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Can I have a side of flesh-flesh with my house bear thang?





via engrish.com

Fish Flour

From Popular Science, Oct 1931. A woman baking fish-flour cookies. Mmmmm.


Fish Flour is basically a powder made from ground-up fish. From the 1930s to the 1960s the fish industry pushed hard to convince people that fish flour was a) palatable, and b) a possible solution to world hunger (because of its high protein content). But I guess it never caught on. There was a last high-visibility pr effort in 1968, when U.N. officials were given fish-flour cookies as a snack, but after that fish flour fell off the map.

Fuel and Cheese from Humans

Fuel: Apparently, any kind of fat can be turned into diesel. This includes animal fat. So it's one small step from that realization to using human liposuction blubber to power a car. Forbes is reporting that a Beverly Hills doctor, Craig Alan Bittner, actually took this step. There have been rumors before about liposuction biodiesel, all of which turned out to be nothing more than rumors. But this case seems kinda believable, because Bittner really is in trouble with authorities and has fled the country.

Cheese: In theory, you can make cheese out of the milk of any animal, including human breast milk. So it was only a matter of time before someone tried. A woman on indrani.net reports on the results of her effort to do this. She says it didn't work and that it's because "breast milk can not curdle, because the protein content is lower, and because the protein in breast milk is more easily digested compared to cow's milk." I'll take her word for it.

Let Them Eat Camel

This was news to me: Australia has one of the largest wild camel populations in the world. There are so many camels there, that they're becoming an environmental problem. Therefore, scientists are urging Australians to control the camel population by eating more camel.

According to Wikipedia, "camel meat tastes like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be tough and less flavorful."

I'd try camel meat, but I've never seen it on sale in the States. Link: Daily Mail

Cereality

Cereality claims to be "an idea whose time has come." It's a cereal bar:


I'm sure there must be people who think this is a great idea, but I'm not one of them. I can't imagine ever wanting to make a special trip to get a bowl of cereal. But then, I'm not a cereal fan. Every morning it's oatmeal for me.

Eating Glass

The new Google magazine archive is a goldmine for weirdness. Here's another find from Popular Science, Nov 1931:


The full results of Hoelzel's glass-eating study were published in the American Journal of Physiology, (Mar 1, 1930), "The Rate of Passage of Inert Materials Through the Digestive Tract." The article includes a helpful chart, detailing exactly how long it took for various substances (including steel ball-bearings and bent silver wire) to pass through Hoelzel's system:



Hoelzel was an interesting character. He became an expert on nutrition and often subjected himself to grueling diet experiments -- particularly experiments involving fasting for extended periods of time. The Life photo archive has a picture of him, taken in 1955. He seems to have been one of the first researchers to make a link between calorie-restriction and longevity, though it didn't really work for him. He died in 1963 at the age of 73.

Sweet Dreams

See three more videos by Kirsten Lepore here.

Space Beer

In 2006 scientists grew barley on the International Space Station as part of an experiment to determine whether crops can survive in space (and one day feed astronauts living up there). They found that "the barley showed almost no ill effects from growing in microgravity or radiation. The scientists found only one enzyme increased from slight oxygen deprivation, but the plants did well." Back on Earth Sapporo recently brewed 100 bottles of "Space Beer" from the barley.

An increase of only one enzyme? This must be disappointing news to the Chinese, who for decades have been blasting seeds and sperm into space, in the theory that the combination of cosmic radiation and microgravity will produce mutations that will yield larger, stronger varieties. They even have a Center for Space Breeding. I think they've been watching too many 1950's science-fiction movies.

Back in 2007 a purple "space potato" grown from seeds taken onboard the Shenzhou IV space mission were all the rage in Shanghai restaurants. (Reportedly they tasted more "glutinous" than normal potatoes.)

And in 2005, as I've noted before, there were reports the Chinese had carried pig sperm into space, in the hope of breeding larger, tastier pigs.

The Front Line

As we all prepare for our imminent minimum-wage jobs during the economic meltdown, let us study how to perform them to the best of our abilities, with a cheerful smile. Consider the job of "supermarket checker," circa 1965.

Soggy, Mushy and Toughy

Who needs Iron Man or The Dark Knight, when you can watch Snap, Crackle and Pop battle their evil counterparts?

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.