New York bar to set menu prices like stocks
NEW YORK (Reuters) – What’s the value of a pint of beer? Let the market decide, says a new restaurant in Manhattan where prices for food and beverages will fluctuate like stock prices in increments according to demand.
The Exchange Bar & Grill, set amid the bustling shops and pubs of the Grammercy Park neighborhood, is replete with a ticker tape flashing menu prices in red lettering as demand forces them to fluctuate.
Customers can move prices for all beverages and bar snacks such as hot wings ($7 for 6 pieces) or fried calamari ($9). The prices will fluctuate in $.25 cent increments, but will most likely plateau at a $2 change in either direction.
A glass of Guinness starts at $6 but could be pushed to a high of $8 or a low of $4, depending on popularity.
So if one drink is in heavy demand, its price will rise, causing the cost of other equivalent drinks to drop. A rush on a particular beer would increase its price, and cause other beers to drop.
The Exchange Bar & Grill has a long bar facing the ticker tape — and flat screen televisions — as well as a few tables in the back where patrons can eat in greater comfort.
Restaurants in New York and across America have had a tough year because consumers have slashed discretionary spending in a tough economic climate. New York has about 23,000 restaurants, with about 4,400 opening each year according to the city’s Department of Health, which tracks establishment licenses.
Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction
Scientists have finally confirmed what the rest of us have suspected for years: Bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive.
A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.
Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure–or even just feeling normal–requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.
"People know intuitively that there’s more to [overeating] than just willpower," he says. "There’s a system in the brain that’s been turned on or over-activated, and that’s driving [overeating] at some subconscious level."
In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. One of the groups was fed regular rat food. A second was fed bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods–but only for one hour each day. The third group was allowed to pig out on the unhealthy foods for up to 23 hours a day.
They began to eat compulsively, to the point where they continued to do so in the face of pain. When the researchers applied an electric shock to the rats’ feet in the presence of the food, the rats in the first two groups were frightened away from eating. But the obese rats were not. "Their attention was solely focused on consuming food," says Kenny.
In previous studies, rats have exhibited similar brain changes when given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. And rats have similarly ignored punishment to continue consuming cocaine, the researchers note.
See the original article at CNN.
Dip and Squeeze: Heinz Reinvents the Ketchup Packet
For years, we who partake in fast food have been stuck with a dilemma when it comes to dunking our fries in ketchup: We’d have to empty the packet onto the paper on the tray. Or put it on a napkin that may have already been touched by lord knows who. Tasty, tasty way to catch H1N1 perhaps!?
Thankfully, the good people at Heinz have–after 30 years–heard our plea. They have redesigned the ketchup packet, and there shall be much rejoicing in the streets.
The new packet can be opened in not one, but two ways. The end can be torn away so the ketchup can be a topping on, say, a burger (or Cap’n Crunch, if that’s your thing). But the really cool part is that the other end rips away to create a dunking container for fries, one of the most popular applications for ketchup.
Seattle ketchup enthusiast Jonathan Fuchs told me he loves the new design. "This is progress," he said. "I think the world is becoming a better place."
Maybe it’s not the most radical of designs–McDonald’s has had dunking containers for its McNuggets for years–but it is noteworthy that a corporation like Heinz looked at the design of one of its best-known products and determined it was time for a redesign.
It’s good to know that my children will never know a world where you have to smear ketchup on a napkin to enjoy your fries.
See the original article at Crave and CrunchGear.
New Yorkers beware! New cockroach hits the Big Apple
NEW YORK (AFP) – New Yorkers are used to fighting each other for space, but there may be a new contender in town according to a Rockefeller study that appears to have uncovered a new species of cockroach.
“The cockroach is genetically modified. Species don’t differ more than one percent, this cockroach is four percent different, which suggests it is a new species of cockroach,” Professor Mark Stoeckle, an expert on genomics and DNA barcoding at Rockefeller University, told AFP.
“We think that the museums of natural history in Paris or New York could be interested.”
The previously-unidentified creepy-crawly was uncovered as part of a project undertaken by two high-school students, Brenda Tan, 17, and Matt Cost, 18, under Stoeckle’s supervision.
In their roles as “DNAHouse investigators,” the pair trawled New York apartments, stores and street, collecting 217 specimens between November 2008 and March 2009.
They took samples from supermarket food, the remains of an insect found in a box of fruit, a feather from a duster, dried dung and a cockroach and matched DNA sequences using the Barcode of Life Database and GenBank.
The American Museum of Natural History laboratory identified 170 genetic codes, leading the researchers to identify 95 different animal species, including some that were unexpected.
“A feather from a duster yielded ostrich DNA. A delicacy labeled ‘sturgeon caviar’ instead turned out to be from the strange-looking paddlefish. A popular Asian snack was revealed as giant flying squid. Bison DNA was found in a dog biscuit,” the pair wrote on the Rockefeller University website.
In fact, they found that 16 percent of food items were mislabeled, including cheeses labeled sheep’s milk that were actually made of cow’s milk, a potentially dangerous labeling error for those with allergies.
But perhaps the biggest surprise for the researchers was the discovery of “a genetically distinct ‘mystery’ cockroach that might be a new species.”
“By appearance it looks like the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) but it is genetically different from other American cockroaches in the databases,” the researchers said.
Blood Energy Potion, authentic looking synthetic blood drink in a transfusion bag
Thirsty at twilight – or after reading or watching Twilight? Slake your blood-lust by grabbing a transfusion bag of Blood Energy Potion, the best bloody drink around!
Vampires, zombies, witches and more – the culture of horror seems to have been given a shot in the arm. Speaking of which, Urban Collector’s Blood Energy Potion looks frighteningly like a fresh transfusion bag of people juice, so much so that we’re sure some overzealous Goth will attempt to infuse it IV style.
That would be unwise, because although Blood Energy Potion looks like blood, has the same viscosity as blood, has the same nutritional composition as blood and comes in a resealable plastic bag designed to emulate a Red Cross blood transfusion bag, it’s NOT blood.
Blood Energy Potion does, in a similar vein (sorry), provide 4 hours of energy, protein and electrolytes plus it’s a "delectable source of iron" and doesn’t contain garlic.
See the full article at Inventor Spot.
