NIBBLY BITS: Qatar v. Huntington; Ode to Double Down; Prison Care Packages and Other News

· “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”  (J. Austen). Wealth also provides the recipe for an early death, at least in oil-rich Qatar. Mix obesity-related illness with a pinch of incestuous genetic disorders… Can we get Jamie Oliver on this, please? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/middleeast/27qatar.html

 

· Stunt Fast Food and poetic journalism: “the Double Down resembles a castoff from Sesame Street. It looks like it's smiling at you, as though it were in on the joke of its existence.”

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/15/news/companies/kfc_double_down.fortune/index.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/homestyle/04/27/monster.thick.burger/index.html?hpt=Sbin

 

· Sparky’s downing 400 gallons of water a day with his puppy chow! The calculations are a little fuzzy, but shock statistics of our pet’s (and our own) water footprint are startling.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100423-pet-food-water-footprint/

 

· “Be good or you won't get your jalapeno poppers” : Prison care packages.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703441404575206153521909136.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks

 

· Chocolate linked to depression! Causation-correlation here is wacky!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/04/chocolate_as_mood_food.html

 

· Chili peppers help relieve pain, but CHOCOLATE makes you sad? Is everything I thought I knew a lie?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8644788.stm

IN OTHER NEWS

·  How do you track a grizzly? Check his massage tree. Bear hair DNA analysis is a new non-invasive method for scientists to track local bear populations. “The great thing about bear rubs is you aren’t asking the bear to do anything it’s not normally doing. They’re just rubbing all the time.” 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042702379.html