Miscellaneous
What is Boxing Day?
How soon you forget: Dinner Topics covered Boxing Day last year, but since the networks refuse to run new programming this week, DT will provide this “rerun” for you as well. The original post can be found here, but the details are below as well. The exact reason for the term “Boxing Day” is unclear, [...]
Stem Cell Transplants – a cure for HIV?
If you hear people talking about the “cure for HIV” this week, they are referring to an HIV-positive man in Berlin who underwent a stem cell transplant (back in 2007) for leukemia treatment and is now seemingly void of any HIV infection. The reason the Berlin man’s story is headline news today results from his [...]
Banned beverages? Four Loko thinks it’s crazy
If you’re not a senior in college or a recent graduate, you may not be aware of a new drink craze that started a few years ago that combines malt liquor with caffeine among other energy-providing ingredients. While the drinking public has been mixing caffeinated drinks with booze for decades (“Jack” and Coke, Baileys and [...]
Stranded cruise ship, Spam to the rescue!
The big travel story in the news right now is the stranded cruise ship, stuck in the Pacific Ocean with 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members.1 The result of an engine fire, everyone is safe but refrigeration and air conditioning are no longer available. Currently, the ship is being towed to shore, likely to San [...]
What is the Twinkie diet?
One trending topic over the past couple days has been the Twinkie diet, thanks to a CNN story and a nutrition professor. Let me explain: Mark Haub, nutrition professor from Kansas State University, lost 27 pounds in 10 weeks in a diet experiment which consisted of him eating mainly junk food like Twinkies, Nutty Bars, [...]
Food Recall Procedures
It has just been announced that another food recall in the United States is taking place. This time around, it’s specific frozen vegetables sold in various Kroger and Wal-Mart stores. The recall suggests the possibility of glass fragments in the vegetables, so check your facts here. In the meantime, there are a few things you [...]
Chilean miners rescued! Live feed ongoing.
Dinner Topics wrote about the trapped Chilean miners back in August, and at the time, it was thought that the rescue might not be complete until Christmas. Way ahead of schedule, however, the miners are methodically being rescued one by one with the last of the 33 miners expected to be pulled up by Thursday [...]
Wrong Way on a Segway?
Yesterday, 62-year-old British millionaire Jimi Heselden, owner of Segway Inc., was found dead in the River Wharfe in Northern England. A rugged-country version of his Segway vehicle was found near his feet, and officials speculate he rode the scooter off a cliff to his death in the most improbable of freak accidents. Unveiled in 2001, [...]
