Plastic No More

Plastic bags are a menace to the environment. They require oil for manufacture, they fill up landfills, they clog our oceans and hurt marine animals, and they never biodegrade. And yet, in America at least, they are very prevalent. Every trip to the grocery store results in a dozen new plastic bags clogging my bag drawer and, eventually, my trash can. Several local stores will recycle the bags if you remember to bring them back, but to be honest I am not all that great about remembering to do so. Our local Superfresh has started pushing reusable recycled plastic bags, and we've bought many. But clerks at other stores just look at me like I am insane if I say I want the items put in my own reusable bag. Clearly we have a long way to go on reducing plastic bag use.

Ireland may have the right idea. There is a fascinating story in today's New York Times about the eradication of plastic bags in Ireland. Way back in 2002, before most Americans were even thinking seriously about environmentally friendly products, there was a campaign in Ireland to reduce plastic bag use. The bags were littering the streets and filling up landfills. Some companies started charging small fees for plastic bags (about 1 cent), but this just incensed shoppers. To really make a significant change, the government needed to get involved. Legislation was passed that put a 33 cent tax on each plastic bag. Suddenly, plastic bags were a significant added expense to a grocery shopping trip. Plastic bag use dropped dramatically, and most people switched to reusable cloth or sturdy plastic shopping bags. Now, apparently, it is considered slightly taboo to even use a plastic bag. Talk about a dramatic turnaround. Wouldn't it be great if the same clerks who look at me like I am crazy for using a reusable bag now were giving me the same look for daring to ask for plastic?

Tasty Fish, but Eat with Caution

Last week, I went out for a lovely dinner with friends at Butterfield 9. I had been a few times before for work events, and my favorite thing on the menu is definitely the escolar. Escolar is a firm, white fish with a bit of a tangy, rich flavor. Yum.

So I go ahead and recommend the escolar to my friends, and 3 of us end up ordering it. We all like it (though two of use were unpleasantly surprised to find mussels floating around in the sauce). We all go home happy and, I assume, healthy.

I go to work the next day, and my coworker and I start talking about escolar; where its from, what it looks like, etc. So we hit the internet, and this is where the story takes an odd turn. Escolar happens to be banned in several countries. No, not because of overfishing, but because it makes people sick. Very sick. Grossly sick.

Apparently, escolar is very high in oil. So high in oil that many people can't process it; they get horrible, greasy diarrhea, including oily anal discharge. Gross, I know, but I couldn't possibly make this up. You remember Olestra and the anal leakage? Well, escolar is apparently the all-natural equivalent if not prepared correctly.

Japan has banned the stuff. The FDA banned escolar, but has since reversed that decision. The Canadian government has issued a special warning. Queensland has indicated that the fish shouldn't be used in catering.

So what should you do? Well, not everyone is severely affected by the indigestible wax esters. Some people (including myself, at least so far) can eat it and be just fine. And here's the thing... because most of the fat is indigestible, the fish tastes delicious and rich but is still low in fat. So maybe a little intestinal discomfort is worth it. I will probably eat it again.

That being said, there's no chance I would have tried escolar if I had known about the effects ahead of time.

Gives a new meaning to sweet pickles!

I first heard about miracle fruit a few months ago in an NPR story. Miracle fruit, Sideroxylon dulcificum, is a pretty amazing little berry that is native to West Africa. There is a compound in miracle fruit that desensitizes the bitter and sour taste buds, making foods taste surprisingly sweet. The claim is that if you eat a miracle fruit berry and then suck a lemon, it will taste like lemonade!

This is a pretty awesome property, especially for people who need to reduce sugar for medical reasons or just a health interest in reducing processed sugar. Some companies are working on a way to mass produce the compound, miraculin, as a food additive. I am looking forward to when this becomes available -- another natural sweetener. It may take some time for this to happen; miracle fruit is somewhat delicate and can take 10 years to grow to fruit-producing maturity. Also, the fruit only lasts a day or two after being picked, making it hard for the fruit to get to market.

Here's the thing I didn't know -- Miracle fruit has been around for more than 30 years. In fact, it was developed as a tablet in the 1970s. However, there was a big setback when the FDA ruled that miraculin was a food additive and needed extensive testing before being included in food. Facing a several year testing process, the company abandoned the project. I can only hope that a similar setback won't prevent miracle fruit from coming to the market sometime soon. I can't wait to try it!

