Beer Bones

Flicking through this months’ Beer Advocate magazine I smiled as I read that beer is the latest wonder food in warding off a disease. This time around osteoporosis is in its frothy sights as new research shows that moderate beer intake can help to protect against weakening of the bones.

And in further good news, beer comes out ahead of wine – again – which was found wanting in preventing brittle bones. It seems that the high levels of silicon found in beer (who knew?!) not only protect against bone breakage, it also helps to boost new bone formation. Magic!!

The study involved 1,700 women with an average age of 48 and found that women who drank beer had stronger bones than those who didn’t. Ultrasound scans of the women’s hands revealed a denser bone structure than those of the non beer drinkers. And, girls, you don’t need to go out and grab slabs of the amber medicine, either, as the tests revealed that there was no difference in the results of those who drank less than a pint a day to those who drank more. Even a little is a lot!

That’s worth raising a glass to, isn’t it? As is the fact that I get to use another of my Sexy Scientist Series!

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

Moron VB

Sorry, I’ll read that again ... MORE ON VB.

The latest instalment of the ongoing saga regarding Australia’s highest selling beer, Victoria Bitter, is up and running.

In previous posts I discussed the reaction to ‘changes’ to VB by its brewer, Carlton & United Breweries. These changes involved dropping the alcohol by volume level of the beer from 4.9% down to 4.8% last year and then again to 4.6% earlier this year. The uproar has been deafening with a conga-line of self confessed career VB drinkers threatening to switch beers because their favourite brew has turned to something worse than water. Some have claimed the courage of their convictions and have already switched brands.

So now we hear rumours that VB has not just changed its alcoholic strength (by a ‘whopping’ .03%) but has in fact become – DAH DAH DAH ... DAAAAAH!!! – a completely different beer! They reckon it has been switched for the 4.6% ABV Fourex, the flagship brew of Queenslanders! And not just a Queensland brew, but one which is brewed by the company’s brewing rival, Lion Nathan. There may be a small flaw in your theory, there, dickheads.

I have managed to procure two stubbies of VB – one of the old 4.8% variety and one of the new 4.6% beasts. I will conduct a strictly controlled secret experiment (secret because you can imagine the damage to my reputation as a Beer Bloke if I were to be seen drinking VB!) and I will post the results.

Again, wish me luck.

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

Beer Goggles

In this weeks instalment of Beer Blokes and Science we present a research piece from the University of Bristol in 2008 which set out to study the;

“Effects of acute alcohol consumption on ratings of attractiveness of facial stimuli: Evidence of long-term encoding,” Alcohol and Alcoholism, 43(6): 636–640.
Lycia L.C. Parker, Ian S. Penton-Voak, Angela S. Attwood, and Marcus R. Munafò.

For you and I, that means; “Is there really such a thing as Beer Goggles?”

Here is their hypothesis.

“A strongly held popular belief is that alcohol increases the perceived attractiveness of members of the opposite sex. Despite this, there are no experimental data that investigate this possibility. We therefore explored the relationship between acute alcohol consumption and ratings of attractiveness of facial stimuli.... We tested participants immediately following consumption of alcohol or placebo and one day later, in order to investigate whether any effects of alcohol persist beyond acute effects....”

And their conclusion;

“Alcohol consumption increases ratings of attractiveness of facial stimuli, and this effect is not selective for opposite-sex faces. In addition, the effects of alcohol consumption on ratings of attractiveness persist for up to 24 h after consumption, but only in male participants when rating female (i.e. opposite-sex) faces.”

This is important scientific research for three reasons.

1. It proves that beer can, in fact, make your world a little better, if only for up to 24 hours,
2. It might encourage normal, well-adjusted people to take up Sciences if they realise you can do stuff that involves drinking lots and lots of beer and then look at nice faces, and
3. It gives me another excuse to use pictures from my ‘Sexy Scientist’ folder.

