Posts Tagged ‘beer’

Conservation and Boozing Collide: Turning Rainwater Into Beer

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Atlanta was hit hard with heavy rains and severe flooding last week. But for a part of the country that was in such a deep drought the governor resorted to praying for rain, it makes sense that the good citizens of the ATL aren’t letting this newfound water go to waste. In fact, the conservationists at 5 Seasons Brewing Company in Atlanta are using their collected rainwater to make beer.

From The Huffington Post:

The local brewery uses 100% filtered rainwater that’s captured on-site to create their “green beer” (not to be confused with the St. Patrick’s Day type). The brewers believe that rainwater is cleaner and softer than city water, which makes their beer even better.

And here’s the video, from CNN:

Related Content:
DISCOVER: From Toilet To Tap
Discoblog: Today’s Conservation Gimmick: Drink Your Shower Water!
Discoblog: The Science-Minded Frat Boy’s Dream: A PhD in Beer-ology?

Image: flickr / brendan.wood

September 30th, 2009 Tags: , ,
by Brett Israel in Pollution Solutions (& Disasters) | 4 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: Invasion of the Jellyfish!

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Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• Between global warming and trans fats, there are plenty of things to worry about. But we bet you forgot about this one: A massive jellyfish invasion that some Japanese researchers fear could occur this year.

• If you think you’re important, think again—unless you have a fish or insect christened in your honor. Check out this list of species named after famous people.

• Always having to see with your eyes can get tiring. Luckily, you can use sound to “see” by using echolocation, the same technique used by dolphins and bats to guide themselves and find prey. Experts in Spain say it takes just a few weeks of training to master the method.

• Add one more thing to the list beer can do: Send you into space on Sir Richard Branson’s spacecraft. Guinness is offering one lucky winner the chance to hurtle 68 miles above the Earth at three times the speed of sound. The contest is accessed via the company’s Web site and is open to people in 28 countries.

Related Content:
Discoblog: The Curious Case of the Immortal Jellyfish
Discoblog: Remote-Controlled Flying Jellyfish!
Discoblog: Celebrities Sell Cars, Beer, Clothes…and Toilet Use?

July 3rd, 2009 Tags: , ,
by Allison Bond in Blog Roundup | 1 Comment » | RSS feed | Trackback >

The Science-Minded Frat Boy’s Dream: A PhD in Beer-ology?

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beer.jpgHave you ever tasted spoiled beer? Twenty-six-year-old Monique Haakensen once did. A few years ago, when the Canadian woman watched her brothers attempt to brew their own beer, the end result smelled like cheese and tasted awful.

To figure out what caused the beer to go bad, Haakensen, a University of Saskatchewan graduate student, bottled the beer and brought it into the lab. Using a technique called polymerase chain reaction, she was able to discover two new genes (hitA and horC) that hastened the growth of bacteria in beer.

Normally, bacteria don’t grow in beer, but when there’s a resistance-associated gene in the brew, certain strains can thrive. The most common bacteria that causes beer spoilage is lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Haakensen looked to see how LAB’s isolates, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus, grew in beer. By using this new form of DNA testing, Haakensen can now tell breweries how quickly their beer will go bad by checking for the presence of either hitA or horC.

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January 8th, 2009 Tags: , , , ,
by Boonsri Dickinson in Food, Nutrition, & More Food, Uncategorized | 1 Comment » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weekly Science Blog Roundup

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Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.· After weeks of only eating freeze-dried food, astronauts returning from space say their space suits smell like steak. Turns out, they’re not making it up.

· Underage scientists at Rice University are trying to brew a beer that fights cancer.

· The Daddy of long legs: the world’s longest insect.

· Look what Iran is building: the world’s longest ostrich meat sandwich.

· In honor of the first Global Handwashing Day this past Wednesday and reports that British men have filthy fingers, we suggest reading up on personal hygiene.

October 17th, 2008 Tags: , , ,
by Nina Bai in Blog Roundup, Diseases, Injuries, & Other Ailments, Food, Nutrition, & More Food, Scat-egory | 1 Comment » | RSS feed | Trackback >

A Scientific Defense of Beer

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As a former bench scientist who sips a beer on occasion, I was intrigued by an article that ran in The New York Times science section yesterday about the inverse relationship between a scientist’s success and the amount of beer he or she consumes. Dr. Tomás Grim, an ornithologist from Palacký University in the Czech Republic, surveyed the beer-consumption habits of 18 Czech scientists in 2002 and 34 in 2006 (some of whom were the same as those surveyed before), and found that the more beer a scientist drinks, the fewer papers she publishes, and the lower the quality of those papers. In short, less successful scientists drink beer. (more…)

March 19th, 2008 Tags: , ,
by Lizzie Buchen in Diseases, Injuries, & Other Ailments, The Wide (& Strange) World of Animals | 9 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >