"Flu Fears Halt a Long Decline in Orange Juice Sales"

• Orange juice sales rose 0.9% to 38.66 million gallons in the four weeks ended Jan. 20. 
• That uptick marked the first year-over-year increase in nearly five years, according to Nielsen, though analysts don’t expect this trend to last much beyond flu season.
• Consumption has been dwindling over the past decade for a number of reasons. 
• Greater public awareness of orange juice’s high sugar content has dented its image as a healthy drink. 
• Flavored water, blended beverages like smoothies, and energy drinks such as Red Bull have made traditional fruit juices look staid in the eyes of many consumers, analysts say
• But the most severe flu outbreak in the U.S. in at least eight years has those worried about getting sick turning to this traditional source of vitamin C, helping boost sales for the first time since April 2013.
• Flu pandemics have aided orange juice sales before. In 2009, an outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus, better known as swine flu, helped boosted sales by 8%.
• Scientific research, however, suggests only a tenuous connection between orange juice consumption and flu prevention.

Read the full article (by Julie Wernau in the WSJ) here. 

"A Witness Drew This Terrible Sketch To Help Police Identify A Suspect. It Actually Worked."

Read the story here. 

"Why Does It Cost $32,093 Just To Give Birth In America?"

• America is the most expensive nation in the world to give birth. 
• When things go wrong – from pre-eclampsia to premature birth – costs can quickly spiral into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
• While the data is limited, experts in medical debt say the costs of childbirth factor into thousands of family bankruptcies in America each year.
• It’s nearly impossible to put a price tag on giving birth in America, since costs vary dramatically by state and hospital. But one 2013 study by the the advocacy group Childbirth Connection found that, on average, hospitals charged $32,093 for an uncomplicated vaginal birth and newborn care, and $51,125 for a standard caesarean section and newborn care.
• Insurance typically covers a large chunk of those costs, but families are still often on the hook for thousands of dollars.
• Another estimate from the International Federation of Health Plans put the average amount insurers paid for a vaginal birth in the US at $10,808 in 2015. That is quintuple the IFHP estimate for another industrialized nation, Spain, where it costs $1,950 to deliver a child. 
• Even the luxurious accommodations provided to the Duchess of Cambridge for the birth of the royal family’s daughter Princess Charlotte – believed to have cost up to $18,000 – were cheaper than many births in America.
• Despite these high costs, the US consistently ranks poorly in health outcomes for mothers and infants. The US rate of infant mortality is 6.1 for every 1,000 live births, higher than Slovakia and Hungary, and nearly three times the rate of Japan and Finland. 
• The US also has the worst rate of maternal mortality in the developed world. That means America is simultaneously the most expensive and one of the riskiest industrialized nations in which to have children.
• Nearly half of American mothers are covered by Medicaid, a program available to low income households that covers nearly all birth costs. But people with private insurance still regularly pay thousands of dollars in co-pays, deductibles and partially reimbursed services when they give birth. Childbirth Connection put the average out of pocket childbirth costs for mothers with insurance at $3,400 in 2013.

Read the full article in The Guardian here. 

Switzerland Bans the Boiling Of Live Lobsters. Can They Really Feel Pain?

• The Swiss Federal Council issued an order this week banning cooks in Switzerland from placing live lobsters into pots of boiling water — joining a few other jurisdictions that have protections for the decapod crustaceans. 
• Switzerland’s new measure stipulates that beginning March 1, lobsters must be knocked out — either by electric shock or “mechanical destruction” of the brain — before boiling them, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS.
• The new order also states that lobsters, and other decapod crustaceans, can no longer be transported on ice or in ice water, but must be kept in the habitat they’re used to — saltwater.
• The announcement reignited a long-running debate: Can lobsters even feel pain?
• “They can sense their environment,” said Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, “but they probably don’t have the ability to process pain.”
• A 2013 study in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that crabs avoided electric shocks, suggesting they can, in fact, feel pain. Bob Elwood, one of the study’s authors and a professor at Queen’s University Belfast, told BBC News at the time: “I don’t know what goes on in a crab’s mind. . . . But what I can say is the whole behavior goes beyond a straightforward reflex response and it fits all the criteria of pain.
• However, marine biologist Jeff Shields, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, said it’s unclear whether the reaction to negative stimuli is a pain response or simply an avoidance response. “That’s the problem,” he said, “there’s no way to tell.”
• But because lobsters do not have the neural pathways that mammals have and use in pain response, Shields said he does not believe lobsters feel pain.
• According to an explainer from the Lobster Institute, a research and educational organization, lobsters have a primitive nervous system, akin to an insect, such as a grasshopper. “Neither insects nor lobsters have brains,” according to the institute. “For an organism to perceive pain it must have a complex nervous system. Neurophysiologists tell us that lobsters, like insects, do not process pain.”

Learn more about this fascinating "debate" here. 

Modern Life: "What Happens to All the Salt We Dump On the Roads?"

It’s estimated that more than 22 million tons of salt are scattered on the roads of the U.S. annually...about 137 pounds of salt for every American.

But all that salt has to go somewhere. 

After it dissolves--and is split into sodium and chloride ions--it gets carried away via runoff and deposited into both surface water (streams, lakes and rivers) and the groundwater under our feet.

Because it’s transported more easily than sodium, chloride is the greater concern, and in total, an estimated 40 percent of the country’s urban streams have chloride levels that exceed safe guidelines for aquatic life, largely because of road salt.

A range of studies has found that chloride from road salt can negatively impact the survival rates of crustaceans, amphibians such as salamanders and frogs, fish, plants and other organisms. 

There’s even some evidence that it could hasten invasions of non-native plant species--in one marsh by the Massachusetts Turnpike, a study found that it aided the spread of salt-tolerant invasives.

Recently, in some areas, transportation departments have begun pursuing strategies to reduce salt use. 

Salting before a storm, instead of after, can prevent snow and ice from binding to the asphalt, making the post-storm cleanup a little bit easier and allowing road crews to use less salt overall. Mixing the salt with slight amounts of water allows it to spread more, and blending in sand or gravel lets it to stick more easily and improve traction for cars. 

Elsewhere, municipalities are trying out alternate de-icing compounds. 

Over the past few years, beet juice, sugarcane molasses, and cheese brine, among other substances, have been mixed in with salt to reduce the overall chloride load on the environment. These don’t eliminate the need for conventional salt, but they could play a role in cutting down just how much we dump on the roads.

Read the full article (by Joseph Stromberg for Smithsonian) here.

Surprising-ness: The Economics of Rotisserie Chicken

• Americans bought 625 million rotisserie chickens at supermarkets in 2017.
• With labor costs and competition rising, more stores are relying on rotisserie chickens to draw customers.
• To continue selling them for $5 to $7 each, executives are working to trim supply-chain costs, cook chickens more efficiently and throw fewer of them away unsold.
• Costco has sold rotisserie chickens for $4.99 since 2009. 
• When a bird flu outbreak prompted higher prices for ready-to-cook chickens in 2015, Costco took a $30 million to $40 million profit hit to keep its rotisserie prices steady.
• Commercial chicken farms can get them from hatchling to slaughter in as little as four weeks, one farmer said.
• Most stores display their rotisserie birds under heat lamps for two to four hours, after which they start to dry out. Rather than throw those unsold birds away, some chains are deboning the meat for use in other prepared foods they sell, such as chicken salad or chicken noodle soup.
• “With a four-hour shelf life, there’s not a lot of room to make mistakes,” said Russ Richardson, Kroger Co.’s head of deli.
• The rotisserie craze started in the early 1990s when Boston Chicken, now Boston Market, opened drive-through restaurants selling chicken dinners and sides. Families liked the convenience of a meal that was seen as cheaper and healthier than fast food. Costco and Kroger began selling rotisserie chickens in 1994.
• Nothing else from the ’90s is still this popular today,” said Mariano’s Mr. Fitzgerald.

Learn more (from Annie Gasparro) here and here. 

"Why Does a Vicuña Jacket Cost $21,000?"

If you're perfectly happy with fine cashmere, all this might seem like a lot of trouble to go through for an extra layer of luxury. But come into contact with vicuña and you might, for a moment, think seriously about blowing your children's college funds.

Vicuña coats and jackets have an unparalleled lightness that makes you feel almost buoyant. And then there is the softness. "People love vicuña for the touch," said Mr. Loro Piana. "It's the finest hair on the planet." The diameter of its fiber is 12.5 microns, he explained, while the best cashmere is 13.5 microns and run-of-the-mill cashmere ranges from 14.5 to 17.5.

Incan royalty wore it exclusively. In the 1500s, King Philip II of Spain slept under vicuña blankets. Last century, it was favored by wealthy entertainers: Greta Garbo wore vicuña, as did Nat King Cole and Marlene Dietrich.

Each year, only 13,000 to 17,500 pounds of vicuña become available to Loro Piana, a major purveyor of vicuña garments—a fraction of the 22 million pounds of cashmere the company works with annually. The Italian tailoring house Kiton makes only about 100 vicuña pieces a year; an off-the-rack sport coat costs at least $21,000, while the price of a made-to-measure suit starts at $40,000. A single vicuña scarf from Loro Piana is about $4,000. Ermenegildo Zegna produces just 30 vicuña suits a year. Each is numbered, and the most affordable model goes for $46,500.

The vicuña, a camelid that looks like a smaller and more elegant llama, is found primarily in the Peruvian and northern Argentine Andes. For centuries, it was poached for its valuable cinnamon-colored coat, a marvel of evolution that, although unusually light and fine, keeps the animals warm in the freezing altitudes above 15,000 feet. By the 1960s, the vicuña population had fallen from an estimated two million in the 16th century to roughly 10,000, and Peru took measures to protect vicuñas from extinction, banning the killing and trade of the animals.

Learn more about vicuña and the vicuña here.   

"The Perfect Nap: Sleeping Is a Mix of Art and Science"

Sumathi Reddy has an informative column today in the WSJ about the art and science of sleep.

A few highlights:

• Studies have found different benefits—and detriments—to a nap's timing, duration and even effect on different people, depending on one's age and possibly genetics.
• "Naps are actually more complicated than we realize," said David Dinges, a sleep scientist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. 
• For a quick boost of alertness, experts say a 10-to-20-minute power nap is adequate for getting back to work in a pinch.
• For cognitive memory processing, however, a 60-minute nap may do more good...The downside: some grogginess upon waking.
• Finally, the 90-minute nap will likely involve a full cycle of sleep, which aids creativity and emotional and procedural memory, such as learning how to ride a bike. Waking up after REM sleep usually means a minimal amount of sleep inertia...
• Experts say the ideal time to nap is generally between the hours of 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Napping later in the day could interfere with nighttime sleep.
• A telltale sign of being very sleep-deprived...is dreaming during a short nap. "Definitely in a 20-minute nap you should not be dreaming"...

 Read the full article (and see the full-sized graphic) here. 

If Only...

"Red Cross For Rover: Inside America's Canine Blood Banks"

• America is facing a blood shortage — a shortage of dog blood. 
• Whether Fido tangles with a car and loses, or Barky contracts a blood-damaging disease, dogs — like their people — sometimes need transfusions. 
• And while there's no centralized Red Cross for Rover, there are a few commercial canine blood banks across the country, and many veterinary schools do their own blood banking.
• At Blue Ridge Veterinary Blood Bank in Purcellville, Va., it's all-volunteer.
• At about 26 sites across Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia, teams from Blue Ridge collect blood from regular donor dogs that donate every six weeks or so.
• While the dogs' owners are clearly volunteering — both their time and the gasoline it takes to bring their pups in — phlebotomist Rebecca Pearce insists the dogs volunteer as well. The dogs are rewarded with treats and praise throughout the process, and Pearce practices a few times before taking blood to make sure the animals are comfortable.