The only piece of this puzzle that I can’t explain is this;
“We tested participants immediately following consumption of alcohol or placebo ..”
I’m sorry, but what’s an alcohol placebo?
“This group gets some Bavarian Lager and this group ...Hmmm? I know, give ‘em Carlton Cold!”

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

You know what I think of research

Regular readers are probably more than familiar with my general attitude towards most scientific research, but this piece brought a smile to my beer-drinking apparatus. The Brother-in-law works at a venerable Victorian place of special high learning and sent me some interesting lab based tid-bits.

Haven’t we all, at one time or another, sat with a nice beer and pondered the following; “Would it be better to be smashed over the bonce with a full glass bottle – or an empty one?” Wonder no more, Beer Blokes and Blokettes!

From the opening line which boldly states;

“Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. If the bottles break they may give rise to sharp trauma. However, if they remain intact they may cause blunt injuries”,

You just know these guys are fairly serious about their craft. And they don’t miss a thing! They went on to conduct a series of drop tests to determine the force required to break both a full and empty 500ml glass beer bottle versus the force required to break the human skull.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking; “But Professor (Pilsner, not Skullsmasher), surely the impact zone of the bottle, the variable nature of the wall thickness and bottle curvature and its relationship to expected stability have direct implications on the results?”

Well, of course! But don’t worry, these Bar-Fight Poindexters have considered all of this – AND MORE!! What about the fact that beer is an almost uncompressible liquid? Huh? Thought of that too, didn’t they! And the fact that beer is a carbonated liquid and that any impact is likely to cause the bottle to explode if it’s full, thus rendering it a less effective Head Hitter. They thought of that, too.

I can sense that this is all getting a bit too exciting so I will cut to the Money Shot. The team from the University of Bern in Switzerland came up with the following formula and conclusion;

E = (Mn / (Mt + Mn)) x W

where E is the Energy (of course!), Mn is the Mass of the bottle and Mt is the Mass of the body part swinging the bottle i.e, the arm or the shoulder (which can be assumed to weigh 2.4 to 4 kg) and W is the work performed by the muscle.

So how did you do? The team found that through electrohydraulic experiments using human skulls (don’t ask) neurocranial fractures occurred between 14.1 and 68.5J3. Now, as empty and full glass bottles were found to break at forces of 30-40J, respectively, it is clear that both are capable of cracking the thinner parts of the human brain-holder. In addition, empty bottles were sturdier than full ones and took less energy to raise and swing. But I think we all knew that, didn’t we?

They did concede, in the last line of the conclusion that further research was recommended to assess the overall danger of bottle related head trauma. Good for them and I wish them luck!

Next week in ‘Beer and Science’ Beer Blokes will look at the age old question – Does a gutful of lager really make people of the opposite sex better looking?’ No, seriously, Chris sent me some research papers on that as well!

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

Eye spy an opportunity

I read this morning where scientists have developed the technology to coat contact lenses with stem cells to reverse blindness. I didn’t read the whole article so I don’t know wether you send the lenses away to the Poindexters for treatment or wether they send you an embryo and a set of instructions but the idea seemed a good one.

And it got me thinking about the range of possibilities for this brave new world of stem cell technology. I mean, would it be possible to coat the hats of bald men and then, when they got home and took off their hat and said, “Hi Honey, I’m home!”would he look like high-achieving entrepreneurial go-getter, Homer Simpson in the Dimoxinil episode? Or would his wife stab him with a kitchen knife thinking that he was a homicidal intruder? I don’t think science ever really considers all the possible consequences.

What about coating the seats on wheelchairs or the armpit rests on crutches? And speaking of crutches, what would happen if you wore stem cell impregnated jocks for a week? The possibilities are mind boggling.

So how about this; could the labcoats work out a way to put liver and brain cells in beer? Beer would then become a health tonic which replaces damaged cells AS YOU DESTROY THEM!!?

Just a thought.

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner