Tuna at the Tsukiji Market John Mahoney

The rich, creamy red meat of the bluefin tuna is prized almost to a cultish degree -- at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, a single majestic specimen can sell for over $100,000 -- and as a result the species is severely overfished and endangered. Farming the fish, which might offer a solution, has proven remarkably difficult. After years of experimentation with sexy mood lighting, Australia's Clean Seas company only managed to get them to breed in captivity by injecting them with spear guns full of reproductive hormones. Now, a European initiative has announced an alternative.

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The Coke-Powered Cell Phone Designer Daizi Zheng's concept for a soda-powered cell phone (completely unrelated to the ACS researchers' fuel cell, but cool to think about). Daizi Zheng via aarting

Wouldn't it be convenient if Red Bull could recharge your phone just as it recharges you? Researchers at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society today revealed the creation of a new breed of battery-like device that's more like the mitochondria that fuel biological cells than the anode-cathode batteries that charge our devices. As such, it could power our cell phones or other portable electronics with sugary drinks or other energy-storing media like vegetable oils. Read more »

While M&Ms have famously claimed that a thin candy shell ensures they melt in your mouth rather than your hand, the same can't be said for chocolate bars, which seem to melt easily within their own packaging. But if Kraft Foods gets its way, the soft, melted candy bar will soon be a distant memory. The company is actively searching for high-tech packaging that will prevent chocolate bars from melting even at temperatures up to 104 degrees.

How? Well, Kraft isn't exactly sure. The company has put out a DARPA-like call for ideas from packaging companies for methods to produce chocolate bar wrappers that are neither cost-prohibitive or bulky. Specifically, ""Kraft Foods seeks novel materials or approaches to packaging that can protect single serve chocolate bars from medium term exposure to warm ambient conditions. These products frequently experience multiple cycles of exposure to controlled and uncontrolled climates." Read more »

My latest post at Th!nk3: Developing World

I hadn’t visited the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting until it joined forces recently with Global Voices. It is an amazing website overflowing with online journalism about international issues. GV health editor Juhie Bhatia is leading the Global Voices on Food Insecurity project.
Crisis Reporting: Global Food Insecurity 2010

If you are heavyset, and like your food, chances are your olfactory senses (nose / taste) are better than the average punter's.The theory goes like this. Because food has a richer odour to you then you're more likely to want to eat it. I have often thought that an ideal weight loss treatment would be to remove someone's sense of taste and smell. Except of course that's a safety issue.

Today I purchased a mini pizza from the downstairs cafe. Their pizzas are delish. Expensive but well worth it. And not too large as to make me sad with excessive consumption. The right size, and tasty.

It was a bacon and cheese on a BBQ effort. It looked delish when I picked it from the bain maree. Then it went into a box. I smelled the box. Heavenly.

Then I got out my credit card to pay for it. As I held my wallet out while the card was being sorted I thought 'you know what ... I'm going to smell that again'. So I smelled it.

That's not pizza. Read more »