Listen to the fascinating, 5-minute story (from NPR's All Things Considered) here. 

Modern Life (As Nailed By the New Yorker)...

 

"Romanian’s Tale Has Art World Fearing the Worst"

To Olga Dogaru, a lifelong resident of the tiny Romanian village of Carcaliu, the strangely beautiful artworks her son had brought home in a suitcase four months earlier had become a curse.

No matter, she said, that the works — seven in all — were signed by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, Lucian Freud and Meyer de Haan. Her son had just been arrested on suspicion of orchestrating the art robbery of the century: stealing masterpieces in a brazen October-night theft from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

But if the paintings and drawings no longer existed...her son, could be free from prosecution, she reasoned. So Mrs. Dogaru told the police that on a freezing night in February, she placed all seven works ... in a wood-burning stove used to heat saunas and incinerated them.

Read the full (NY Times) article here.

Pictured above: Woman With Eyes Closed (2002) by Lucian Freud, one of the stolen works.

"Sleek and Sexy Bus Concepts from the Future that Never Was"

• Our mass transit future looked much cooler in the mid-20th century, with these slick bus designs. Just imagine taking to the roads in these retrofuturistic buses.

See many more here. 

Made My Day.

Modern Life.

"11 Products You Might Not Realize Were Made By Prisoners"

• Prisoners make millions of license plates each year. But what else do they make for us?

Apparently: everything from jeans to canoes to...lingerie (which seems rather cruel to me!). Learn more here. 

"There’s Hope: America’s Libraries Outnumber McDonald’s & Starbucks"

• America is home to about 17,000 public libraries, according to statistician Justin Grimes with the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences. 
• Grimes plotted library locations on Google Maps to show their density and outreach. 
• In the shadow of free knowledge, Starbucks operates [ONLY] about 11,000 stores nationwide, and McDonald’s slings burgers in about 14,000. 

I read it here. 

"Starbucks To Post Nutrition Info At Stores"

• Starbucks announced plans Tuesday to post calorie information for beverages on menu boards at all company operated stores beginning June 25, ahead of a federal regulation that would require it to do so.
• The Seattle-based coffee chain says customers at its more than 11,000 U.S. locations will be able to see that there are 300 calories in a small caramel Frappuccino and 230 calories in a small Iced Caffe Mocha.
• Pastry cases will also show calorie information, in case customers want to save some calories and opt for a Morning Bun (350 calories) instead of a blueberry scone (460 calories).

Learn more here. 

"Sunscreen Each Day Stops Wrinkles"

• Dermatologists have been telling patients for years that using sunscreen regularly can protect skin against aging. Now there's research to back that up.
• In a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers showed that people instructed to apply sunscreen every day showed 24% less skin aging, as measured by lines and coarseness of the skin, than those told to use the cream as they usually do.

Read the article by Katherine Hobson in the WSJ here. 

"Mom Wants Class Photo Retaken After Disabled Son Pushed to the Side"

• A heartbreaking photo of a second grader with spinal muscular atrophy who was forced to "sit out" his class photo went viral over the weekend, sparking accusations of discrimination directed toward the school photography company...
• "I couldn’t comprehend how the photographer could look through the lens and think that this was good composition," Miles Ambridge's mom Anne Belanger told the Toronto Star. "This just boggled the mind."
• The New Westminster, British Columbia, native said she refused to show her 7-year-old the photo — "Look at the angle that he was in. He wants to be part of the gang so much," she told The Province — but did post it on Lifetouch's Facebook page to bring the injustice to the company's attention. 

I saw it here. [And now I want to make a big donation to the kid's college fund.]