Neatorama

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• The Lie Of ‘Expired Food’
• This Cat Just Wanted Some Milk
• Why Do We Buy What We Buy?
• An Ancient Christian Sect of Nudists
• New Trapdoor Spiders Named After Celebrities
• The Bug the World Fought Over
• World War II Spawned America’s Shark Obsession

The Lie Of ‘Expired Food’ Posted: 12 Jul 2021 02:39 AM PDT Do you throw your food away when it gets past its labeled 'expiration date'? Frankly, while this action is understandable, as eating 'expired' food may squick you out, on some level, throwing away food is wasteful. Vox's Alicia Wilkinson reports that throwing out uneaten food is bad for the environment. Landfills in the US are piled with wasted food, with most of which was still perfectly fine to eat. So how do we stop ourselves from wasting food? We need to look past the 'expiration dates,' Wilkinson believes:  Apparently, very wrong. Researchers have found that "expiration" dates — which rarely correspond to food actually expiring or spoiling — are mostly well-intentioned, but haphazard and confusing. Put another way, they're not expiration dates at all. And the broader public's misunderstanding about them is a major contributor in every single one of the factors I named above: wasted food, wasted revenue, wasted household income, and food insecurity. If you've been throwing out food based on the freshness label, though, you're not alone. It's a widespread practice. Chef, journalist, and cookbook writer Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, explains: "In the absence of culinary information, people assume that any information they've been given must be the most important information." A big part of the problem is that most of us don't really believe we're capable of determining if a food is good for us. "It's really hard to imagine you're supposed to trust your own nose and mouth," Adler said. "Add that to convenience culture and rapacious late-stage capitalism and, well, we're fucked." Image credit: Jimmy Dean

This Cat Just Wanted Some Milk Posted: 11 Jul 2021 09:03 PM PDT You've seen videos of cats vocalizing while they eat. This one, however, has a definite melody in his voice. South African musician The Kiffness noticed it, and turned it into a song. A simple duet between a man and a cat. As you see, he couldn't help but incorporate Ievan Polkka into the mix. The "Balkan remix" went viral, and before you know it, musicians from all over the world were joining in. Continue reading to see what they did with it. Oh yeah, keep your eye on the drummer. -via Metafilter

Why Do We Buy What We Buy? Posted: 11 Jul 2021 09:03 PM PDT Embed from Getty Images Consumerism is what drives the economy in a capitalist society, so buying more stuff is a good thing, right? Not always. Buying more stuff than we can afford can ruin one's personal finances. Many of us end up with way more stuff than we need. All that unnecessary stuff takes a lot of energy and resources to produce, and getting rid of it overflows our landfills. So why do we buy so much stuff?      An easy story to tell is that marketers and advertisers have perfected tactics to convince us to purchase things, some we need, some we don't. And it's an important part of the country's capitalistic, growth-centered economy: The more people spend, the logic goes, the better it is for everybody. (Never mind that they're sometimes spending money they don't have, or the implications of all this production and trash for the planet.) People, naturally, want things. But American consumerism is also built on societal factors that are often overlooked. We have a social impetus to "keep up with the Joneses," whoever our own version of the Joneses is. And in an increasingly unequal society, the Joneses at the very top are doing a lot of the consuming, while the people at the bottom struggle to keep up or, ultimately, are left fighting for scraps. That drive to keep up with the Joneses and display our status with consumer goods hasn't followed an even trajectory, as our references (meaning the people we want to keep up with) have gone through changes. Sociologist Juliet Schor explains how our buying habits have changed with the times and why at Vox. -via Digg

An Ancient Christian Sect of Nudists Posted: 11 Jul 2021 08:28 PM PDT In the early Christian church, different sects interpreted the scriptures in many different ways. The second century Adamites based their culture on Adam and Eve, and lived their lives as if they existed before sin. That meant no clothing, no marriage, and no laws. They might even be seen as ancient hippies. Another thing they had in common with hippies is that they annoyed the surrounding establishment, Christian or otherwise.     Adherents of an early Christian group in North Africa between the 2nd and 4th centuries, this forgotten society lasted longer than America is old, and was also revived hundreds of years later in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages. Various factions in Bohemia also took up the doctrines of this obscure sect, but were met with firm opposition from the mainstream churches. The Bohemian Adamites took to the practice of parading naked through towns and villages, preaching that God considered exclusive marriage to be a sin. They lived in lawlessness, maintaining that such concepts of monogamy would never had existed but for sin. Historian Norman Cohn explains that "in this sect free love seems to have been the rule. The Adamites declared that the chaste were unworthy to enter the Messianic kingdom … The sect was much given to ritual naked dances held around a fire. Indeed, these people seemed to have spent much of their time naked, ignoring the heat and cold and claiming to be in the state of innocence enjoined by Adam and Eve." The sect was also often criticised for "never thinking of earning their own living by the work of their hands". Despite occasional revivals, the Adamites were pretty much squashed out of existence all at once. Read how that happened at Messy Nessy Chic. -via Strange Company (Image credit: Rolf Kranz)

New Trapdoor Spiders Named After Celebrities Posted: 11 Jul 2021 10:44 AM PDT Until recently, there were only 27 species of trapdoor spider, which are found all over the world. However, it's been 50 years since any new species of the genus Ummidia were described, and the technical tools for examine the species (meaning DNA) has come a long way. Rebecca Godwin and Jason Bond from UC Davis have now reworked the spiders' taxonomy and have reclassified and named 33 new species among spiders that have already been studied. You can imagine the opportunity for naming this presented. U. neilgaimani, U. gingoteague, U. rongodwini, U. okefenokee, U. richmond, U. macarthuri, U. colemanae, U. rosillos, U. mercedesburnsae, U. paulacushingae, U. waunekaae, U. gertschi, U. timcotai, U. gabrieli, U. pesiou, U. rodeo, U. huascazaloya, U. anaya, U. cuicatec, U. brandicarlileae, U. riverai, U. frankellerae, U. hondurena, U. yojoa, U. matagalpa, U. carlosviquezi, U. varablanca, U. quepoa, U. cerrohoya, U. quijichacaca, U. tibacuy, U. neblina, U. tunapuna. You might recognize some of the names. U. neilgaimani is for author Neil Gaiman, who had another spider named for him in January. U. gabrieli is named for musician Peter Gabriel, U. brandicarlileae is for singer Brandi Carlile, and quite a few others are named for scientists. -via Boing Boing

The Bug the World Fought Over Posted: 11 Jul 2021 10:44 AM PDT Paints, dyes, and other colorants have been very important in history- particularly those colors that are hard to manufacture. Red was among those up until Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas and found native industries cranking out red dye from the cochineal insect.    Spain, realizing it had a precious product, cornered the market on cochineal red. It became one of their most valuable exports from Mexico, second only to silver. They even put laws on the books to protect cochineal—and the mysterious bug that created it. "You couldn't take gold or silver or cochineal out of Spain, without authorization, on pain of death," Greenfield says. The country also had strong censorship policies to control information about cochineal and keep it from other countries. For years, Europeans remained unaware that the dye came from an insect. Many wondered if the dried cochineal that formed dyes was some sort of plant or animal. Once the secret source of Spain's coveted dye eventually got out, it wasn't long before Europe's monarchies were plotting ways to fight—and kill—for it. Read the history of cochineal red and how it took Europe by storm at Mental Floss. -via Strange Company (Image credit: José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez)

World War II Spawned America’s Shark Obsession Posted: 11 Jul 2021 10:44 AM PDT Embed from Getty Images Are Americans obsessed with sharks? Well, in 1975, Jaws defined what we now call the summer blockbuster. And Shark Week still draws audiences more than 30 years after it began. But the real obsession with sharks began earlier, when Americans were put in real danger from sharks. That wasn't their greatest danger, because we're talking about World War II. But it was the time that millions of Americans were introduced to ship travel in the armed forces, where surviving an enemy attack could lead to yet more danger. Local newspapers across the country transfixed civilians and servicemen alike with frequent stories of bombed ships and aircraft in the open ocean. Journalists consistently described imperiled servicemen who were rescued or dying in "shark-infested waters." Whether sharks were visibly present or not, these news articles magnified a growing cultural anxiety of ubiquitous monsters lurking and poised to kill. The naval officer and marine scientist H. David Baldridge reported that fear of sharks was a leading cause of poor morale among servicemen in the Pacific theater. General George Kenney enthusiastically supported the adoption of the P-38 fighter plane in the Pacific because its twin engines and long range diminished the chances of a single-engine aircraft failure or an empty fuel tank: "You look down from the cockpit and you can see schools of sharks swimming around. They never look healthy to a man flying over them." There were some fairly terrifying incidents of ship attack survivors being eaten by sharks, drawn by the blood of the wounded and the dead. Read about the rise of shark fear and how it lingers all these years later at The Conversation. -via Damn Interesting

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