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El comité ejecutivo de la FOTA acaba de elegir a su nuevo presidente para la temporada 2010 y no es otro que Martin Whitmarsh quién pasará a sustituir a Luca di Montezemolo. El puesto de vicepresidente ha recaido en Stefano Domenicali.

Por otra parte, todos los componentes de la FOTA han querido dejar constancia y agradecer el trabajo realizado por Montezemolo durante su presidencia ya que ha sabido realizar una gestión impecable en los momentos más complicados de la pasada temporada.

En último lugar y a modo de curiosidad, el sitio web oficial de la FOTA muestra los logos de los 13 equipos de Fórmula 1 que supuestamente estará en la primera cita del año.

Related posts:

1. La FOTA vuelve a estar al completo
2. La FOTA estudia una presentación conjunta de todos los equipos en Valencia
3. Jean Todt nuevo presidente de la FIA

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz, formerly known as the Kurara, is a smartphone with enough optical muscle to challenge any high end pocket camcorder.

We’ll ignore the Symbian S60 OS for a moment (pretending that Android wouldn’t be so, so much more tempting), and point out the Vivaz’s 8.1MP camera with perks like face detection, that’s also completely capable of shooting 720P videos and uploading them to services like YouTube or playing them back through TV-out.

Otherwise, the Vivaz has the typical smartphone amenities, including a 3.2-inch (360 x 640) touchscreen, EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 7.2 Mbit/s/HSUPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and MicroSD support. Look for the Vivaz soon, running somewhere between $670 and $750 in select markets. [Sony Ericsson via phoneArena]

If you were fortunate enough to visit the White House this morning you were in for a special treat. To mark the one year anniversary of the Presidential Inauguration First Lady Michelle Obama and Bo greeted White House guests. The event was streamed live at WhiteHouse.gov.  

Courtesy of the White House Press Office…

On January 21, 2009, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama entered the White House and signaled their commitment to creating a more open and accessible White House by surprising guests attending public tours. One year later, over 614,000 visitors have walked through the gates of the people’s house, marking the largest attendance post 9/11. This number reflects Residence tourists, guests at the 2009 Easter Egg Roll, Fall and Spring Garden Tours and White House Kitchen Garden school group tours. Mrs. Obama is marking the first year by continuing this tradition today – taking some time to greet visitors as they come in for public tours.

The President and First Lady have sought to not only increase the number of visitors, but also enhance each visitor’s experience at the White House. The China Room is now open to public tours and tourists are frequently invited out to the South Lawn to watch the President depart or arrive on Marine One. When possible, United States Secret Service now lead guided tours of the Executive Residence in the morning, giving guests a better understanding of the history as they walk through. 

Breaking down the numbers helps reveal just how many Americans from across the country have visited the White House in the past year. The 2009 Easter Egg Roll brought in close to 30,000 guests from 47 states using an online ticketing system. During the Spring and Fall Garden Tours, the White House invited over 45,000 guests to the South Lawn. This year, with the popularity of the First Lady’s new Kitchen Garden, the White House started an online registration system so school groups could apply to visit the garden. Since the program launched in October, over 500 local school children have visited the garden and learned about healthy eating from White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass. 

The White House is the only building in the world that is simultaneously the home of a head of state, the executive office of a head of state, and is regularly open to the public for tours. The President and First Lady plan to build on the success of 2009 and provide more Americans the opportunity to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the coming year.

Posted by Aminah Hanan

Fresh off a big win for Best Television Comedy at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards, Glee is ready to take the world by storm — literally. Here’s a promo for the show’s debut in Japan, featuring former Japanese sumo wrestler Akebono as a singer who comes to the aid of a bullied student.

We are here in Aspen for what is always the first particle physics conference of each year, the Aspen Winter Particle Physics Conference. This is the 25th anniversary of this series, hosted by the Aspen Center for Physics. I have attended myself twice in the past (1998 and 2007) and this year I am an organizer, along with Robin Erbacher, Tim Tait, and Graham Kribs.

