unqualified to assess Buckle鈥檚 spine-tingling vocals, floating delicately atop minimalistic, ethereal melodies, creating an almost hypnotic effect. But the truly did, as advertised, transport us to another dimension and leave us there. What we鈥檇 really like to know, however, is how big the whale is.
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