Economic theory can sound like a bit of a snooze-fest, but when applied to real-life situations, it can be fascinating. Slate has a great excerpt from Tim Harford's book, "The Logic of Life," about marriage, family, and careers. Some highlights:

• People tend to find spouses that are of similar age, race, and education level. This is a problem for young black women, as many young black men (up to 30% in New Mexico) are incarcerated, and thus out of the marriage market.
• The non-incarcerated men realize that they are at an advantage because the number of single women is so high, and these men are less likely to get married, preferring to date around. Because there are so many eligible women around, each woman has less bargaining power to get their partner to commit. In fact, for every 1% increase of the population in prison, there is a 3% increase in the number of men who do not marry. Fascinating.
• Each year a woman delays motherhood will increase her lifetime earnings by 10%. This means that a woman who gets pregnant at 20 is at a significant economic disadvantage to one who gets pregnant at 35. Though the article doesn't mention it, technological improvements in fertility techniques are allowing women to have children in their late 40s and even early 50s, a major shift.

Who says economics isn't interesting!

By about 3 p.m. yesterday I was ready for bed, so no post last night. However, the day was not completely wasted. Before I started feeling seriously jet-lagged, I caught up on some health-related news.

While I was in England, a story about breast cancer treatment broke. The Wall Street Journal wrote that many women are not getting appropriate cancer treatment because of poor laboratory testing. Breast cancer can be hormonally sensitive, but not every breast cancer responds to hormones. If a tumor has receptors for estrogen and progesterone, exposure to these hormones can increase cancer growth. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, and there is a drug that can turn off these estrogen receptors, likely shrinking the tumor or at least preventing further growth.

Here's the kicker, though: The drug, Herceptin, only helps patients who have hormone-receptor positive cancer. So before a woman is prescribed Herceptin, a lab must verify that the receptors are present and that the drug will work. Otherwise, the woman must undergo chemotherapy and radiation. Unfortunately, the lab tests are not clear cut and they require some interpretation. One study found a false-positive rate of 14-16% and a false-negative rate of 18-23%, and the College of American Pathologists estimates that about 20% of results are inaccurate. This is a big problem for cancer patients, as 1 in 5 will not receive the correct treatment for a disease that can be fatal if not treated appropriately.

So what now? Labs are looking to provide more training for technicians on some subtleties of the testing process (e.g. how long the sample is stored can make a difference), and more studies will be done to find ways to improve testing accuracy. One can only hope that the accuracy will continue to improve.

Travel tips

A short post for yesterday, since I spent almost the entire day in airports or on an airplane.

Some things I learned in my trek:

• There is a secret passenger lounge/waiting area in the middle of the huge duty-free store in the international terminal at Heathrow. It is cool, quiet, and has few people in it. This is an excellent find, especially when the main waiting area is overcrowded, hot, and loud.
• Stardust is a pretty entertaining movie -- a tale of magic, witchcraft, true love, and stars that fall to earth. It has kind of the same feel as The Princess Bride, but it is not really funny in very many places. A notable exception is Robert De Niro as the cross dressing Dread Captain Shakespeare. Watching him dance around his pirate ship carrying a frilly pink dress never gets old.
• The Nanny Diaries is not such a great movie, but it was a little better than I expected. I liked the anthropology angle, even if it was a bit silly at times.

OK, enough for now.

Hello Kitty -- For Men

The weirdest thing I discovered today? Sanrio, the Japanese creator of Hello Kitty, has started pushing a new line of Hello Kitty products designed for men. Supposedly, they are a little bit edgier and provide an alternative to the pink-heavy Hello Kitty products we all know and love. Apparently, a few male-oriented limited editions have proven popular in Japan, so the company is taking the concept worldwide. I can't really picture most of the men I know getting excited about Hello Kitty, though to be honest I don't know many women who are interested either.

Roman Baths

Almost 2000 years ago, the Romans came to Bath. When they arrived, they found a tremendous hot spring. Not knowing much about geology, they believed that the spot was holy -- a gift from the gods. The local people also venerated this spot as holy to their god Sulis, the healer. Sulis seemed eqivalent to the Roman god Minerva, so the Romans decided to combine the two. Over the spring, they erected a temple to Sulis Minerva. The spring remained sacred, but the waters were channeled off into baths. The sick or injured would come to soak in the holy waters and pray that they would be healed.

After a few hundred years, the Roman baths fell out of fashion, and the roof caved in. The museum didn't tell very much about what happened next, but we know that people would come to "take the waters" for the next 1500 years. The Roman baths were forgotten until water from the springs began leaking into the homes surrounding the baths. Excavation was begun, and the community discovered the detailed roman construction we can see today.

The baths have been reconstructed in places and are completely gorgeous. As you walk through the ruins, you get a real sense of the history ancient and more recent. We arrived just as darkness was falling, and bright torches were lit all the way around the main pool. A gentle and mysterious mist rises up from the the surface. There is something holy about the place even many years after the Romans have been gone.

Hay-on-Wye

Can you imagine a town devoted to books, completely overflowing with them? I went there today -- Hay-on-Wye, just over the Welsh border.

About 50 years ago, Hay was a small city in a bit of a slump. An eccentric book-lover named Richard Booth decided to turn the place around by creating a second-hand book mecca. He started with a large store of his own and then encouraged others to set up shop. While many towns can't support a used book market, a town full of bookstores brings customers in from around the country and the world. (Much like us, visiting from another continent.)

Hay is a great place to spend a few hours. Unfortunately, most of the used books were a little pricey for my tastes, but there were two book stores charging a pound per book. We had a good time in those. People with a strong interest in a particular genre will find plenty to entertain them -- there are stores focusing on gardening, mysteries, children's books, geography, and many other topics. Most stores are pretty well organized, with many specific categories. My favorite category: plagues and epidemics, with quackery a close second.

Hay has something for everyone -- be sure to check it out if you are near Wales.

Unplayed, therefore priceless

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is home to perhaps the most unique and valuable violin in history -- "Le Messie," made by Stradivarius in 1716. This instrument is in virtually mint condition, having never been played in its 300 year life.

On a philosophical note, it is somewhat ironic that what makes Le Messie so important is that it has never been used. I am quite sure that Stradivarius intended the instrument to be well used and well loved. What is the point of having an exquisitely made, perfect sounding violin if no one can ever hear it?

The violin is not without controversy. A few years ago, a researcher declared it to be a fake. The reasons:

• Le Messie was owned for a time by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a famous dealer who was also know for creating his own imitations of high-quality violins. It is possible that what is known as Le Messie today is actually a copy of the actual Stradivarius.
• One dendochronologist (someone who studies tree-ring dating) declared that the wood was from the late 1730s, after Stradivarius had died. However, this judgment was made from photos of the violin, not the instrument itself.

Subsequent dendochronology studies found that the wood was cut in the 1680s, well within Stradivarious's lifetime. It appears that the instrument is plausibly genuine, though a slight cloud still hangs over it.

Le Messie is a beautiful violin -- smooth and exquisitely varnished. Under the bridge is a delicate carving of what looks like the Holy Family. However, this is not where it gets its name. Instead, Le Messie was named after Luigi Tarisio, one of the early owners, bragged about how wonderful the instrument was but never showed it to his friends. One of them quipped that it was like the Messiah -- always looked for but never seen -- and the name stuck.

Warwick Castle

Today I learned that Warwick Castle is another absolutely ancient structure. It was begun on the order of William the Conqueror in 1068, and has been expanded many times from there. While there isn't much content to learn at the site (too much flashy video and wax people, not enough explanation), it is exhilarating to walk around a complex that has been around almost a millennium.

I also discovered that an ice skating trail is a perfectly delightful diversion. The scenery changes as you go through, and the wall is always only a few feet away if you feel yourself slipping. Jimmy, Dad, and I had a great time winding our way through the peacock garden on skates.

Gloucester Cathedral

This is the start of a new year, in which I will try to commit to documenting at least one thing I have learned each day.

I am in England visiting family, and today we didn't do all that much. After a late New Year's Eve, and with nothing much open, we decided to stick close to home.

However, here is what I learned today:

Gloucester Cathedral was begun in 1083 and the nave was finished in 1130. This was (obviously) before electricity, steam power, or even steel, and yet the architecture is beautiful and refined. More impressive, the cathedral is still in excellent shape today. The worn-down marble stairs are a testament to the cathedral's age -- that amazingly strong stone has been buffed away by the constant footsteps of the pious (and the tourist).

Gloucester Cathedral was home to King Henry III's coronation in 1216. Apparently, he was only 9 years old at the time, and the crown was one of his mother's elaborate bracelets. Cute. Though a little scary to have a 9-year-old running the country.

Much more recently, a beautiful gothic passageway at Gloucester was used in filming the Harry Potter movies; it represented a hallway in Hogwarts.

Also, when we got to the Cathedral, it was around 4:45 and almost pitch dark. The cathedral was open, but not lit in many places. There is something wonderful and yet creepy about exploring an almost empty, poorly lit ancient church. You could really feel the sense of those in older times, before electric lights became the norm. The sculptures and tapestries take on a very different look in the semidarkness -- a beauty that is somehow lacking in full light.