The dates printed on milk cartons are probably the six most misunderstood numbers in grocery stores… “We do have a state of confusion in terms of date labeling,” says Donald Schaffner, professor of food science at Rutgers University. “Date labels primarily exist as a way for food manufacturers to communicate to their customers what to do or what to expect from the food product. There is not a lot of standardization.”
Editing Out Pesticides
This summer, more than a million tons of chardonnay grapes are plumping on manicured vineyards around the world. The grapes make one of the most popular white wines, but their juicy fruit and luscious leaves are also targets for diseases such as downy mildew, a stubborn fungus-like parasite… Drop a chardonnay vine into a new region where it didn’t co-evolve with the local pests, and it’s especially vulnerable. But breed a chardonnay with a hardier local variety, and you risk losing the very essence that makes it chardonnay. “There’s always some interest in new varieties with resistance,” says Dan Ward, director of the New Jersey Center for Wine Research and Education and a professor at Rutgers University. “But the fact is, winemakers want chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon, and consumers do, too.”
Volcanoes May Be Masking the Severity of Global Warming
Global warming continues to heat up the earth, but volcanoes are keeping us just a little cooler. A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that volcanic eruptions may be part of the reason why the earth isn’t heating up quite as fast…