“Coffee and the Brain: Attention, Make, React, Threat” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. It gurgles into the seemingly eternal quest to understand how coffee affects what the drinker thinks and feels, and does not think or feel. Read the […]
Tag: Coffee
Study: A Cup of Hemp Coffee by Moka Pot
As coffee crops are threatened, year after year, by disease, insects, and economic forces, industry turns its eyes to possible alternatives, one of which is hemp. A new study, in Italy, assesses some of the potential of pot coffee brewed in a pot. The study is: “A Cup of Hemp Coffee by Moka Pot from […]
How to Spill a Cup of Coffee
“How to Spill a Cup of Coffee” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. It looks at two studies—each of which led to an Ig Nobel Prize—about the physics of how and why anyone who walks with a full cup of […]
Research About Coffee-and-Health is Often and Easily Confounded
It’s easy to say that coffee has a good or bad effect on people’s health, but it’s not easy to know, suggests a study about studies about whether coffee has a good or bad effect on people’s health. The study is: “Dietary research on coffee: Improving adjustment for confounding,” David R. Thomas, Ian D. Hodges, […]
How to write a hard-to-resist science headline: Quantum, Coffee
Trinity College Dublin produced a press release, on January 31, 2020, with this headline: “Supercomputers help link quantum entanglement to cold coffee“. The press release is meant to draw attention to a research paper by Marlon Brenes, Silvia Pappalardi [pictured here], John Goold, and Alessandro Silva. The paper is titled “Multipartite Entanglement Structure in the Eigenstate […]
The Coffee Diet, in song and in the news
News reports suggest that coffee can help a person lose weight—something we anticipated in “The Coffee Diet Song,” in 2004. The song was the thrilling conclusion to “The Atkins Diet Opera.” The opera premiered as part of the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, at Harvard University. Here’s video of that 2004 song, and video of […]
A “Gyroscopic” no-spill cup-holder [new patent]
“For travelers, balancing luggage, a snack, personal items, and a drink can be difficult, often resulting in spilling of beverages either while walking around or while seated on, for example, a plane or in a car.” What one needs, perhaps, is a self-stabilizing drinks-cup holder? And, fortunately, a newly patented solution has become available. Inventor […]
Habit Versus Habit: Using Chewing Gum to Remove Coffee Stains
A straightforward attempt to use one habit—chewing gum—to undo the unwelcome effects of a different habit—drinking coffee: “Whitening Efficacy of Chewing Gum Containing Sodium Metaphosphate on Coffee Stain: Placebo-controlled, Double-blind In Situ Examination,” S. Makino, C. Kawamoto, T. Ikeda, T. Doi, A. Narise, T Tanaka, C. Almas, M. Hannig, R. Carvalho, and H. Sano, Operative […]
Migrant Warning: Crossing the Coffee-Cup Barrier
When you get a cup of coffee from a vending machine, are you getting a soupćon of ink in your drink? This study looks into that question: “Determination the Set-Off Migration of Ink in Cardboard-Cups Used in Coffee Vending Machines,” Esther Asensio, Teresa Peiro, and Cristina Nerín, Food and Chemical Toxicology, epub 2019. The authors, […]
Electrical power from coffee and coffee grounds, more or less
Two coffee/caffeine/electricity-generation studies to consider: “Direct power generation from waste coffee grounds in a biomass fuel cell,” Hansaem Jang, Joey D. Ocon, Seunghwa Lee, Jae Kwang Lee, and Jaeyoung Lee, Journal of Power Sources, 296 (2015): 433-439. “Caffeine Improves the Performance and Thermal Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells,” Rui Wang, Jingjing Xue, Lei Meng, Yonghai […]