Things I learnt yesterday.....

[Zippy]

I too switched the TV on.. and there was the Toby Jug, reading his heavily scripted ad libs. All the charm of 1980s regional TV with less substance. Noel Edmonds couldn't devise a more cretinous and patronising show

You are Mr Zippy and I claim my £5

[DimPrawn]

Brazil nuts are full of selenium.

I read that as Brazil nuts are full of semen. Which I suppose is correct also.

[Pogle]

I read that as Brazil nuts are full of semen. Which I suppose is correct also.

[Cyberman]

Brazil nuts are full of selenium.

You're slow !! I have been eating them for the last year for that reason.

[Cyberman]

Is that good for you? I seem to recall that some supermarkets banned the sale of Brazil nuts in their shells a few years ago owing to them containing some carcinogenic compound - though last Christmas they made a reappearance. Just not the same IMO when they're not in their shells.

And just one more Brazil nut fact: ironically, in Brazil they are called Castanhas de Peru (Peru Nuts).

Selenium is good for the skin.

[Pogle]

I nibble a few on a regular basis - very tasty

[AlfredJPruffock]

Why its best to have milk in your Tea


Drinking steaming hot tea has been linked with an increased risk of oesophageal (food tube) cancer, Iranian scientists have found.

The British Medical Journal study found that drinking black tea at temperatures of 70C or higher increased the risk.

Experts said the finding could explain the increased oesophageal cancer risk in some non-Western populations.

Adding milk, as most tea drinkers in Western countries do, cools the drink enough to eliminate the risk.

The oesophagus is the muscular tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach.

Oesophagus cancers kill more than 500,000 people worldwide each year and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the commonest type.

Tobacco and alcohol are the main factors linked to the development of oesophageal cancers in Europe and America nations.

But it has not been clear why other populations around the world have high rates of the disease although there has been a theory that regularly drinking very hot drinks damage the lining of the gullet.

[Pogle]

The red-faced uakari monkey of Peru washes itself in its own urine.

[AlfredJPruffock]

The red-faced uakari monkey of Peru washes itself in its own urine.

Is this a pizz-take ???

[OwlHoot]

Brazil nuts are full of selenium.

Ah I caught that too. Some documentary yesterday just before the one I was waiting for ("Life After People"[*]).

What puzzles me is that if British wheat is so pitifully short of selenium (1/10th the amount of Canadian wheat they said) then how did people manage before Canadian wheat was imported?

I'm assuming the low selenium content in British wheat is a reflection of the same deficit in British soil. Or maybe the soil is fine, and other British grown foods have ample selenium, and it's just our wheat that is poor at absorbing it?

[*] I thought "Life After People" was OK, with some good special effects. But it was too US-centered, and they rather dragged things out, especially the part about the abandoned town near Chernobyl. It would have been more interesting at the end to speculate on creatures such as rats or parrots evolving human level intelligence.

Also, they didn't mention that although the Earth's surface would be practically devoid of any signs of past civilization within 10,000 years of humans vanishing, human footprints would remain on the Moon for hundreds of thousands of years, and artificial satellites in high orbits probably for millions of years.