The Evening Standard (London, England) articles from March 2009

The Evening Standard (London, England) archives from March 2009

Allergic to bread? Good news!(Science Scoops)
March 1, 2009... If you know what the word gluten means, there's a chance you or somebody close to you can't eat this protein, which is found in rye, wheat, and barley. If you can't stomach gluten, you can't eat most breads, cookies, breakfast cereals and a...

This month in Odyssey.(Science Scoops)(bread and grain supply)(Column)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If I had to choose one aroma to take with me if I were leaving the planet, it just might be the comforting smell of fresh bread, warm from the oven. It would remind me of my childhood, of my husband who frequently...

Ant from Mars!(Science Scoops)(Martialis heureka)
March 1, 2009... Okay, this ant isn't really from Mars, but that's what its name, Martialis heureka, means! This newly discovered insect got its name because of its odd looks: no eyes, huge mouthparts longer than its head, yellowish body, and a totally...

The neverending experiment.(Science Scoops)(crop rotation)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Can you imagine starting an experiment that would last over a hundred years? In 1896, there were no computers (let alone the...

AudiOdyssey.(Science Scoops)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This brand new experimental video game has a pretty catchy name, doesn't it? "Audi" for Audio, or sound, and "Odyssey" for... journey. But perhaps it shares a kindred spirit with this magazine: science and fun...

Houston, it's snowing on Mars!(Science Scoops)(Phoenix Mars Lander)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Imagine gazing out your space craft window at the alien landscape of Mars. Something white and familiar flutters past your window. Could it really be a snowflake? NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander (top) has nobody...

The bread baker's apprentice.(Short story)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At 3 o'clock in the morning, the church bell rang three times, even though the whole French village was fast asleep, shutters closed against the night air. A single street lamp flickered in front of the bakery. I...

Bread for the pyramid builders.(Chronology)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1988, archaeologist Dr. Mark Lehner began looking for a lost city near the great pyramids of Giza. The city would have supported the monumental construction project that created the...

Loaves of love: an interview with artisan bread baker Peter Reinhart.(PERSON TO DISCOVER)(Interview)
March 1, 2009... Peter Reinhart can rattle off the science behind bread baking the way most people recite the alphabet. He certainly has enough practice. Years ago, Reinhart founded an award-winning bakery, Brother Juniper's, in Sonoma, California. Later,...

Amber waves of grain: can they nourish a hungry world? The year is 2009 and more than 6 billion people occupy Earth. Almost 1 billion are hungry. Fast-forward to 2050. The population has risen to 9 billion. How many are hungry now?
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Over thousands of years, bread has been called the staff of life. It symbolizes the food that we need to sustain ourselves. It seems impossible to believe that close to 1 billion people today are suffering from lack...

Perennial favorites.(perennial plants)
March 1, 2009... Feeding the world is a huge, and only somewhat successful job. With populations steadily rising, agricultural scientists are searching for better ways to accomplish this daunting task. At the Land Institute in Kansas, for example, plant...

Butterworks Farm: the art and science of grinding grains.
March 1, 2009... WEDNESDAYS ARE GRINDING DAYS at Jack Lazor's Butterworks Farm in Westfield, Vermont. "Milling grain isn't very glorious," he says. "There's lots of dust and it's time-consuming." The Miller Historians would agree with Lazor. Although...

Yeast breads.
March 1, 2009... What's the difference between a loaf and a lump of bread? The answer is leavening--something that makes dough rise. In many favorite kinds of bread, yeast really rises to the occasion. It's Alive! Baker's yeast may look like dull,...

Rising to the occasion.(gluten makes the dough rise)
March 1, 2009... Beyond Bubbles Of course, there's more to yeast bread than the bubbles that make it rise. The dough needs to capture those bubbles so the finished bread will have both the right rise and the right texture, or crumb. That's where gluten...

Edible homework.(King Arthur Flour's Life Skills Bread Baking Program)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sure, you've probably heard kids claim that the dog ate their homework, but how would you like to eat your own homework, and share it with others, too? Kids who participate in King Arthur Flour's Life Skills Bread...

It's an ODYSSEY Bread Bake-Off.(ACTIVITY TO DISCOVER)
March 1, 2009... Wash your hands and bake your best loaf of bread. Then follow the directions below to enter ODYSSEY's Bread Bake-off. You could win master baker Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. ...

Getting the most out of yeast: yeast makes bread rise and gives it great taste. Yeast also yields some amazing scientific discoveries.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Model Organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker's yeast, may be just a one-celled fungus. But that one cell does jobs that almost all cells of your body do. It eats, converts food into energy, and disposes of...

Navigating a gluten-free world.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I savored each bite of the huge piece of four-layer chocolate birthday cake that sat before me, believing that it would be my last tasty treat. It was my 25th birthday and two weeks earlier, my doctor had announced...

Let's talk bread!
March 1, 2009... Maybe you only think about bread in terms of what holds your sandwich together. But bread has played such an important role in our lives for thousands of years that words and phrases relating to it have crept into our everyday vocabularies. Do...

The next best thing to sliced bread: the reason behind regional breads.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YOU MAY not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can judge bread by its shape. The shape of a loaf often leads right to the heart of the culture, history, and religion of the people who traditionally make...

Slice the bread.(BRAIN STRAIN)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dr. Smith, a great surgeon, loves to bake bread. He has made a special round loaf of bread for his twin sons. He knows that one son prefers white bread, while the other prefers dark rye bread. Smith bakes the loaf in...

Building, and baking in a cob oven.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Was this some bizarre fertility rite? A New England rain dance? A purification ritual? Passing motorists must have wondered as they...

Kira's pizza.(KIDS CAN ... DO AMAZING SCIENCE)
March 1, 2009... I live on a farm with my parents, my two brothers, and Popine. Popine has lived with us since before I was born. Even though she is a sourdough starter--a collection of wild French yeasts--we talk about her as a person. She spends her days in a...

Star chart.
March 1, 2009... The monthly All-Sky Chart depicts the sky (minus the Moon) as it appears at 7 p.m. (your local time) on March 15. Useful all month (except for planet positions), the chart is also accurate for 8 p.m. on March 1 and 6 p.m. on March 31. To...

Why is spring called "spring"?(STARGAZING with Jack Horkheimer)(Cartoon)
March 1, 2009... GREETINGS, GREETINGS, FELLOW STARGAZERS, AND HAPPY VERNAL EQUINOX! THAT'S WHAT ASTRONOMERS CALL THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING. HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY WE CALL SPRING "SPRING"? WELL, THE WORD SPRING IS SIMPLY SHORT FOR THE PHRASES "SPRING...

Skip the mold!(ASK DR. CY BORG)(Column)
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dear Dr. B, Is it safe to eat bread with mold on it? Andy Wade, Web post Well, the mold on bread is often Penicillium, which is the same genus of mold that the medicine penicillin comes from. You might think,...

You've got mail!(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... In our February 2008 issue, "Can Science Save the World?", we talked about some potential new sources of energy. Drew Preston of Versailles, Kentucky, sent us an article he had written on "The Power of the Atom" and why the United States should...

Ermine: the white weasel is no wimp!(Animal Angles)
March 1, 2009... Mice in the granary? Rats in the corn? Just call the ermine infantry! Best known for their lovely white fur that was once used as fancy trim on clothing, these ferocious carnivores prefer to be favored for their keen senses and appetite...