We’re a firm believer here at Cobbers in sizing up situations before rushing into print. It appears his Royal Highness Prince Charles has a more practical approach …

Normal blogging will return tomorrow …

The heirloom tomatoes in your garden may not just be tastier than commercially grown vegetables, but healthier too, according to a study from the American College of Nutrition.

The study looked for 13 nutrients in 43 crops grown from 1950 to 1999 and discovered that the vegetables enjoyed by our grandparents were significantly more nutritious than the veggies found on supermarket shelves today.

After rigorous statistical analysis, the researchers found that, on average, all three minerals evaluated have declined; two of five vitamins have declined; and protein content has dropped by 6 percent.

The decline is attributed to the relentless pursuit of crop strains that produce high yields, but few nutrients. One solution, short of agribusiness embracing lower-yielding crop strains or starting a vegetable garden, is to patronize farm stands and farmer’s markets where you can buy from smaller, multi-crop farmers that value quality above quantity.

Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999 [Journal of the American College of Nutrition]

Forgive the lack of posts. It’s a weak excuse, but we have been extremely busy on another project which will launch on July 1, and which will be announced here next week.

We decided to wait until the days started getting longer ‘Down Under’. The Winter Solstice deadline was particularly inspired by this lovely complex photograph, above, by Taro Taylor found on Flickr.

We like its combination of old and new — a circle of stones, and a freeflying hang-glider — a past locked to ritual and the land, and hopefully a future that is free …

According to Ecorazzi [yes, there is a web site devoted to green gossip]:

An advert has been placed looking for someone to “help phase out the use of pesticides from the Palace’s gardens, improving ‘environmental and conservation practices’ as well as maintaining a new organic vegetable garden at Clarence House.”

The position pays £13,500 and will no doubt potentially include some tea-time with the green prince himself.

Charles has been an avid organic gardener for the past 25 years and, as the article points out, his garden at Highgrove House is considered one of the jewels of the organic movement.

His latest book, The Elements Of Organic Gardening, offers advice on converting to organic and reveals the methods used at some of the palace gardens like Clarence House and Birkhall in Scotland.

The organic food movement’s adherents have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but success has imperiled their ideals. It simply isn’t clear that organic food production can be replicated on a mass scale.

And it looks like big business is going to do it their way …

Just as mainstream consumers are growing hungry for untainted food that also nourishes their social conscience, it is getting harder and harder to find organic ingredients.

There simply aren’t enough organic cows in the US, never mind the organic grain to feed them, to go around. Nor are there sufficient organic strawberries, sugar, or apple pulp — some of the other ingredients that go into the world’s best-selling organic yogurt.

So what are we eating?

They certainly put things in perspective: While this year’s Nobel prize for physics went to two scientists who helped to prove that the universe began with a big bang, Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris won the Ig Nobel physics prize for tackling the conundrum of why dry spaghetti breaks into more than one piece when it is bent.

People’s Choice will no doubt go to Francis Fesmire, of the University of Tennessee, who was awarded the medicine Ig for his report Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage.

The 2006 Ig Nobel award for peace went to Welshman Howard Stapleton for his electronic teenager repellant, called the Mosquito.

The device makes an annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults.

He later used the same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.

Two Australian researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO) have won an Ig Nobel for their research on how many photos you need to take to ensure that nobody in a group photo has their eyes closed.

Australians Nic Svenson and Dr Piers Barnes have found that to take a photo of a group with fewer than 20 people, dividing the number of people by three gives the number of shots needed.

Ivan Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip May, of the University of California Los Angeles, have won the ornithology prize for their pioneering work on the ability of the humble woodpecker to avoid head injury.

Wasmia Al-Houty, of Kuwait University, and Faten Al-Mussalam, of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, have taken home the nutrition prize for showing that dung beetles are in fact finicky eaters.

Three US scientists — Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand — have been awarded the acoustics prize for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.

While the conclusions of a group of scientists from Valencia University and the University of Illes Balears in Spain are not immediately clear, the judges have deemed their study Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature worthy of the chemistry prize.

Also honoured for cheese research, Bart Knols from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands has won the biology award for his part in research showing that female malaria mosquito are equally attracted to limburger cheese and human feet.

Despite the ceremony’s irreverent tone, the awards are taken increasingly seriously in the scientific community, with eight of the 10 winners this year paying their own way to attend the ceremony.
The Improbable Research web site, home of the Ig Nobel Awards, will no doubt have full details of the research, once they’ve recovered from the hangover of the awards ceremony at Harvard last night.

Drinking green tea can substantially cut the risk of dying from a range of illnesses, a Japanese study has found.

The research, which looked at over 40,000 people, found the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease was cut by more than a quarter.

But British heart experts said the benefits may be linked to the whole Japanese diet, which is healthier than that eaten in the west.

In this study, which began in 1994, researchers from Tohoku University looked at how humans could benefit.

They examined data on 40,530 healthy adults aged 40 to 79 in north-eastern Japan, where green tea is widely consumed.

Around 80% of people in the region drink green tea, with more than half consuming three or more cups each day.

While mates on a mission are suitably impressed with the simplicty of this hot tub design, we’re not particularly impressed with the $US6000.00 price tag.

We’re looking through our files for some simpler alternatives. Share your innovations with us by using our contact form.