A Bitter Look at the Smear Campaign Against Brown Sugar

At the heart of the American sugar industry was the Domino Sugar Company, which was founded in 1807 during the Industrial Revolution. In the late 1800s, the newly consolidated refined white sugar industry, which didn't have full control over brown sugar production, mounted a smear campaign against brown sugar, reproducing microscopic photographs of harmless but repulsive-looking microbes living in brown sugar. The effort was so successful that by 1900, a best-selling cookbook warned that brown sugar was of inferior quality and was susceptible to infestation by "a minute insect.” The strategy worked effectively, causing public preference to shift heavily toward refined white sugar and permanently altering commercial production norms. So, what’s the difference in the two sugars. White sugar is pure sucrose; brown sugar is white sugar mixed with a little bit of molasses. White sugar is fully processed to remove all the molasses, while brown sugar keeps the molasses. When it comes to nutrition, there’s really not much difference between the two.

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Clairol's Big Flop: Yogurt Shampoo

In 1979, Clairol thought that a yogurt shampoo was just what the American consumer wanted. They assumed that the general public readily understood yogurt’s purported hair benefits, but apparently they didn’t. It turned out that the company had grossly miscalculated, and Touch of Yogurt Shampoo quickly became one of the highest profile product flops of all time. Many consumers were apparently confused as to what they had bought, as there were reported cases of people eating the shampoo and getting sick. Perhaps Clairol should have known better. After all, the yogurt shampoo failure came only a few years after another failed Clairol shampoo called Touch of Buttermilk. It received little fanfare and struggled because consumers were confused. Clearly, Clairol never heard of the famous quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

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Boat Operator Fined Over $5,000 For Waking a Sleeping Polar Bear

Let sleeping bears lie……..or pay up. A boat operator near Norway was hit with a fine of over $5,000 for blowing a foghorn to wake a sleeping polar bear. The vessel was sailing off the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, around 620 miles from the North Pole, when the operator disturbed the animal and caused it to move to another location. Gov. Lars Fause ordered the un-bear-able offender to pay the hefty fine of $5,255, which the unidentified man agreed to do. Under local rules, it’s forbidden to “needlessly disturb, attract, or pursue a polar bear,” which was declared a protected species in 1972. Melting ice has threatened the polar bears’ habitats in recent years, but scientists reported in January that bears in the area are thriving and even gaining weight.

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The “One-Wing” Plane That’s Set To Revolutionize Air Travel

JetZero’s windowless Z4 aircraft could be carrying passengers as early as 2030, after securing a loan of up to $3 billion. While calling a plane “single wing” doesn’t sound too reassuring, engineers prefer the term “blended wing.” If successful, the Z4 would be the world’s first commercial blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft. The futuristic plane, currently in the development stage, aims to offer a capacity of 250 seats and a 5,000-mile range – the equivalent to flying from New York to Honolulu. A blended wing allows lift across the entire wingspan and reduces drag. The big advantage of this is a 30% to 50% fuel-efficiency improvement compared with airplanes currently in service. In theory, less fuel could mean cheaper tickets – though, as we know from the Concorde days, novelty and innovation usually come at a premium. The design features an eye-catching stingray shape with a V-shaped tail. The interior has four spacious aisles to ease congestion, windowless walls paired with high-resolution digital screens, ceiling skylights, and dedicated bathroom waiting areas well away from the seating areas and aisles. Perhaps the most important revolution for customers, the Z4 shuns the standard layout of rows of cramped seats, opting for individually separated seating, each with its own overhead storage. Designed to cruise about 10,000 feet higher than most traditional commercial jets flying today, the Z4 would benefit from this reduced drag in the thinner air above 40,000 feet. It would, though, fly at a standard speed of around 530mph at altitude. As to whether we’ll really be seeing the Z4 take to the skies within the next decade, we’ll simply have to wait and see.

 

 

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