The format of the conference is much like the other winter particle physics conferences such as Lake Louise in Canada, and La Thuile in Italy. We have a morning session of talks ending a bit after 11:00 am, a long mid-day break to allow for a bit of skiing, and an afternoon session from 4:30 pm to after 7:00 pm. It runs Monday – Friday this week, so we are half way through. Tonight the conference is hosting a public lecture from David Kaplan from NYU at the Wheeler Opera House, with a “Physics Cafe” before hand at which we organizers will field questions from the public.

We chose as a theme for the conference “The Revolution in Particle Physics is Here” and there is definitely a palpable sense that the revolution is indeed upon us. Neal Weiner gave a great opening talk recounting the many curious anomalies that we already have observed in experiments, and speculated on what may lie in store at the LHC and in astrophysical observations. Eric Prebys, a leader of the US effort on the LHC commissioning, gave a very interesting and detailed talk about the recent successes in commissioning the LHC machine and the very bright prospects for this year. The machine will turn on again in February, and soon raise the beam energy to 3.5 TeV (a collision energy of 7 TeV). Big decisions face the CERN management: should we stay safe at 7 TeV or attempt a higher energy like 10 TeV this year? Should the LHC shut down for many months at the end of 2010 or press on in 2011 to collect as much physics data as possible?

There is truly crackling excitement for the prospects of discovery this year at the LHC, and maybe even the Tevatron. The big LHC experiments are all working extremely well out of the box and eager for physics data: we heard talks from ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb. In fact the first three days of the program are devoted to the LHC and Tevatron, including some very nice theory talks from Tilman Plehn, Paddy Fox, Martin Schmaltz, and Jay Wacker. Heady stuff!

As for Aspen itself, it’s a place of almost surreal beauty, nestled in the Rockies, with fantastic skiing at four mountain areas. It is truly the playground of the super-rich: on the mountain slope above us are arrayed dozens of trophy mansion estates running in the seven figure range. (One colleague quipped “your health care dollars at work!” Heh, heh.) The only reason we (relatively) poor physicists can enjoy such a place is due to the existence of the Aspen Center for Physics. The Center is an offshoot of the Aspen Institute, the postwar brainchild of Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke, dedicated to becoming “an ideal gathering place for thinkers, leaders, artists, and musicians from all over the world to step away from their daily routines and reflect on the underlying values of society and culture”. And so it has become – it’s a really unique place.

Filed under: Concept Cars, Europe, Crossover, Chrysler, Fiat, Lancia

Remember the nameless Chrysler Lancia (pictured above) from last week’s Detroit Show? According to a report from Autocar, there’s a good chance that the vehicle (a reskinned Delta) is more than just an exercise in filling up space in Cobo Hall. Fiat’s boss Sergio Marchionne is saying that Chrysler could be fully merged with Fiat by the end of the year.

Why would Mr. Marchionne merge two such seemingly distinct and storied brands into one? Because they fill holes in each others’ lineups. “In Europe, Lancia is an undersized, underdeveloped brand, with nothing bigger than the Delta. Chrysler, which has a true global reach, has nothing smaller. Put them together and you have a full line-up,” said the boss.

As for last week’s Pentastar badged Lancia Delta, it could happen… maybe. “The rebadged Delta could quite possibly make a Chrysler vehicle,” explained Marchionne, who went on to explain that a Chrysler’d Delta would not conflict with Lancia. Why? Fiat won’t be selling any Lanica-badged Lancias in the United States. If that’s the case, the merger would be similar to how Renault-Nissan does business, and hopefully not as… how to put this… plain rotten as DaimlerChrysler turned out.

[Source: Autocar]

Report: Marchionne says Chrysler and Lancia could be merged within a year originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An Ivrine recreational dealer is giving us the ‘Ever Green- Ever Lite’ travel trailer claiming that it is highly environmentally conscious. The vehicle, RV, is made of composite materials which are recyclable. The mattresses are made from recyclable plastic bottles. The use of composites also cuts the use of formaldehyde and other materials that lead to “out gassing” of volatile organic compounds — a problem in other kinds of trailers. The trailers are a little expensive and sell for $20,000 to $40,000. But as long as you get quality at a high price, no compromises should be made, that’s what I think.
[Greenoc]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Tomorrow's Federal Register will contain a short notice from EPA that partially corrects a decades-old Agency practice that has denied the public access to the identity of chemicals that present substantial risks.

