Nooooooo!!! Oh Well

It turns out resveratrol, that stuff in red wine that had us all feeling virtuous when we drank red wine, is not likely to make us live forever after all.

Good thing I don't drink wine to be virtuous.

I mostly drink it because I can't make clothes out of it.

Tasting Just About as Sweet as Wine

Given my previously expressed interest in wine, I could not help but sit up and take notice (as opposed to lying down and going to sleep, which is my usual response to things) at the report of wine made into clothing (bioalloy project website here, summarized on Skepchick here).

I normally prefer to drink wine rather than wear it, and the fabric looks a little weird (honestly, it looks rather creepily like dried blood in some of the pictures), but I'm all for creative uses of things. This is cool, in a strange sort of way.

Inquiring minds naturally want to know, if you have a dress made of wine, could you chew on it to enjoy the wine later? That could be handy at sporting events and the like, where the concessions are always sooooo expensive.

Also, they probably don't have any good wine. Not that you'd want to use the good wine to make clothing, either.

Don't mind me, thoughtfully gnawing on my sticky-blood-colored sleeve while I watch this riveting baseball action. I'm just eating my garments, as one does at tense moments. Mmm...delicious tense moments.

We're Number One!--By Some Measures

I see this proud nation has achieved an important milestone:

The U.S. passed France as the world’s largest wine-consuming nation for the first time, lifted by its larger population and an interest in wine-and-cheese culture among young Americans.

That's not per capita, however, since the average French citizen still apparently drinks more wine than the average U.S. citizen, so we have room for improvement. Drink up, people!

I saw this on Feministe, where Jill is taking credit for the achievement. She's going to have to share it with me, that's all I'm going to say.

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Career Advice

I have long preferred red wine. I like white perfectly well, nothing wrong with it, but red is more my thing.

The bold flavor, the vivid color, the fact that I have red hair, whatever. The point is, given a choice I will generally pick the red.

I have just revised my personal code to start choosing the white at any event where I'm wearing semi-professional clothing. This follows a dramatic spill this evening that has probably ruined a perfectly good top and pair of trousers. (One of those arm jostling things where splash goes everywhere...totally self-inflicted, so I can't even be filled with righteous rage at some clumsy oaf.)

If I'd been drinking white wine, it would all be good, but as it is? Total suck. I believe in life after stains for clothes, but where am I going to wear stained work clothes? Nowhere. They're as good as dead to me.

So an otherwise pleasant event will unfortunately be forever tainted as "that time when I splashed red wine all over myself and ruined a practically new pair of pants and a tried-and-true sweater."

Note to self: you are a clumsy oaf. Drink white wine.

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Exciting Weekend Plans

Here's what's been on my to-do list:

Read Let the Right One In
Play some Bioshock
Watch some Doctor Who
Drink some wine

Things are proceeding very nicely according to plan so far.

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Latest Sad News

medlineplus4you Twitters the news that a study suggests drinking during pregnancy may increase the chance of a rare form of leukemia in children.

Sigh.

You know, the only reason I was planning to get pregnant was so I could drink wine like a rare wine-dwelling fish, following the popular advice that I'd be "drinking for two now!"

Thanks for ruining everything again, science.

The study shows a 56% increase in the risk for acute myeloid leukemia in children whose mothers drank while pregnant.

The story also notes that while 12% of women in the U.S. report "consuming alcohol" while pregnant, 52% of French women and 60% of Russian women do so. It doesn't say how much alcohol was required to be counted as a 'drinker' in the study, nor whether more alcohol means more risk, nor whether countries with higher rates of maternal alcohol consumption report correspondingly greater numbers of the disease relative to the general population (there are about 700 cases a year in the United States, but it doesn't say how many there are in France and Russia).

As a result, it's hard to really get a firm grip on the absolute danger based on this short report (and I'm too lazy at the moment to track down the actual study), but the general takeaway is, don't drink for two.

Even if you know that kid is totally going to grow up to be a lush...make him or her wait for it!

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Holding the Wine Line

The ND Blog (from NutritionData, to which I turn for all my nutrient-identifying needs), presents "More on alcohol," including a lovely little graphic showing how much one should drink in a day or week to remain at low-risk of negative health effects.

This turns out to be three or four drinks per day, depending on one's biological (I assume) sex, or 7 to 14 drinks per week, likewise.

The graphic is courtesy of the National Institutes of Health's new program, Rethinking Drinking. This NIH site has all kinds of useful stuff: information on how much counts as a 'drink' (not half a bottle, alas), tips for cutting down on drinking, calculators to see how much alcohol is in a beverage, tools for self-evaluation, and more. 

I do not have a drinking problem myself (I declare grandly, while upending a bottle to catch those last precious drops), but this definitely looks like something that needs to be linked on our 'web resources' pages at work. 

I'm on it!

Important News Items

Herewith, the things I read today that made me go "hmm."

Mother Jones asks, "Should You Fear the Killer Robots?"

Well, gosh. How can I say no? It pretty much always seems like a good idea to fear killer robots.

The piece is an interview with Peter Singer, the author of a new book on military technology called Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. Apparently we should indeed fear the killer robots, or at least be wary of them. 

But outright terror seems like an appropriate response to me.

Health Populi reports increased consumer spending on wine and vitamins. The piece suggests that this is a good thing, because it means people are concerned with their health (red wine has that resveratrol, after all). 

This may be so, but I have to wonder, are people buying wine because it's healthy, or because they need some comfort in these trying times? Perhaps we should ask if people are buying good wine.

On reflection, I guess if people were just looking to get drunk, cheap vodka is more economical, so yeah, I'll go with the positive spin.

And Genetics and Health points out a company called MyRedHairGene that (for a mere $119, or $214 for two) promises to test your DNA for genes associated with red hair. There are apparently several variations on a gene called MC1R that will do: a handy piece of trivia for whenever this comes up in conversation.

This is all well and good, but I already know I have a gene variation associated with red hair, so what I'm really interested in is ensuring that this gene triumphs over any other, lesser genes that might try to interfere with my hypothetical offspring's head. 

Can you make my gene invincible, MyRedHairGene? 'Cause that would get my attention. 

Failing that, can you somehow make sure that my offspring's other parent, should he also be a carrier, passes on the proper MC1R variant and not some other shade? Do you offer a way to select for hair color?

Yes, it's true: I'm making light of genetic testing of embryos. For the record, I do not support embryo selection based on MC1R genes, should you ever happen to be in the position of choosing from among several embryos. (Although, all else being equal, if you have to base the decision on something...)

I did learn some interesting tidbits from the MyRedHairGene site, which offers a user-friendly primer on hair color genetics. I'm not taking it very seriously, but I'm curious what sort of response it will get (or has gotten; it's not clear from the site how long it's been in operation).

It claims to have been founded in response to "steady requests" from people wanting to find out if they or their children are carriers, so perhaps there's a real market for this.

Well, I'm all for information! Especially about something as important as red hair. So red on, brave company!

Speaking of Bugs

I saw this alarming article in Stuff@Night detailing the ways in which wine may be vegan/vegetarian-unfriendly (not to mention kind of gross).

It seems--and stands to reason when you think about it--that large numbers of insects and even small mammals tend to get swept up in the grape harvest and may wind up pulverised in the wine-making process. Needless to say, any solid particles of these creatures will be strained out before the wine reaches the bottle and your glass (or, if you're in a hurry, your mouth), but if you're serious about a vegan lifestyle, you have to consider that animals probably did die in the process.

I would imagine, though, that the same must be said about wheat, corn, or pretty much anything that's harvested using the efficient machinery of the modern agricultural process. Those machines aren't selective enough to pick only the part we eat: they're going to sweep a lot of little things up along with it.

Not to mention the insects and small animals that are intentionally killed to prevent them from eating the crops before we get to them.

So if you eat bread, might as well have wine to go with it, that's what I say.

I personally am not a vegan, although I'm sympathetic to the idea, so I'm more interested in the ick-factor of bug juice in my wine. But, as I concluded with regard to food coloring, I'm willing to assume that what I don't know won't hurt me on this. If I can't see bug legs floating around, I'll drink it.

Heck, even if I do see a stray insect limb, I might pick it out and drink it anyway. I hate to waste good wine, after all.