Science
Scientists: Pregnant? Have a latte!
Jul. 26 | My baby wants a grande! Scientists. They love talking about coffee. Every week it seems there’s more and more new stories on the web and in print, with some fresh scientific proclamation regarding caffeine or coffee compounds or why drinking more or less than 3 cups a day is or isn’t good for you. This week’s info comes to us from WebMD.com, the C. Everett Koop of online med journals: Many pregnant women cut out caffeine the minute...
New Study: 10 Cups of Coffee Boosts Brain Activity
Jul. 26 | Coffee: Good For You In another “coffee is good for you” case study, researchers at Tufts University in Boston found coffee can “boost memory and the signaling essential to motor coordination.” The new data, presented July 20 at the Institute of Food Technologists annual meeting, showed that among elderly rats, the best results emerged after months of downing the human equivalent of 10 cups per day. “They weren’t hyper...
The Science of Reliance: Is Caffeine a Placebo or Placeboost?
Jun. 9 | "We've tried everything. There's nothing we can brew." A new study was published online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Their study involved 379 brave volunteers who went coffee “cold turkey” for 16 hours before being given a caffeine capsule or a placebo capsule containing corn flour. They were then tested for a range of responses, but there was little variation between the real- caffeine group and the placebo...
High-Concept PortaBeverage Maximizer: The Cup Of Tomorrow…Today!
May. 24 | Wifi Cup For Easy Four Square Nerd Blogging Sprudge is late in reporting on the Starbucks sponsored “Betacup Challenge” program. It’s in full swing now and the winners will be announced sometime after June 15th. The Betacup Challenge is purposely open-ended: design a coffee cup that addresses the problem of disposable coffee cups, and upload the concept to the Web. As a result, some of the 200-plus submissions are disposable cups...
That Coffee’s Gonna Shrink Yer Baby! Bean Boy Unavailable For Comment
May. 21 | Not pictured: cigarette in right hand. According to this recent study, if you’re Dutch and drink six cups of coffee per day, your baby might be slightly smaller than average. Thanks, Science! Researchers found that among more than 7,300 Dutch women followed from early pregnancy onward, between 2 and 3 percent said they consumed the caffeine equivalent of six cups of coffee per day during any trimester. On average, their babies’ length...
Your Coffee-Soaked Heart: New Findings Refute Old Findings, To Be Negated by Later Findings
May. 7 | Every couple of days or so at Transnational Sprudge Corp, we come across a health and science story that reads something like this: Newsflash! Scientists have discovered that coffee helps prevent the deterioration of your octagonal reticular ventricle. Drink three cups a day to increase life expectancy. These reports are immediately tempered by the next day’s news dregs. It’s only a matter of hours before the Sprudge News OmniNet trawls...
Flashback: Rats in the Grounds of the Western World
May. 1 | Did you know that the volatile aromatics in the coffee have positive psychological effects? Neither did we! Our June 2008 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry must’ve been sent to our ex’s apartment or something. Here’s the gist: scientists deprived rats of sleep and then after several days made them smell some ground coffee. They found evidence that smelling coffee mimics the effectiveness of sleeping! The...
Flashback: High Cholesterol? Try The Hario V60 Diet
Apr. 30 | Our November, 1989 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine must have been stolen by the mailman. Otherwise, we would have long ago called to your attention this article on the differences between serum cholesterol content in boiled vs. filter (espresso, moka pot, french press vs. pour over, Chemex, Aeropress, vac pot). Their findings? In non-filtered brewing methods, the saturated fat of coffee increases cholesterol levels in some individuals....
Jim Seven’s Mojo Dojo
Apr. 30 | The Extract MojoToGo was the undeniable darling of SCAA 2010. Vince Fedele’s universal refractometer app is attracting attention and accolades everywhere it goes, including being named the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Best New Product in the Education and Training for 2010. We recently featured MojoToGo in some of our event recap, but we’ll take a second to point you to an interesting ongoing discussion of the app...
