I wrote this about four years ago in an email to herself, and it seems as relevant now as ever.
In 1891 a scientist named "Nencki" who, like me [immediately after graduating college], had so very little to do that he convinced four guys to eat seven kilograms of asparagus (that's about three and a half pounds each). He collected the pertinent pee, worked some "medieval magic" on it, and concluded that the smell was due to a metabolite called methanethiol.
So, this is just a smelly byproduct of digesting the asparagus that your kidneys dump into your bladder.
What is methanethiol (AKA mercaptan?), exactly? Methanethiol is composed mostly of sulfur with a little of hydrogen, and carbon (think rotten eggs). Merck warns that methanethiol may be a narcotic in high concentrations.
So, that's what makes your pee smell funny, but there is more to it than that.
Babe Ruth may have been the first person to bring this into the popular consciousness when he declined a plate of asparagus saying "asparagus makes my urine smell funny."
If legend is to be believed, only half of the people at the party laughed, and the other half didn't know what he was talking about. The assumption here is that there is a segment of the population that either does not produce methanethiol in large enough quantities OR for some reason, cannot smell it.
This second theory is propagated in a study by Lison et al. (1980) which relegates this phenomenon to the realm of smell hypersensitivity.
BUT other studies point to the varying production of methanethiol in different demographics. A study published in the May 1989 British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that 46% of 115 people tested produced the odor in one group of British citizens, while 100% of 103 people produced it in a group of French citizens, but this is no surprise, because we all know the French are smelly pacifists.
Just so you know, asparagus -- a member of the lily family along with garlic, onions, and leeks -- is a powerhouse of nutrients. It's an excellent source of folic acid (a B vitamin that may help protect against birth defects, heart disease, and cancer), a significant source of vitamin C (an antioxidant that may protect tissues against damage), and a good source of vitamin A (an antioxidant).
sources for this article: http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon970115/skinny1.html, http://www.zoo.ufl.edu/gpryor/austin.pee.html, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=108390, and http://my.webmd.com/content/article/43/1671_51089.htm?lastselectedguid={5FE84E90-BC77-4056-A91C-9531713CA348}, all accessed June 2004.
Labels: food and drink, science and nature
If I didn't know any better, I would say that I was awoken by an small earthquake about 5 minutes ago (5:39 [Eastern Time]).
If so, this has fulfilled a lifelong dream.
UPDATE 6:09: Yes, it was a 5.4 magnitude earthquake, centered about 130 miles away from my location.
UPDATE 8:06 The earthquake, which is the leading story on NPR's hourly news roundup, has been downgraded to a 5.2 magnitude.
UPDATE 9:06 Homeland Security is holding a press conference at the statehouse. An "ongoing investigation" is mentioned. Perhaps Osama is behind this.
UPDATE 11:16 Just experienced what I believe to be a rather substantial aftershock.
UPDATE 11:38 The 11:14 event has been estimated at a 4.5 magnitude.
UPDATE 11:42 nine out of the top ten Google search queries today are earthquake-related; 25 of the top 30.
UPDATE 13:16 The 11:14 aftershock has been upgraded to a 4.6 magnitude. Usually, an order of magnitude lower than the initial event, this aftershock was comparatively quite strong.
Labels: real life, science and nature
Tonight: a total lunar eclipse.
Last August?
The previous total lunar eclipse.
Eclipse Feasts: The August 2007 eclipse was on the feast of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. The next, Tuesday 21 December 2010 will be on the feast of St. Thomas, the Apostle (liturgical color red -- once in a red moon?).
This strong-willed little guy wrapped himself around my banister three times in one day last week and he's still going strong. I'm not sure where he's headed.
Labels: science and nature
It's 5:15 a.m. Do you know where your lunar eclipse is?
Labels: science and nature
On the way home tonight on NPR's "All Things Considered" I heard listeners singing their entries for the theme song lyrics contest.
Lately, I've been reading This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin (now available in paperback). Levitin introduces the counter-intuitive concept of contour. It's maybe not so important to music or musicians as it is to our brain and our cognitive grasp of how music works.
Contour is a relatively gross characterization of a song's identity. However its utility has been shown in various laboratory experiments. There is evidence that for melodies we do not know well (such as a melody we have only heard a few times), the contour is remembered better than the actual intervals (Massaro, Kallman & Kelly, 1980). In contrast, the exact interval patterns of familiar melodies are well remembered, and adults can readily notice contour-preserving alterations of the intervallic pattern (Dowling, 1994). Infants respond to contour before they respond to melody; that is, infants cannot distinguish between a song and a melodic alteration of that song, so long as contour is preserved. Only as the child matures is he able to attend to the melodic information. Some animals show a similar inability to distinguish different alterations of a melody when contour is preserved (Hulse & Page, 1988). One explanation of why the contour of a melody might be more readily processed is because it is a more general description of the melody, and it subsumes the interval information. It is only with increasing familiarity, or increasing cognitive abilities, that the intervallic details become perceptually important.
The concept of "contour" was in evidence as I heard these NPR listeners try to sing the ATC theme song. It's not an easy tune. And though different listeners settled on radically different solutions to the question of pitch, all of them matched the contour.
Interesting.
Labels: music, science and nature
The BBC reports that a 'Pipe organ' plays above the Sun.
Labels: organ, science and nature
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