Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Science by Karl Kruszelnicki Page B
Authors: Karl Kruszelnicki
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example, lemon juice can break down the amines in fish into nonvolatile ammonium salts, so neutralising the fishy odour. And, second, the acid in lemon juice can hydrolise the tough fibres of collagen in meat, making it more tender. These are real properties of lemon juice.
Perhaps these real properties of lemon juice gave us this fat juicy lemon lie.
And there’s no denying that a twist of lemon juice gives fish an extra zing. But as far as Fat-Fighting Properties go, someone has been squeezing more than the truth from the humble lemon…
Lemon Juice Fades Tattoos!
Sorry, but this is a lie. Lemon juice does not fade tattoos, even if you throw in some exposure to sunlight.
Dr Chapel and his colleagues tested this on rats that had been shaved and tattooed. Lemon juice plus sunlight made no difference to tattoos that were made with Indian ink.
References
Chapel, J.L., et al., ‘Lemon juice, sunlight, and tattoos’, International Journal of Dermatology , September 1983, Vol 22, Issue 7, pp 434-435.
Morgan, J.N., et al., ‘Effects of commonly used cooking practices on total mercury concentration in fish and their impact on exposure assessments’, Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology , Jan-March 1997, Vol 7, No 1, pp 119-133.
Red Hair Extinct
It seems the mere whiff of authority can turn something that is quite obviously silly and lacking credibility into something that people believe.
A good example is the erroneous claim that red (and blond) hair is caused by recessive genes, and will soon vanish from the human gene pool. For the same reason, blue eyes will also supposedly disappear.
Modern Myth
I first heard the myth a few years ago, when a substitute teacher at my daughter’s high school told the class that blue eyes and red hair were carried by ‘recessive’ genes and, therefore, would soon vanish from the population. The mistake was the word ‘therefore’—because recessive genes do not automatically vanish.
But the teacher was not deliberately trying to mislead the students. He was simply relating a story that newspapers and TV stations around the globe were carrying at the time. These media stories foretold the loss of red hair from the gene pool by 2202. A few of the stories mentioned that blond hair would also vanish. (Often they also reported that blue eyes would be lost from our descendants’ gene pool, but this was usually buried deep in thestory—the hair angle seemed to attract more attention from the journalists.)
The story had just enough scientific words thrown in (such as ‘genome’ and ‘recessive genes’) to give it some veracity. A dash of authority and integrity was added by quoting the World Health Organization and/or the seemingly prestigious Oxford Hair Foundation.
In truth, the whole story was a complete furphy. Many people in the news media were conned. But these people were conned only because they didn’t check their facts.
Physics of Measurement
The news media around the world claimed that red and blond hair (and blue eyes) would be extinct by 2202.
This was a remarkably precise (and totally inaccurate) prediction. The original press release from the Oxford Hair Foundation quoted ‘two centuries’. In scientific terms, the ‘precision’ is ‘half the smallest unit’. In this case, the smallest unit is a ‘century’, so ‘two centuries’ means anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 centuries.
The journalists who copied the press release received it in the year 2002. They saw ‘two centuries’ and added 200 years to get the year 2202. But in the case of the year ‘2202’, the precision is half the smallest unit, which is a ‘year’. So, saying that something will happen in 2202 means that it will happen between June/July 2201 and June/July 2203. What the press release originally implied (wrongly) was that the recessive genes would vanish from the gene pool somewhere between 2150 and 2350. (What’s two centuries between friends, and especially
Perhaps these real properties of lemon juice gave us this fat juicy lemon lie.
And there’s no denying that a twist of lemon juice gives fish an extra zing. But as far as Fat-Fighting Properties go, someone has been squeezing more than the truth from the humble lemon…
Lemon Juice Fades Tattoos!
Sorry, but this is a lie. Lemon juice does not fade tattoos, even if you throw in some exposure to sunlight.
Dr Chapel and his colleagues tested this on rats that had been shaved and tattooed. Lemon juice plus sunlight made no difference to tattoos that were made with Indian ink.
References
Chapel, J.L., et al., ‘Lemon juice, sunlight, and tattoos’, International Journal of Dermatology , September 1983, Vol 22, Issue 7, pp 434-435.
Morgan, J.N., et al., ‘Effects of commonly used cooking practices on total mercury concentration in fish and their impact on exposure assessments’, Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology , Jan-March 1997, Vol 7, No 1, pp 119-133.
Red Hair Extinct
It seems the mere whiff of authority can turn something that is quite obviously silly and lacking credibility into something that people believe.
A good example is the erroneous claim that red (and blond) hair is caused by recessive genes, and will soon vanish from the human gene pool. For the same reason, blue eyes will also supposedly disappear.
Modern Myth
I first heard the myth a few years ago, when a substitute teacher at my daughter’s high school told the class that blue eyes and red hair were carried by ‘recessive’ genes and, therefore, would soon vanish from the population. The mistake was the word ‘therefore’—because recessive genes do not automatically vanish.
But the teacher was not deliberately trying to mislead the students. He was simply relating a story that newspapers and TV stations around the globe were carrying at the time. These media stories foretold the loss of red hair from the gene pool by 2202. A few of the stories mentioned that blond hair would also vanish. (Often they also reported that blue eyes would be lost from our descendants’ gene pool, but this was usually buried deep in thestory—the hair angle seemed to attract more attention from the journalists.)
The story had just enough scientific words thrown in (such as ‘genome’ and ‘recessive genes’) to give it some veracity. A dash of authority and integrity was added by quoting the World Health Organization and/or the seemingly prestigious Oxford Hair Foundation.
In truth, the whole story was a complete furphy. Many people in the news media were conned. But these people were conned only because they didn’t check their facts.
Physics of Measurement
The news media around the world claimed that red and blond hair (and blue eyes) would be extinct by 2202.
This was a remarkably precise (and totally inaccurate) prediction. The original press release from the Oxford Hair Foundation quoted ‘two centuries’. In scientific terms, the ‘precision’ is ‘half the smallest unit’. In this case, the smallest unit is a ‘century’, so ‘two centuries’ means anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 centuries.
The journalists who copied the press release received it in the year 2002. They saw ‘two centuries’ and added 200 years to get the year 2202. But in the case of the year ‘2202’, the precision is half the smallest unit, which is a ‘year’. So, saying that something will happen in 2202 means that it will happen between June/July 2201 and June/July 2203. What the press release originally implied (wrongly) was that the recessive genes would vanish from the gene pool somewhere between 2150 and 2350. (What’s two centuries between friends, and especially
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