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2021/04/30

Neatorama

Neatorama

Guaraná: the Caffeinated Fruit That Looks Like an Eyeball

Posted: 30 Apr 2021 03:54 AM PDT

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, in the riverside town of Maués, they grow a fruit you may have never heard of. Guaraná grows in other places, but Maués is the heart of its production, as guaraná is not only a prized fruit made into a daily drink, it's a tourist draw. They even have an annual guaraná festival.

Guaraná contains high levels of caffeine – as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac.

Maués might be dubbed the "land of guaraná" but the fruit's history long predates the town. The Sateré-Mawé indigenous people have been cultivating guaraná in their ancestral forests nearby for millennia. It was their ancestors who domesticated the species, learned of its properties and devised the best cultivation and processing techniques.

Guaraná has a traditional origin story that, yes, involves an eyeball, and long-held traditions on how to prepare and consume it. But it's also a moneymaker, working its way into South American sodas. It may even prolong life. Read about guaraná and what it means at BBC Travel. -via Digg

(Image credit: Anita Fortis)

Fifteen Years Forsaken

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 01:40 PM PDT

In the rush to colonize Africa, various European countries scrambled to claim lands, exploit their natural resources, raise crops using forced labor, and export Africans as slaves. By 1761, the French East India Company was in control of Madagascar and the Mascarene archipelago. The Mascarene Islands were uninhabited, and the French set about bringing in enslaved people to work the land. The preferred crops were coffee and sugar, which were in high demand around the world. They did not grow crops that would sustain the people who lived and worked there, so supplies had to be imported. Captain Jean de Lafargue was willing to take food to the Macarene Islands, but he was also open to making some extra money on the side.  

The governor gave Lafargue his new orders: go to Foulpointe, on Madagascar's east coast, and bring back food. Oh, and don't bring any slaves.

From the governor's point of view, the proscription made perfect sense. The one advantage of having been abandoned by the navy was that its crews no longer stopped by, insisting on being fed, but even with that reduction in overall appetite, Île de France still needed victuals more than extra mouths to feed. Lafargue, though, had no intention of paying attention to the restriction: L'Utile was his first command, and one of the benefits of being captain of a Company ship was the possibility of engaging in trade on your own account. Indeed, it was an official perk: the Company had suffered so many losses from pilfering captains that it had eventually thrown up its hands and given them the right to merchandise for themselves, in the hopes that they would stick to their permitted limits and leave the Company's goods alone. And Foulpointe was Madagascar's main slave trading port.

L'Utile departed on 27 June. Three weeks later, on 22 July, it set sail for its return journey. In between, Lafargue had not only filled up the hold with flour, meat, wine, and other necessities, he had also negotiated the purchase of 158 Malagasy men and women, who cost him 10,000 livres. This was something over his yearly salary, but he could expect to sell them in the Mascarenes for twice that⁠—and the buyers would consider it a good deal as long as a slave lived more than three months.The slaves were shoved into the hold and walled up in a compartment separating them from the foodstuffs. The only mitigation in their situation was that L'Utile was not a specialised slave ship, and so they were not chained.

Lafarge's plan was to sell the Malagasy people on the island of Rodrigues, then continue to Île de France (now Mauritius) with the supplies. But on his secret route, there was the Island of Sand, a tiny, treeless, uninhabited volcanic island with a dangerous reef that had been badly plotted on various maps. You guessed it; L'Utile was shipwrecked when the island appeared where Lafarge wasn't expecting it. The surviving French sailors and the Malagasy worked together to built a boat, in which the Frenchmen sailed away, leaving the Malagasy behind. Read the incredible story of the castaways who lived on the island for 15 years at Damn Interesting. The story is also available as a podcast.

This Hoverboard Really Hovers!

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 12:40 PM PDT

I want one, too! Last weekend, people on the streets of Los Angeles were treated to the sight of a guy surfing through the air on a real hoverboard. It wasn't a movie stunt- this is a real quadcopter that's strong enough to lift a person and controllable enough to stand on. It's made by Omni Hoverboards, Inc. and their website says to "Stay tuned for our consumer version". The hoverer in LA was most likely part of that promotion. Here's the company's demonstration video.



Let's just hope the first people who buy the consumer version are as good at staying upright as the guys in these videos. -via Geekologie

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