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| MOSAIC: Tackling diabetes
Gondolas left high and dry THE gondolas are running aground and hotel docks hang in midair as Italy’s lagoon city Venice, more commonly awash at high tide, dries out because of good weather and an unusual combination of planetary influences. Only the Grand Canal, Venice’s biggest and most famous waterway, can still take water traffic, and the falling canal levels have given rise to terms such as “ghost town” and “desert” in local papers. “The phenomenon is due to low pressure, that is, the good weather that coincides with the syzygy, the alignment of the moon, earth and sun,” said Venice’s tides office. The new moon this week has helped push water levels to their lowest point in more than a decade, nearly 80 cm (2.5 feet) below sea level, it said. The lowest fall on record was 1.21 metres below sea level in 1934. The city assured tourists that water levels would soon start rising again, restoring the romantic look they expect, and reminded Venetians they could check the water level at the city’s Internet site www.comune.venezia.it. Can juice boxes be recycled? JUICE box packaging, which is called “aseptic,” was originally invented to safely ship foods without the need for refrigeration and for use by recipients who lacked refrigeration. In fact, the invention has helped feed many needy people in the developing world. In the United States, the boxes are mostly a convenience, and their environmental impact is a mixed bag. On the upside, the light, durable aseptic boxes have a higher product-to-packaging ratio than glass or aluminium cans, and the square shape allows for more efficient transport. Aseptic containers have no sharp edges and can be readily collapsed after use. Also, the opaque container protects the contents from the potentially harmful effects of light, which has been particularly valuable for sensitive soy products. On the down side, most aseptic packages are made up of a mix of material: 70 per cent paper, 24 per cent polyethylene and six per cent aluminium. As a result, the boxes are relatively hard to recycle and only those few recycling facilities that process polyethylene-coated papers found in milk cartons and frozen food paperboard can handle aseptic containers. While more than 12 million US households have the ability to recycle the material (there are 276 drop sites in 26 states), actual recycling rates are quite low. Since this type of packaging is such a small part of the waste stream (between 0.03 and 0.1 per cent of the total), most recycling programmes simply ignore it. The recyclability of the technology has been so contentious that aseptic packages were even banned in Maine for a few years, although seven Maine communities now recycle them. — Samina Iqbal | ||
WALNUTS are distinguished from other nuts by virtue of their higher polyunsaturated fat content — linolenic acid content, combined with antioxidants in the form of — tocopherol, states a recent issue of Diabetes Care.|
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