This welcome action begins to pull back the curtain on the chemical secrecy that has been a hallmark of life for the public under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). As I noted in a previous post, this action is one of a host of changes needed to remedy the major excesses and abuses of confidentiality under TSCA. EPA's action makes clear that some things can be done even as we await TSCA reform.

Here's what EPA's notice outlines as the new policy and practice, to take effect immediately:

If, in submitting a "notice of substantial risk" as required under Section 8(e) of TSCA, a company claims the identity of the chemical in question to be confidential business information (CBI), EPA will:

1. review the claim at the time of submission;
2. generally deny the claim if the chemical is on the public portion of the TSCA Inventory (i.e., was not claimed CBI in that context); and
3. inform the submitter of that decision in a manner that constitutes a final EPA action and hence is not challengeable except via judicial review.

What's changing?

All three of these steps represent significant departures from the status quo:

First, EPA will actually review such claims as they come in, to determine whether they are consistent with the new policy or not. In the past, EPA has rarely reviewed such claims ever, let alone at the time of submission, with the result being that virtually all such claims were by default allowed to persist in perpetuity.

The Federal Register notice forthrightly acknowledges this past practice: 

"Previously, EPA's general practice had been to redact chemical identity from TSCA section 8(e) postings where the identity was claimed CBI even when the chemical identity was listed on the public portion of the TSCA Chemical Substances Inventory."

Second, EPA is putting prospective claimants on notice that, when reviewing such claims, "EPA expects to find that the chemical identity clearly is not entitled to confidential treatment." This effectively reverses prior policy and practice, under which such claims were presumed to be legitimate even without actual review of them.

Third, EPA's decisions will be communicated to the claimant via a "determination letter" that represents a final Agency action. In the past, EPA has often had to engage in a prolonged song-and-dance exchange of letters with claimants as a prelude to making a final decision – chewing up precious Agency resources and hence drastically curbing the number of EPA challenges of CBI claims.

What's the basis for the change?

EPA's new policy is based on the common-sense notion that the identity of a chemical that is already known to the public – by virtue of it being listed on the public part of the TSCA Inventory – has already been disclosed, and hence cannot be claimed CBI in a different context.

EPA also notes that, by the way, this new policy is consistent with a core part of its mission: "To promote public understanding of the potential risks posed by chemicals in commerce."

Why this is only a first step towards what's needed

EPA's action is a great first step, but it's only that. Unless EPA goes further, its new policy will still deny the public access to the identity of many other chemicals posing substantial risk – but whose identities have been masked as CBI and hence don't appear on the public portion of the TSCA Inventory.

(Indeed, I suspect that most of the chemicals with identities claimed CBI in Section 8(e) notices are also claimed CBI on the TSCA Inventory. EPA did not but should provide such statistics, so that the magnitude of the change it's making – and of the larger problem – can be better gauged.)

Here's why EPA must go further:

First, public interest must trump private interest.

While TSCA provides wide latitude for companies submitting information to EPA to claim it CBI, one bright spot – in theory – is that TSCA prohibits granting CBI status to data from health and safety studies (see section 14(b)).

Why would Congress, when drafting TSCA, have gone out of its way to carve out an exemption from CBI eligibility for data from health and safety studies – effectively establishing the public's right to know such information – only to render impotent that right by denying the public the right to know to which chemical the data apply? That makes no sense.

In its regulations, EPA itself has defined the identity of a chemical to be an integral part of a health and safety study (see here and here).

EPA's regulations also acknowledge the primacy of public over private interest. Part 2 of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations lays out EPA's regulatory provisions governing "public information," including procedures to be followed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Look at this interesting provision found in Section 2.202(d):

"If two or more of the sections containing special rules apply to the particular information in question, and the applicable sections prescribe conflicting special rules for the treatment of the information, the rule which provides greater or wider availability to the public of the information shall govern." (emphasis added)

But as is so often the case under TSCA, what TSCA giveth with one hand it taketh away with the other.

TSCA provides an exception to the exception for health and safety data: In disclosing such data, EPA cannot make public data that discloses either:

• "processes used in the manufacturing or processing of a chemical substance or mixture" or
• in the case of a mixture, "the portion of the mixture comprised by any of the chemical substances in the mixture."

Based presumably on this provision of TSCA, EPA regulations provide certain conditions under which a company may assert a confidentiality claim for the identity of a chemical – even when associated with a health and safety study. It should be noted, however, that these regulations only apply to new, not existing, chemicals. Moreover, they state that EPA will deny such a claim unless the claimant demonstrates that "the specific chemical identity is not necessary to interpret a health and safety study." See 40 CFR §720.90(c)(3).

I ask you: How on earth could it not be essential to know the identity of a chemical in order to understand health and safety information about that chemical?

Finally, the astute reader will notice that nothing in TSCA's exception to the rule that health and safety data must be made public speaks to chemical identity. Only the divulgence of information describing how a chemical is made or processed, or revealing how much of a given chemical is in a mixture, is excepted.

I suspect that some talented chemical industry lawyers have racked up many billable hours devising arguments as to why EPA must interpret such a limited provision so broadly as to extend it all the way to including something never mentioned at all in the provision: chemical identity.

I would argue that such an interpretation flies in the face of:

• the express words of TSCA,
• the clear intent of Congress to provide public access to health and safety information,
• the core principles of right-to-know and the primacy of public over private interest,
• sound public policy, and
• last but not least, plain old common sense.

So I welcome EPA's action as a good first step in correcting a particularly egregious example of chemical secrecy under TSCA. It appears that EPA sees it as a first step toward addressing this problem as well: Its Federal Register notice describes the new policy as "part of a broader effort to increase transparency and provide more valuable information to the public." Other recent actions announced by EPA fit this mold. For example, its disclosure of the identities of 530 chemicals on the TSCA Inventory previously exclude as CBI; and its proposal to require disclosure of the identities of inert ingredients in pesticide formulations.

I also look forward to the next installment in EPA's effort.

Even with awesome scans (qjnet/playstation-3/god-of-war-iii-scans-kratos-1-on-1-with-a-massive-poseidon.html) and neat swag (qjnet/playstation-3/god-of-war-iii-ultimate-trilogy-edition-announced-for-pal-territories.html) to hype it up a bit, a game eventually has to pull its own weight once you stick it in the console. That’s not gonna be a

Before you can hope to make it as a speculator and start slingin’ barrels for big money, you’ve got to understand exactly what’s gushing forth from the earth’s crust. Yes, that’s right – it doesn’t start and stop just with crude, and there’s far more to oil than dinosaur bones. In fact, most experts agree that the bulk of crude oil is derived from prehistoric single-celled plankton remains. Then you’ve got the abiogenic theory, which posits that…

Er, wrong oils. Sorry.

Today’s post is actually about edible oils. Well, they’re all technically edible – they can all be swallowed and digested – but as for being palatable, let alone healthful? That remains to be seen. Not all oils are created equal, especially given the fact that most of the ones people use nowadays are actually created in an industrial laboratory. No oil “exists naturally,” mind you. Olive oil isn’t harvested by leaving open containers under leaking, dripping olives on the branch, nor is that liquid sloshing around inside a coconut pure oil. I’m not trying to disparage processing in and of itself. It takes a certain amount of processing to get any sort of oil, but a good general rule is to avoid consuming the oils that require processing on a large scale. If it involves an industrial plant, multiple stainless steel vats, a deodorizer, a de-gummer, and the harsh petroleum-derived solvent known as hexane, I wouldn’t eat it. But that’s just me (and Grok, who probably wasn’t processing wild rapeseed to get the precious canola oil).

But this is the Definitive Guide to Oils. Everything goes. No stone left unturned. No oil left un-tasted and bereft of analysis for fatty acid profile, oxidative potential, and rancidity proclivity.

