The barbecuing myth that ‘dirt adds flavour' is dangerous health risk
The barbecuing myths that 'dirt adds flavour' and 'flames kill off bacteria' are dangerous health risks, according to an expert. Professor Christopher Elliott, founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast, revealed such notions pose a serious health risk to those across the country heading into BBQ season. A laissez-faire approach to cleaning your barbecue, including not checking the internal temperature of your meat or simply scraping a grill 'clean', could leave you – and your guests – in a spot of bother. It comes after research of 2,000 barbecue enthusiasts found one in six (15 per cent) believe flames kill off bacteria – with 27 per cent confident dirt adds flavour. Professor Elliott, who is consulting with Oven Pride [https://www.ovenpride.com/], commissioned the research to launch its 'Grill With Pride' campaign to encourage people to properly scrub their barbecue and grill regularly, said: 'A dirty grill is not a badge of honour – it's a serious health risk.
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New York Post
4 days ago
- New York Post
Hungry bear breaks into nursing home, gets walloped with walker before being lured out with Rice Krispies treats
His stomach was growling for geezers! A hungry black bear broke into a Pittsburgh-area nursing home and wreaked havoc — forcing a caretaker to whack him with a walker while others coaxed him with Rice Krispies treats, workers said Friday. 'I grabbed a walker and was hitting him, trying to get him away from the residents,' nursing assistant Charlene Elliot told CBS News. Advertisement A young black bear broke into St. Andrew's Village, a nursing home located in Indiana, Pennsylvania, leading a caretaker to whack the animal before other members of the building coaxed him with Rice Krispies treats. WPXI-TV News Pittsburgh '[I thought] he's going to maul them or swipe, slap at them. That was my worst fear.' The ballsy young bruin smashed through a window at St. Andrew's Village in Indiana, Pennsylvania, at 11 p.m. Tuesday, and made a b-line for an elderly resident's bed, Elliott said. Advertisement 'I was sitting there at our nurse's station and I heard a big crash,' Elliott told Channel 11. 'Going through my mind was, 'Get the thing out of here!'' The un-bear-able burglar high-tailed it down a hallway into several bedrooms — at one point coming nearly nose-to-nose with an elderly resident, Elliott told the station. 'He could have mauled him. I mean, one swipe,' Elliott said. Advertisement The bear made its way into the nursing home at around 11 p.m. Tuesday and made a b-line for a resident's bed, said nursing assistant Charlene Elliot. WPXI-TV News Pittsburgh 'I told them all to shut the doors. Get the doors all shut!' Meanwhile, another resident offered the critter a sandwich in an attempt to lure him out of the building. 'She's like 'Well, go ahead and give it my sandwich!' and I'm like, 'No, we can't do that!' Elliott said. Advertisement Staffers eventually succeeded at shooing the animal out of the center using the lure of Rice Krispies treats, she said. All told, the 150-pound bear was inside the retirement home for about 15 minutes and nobody was injured. Wildlife officials later captured the bear using a trap, set up with donuts, Thursday morning. 'We are incredibly proud of our team's quick thinking and dedication to ensuring the safety of everyone in our community,' Presbyterian Senior Living, which runs the home, said in a press release.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Springfield readies for busy weekend with triathlon, Pride parade, convention, graduations
SPRINGFIELD — Visitors should buckle up for a busy weekend downtown with tens of thousands of people expected to converge for multiple major events. The Pride parade, block party and You Ball is expected to attract some 10,000 people on Saturday, and the Ironman competition will bring in more than 1,300 competitors, plus family and friends who will watch on Sunday. And that's just a start. The Massachusetts Veterans of Foreign Wars is holding its 105th convention, restaurant week is kicking off, MGM is offering a free concert, the Springfield school district is hosting its third Family Expo for its 23,700 students and their families, and there are multiple graduations and one prom scheduled, said Springfield Police Lt. Brian Elliott, who is part of a team of police who have been preparing for months for one of the city's busiest weekends of the year. Elliott said, yes, there will be traffic, especially with the road closures from the Pride events and Ironman, but the city is prepared, and there will be police in cruisers and on bikes at the ready, and others stationed in key areas to keep vehicles moving. 'It's a good problem to have. Things are beginning to jell in Springfield,' he said. When asked if so many events benefit the city or just cause chaos and turn people off, most agree with Elliott. 'I say, 'Bring it on,'' Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said. 'As long as we can cover it logistically, the more the merrier.' Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she only sees good things coming out of the combination of events. With many athletes coming a day or more early, for example, she said they can take advantage of the city's restaurant week. Neither she nor Sarno said they are worried about parking, especially with the recent opening of the new 817-space parking garage across from the MassMutual Center. There are also multiple other garages and on-street parking spots scattered across the city. 'A lot of activity shows the city is vibrant, which is good,' Wydra said. 