No. 237 October 2002
WHY
IS WHITE CHOCOLATE WHITE? “White chocolate” is the “common or usual name
of products made from cacao fat (i.e., cocoa butter), milk solids, nutritive
carbohydrate sweeteners, and other safe and suitable ingredients, but containing
no nonfat cacao solids.” First
Proposed on
MAN’S
CHANGING VALUE/CHEMICAL COMPOSITION Once upon a time a high school science
teacher told the class that, in terms of chemical elements found therein, the
human body was worth 98 cents. This outdated bit of information needs to be
updated, since chemicals now cost more and man’s chemical composition has
changed. The basic chemical make-up of the human body is the same for man in
2002 as it was for the cave man. However, the discovery of coal, oil, and
natural gas, the advances in chemistry and chemical technology and the resulting
byproducts have been both intentionally beneficial and unintentionally hazardous
to the human body. Many
environmental conditions and chemicals affecting us now did not affect George
Washington in 1792. The value of the human body increases annually because of
inflation of the price/value of chemicals. Humans
ingest additional quantities of chemicals (such iron and calcium) which are in
the body by nature. They also ingest from their environmental
surroundings quantities of foreign and harmful chemicals and chemical compounds
such as air and water pollutants. Do you know about these chemicals, and
chemical compounds? In March
2001, the CDC’s
TOTEM
POLES/HERALDIC COLUMNS Totem poles are clan status symbols and heraldic artwork
of the Tlinglit and Haida Indians in
OXYGEN
BARS Oxygen bars have been around since the late 1990’s and they provide their
customers with a plastic tube (cannula), which when inserted into the nostril,
allows one to sniff “flavored” oxygen? The
experience which can last from a few to twenty minutes depends on the
customer’s preferences and money supply since the cost of breathing oxygen
costs about a dollar per minute. This
new recreational activity can be fatal for anyone with cardiac or pulmonary
conditions whose breathing requires a controlled and specific volume of oxygen
and inhaling too much oxygen would be fatal. Under the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act, any type of oxygen use by people for breathing and administered by
another person is a prescription drug. Using
oxygen for welding is not in violation of the law, but oxygen bars are in
violation of Federal regulations. The
FDA allows the oxygen bars to operate and be regulated under the individual
States licensing boards and only intervene when a bar issues claims that oxygen
has healing or medical qualities. Actually, breathing oxygen with aromas or
aroma related devices, allows for the possibility of inhaling lung infections
from bacteria and pathogens in the aroma oils or the breathing systems.
Aromatization also reduces the purity of the oxygen. Smoking anywhere near pure
oxygen is extremely hazardous. Oxygen does not burn, but is a very good catalyst
(i.e. makes that which will burn, burn much faster and more violently) which can
reduce one’s chances of surviving a fire.
Linda Bren “Oxygen Bars: Is a Breath of Fresh Air Worth It?” FDA
Consumer, V. 36, No. 6, November-December 2002 pages 9-11 (HE 20.4010:36/6)
includes a photo of an Oxygen Bar. The article without the picture of the Oxygen
Bar is found at http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/602_air.html
of the FDA Consumer webpage
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/602_toc.html
.
THE
VIRTUAL STOMACH OF THE VIRTUAL MAN/WOMAN Some University of Pennsylvania
mechanical engineers, medical researcher, and pharmaceutical researchers have
developed the first computer generated “virtual stomach.”
These researchers combined a computer program with a stomach model
created from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) movies of the human stomach. This
model is used to study the path of extended-release tablets that are designed to
remain in the stomach for hours while slowly releasing medicine.
Their work has resulted in computer simulations showing stomach
pressures, the motion of gastric fluid, and the path and breakdown of tablets.
Their research has shown the stomach has three zones: one very gentle,
one moderately stressful to tablets and conducive to mixing, and a third active
zone where a table is broken down rapidly and mixing is accelerated.
“’Virtual Stomach’ Reveals Pill’s Path” announces
this latest bit of “Virtual Reality” in the Research Notes Section of
the FDA Consumer, V. 36, No. 6, November-December 2002 page 7 (HE
20.4010:36/4) http://www.fda.gov/fdac/602_toc.html
. The “Virtual Stomach” is one of the virtual organs of the Virtual Man and
Woman who were conceived in 1986 and currently reside at The Visible Human
Project website at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html
.
ELECTRONIC
NOSES: NOTHING TO SNIFF AT– IN SPACE AND THE HOME
That is the title of the June 6, 2000 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Press Release announcing the achievements and work on NASA’s Electronic
(E)-Nose, designed to monitor the recycled air supply of the astronauts in the
STS-95 space flight. As of 2000, the E-nose was successful and was the size of a
large paperback book weighing about 3 pounds. The potential uses of the E-Nose,
include “sniffing” for unseen smoldering wires (prior to a visible smoke or
fire), unexploded land mines,
hidden chemical spills, plant ripeness for harvest of agricultural
products at desired points, and the diagnosis of disease based on odors from
human perspiration and breath. Our
Electronic Nose: Nothing to Sniff At is at http://www.jpl.gov/releases/2000/e-nose.html
and at http://www.jpl.nasa/pictures/tech/enose
you will find a picture of the nose which is nothing to sniff at.
Previously in the July, 1998 we found the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, on
NASA’S
NEW SPACE MUSIC For forty years, Dr.
Don Gurnett has been recording the “waves that course through the thin,
electrically charged gas pervading the near-vacuum of outer space.” After,
collecting the radio waves via instruments carried on NASA space probes, Gurnett
has “converted the recorded plasma waves into sounds, such as a receiver turns
radio waves into sound waves.” Gurnett’s box full of cassette tapes of
plasma sound waves (sounds) reflect all the specific NASA space probes which
provided recordings of the plasma waves surrounding the planets/bodies visited
by each space probe. These tapes
have inspired a 10-movement musical composition called “Sun Rings.” From
these space sounds, composer Terry Riley selected an assortment of melody
fragments and created the “Sun Rings” concert. On
October 26, 2002, the Grammy-nominated
Kronos Quartet premiered “Sun Rings” at the
University
of
http://www.nku.edu/~yannarella/news0210.html