Canola

Canola oil comes from rapeseed, a completely unpalatable seed rich in erucic acid, which is bitter and rather toxic. Canola oil is rapeseed oil stripped of erucic acid, as I detailed in this previous post. It gets a lot of attention from doctors as a “heart healthy” oil (one of the “good” fats) rich in omega-3s, but the fact that canola processing generally uses upwards of 500 degrees means a good portion of the Omega-3s could be rancid on the shelf.

61% MUFA
21% Omega-6 PUFA
9-11% Omega-3 PUFA
7% SFA

Flax Seed

I mentioned the seed and its oil a few times, and, after being initially supportive of flax consumption, I now recommend minimizing intake. People generally use flax oil as an Omega-3 supplement, rather than for cooking – and this is a good choice, seeing as how flax is almost entirely made of PUFAs, which are prone to rancidity and oxidation when exposed to heat. Meat eaters, though, would be better off just taking fish oil. The DHA and EPA in fish oil are far more useful than the ALA in flax seed oil. Strict vegetarians, have at it – just don’t use flax seed oil to sautee your tofu.

19% MUFA
24% Omega-6 PUFA
47% Omega-3 PUFA (from ALA)
8-9% SFA

Corn

Corn oil boggles my mind. I can’t wrap my head around how extracting gallons upon gallons of liquid oil from a lowly corncob is actually possible. How isn’t it too much work for the payoff? I mean, I’m no corn eater, but I’ve chomped a few kernels in my day, and I don’t understand how squeezing oil out of this non-vegetable sounds like a good idea to anyone.

24% MUFA
59% PUFA (mostly O-6)
13% SFA

Olive (and variations)

Olive oil got a pretty good breakdown last year, so unless I’m leaving out some recent momentous news breaking out of the highly secretive olive oil world, there’s not much more to say. It’s a delicious salad oil, a decent sautéing oil, and it can even be used as moisturizer and shaving lotion. Olive oil is one area where CW gets it right. Enjoy this one, and keep a bottle of extra virgin, cold pressed olive oil on hand for salad dressings. It also does a decent job standing up to heat, but will lose it’s delicate flavors if heated too high. This is a good enough reason for me to use a different fat/oil when cooking at high temps. (Why waste precious (and often expensive!) olive oil when lard, for instance, will do the trick?)

73% MUFA
3.5-21% Omega-6 PUFA
1% Omega-3 PUFA (not even worth mentioning, really)
14% SFA

Coconut

MDA’s darling, coconut oil is truly a star. I went over why yesterday, and in past posts, but the gist of it is this: it’s a tasty, shelf-stable (no hydrogenation required) tropical oil with a ton of saturated fatty acids. In fact, it’s almost purely saturated, which is why most doctors and nutritionists will probably advise against its consumption. Not us, though. We love SFA. The refined coconut oil stands up to heat a bit better, and it doesn’t have a distinctive taste, but I can’t recommend it. Unrefined virgin oil is a murky, cloudy mess – but a delicious, creamy mess. Eat the unrefined by the spoonful.

6.2% MUFA
1.6% PUFA
92.1% SFA

Palm

Palm oil is controversial; just check out the comments section on my last post on the subject. Many palm oil plantations encroach upon the rapidly dwindling natural habitats of the orangutan, which are already in short supply in this world. The consensus seems to be that sustainable palm oil, especially the more complex, nutritious unrefined red palm oil, can be found. You’ve just got to look a little harder at the labels. West African red palm oil, for example, is considered to be pretty safe environmentally. Oh, and palm oil is also highly saturated and heat stable. Red palm oil is also stable, but it deserves special mention for its nutrient density – lots of CoQ10, Vitamin E, and SFAs.

39% MUFA
11% PUFA
50% SFA

Fish

Fish oil is another one of the widely accepted “good” fats. This time, though, we agree with Conventional Wisdom. The Omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are unequivocally beneficial to us. They help balance our O6-O3 ratios (to a more appropriate, pre-agricultural level), while they also promote proper cell function, good lipid numbers, and improved insulin sensitivity. To bone up on more fish oil information, check out my Definitive Guide on the subject.

EPA and DHA levels vary by brand and type of fish. Check the label for yourself, or look at this handy table if you’re getting your fish oil from actual seafood.

Avocado

Who doesn’t love a plump avocado with the right amount of give? If you can’t get your hands on a good one, the next best thing might be a bottle of avocado oil. Its fatty acid profile is similar to that of olive oil, but it has an even higher smoke point, making it a decent choice for cooking. Personally, I still wouldn’t use it for high heat cooking. The light, subtle taste lends itself far better to salad dressing, if you ask me. Buy in dark bottles to minimize oxidation.

70% MUFA
12% Omega-6 PUFA
1% Omega-3 PUFA
12% SFA

Walnut

Walnut oil is one of the better tasting nut oils. It is high in Omega-6s, sure, but walnut oil isn’t something you’re going to use every day, or even every week. The stuff tastes great, though, and a small splash goes a long way at the end of a cooking session or onto a tossed salad. I definitely would advise against using this on a regular basis, especially for cooking, and you should always store it in a dark, cool spot in the house. For those that “do dairy”, try mixing a bit with some full-fat Greek yogurt, or unsweetened fresh whipped cream and berries: amazing.

23% MUFA
53% Omega-6 PUFA
10% Omega-3 PUFA
9% SFA

Macadamia Nut

I love this oil, but I also love the parent nut. The oil assumes the buttery, smooth, rich flavor of the macadamia nut, making it an interesting – but favorable – choice for salad dressings. It’s also remarkably high in MUFAs and low in PUFAs, so it won’t throw your ratios all out of whack. Makes a surprisingly good homemade mayonnaise, and can be used to sauté and cook in a pinch. The only drawback is its price; macadamia nut oil can get expensive.

71% MUFA
10% PUFA
12% SFA

Sesame Seed

The premier “flavor oil.” Sesame seed oil, especially the toasted variety, offers an unmatched and irreplaceable flavor profile. Certain Asian dishes work best with a bit of sesame oil, but if you’re wary of using it over high heat (which you probably should be), you can always add it to the dish after cooking. Despite the high PUFA content, sesame oil also contains a ton of antioxidants that can help minimize heat oxidation. I wouldn’t use this more than semi-regularly, though. Good to keep in your pantry (or fridge), but not an everyday item.

43% MUFA
43% PUFA
14% SFA

Peanut

Restaurants like to tout that they use “healthy” peanut oil in their deep fryers. Okay, the relatively MUFA-rich peanut oil may be a better choice than corn or sunflower oil for high heating, but it’s still a legume (already off limits) oil prone to rancidity. In the UK, it’s known as groundnut oil. Avoid both.

46% MUFA
32% PUFA
17% SFA

Sunflower Seed

Insanely high in PUFAs with little to no Omega-3s to balance them out, sunflower seed oil is a pretty bad choice for sauteeing, baking, roasting, and even salad making. Trouble is it’s everywhere, and it has a reputation for being healthy. Just don’t keep the stuff in your house (not a problem; it’s flavorless, odorless, and completely boring), and keep dining out in cheap chain restaurants to a minimum (or you could do what I do and request everything be cooked in butter), and you should be able to avoid sunflower seed oil.

19% MUFA
63% PUFA
10% SFA

Safflower

Like sunflower seed oil but worse, the oil derived from the “bastard saffron” is about 75% Omega-6 PUFAs with not a speck of Omega-3 in sight. It’s also lower in MUFAs and SFAs. What’s not to dislike?

14% MUFA
75% PUFA
6% SFA

Cottonseed

At least most of the oils I’ve mentioned come from technically edible plants, in some form or another. Cottonseed oil, however, comes from cotton. You know, the stuff that shirts are made of? Yeah. It’s everywhere, from margarines to cereal to shortening to frozen desserts to bread, because it’s cheaper than other oils (you can thank its status as one of Monsanto’s big four genetically modified crops for that) and it only needs “partial hydrogenation” to maintain stability. Luckily, that won’t be an issue for PBers who already avoid all that stuff in the first place. Warn your friends and family, though.

17% MUFA
52% PUFA
26% SFA

Grape Seed

Skip this stuff. It does have a buttery taste, and it gets a lot of hype as a worthy replacement for olive oil, but it’s got high oxidation potential, especially if you follow the recommended instructions and use it for deep frying or high heat sauteeing. It’s rather pricey, too, so there’s no good reason to use it.

16% MUFA
70% PUFA
9% SFA

Soybean Oil

Soybean oil is about as ubiquitous as corn and canola (again, thanks to Monsanto). In fact, you’ll often see an ingredient list include “canola and/or soybean oil.” Huh? Do food manufacturers honestly not know what kind of fat is going into their product? Best avoid the crapshoot and skip anything that “might contain” soybean oil altogether. The fact that it’s often partially hydrogenated suppresses my appetite even further. No thanks.

23% MUFA
51% Omega-6 PUFA
6% Omega-3 PUFA
14% SFA

As you can tell, seed and nut oils probably shouldn’t make up a significant portion of your diet. Some, like coconut, olive, macadamia, palm, avocado, and fish, are great, but the vast majority of oils are unnatural and way too high in PUFAs. And just remember, with some of the more questionable/borderline oils, a little bit goes a long way.

I haven’t covered every edible oil known to humankind in this article. For information on other oils reference these tables and start up a discussion in the comment board or the forum.

What are your preferred edible oils and why? Let me know your thoughts. Grok on!

P.S. If you liked this article share it with your friends by clicking the “Share This” link below.

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Related posts:

1. The Definitive Guide to Fish Oils
2. A Quick Guide to Edible Seeds
3. The Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat

Kevin sent over one of Nick Carr’s latest ramblings, attacking Google and its VP Marissa Mayer for saying: “It’s not what you know, it’s what you can find out.” That statement is a little too bland to actually catch on, but is hardly a new idea. In fact, we’ve argued that this is the case for many years. If you have regular access to a vast computer network that lets you find stuff, you can actually have your biological brain focus on more important things, rather than cramming it with things you can easily find out. In fact, with various studies suggesting the real key to intelligence is better forgetting rather than better remembering, you could argue that not having to remember certain things can be of great benefit.

But not to Nick Carr, apparently. To him, this means that people are becoming “intellectually dehumanized.” And this is a bad, bad thing:

Truth is self-created through labor, through the hard, inefficient, unscripted work of the mind, through the indirection of dream and reverie. What matters is what cannot be rendered as code. Google can give you everything but meaning.

But this presupposes all sorts of incorrect things — such as the idea that what information you don’t store in your brain can’t be used for sussing out meaning. It reminds me of the people who insisted, years ago, that calculators would destroy everyone’s ability to do basic math, and that this would inevitably lead to the downfall of society. Sure, I may not totally remember my times tables, but being able to quickly use a calculator to figure out something isn’t really a problem at all. And, much more importantly, it means that I can do much more complex mathematical calculations as well. The same is true of Google. Sure, we may not remember little bits of information here or there, but we can more easily bring together a much, much, much larger corpus of information, and synthesize that in a useful way in our brains. There is no rule that you should only use what’s stored directly in your mind to think about things.

The calculator didn’t dehumanize math. The automobile didn’t dehumanize walking. And Google, most certainly, has not dehumanized intelligence. It’s only enabled it to do much, much more.

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Ed Yardeni expands on my theme:

The political upset in Massachusetts yesterday may very well be one of those bullish Black Swans. In his 2007 book on this subject, Nassim Nicholas Taleb explained: “What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes. First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.”

Brown’s upset victory certainly wasn’t expected even a week ago. No one seriously expected that the Democrats would lose “Kennedy’s seat” in the Senate. This development is bound to have a major impact on the political balance in Washington. This outcome certainly makes sense after the fact. It wasn’t predictable prospectively, but it is obvious retrospectively.

Last summer, I started to project that Gridlock might win in the Congressional elections on November 2, 2010. I certainly didn’t expect that it might win at the beginning of this year, and just in time to checkmate PelosiCare. The Constitution of the United States of America was written by lawyers. They intentionally designed a political system of “checks and balances” that dispersed political power among three branches of government. We call it Gridlock, which has a negative connotation, but that was the intended outcome more often than not. Our system works best when it doesn’t work for the promoters of policies that are not in the national interest.

I love the Do-It-Yourself kits that add to the curiosity of the product in question. Trexa is planning on making a D-I-Y kit for its electric vehicle thus making it the very first fully electric-electric vehicle development platform. This chic all-wheel drive platform includes all the requirements that you can think of while making a car. Everything ranging from a battery to a driveline to power electronics, it’s all there. Its modular nature allows it to be tailored to virtually any application – from futuristic connected tram systems for commercial fleets, to high-performance hot rods, to neighborhood-friendly EV’s.

[Inhabitat]

There are lots of ways to save money, even though human brains seem hard wired to waste as much of it as possible. According to a report from the American Public Transportation Association, if you live in New York City you could save almost $14,000 a year just by using public transportation.

In fact, if APTA is to be believed, Americans living in 20 of the nations largest cities could save an average of $9,242 a year if they ditched the car, and just rode public transportation. Sounds pretty good, right?

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Ford’s UK diesel engine plant located in Dagenham, east of London, will receive a third wind turbine. This will be installed on the eastern edge of the production site, as just-auto.com reports.

The turbine has three blades and measures 120m in height. The decision to install it was based on the intention to maintain the plant’s eco energy supply. Planning permission for it was obtained in 2009.

The two other already-installed turbines (one on each side of the estate) are 85m high, and of… (read more)

Wendell Wyatt Federal Building will soon be getting a green makeover all sponsored by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The $100 million worth renovation project is likely to commence in the months to come, and after about 30-40 months, SERA Architects claim to change the face of the building for better. The main aspect that will be added is a huge 250 feet living green wall that will cover the westerly façade of the building. The trellis and vine fins will allow light in the winter and provide shade in the summer. Apart from this drastic visible change in the look, the building will also have some functional changes like a solar rooftop, smart lighting, efficient elevators and rainwater in the toilets.
[Jetsongreen]

San Francisco, California | Commercial Curiosities

Running away to the circus was the threat that rambunctious young folks would threaten their parents with… at least in the 1930s. Today, you can fulfill childhood dreams of running away to the circus as well as following a career— specifically, at the San Francisco Circus Center, the only professional circus training facility in the United States. It’s also the only year-long circus clown training program in the United States, offering many classes to children and adults.

The Circus Center began as the Pickle Family Circus, founded in 1974 by Peggy Snider and Larry Pisoni. As part of a special project for the Pickle Family Circus, the San Francisco School for Circus Arts was established in 1984, with a first class comprised of 16 children. Famous Chinese acrobats such as Lu Yi of the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe and other artists from his troupe were hired to help train aspiring acrobats, and in 1996 Yi founded the San Francisco Youth Circus, designed to provide young students with the opportunity to perform what they were learning.

Not just for acrobatics, the Clown Conservatory started up in 2000, the same year the school purchased the New Pickle Circus. The New Pickle Circus returned to the performing roots of the Family Circus, and now stages annual professional shows in San Francisco, participating in multiple productions throughout the year.

A wide variety of circus-related classes are available to children as young as 18 months, and any adult willing to learn. The Center emphasis safe training and understanding body movement, working from the ground up to develop strength, control, and flexibility. More advanced students also have a place in the many Level II and Level III classes.

Workshops are offered in addition to the weekly classes, and a summer camp program for children ages 7 to 15 teaches acrobatics, juggling, clowning, the trampoline, and more. Some of the courses offered during the “winter semester,” which lasts from the beginning of January until the end of March, are: acrobatics, aerial skills (such as the trapeze), circus arts (juggling, tumbling, unicycle, tight wire), contortion, general stretching and conditioning, the trampoline, climbing silks and ropes, acrodance, clown therapy, and acting for clowns.