Archive For The “Education” Category
Is Jell-O really made from ground-up horse hooves? These are the kinds of questions the Internet is good for, since Jell-O definitely doesn’t list them as an ingredient. I discovered that gelatin, the main ingredient in Jell-O, is created through a lengthy process that first involves boiling the bones, skins, and hides of pigs and [...]
Some food-related businesses are switching out their traditional plastic utensils for fancy biodegradable utensils. I was curious how long a biodegradable spoon would take to begin to decompose. So I placed it in a glass of water, the universal solvent. Like a good scientist, I carefully noted the progress of my spoon each day. After [...]
Bryn and I saw a recipe last week that called for pine nuts. She warned me they were really expensive. Sure, nuts are pretty expensive in general. Then later, at Costco, we saw the pine nuts — for about $20 a pound! They must be delicious. But at that price, I’ll probably never know. Are [...]
Donating blood saves lives, and apparently it’s good for you too. I feel like I may have donated before, because I remember getting a cookie and juice, but honestly can’t remember when that might have been. And let’s be real, I probably ate a lot of cookies and drank a lot of juice. (I do [...]
I’ve been having a fascinating time playing with the NY Times census map. It’s amazing how much we self-segregate ourselves into neighborhoods of people that look like us. For a country famous for its “melting pot” culture, I was really surprised to see distinct color blocks in nearly every city, old and new, from sea [...]
Roulette is a simple game that seems beatable, which is what the casino wants you to think. There is a wheel with 38 numbers: 18 red, 18 black, and 2 green zeros. You can bet on any combination of numbers and/or colors, with payouts varying based on the odds of the ball landing on that [...]
