“Coffee, Tea, and Mood Experiments” is a featured article in the special Coffee, and Tea issue (volume 26, number 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research. If you indulge in a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, inform yourself—in a tiny and certainly iffy way—as to what you might be doing to your […]
Tag: Coffee
Instant Coffee: Remove Then Re-Add the Smell
One time-consuming way to make instant coffee from coffee—in a factory—involves removing most of the coffee aroma, then later adding it back to the coffee, so that later still—when someone makes the instant coffee in preparation for serving it to someone who will, still later still, drink it, it smells like coffee. A new study […]
What does coffee do to your brain: The eternal question
“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 […]
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 […]