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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5 days ago
- New York Post
Hungry bear breaks into nursing home, gets walloped with walker before being lured out with Rice Krispies treats
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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Springfield readies for busy weekend with triathlon, Pride parade, convention, graduations
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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. 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Geek Wire
04-06-2025
- 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:
