The curious g blog has insightful Oscar® predictors. The ZipPolls revealed that readers chose the correct award winner in three out of the four categories!
The ZipPoll results:
With ten films nominated, the 25 predictions were spread thin. Leading with 28% of the votes, The Hurt Locker took the top honors.
In the directing realm, 55% of the 22 voters knew history would be made by choosing The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow, making her the first woman to win the award in this category.
With 26 votes tallied for Actor in a Leading Role, 38% correctly chose Jeff Bridges’ performance in Crazy Heart as the winner.
For Actress in a Leading Role, 47% thought Gabourey Sidibe’s turn in Precious would win her the Oscar. Not so. Of the 19 votes cast, 26% chose winner Sandra Bullock for her role in The Blind Side.
Another year is in the books. As always, thanks for participating!
Excuse me? Meaning – sampling the aroma of the chocolate, as your mouth waters, while waiting for the actual creamy chocolate to meet your tongue and hit your taste buds?
No, I mean, inhaling chocolate dust, and that’s all folks. It’s Le Whif – a lipstick-sized, biodegradable inhaler filled with barely-one-calorie chocolate particles.
Where did this come from?
David Edwards, a professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard University, came up with the idea of “eating by breathing” while opening the Foodlab at Le Laboratoire, an experimental design space in Paris. There he developed Le Whif.
Dr. Edwards explains the effect, “A little bit of powder on the taste buds gives you all the flavor of a lot of chocolate…” He notes that when eating chocolate, the amount that stimulates your taste buds is actually very small.
For years, the molecular guys have been claiming that a large portion of what we perceive as taste is actually smell anyway.
Inhaling over chewing?
Ok, so I know it’s nearly calorie free, but really why bother? Wouldn’t you prefer the texture and the taste? And doesn’t the aroma of something usually make you crave it more, not less? I don’t want to nix the product without having tried it, but, come on, a chocolate lover is not going to settle for spores.
For me, if I’m going to take the time, I’m going for the real thing. Any chocolate lovers care to weigh in?
Le Whif comes in three whiffable flavors: pure deep organic chocolate, raspberry + sweet chocolate and mint + sweet chocolate. And here’s something else to chew on – or not – Le Whif will soon offer coffee, sans cup. For the truly curious, inhalers may be purchased online through the Le Whif website. A minimum order of three Le Whifs goes for 1.80 Euros per stick (that’s nearly $2.50 each at the current exchange rate.)
They eat. They sleep. They hardly move. And they’ve got almost no libido.
We’re talking about pandas.
Zhang Zhihe, director of Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, China, says that if the male pandas don’t like the females’ personality, they won’t mate. Not a problem for humans, but a big problem for securing the future of the panda species.
Panda population is shrinking with only 1,600 in the wild and 294 in captivity worldwide.
Panda behavior tends toward isolation and they are traditionally poor breeders. Captivity exacerbates the problem. To get young male pandas curious about sex, scientists have tried a combination of porn, sexercises, and the occasional ménage à trios. They have proved successful.
Because of the new breeding tactics, Zhihe says that more than 60 percent of his pandas are now capable of having sex on their own. With 300 sexually active pandas, scientists will have the genetic diversity needed to ensure the survival of the species for another century. Scientists could eventually consider returning them to the wild.
Watch the full report here. (Rated R: panda parents strongly cautioned, sexual situations).
The 2010 Winter Olympics began yesterday in Vancouver. Despite the tragic death of the young Georgian luger, the games opened and went on.
I was very happy to see that Canada did not attempt to trump the jumbo-sized Beijing summer spectacular (could anyone?). Instead, they opted for a more relatable, humble ceremony that set the stage for the games and the athletes – Vancouver chose to let them shine – instead of stealing their thunder. The mechanical glitch during the flame-lighting ceremony felt even more endearing.
With all the engineering feats, performance-enhanced equipment and aero-dynamic design, the competition still comes down to human elements: skill, preparation and endurance. It’s refreshing to be reminded of that from the start.
The winter games are more intimate than the summer – fewer countries compete – “…present[ing] …fewer opportunities for fashion disaster” as this article in the NYTimes humorously points out. Adding further:
“This ceremony was not without its special-effects marvels: there was a giant bear, whales spouting their way across the stadium floor… But a bigger part of the appeal was that the proceedings actually had some content.
The ceremony was long, a little dull at times, but it was also thoughtful and stirring. It was authentically and unabashedly Canadian.”
Did you watch the opening ceremonies? What did you think of this simpler approach as compared to Beijing’s opening ceremonies?
The 2010 Winter Olympics