'People will say, 'Wow, I want to come back here.'' Sarno urged people to be patient with the traffic, but added police, fire, Public Works and parks employees all have been working together for weeks and even months to develop a logistical plan to ensure everything goes smoothly, so people have fun first. On Thursday, about 75 people from area police and fire departments, state police, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, emergency medical personnel and others gathered in West Springfield to go over the final details of the Ironman competition on Sunday. Some of the biggest road closures on Sunday will be the Memorial Bridge from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Hall of Fame Avenue between the bridge and State Street from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Main Street between Hall of Fame Avenue and Longhill Street between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Court Street will be closed on Saturday and Sunday, but there will be one travel lane left open to give people attending graduations easy access to Symphony Hall, Elliott said. The race will go through seven communities, including Agawam, Southwick and Suffield, Connecticut. Public safety officials said they already have posted no parking signs along the route, and letters have been mailed to residents who live on the streets where cyclists will ride. There were some concerns about cyclists' safety in the past, so race officials rode with police to review the route. They identified potential trouble spots, and those will have extra personnel to ensure everyone is safe. There will be additional road closings in Springfield on Saturday because of the Pride parade and block party. State and Main streets will be closed a little before noon for the parade, which will begin at Springfield Technical Community College, travel down State, turn onto Main Street and end on Worthington. The block party will follow at Stearns Square with a short section of Worthington and Bridge — between the park and Main Street — to be closed for the free event, said Taurean Bethea, president and founder of the Springfield Pride Parade. Pride also has spent countless hours with city officials to develop a plan to ensure people can get in and out without problems. 'We have a great partnership with the Springfield Police Department, and we bring in our own security team,' he said. 'We are in trying times, and we want to make sure everyone is safe and protected.' Like many, Bethea said he sees the busy weekend as more of a plus than a minus and said Pride is welcoming to everyone, so he hopes people who come to Springfield for the Ironman or the other events also will check out the wealth of entertainment at the block party. He said he thinks there is plenty of places to park for all the events, especially with the new parking garage. He also hopes those coming to the city to attend Pride will consider stay an extra day to watch the triathlon. 'I think it will be amazing,' he said. 'People get to see a weekend full of events from Pride (to) Ironman, and they get to see how great this city is.' Ironman is owned by Advance, which also owns The Republican, and Reminder Publishing. Read the original article on MassLive.


Geek Wire
7 days ago
- Geek Wire
Software suggests Rubin Observatory will discover millions of solar system objects in its first year
A new type of computer simulation predicts that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will discover 2.85 million previously undetected objects in the solar system in its first year of operation, with millions more to be spotted in the years that follow. The discovery campaign, which is due to begin in earnest later this year, should expand the known population of small bodies in the solar system by a factor of four to nine, said University of Washington astronomer Mario Juric, a member of the research team behind the open-source Sorcha simulation software. 'With this data, we'll be able to update the textbooks of solar system formation and vastly improve our ability to spot — and potentially deflect — the asteroids that could threaten Earth,' Juric said today in a news release. Several studies describing the software and the predictions have been accepted for publication by The Astronomical Journal. The project was led by researchers from Queen's University Belfast in collaboration with colleagues from UW, the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The software's name is derived from the Gaelic word for 'brightness.' Sorcha starts with the Rubin Observatory's planned observing schedule, factors in how the telescope makes its observations, and matches up those capabilities with the best model for the current state of the solar system and its reservoirs of small bodies such as asteroids. 'Accurate simulation software like Sorcha is critical,' said Queen's University astronomer Meg Schwamb, who led the research team. 'It tells us what Rubin will discover and lets us know how to interpret it. Our knowledge of what objects fill Earth's solar system is about to expand exponentially and rapidly.' The software suggests that, over the course of a 10-year campaign known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, Rubin will map more than 5 million main-belt asteroids, 127,000 near-Earth objects, 109,000 Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit, 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects and about 2,000 orbit-crossing objects known as Centaurs. Jake Kurlander, a UW doctoral student who's the principal author of one of the studies, said Rubin's observations should double the number of known asteroids in the solar system in less than a year. 'Rubin's unparalleled combination of breadth and depth make it a uniquely effective discovery machine,' he said. The observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope — which is named after the family of Seattle software pioneer Charles Simonyi — is designed to observe small bodies multiple times using different optical filters, revealing their surface colors. Past solar system surveys typically made observations using a single filter. 'With the LSST catalog of solar system objects, our work shows that it will be like going from black-and-white television to brilliant color,' said Joe Murtagh, a doctoral student at Queen's University. The Rubin Observatory team has already started making preliminary observations and will share some of those early images at a First Look event on June 23. Check out for more information about the Sorcha simulation software. The Rubin Observatory is funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, with additional support from other organizations and private contributors including Charles Simonyi and Bill Gates. The research papers relating to the Sorcha project include: