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Hubble Celebrates Its 19th Anniversary with a "Fountain of Youth"
Over the past 19 years Hubble has taken dozens of exotic pictures of galaxies going "bump in the night" as they collide with each other and have a variety of close encounters of the galactic kind. Just when you thought these interactions couldn't look any stranger, this image of a trio of galaxies, called Arp 194, looks like one of the galaxies has sprung a leak. The bright blue streamer is really a stretched spiral arm full of newborn blue stars. This typically happens when two galaxies interact and gravitationally tug at each other.
Resembling a pair of owl eyes, the two nuclei of the colliding galaxies can be seen in the process of merging at the upper left. The blue bridge looks like it connects to a third galaxy. In reality the galaxy is in the background and not connected at all. Hubble's sharp view allows astronomers to try and visually sort out what are foreground and background objects when galaxies, superficially, appear to overlap. This picture was issued to celebrate the 19th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1990. During the past 19 years Hubble has made more than 880,000 observations and snapped over 570,000 images of 29,000 celestial objects.
(An interactive version of this document is available in the "Related Links" section of this release.)
When Galileo used his homemade telescope 400 years ago to view mountains on the Moon, satellites circling Jupiter, and a myriad of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, he launched a revolution that changed our view of an Earth-centered universe. The launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope aboard the space shuttle Discovery 19 years ago initiated another revolution in astronomy. For the first time, a large telescope that sees in visible light began orbiting above Earth's distorting atmosphere, which blurs starlight and makes images appear fuzzy. Astronomers anticipated great discoveries from Hubble. The telescope has delivered as promised and continues serving up new discoveries. Astronomers and astrophysicists using Hubble data have published more than 7,500 scientific papers, on topics from the solar system to the very distant universe. The following list highlights some of Hubble's greatest achievements.
Shining a Light on Dark Matter
Astronomers studying titanic collisions between clusters of galaxies have collected strong evidence that dark matter exists.
Their observations of the galaxy cluster 1E0657-56, also known as the "Bullet Cluster," found that dark matter and normal matter were pulled apart by the smashup between two groupings of galaxies. This study was the first direct detection for dark matter, an invisible substance that cannot be detected by telescopes. Dark matter makes up most of the total mass of the universe and forms its underlying structure. Dark matter's gravity interacts with normal matter, such as gas and dust, allowing it to build up into stars and galaxies.
Astronomers infer dark matter's existence by measuring its gravitational influence. They measured the way in which the Bullet Cluster warped or distorted space, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, where gravity from the clusters distorts light from background galaxies. Astronomers found that dark matter and normal matter were pulled apart by the tremendous collision of the two clusters of galaxies. Hubble teamed up with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, and the Magellan optical telescopes to make the discovery.
In another Hubble gravitational lensing study of the galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17, astronomers discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during a clash between two groups of massive galaxies. Astronomers have long suspected that such clusters would fly apart if they relied only on the gravity from their visible stars. The ring is a ripple of dark matter that was pulled apart from normal matter during the collision.
Computer simulations of galaxy cluster collisions show that when two clusters smash together, the dark matter falls to the center of the combined cluster and sloshes back out. As the dark matter moves outward, it begins to slow down under the pull of gravity and pile up. The observations of Cl 0024+17 allowed astronomers to study the way in which dark matter responds to gravity.
Astronomers also used Hubble to make the first three-dimensional map of dark matter, considered the construction scaffolding of the universe. They constructed the map by using Hubble to measure the shapes of half a million faraway galaxies.
The new map provides the best evidence to date that normal matter, largely in the form of galaxies, accumulates along the densest concentrations of dark matter. The map, which stretches halfway back to the beginning of the universe, reveals a loose network of filaments that grew over time and intersect in massive structures at the locations of galaxy clusters.
An Accelerating Universe
By witnessing bursts of light from faraway exploding stars, Hubble helped astronomers discover dark energy. This mysterious, invisible energy exerts a repulsive force that pervades our universe.
Several years later, Hubble provided evidence that dark energy has been engaged in a tug of war with gravity for billions of years. Dark energy, which works in opposition to gravity, shoves galaxies away from each other at ever-increasing speeds, making the universe expand at an ever-faster pace.
But dark energy wasn't always in the driver's seat. By studying distant supernovae, Hubble traced dark energy all the way back to 9 billion years ago, when the universe was less than half its present size. During that epoch, dark energy was struggling with gravity for control of the cosmos, obstructing the gravitational pull of the universe's matter even before it began to win the cosmic tug of war. Dark energy finally won the struggle with gravity about 5 billion years ago.
By knowing more about how dark energy behaves over time, astronomers hope to gain a better understanding of what it is. Astronomers still understand almost nothing about dark energy, even though it appears to comprise about 70 percent of the universe's energy.
Galaxies from the Ground Up
Hubble provided solid evidence that galaxies grew over time to become the giant galaxies we see today.
The telescope snapped images of galaxies in the faraway universe in a series of unique observations: the Hubble Deep Fields, the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, and as part of an armada of observatories in the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey. Some of the galaxies existed when the cosmos was only 700 million years old. The observations provided the deepest views of the cosmos in visible, ultraviolet, and near-infrared light.
In the most recent foray into the universe's farthest regions, Hubble uncovered a rich tapestry of at least 50,000 galaxies. The galaxies unveiled by Hubble are smaller than today's giant galaxies, reinforcing the idea that large galaxies built up over time as smaller galaxies collided and merged. Many of the galaxies are ablaze with star birth.
By studying galaxies at different epochs, astronomers can see how galaxies change over time. The process is analogous to a very large scrapbook of pictures documenting the lives of children from infancy to adulthood.
The deep views also revealed that the early universe was a fertile breeding ground for stars. Observations showed that the universe made a significant portion of its stars in a torrential firestorm of star birth that abruptly lit up the pitch-dark heavens just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Though stars continue to be born today in galaxies, the star-birth rate is about half the rate of the opulent early years.
Hubble Photographs a Planet
Astronomers used Hubble to make the first visible-light snapshot of an extrasolar planet and to explore an exoplanet's atmosphere.
The Hubble images show the planet, named Fomalhaut b, as a tiny point source of light orbiting the nearby, bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis. An immense debris disk about 21.5 billion miles across surrounds the star. Fomalhaut b is orbiting 1.8 billion miles inside the disk's sharp inner edge.
The telescope also for the first time sampled the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, the Jupiter-sized planet HD 209458b. Hubble detected sodium, oxygen, and carbon.
Probing the atmosphere of another extrasolar planet, Hubble discovered carbon dioxide and methane, organic compounds that, under the right circumstances, can be by-products of life processes. The Jupiter-sized planet, called HD 189733b, is too hot for life. But the Hubble observations demonstrate that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars.
Peering into the crowded bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy, Hubble looked farther than ever before to nab a group of planet candidates outside our solar system.
Astronomers used Hubble to conduct a census of Jupiter-sized extrasolar planets residing in the bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy. Looking at a narrow piece of sky, the telescope nabbed 16 potential alien worlds orbiting a variety of stars. Astronomers have estimated that about 5 percent of stars in the galaxy may have Jupiter-sized, star-hugging planets. This discovery means there are probably billions of such planets in our Milky Way.
Five of the newly found planet candidates represent a new extreme type of planet. Dubbed Ultra-Short-Period Planets, these worlds whirl around their stars in less than an Earth day. Astronomers made the discoveries by measuring the slight dimming of a star as a planet passed in front of it, an event called a transit.
Monster Black Holes Are Everywhere
Hubble probed the dense, central regions of galaxies and provided decisive evidence that supermassive black holes reside in many of them. Giant black holes are compact "monsters" weighing millions to billions the mass of our Sun. They have so much gravity that they gobble up any material that ventures near them.
These elusive "eating machines" cannot be observed directly, because nothing, not even light, escapes their grasp. But the telescope provided indirect, yet compelling, evidence of their existence. Hubble helped astronomers determine the masses of several black holes by measuring the velocities of material whirling around them.
The telescope's census of many galaxies showed an intimate relationship between galaxies and their resident black holes. The survey revealed that a black hole's mass is dependent on the weight of its host galaxy's bulge, a spherical region consisting of stars in a galaxy's central region. Large galaxies, for example, have massive black holes; less massive galaxies have smaller black holes. This close relationship may be evidence that black holes co-evolved with their galaxies, feasting on a measured diet of gas and stars residing in the hearts of those galaxies.
The Biggest Explosions in the Universe
Imagine a powerful burst of light and other radiation that can burn away the ozone in Earth's atmosphere. Luckily, flashes of such strong radiation occur so far away they will not scorch our planet. These brilliant flashbulbs are called gamma-ray bursts. They may represent the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang.
Hubble images showed that these brief flashes of radiation arise from far-flung galaxies, which are forming stars at enormously high rates. Hubble's observations confirmed that the bursts of light originated from the collapse of massive stars.
Astronomers using Hubble also found that a certain type of extremely energetic gamma-ray bursts are more likely to occur in galaxies with fewer heavy elements, such as carbon and oxygen. The Milky Way galaxy, which is rich in heavy elements released by many generations of stars, is therefore an unlikely place for them to pop off.
Planet Construction Zones
Astronomers used Hubble to confirm that planets form in dust disks around stars. The telescope showed that a previously detected planet around the nearby star Epsilon Eridani is orbiting at a 30-degree angle to our line of sight, the same inclination as the star's dust disk. Although astronomers had long inferred that planets form in such disks, this is the first time the two objects have been observed around the same star.
Some stars have more than one dust disk. Hubble images of the nearby star Beta Pictoris revealed two such disks. The observation confirmed a decade of speculation that a warp in the young star's dust disk may actually be a second disk inclined to the star. The best explanation for the second disk is that an unseen planet, up to 20 times Jupiter's mass, is orbiting it and using gravity to sweep up material from the primary disk.
The telescope also witnessed the early stages of planet formation when it observed a blizzard of particles around a star. The fluffy particles are evidence of planet formation because they were probably shed by much larger, unseen, snowball-sized objects that had collided with each other.
Going Out in a Blaze of Glory
A Sun-like star ends its life in a blaze of glory, much as trees display colorful foliage in autumn before the barrenness of winter. Sun-like stars die gracefully by ejecting their outer gaseous layers into space. Eventually, the outer layers begin to glow in vibrant colors of red, blue, and green. The colorful glowing shroud is called a planetary nebula.
Hubble revealed unprecedented details of the death of Sun-like stars. Ground-based images suggested that many of these objects had simple spherical shapes. Hubble showed, however, that their shapes are more complex. Some look like pinwheels, others like butterflies, and still others like hourglasses.
Turning its vision to the tattered remains of a massive star's explosive death, Hubble helped astronomers rewrite the textbooks on exploding stars. The telescope's observations of Supernova 1987A showed that the real world is more complicated and interesting than anyone could imagine. Hubble began observing the supernova shortly after the telescope was launched in 1990.
Among Hubble's findings were three mysterious rings of material encircling the doomed star. The telescope also spied brightened spots on the middle ring's inner region, caused by an expanding wave of material from the explosion slamming into it.
How Old is the Universe?
Hubble observations allowed astronomers to calculate a precise age for the universe using two independent methods. The findings reduced the uncertainty to 10 percent. The first method relied on determining the expansion rate of the universe, a value called the Hubble constant. In May 1999 a team of astronomers obtained a value for the Hubble constant by measuring the distances to nearly two dozen galaxies, some as far as 65 million light-years from Earth. By obtaining a value for the Hubble constant, the team then determined that the universe is about 13 billion years old.
In the second method astronomers calculated a lower limit for the universe's age by measuring the light from old, dim, burned-out stars, called white dwarfs. The ancient white dwarf stars, as seen by Hubble, are at least 12 to 13 billion years old.
Quasars, the Light Fantastic
Quasars have been so elusive and mysterious that the hunt to define them would have taxed even the superior analytical skills of detective Sherlock Holmes. Since their discovery in 1963, astronomers have been trying to crack the mystery of how these compact dynamos of light and other radiation, which lie at the outer reaches of the universe, produce so much energy. Quasars are no larger than our solar system but outshine galaxies of hundreds of billions of stars.
These light beacons have left trails of evidence and plenty of clues, but scientists have only just begun to understand their behavior. Astronomers using Hubble tracked down the "homes" of quasars to the centers of faraway galaxies. Hubble's observations bolstered the idea that quasars are powered by a gush of radiation unleashed by black holes in the cores of these galaxies.
A Shattered Comet Rocks Jupiter
Imagine setting off every atomic bomb on Earth all at once. Now imagine repeating such an apocalyptic explosion two dozen times in a week! Unleashing such energy would destroy Earth's surface, but the giant planet Jupiter hardly flinched when it underwent such a catastrophe in 1994. Hubble provided a ringside seat to a once-in-a-millennium event when two dozen chunks of a comet smashed into Jupiter.
The telescope snapped dramatic images of massive explosions that sent towering mushroom-shaped fireballs of hot gas into the Jovian sky. The doomed comet, called Shoemaker-Levy 9, had been pulled apart two years earlier by Jupiter's gravity. Each impact left temporary black, sooty scars in Jupiter's planetary clouds.
Pluto and Beyond
Hubble explored the outskirts of our solar system to study Pluto and other icy objects.
The telescope discovered two new moons orbiting Pluto. Named Nix and Hydra, the moons have the same color as Charon, Pluto's only other known moon. The moons' common color further reinforces the idea that all three moons were born from a single titanic collision between Pluto and another similarly sized Kuiper Belt object billions of years ago.
Hubble also searched the solar system's last frontier, a region called the Kuiper Belt, to view the frozen bodies residing there. The Kuiper Belt contains the relics from the early solar system, and may offer clues to the origin and evolution of our Sun and planets.
With Hubble's help, astronomers discovered that an object named Eris is only slightly larger than Pluto. The diameter of Eris is 1,490 miles. By comparison, Pluto's diameter, as measured by Hubble, is 1,422 miles.
Studying the solar system's farthest known object, unofficially named Sedna, Hubble provided surprising evidence that the frozen body does not appear to have a companion moon of any substantial size.
Turning its gaze closer to Earth, Hubble found that Ceres, the largest known asteroid, shares many characteristics of rocky, terrestrial planets like Earth. Ceres is round and its composition is differentiated, with an icy mantle, which wraps around the asteroid's core, and a rocky core. Ceres resides in the asteroid belt, a region between Mars and Jupiter.
Ceres, Pluto, and Eris are members of a new class of solar system objects called dwarf planets. The new class was defined by the International Astronomical Union in 2006. These are spherical bodies like planets, but unlike the major planets in the solar system, they have not gravitationally cleared out the neighborhood of particles and small debris along their orbits.
The discovery of Eris in 2005 prompted a debate over the planetary status of Pluto because astronomers realized they would have to call it the "10th" planet if Pluto retained its own planetary status, which was already under debate.
In its 19 years of viewing the heavens, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 880,000 observations and snapped over 570,000 images of 29,000 celestial objects.
Hubble does not travel to stars, planets, and galaxies. It takes pictures of them as it whirls around Earth at 17,500 miles an hour.
In its 19-year lifetime, the telescope has made more than 100,000 trips around our planet. With those trips, Hubble has racked up plenty of frequent-flier miles, about 2.8 billion, the planet Neptune's average distance from the Sun.
The 19 years' worth of observations has produced nearly 39 terabytes of data, enough to fill almost two collections in the U.S. Library of Congress.
Each month the orbiting observatory generates more than 80 gigabytes of data.
The Hubble archive sends about 2 terabytes of data each month to astronomers throughout the world.
Astronomers using Hubble data have published more than 7,500 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. In 2008 scientists published nearly 700 journal articles on Hubble telescope data.
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Keith Noll
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.


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Courtship is famously bad preparation for marriage. But shopping for a wedding dress is good preparation for a wedding, in that the fantasy in your head is very unlikely to occur just as you imagine it.here are many moments when you're supposed to "know" you've met the right person: at first sight, on the first date, at the proposal.The typical attire for a bride is a formal dress and a veil. Usually, in the "white wedding" model, the bride's dress is bought specifically for the wedding, and is not in a style that could be worn for any subsequent events.Following here are some popular bridal shops in Los Angeles that could help you in searching a perfect gown for your wedding.
Panache Bridal
Alfred Angelo Bridal
Galleria Wedding
Beautiful Day Wedding
Lovely Bride
Grace Bridal Couture
Wilshire Tuxedo & Bridal Salon
Claire Pettibone
J Birds Bridal Boutique
IBEX Bridal & Tuxedo Center
Lovella Bridal
Bella Wedding
Royal Accessories
Glamour Closet LA
Lili Bridals
The Image
One Night Affair Designer Gown Rentals
Wedding Time
J B Bridal
Hilda's Bridal Shop & Formals
Winnie Couture Flagship Bridal Salon Beverly Hills
Mina Design & Tailoring
JLM Couture Bridal Gown Boutique
Catalina's Bridal Shop
Ultimate Bridal
Enchanted Bridal
Strut Bridal Salon
Della Curva (A Plus-Size Bridal Salon)
Casa Gastelum Bridal Shop
Wedding Sense
Christies Collection: Bridesmaid & Prom Dresses
Carol's Bridal
Bella Bridesmaid
Debbie's Bridal
Cinderilla Bridal
Marissa's Bridal
Kara Wedding
Rosa's Shop
LeeHwa Wedding and Korean Traditional Dress
J & C Bridal
Teresa's Bridal
Claudia's Bridal Shop
Princess Castle Bridal Boutique
Vera Wang
La Legal Department Store
Monique Lhuillier
Dolly Couture
Gloria's Bridal Shop
La Soie Bridal
The Bridal Bar
Carolina Herrera
Alba Bridal
Mazdo's Bridal
David's Bridal
For more results of Bridal's Shop in Los Angeles,California click here:
In many Asian cultures, red is usual for brides, as this colour indicates vibrance and health and has over time been associated with brides. However in modern times other colours may be worn, or Western styles preferred. Regardless of colour in most Asian cultures bridal clothes are highly decorative, often covered with embroidery, beading or gold. In some traditions brides may wear more than one outfit.Whatever the colors of the gown we choose,we must bear in mind that dress its not important but the commitment and the love to each other are the most important spicies in marriage.


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Microsoft says disrupts cybercrime rings with roots in Kuwait, Algeria
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) launched what it hopes will be the most successful private effort to date to crack down on cyber crime by moving to disrupt communications channels between hackers and infected PCs.
The operation, which began on Monday under an order issued by a federal court in Nevada, targeted traffic involving malicious software known as Bladabindi and Jenxcus, which Microsoft said work in similar ways and were written and distributed by developers in Kuwait and Algeria.
It is the first high-profile case involving malware written by developers outside of Eastern Europe, according to Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel of Microsoft's cybercrime-fighting Digital Crimes Unit.
"We never seen malware coded outside Eastern Europe that is as big as this. This really demonstrates the globalization of cybercrime," said Boscovich, whose team at Microsoft has disrupted nine other cybercrime operations over the past five years, all of which it believes originated in Eastern Europe.
He said it would take several days to determine how many machines were infected, but noted that the number could be very large because Microsoft's anti-virus software alone has detected some 7.4 million infections over the past year and is installed on less than 30 percent of the world's PCs.
The malware has slick dashboards with point-and-click menus to execute functions such as viewing a computer screen in real time, recording keystrokes, stealing passwords and listening to conversations, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada on June 19 and unsealed Monday.
The malicious software was purchased by at least 500 customers, who are identified in the court documents as John Does 1 to 500.
Boscovich said the developers blatantly marketed their malware over social media, including videos on Google Inc's (GOOGL.O) YouTube and a Facebook page. They posted instructional videos with techniques for infecting PCs, he said.
The court order allowed Microsoft to disrupt communications between infected machines and a Reno, Nevada, firm known as Vitalwerks Internet Solutions.
Boscovich said about 94 percent of all machines infected with the two viruses communicate with hackers through Vitalwerks servers. Criminals use Vitalwerks as an intermediary to make it more difficult for law enforcement to track them down, he said.
The court ordered the registries that direct Internet communications to send suspected malicious traffic to Microsoft servers in Redmond, Washington, instead of letting it go on to Vitalwerks.
Vitalwerks spokeswoman Natalie Goguen said she had no immediate comment.
In the operation that began on Monday, Boscovich said, Microsoft will filter out communications from PCs infected with another 194 types of malware that are also being filtered through Vitalwerks.
Microsoft has not accused Vitalwerks of involvement in any cybercrime, though it alleges that the company failed to take proper steps to prevent its system from being used for such activities.
"We just want them to clean up their act, to be more proactive in monitoring their service," Boscovich said in an interview.


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The Philadelphia man caught on surveillance camera juggling kittens inside a Logan Chinese restaurant pleaded guilty to cruelty to four counts of animal cruelty.
YuZhen Chen, 26, received two years of probation, according to court records.
Chen was arrested in July after Philadelphia Police saw video that showed him throwing kittens in the air, rolling them on the ground, and swinging them in circles.
Police investigating a shooting at the Red Star Chinese take-out restaurant say they found video of Chen, who owned the restaurant at the time, abusing the cats. Cops then contacted the SPCA.
"This is not neglect. It's malicious and he was intending on purposely hurting and torturing these kittens it's very disturbing," said Richard Loos, PSPCA.
Investigators say they were only able to rescue the mother cat and two of her kittens.
Besides probation, Chen must also pay about $44 a month in penalties, according to court records.


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Local shares history of facial pain disease, relief
Tormented with a disease interfering with her everyday life, one local woman says most people quite literally do not understand her pain.
Pamela Elliot, of Wapakoneta, suffers from a disease that causes constant and "excruciating burning and throbbing" facial pain.
"I was an outgoing person," Elliot said about her life before the disease. "Trigeminal neuralgia made me a prisoner in my own body."
Elliot, 62, began having pain on the left side of her face in 2003. After visiting her family physician, Elliot was given multiple antibiotics to help ease what physicians deemed a bad sinus infection.
Elliot was later sent to the emergency room after overdosing on antibiotics, without any easing of the burning, throbbing pain on the left side of her face.
Elliot's facial pain continued, and she was sent to a dentist to have x-rays for a possible root canal. Trusting her dentist and oral surgeon, Elliot had four teeth removed to get rid of the root issue and eliminate her facial pain.
After surgical removal of four teeth and recovery of feeling in her upper jaw, her pain returned.
Elliot went to see a neurologist, who told her about another patient of his that had similar symptoms and was diagnosed with the facial pain disorder trigeminal neuralgia. In response, Elliot was given anti-epilepsy medication.
"Had he not had that other patient, I don't think he would have put it together," Elliot said.
The medication she was given — although not specific for her disease — eased the pain.
Elliot lived free of discomfort for two years.
However, the pain crept slowly back into her life.
Every few months, Elliot returned to her family physician, who upped her medication.
"I was on a cocktail of meds," Elliot said. "I was like a zombie — I couldn't think straight, I was lethargic. It fogs the mind so you don't feel the pain because nothing will get rid of the pain."
As she searched for more information about trigeminal neuralgia, Elliot discovered the cause of her pain — surrounding blood vessels were rubbing off the protective coating of the nerve in her face.
Also known as the "suicide disease," many people who suffer from trigeminal neuralgia do not have the strength to continue fighting for relief.
She found a support group, Trigeminal Neuralgia and Me (TNNME), on Facebook, and received advice about what may ease the pain. For the first time, Elliot heard from others suffering from trigeminal neuralgia and listened to what had worked, or not worked, for them.
She said she tried massage therapy, facial injections and even had upper cervical (relating to the cervical spine) surgery — all in the effort to ease the constant stabbing that plagued her daily life.
Nothing worked.
Elliot was told of microvascular decompression surgery that would remove the blood vessels surrounding the nerve. However, after visiting multiple physicians and surgeons who were unable to locate the wearing away of her trigeminal nerve, Elliot was destined to endure the pain.
Through the support group, Elliot was told of a neurosurgeon at the University of Cincinnati who specializes in trigeminal neuralgia. He found the nerve damage and performed a surgery.
"I lived pain-free for four months," Elliot said. "After that, it came back with a vengeance."
Elliot's pain returned on the middle branch of her trigeminal nerve, but with the added pain of the lower nerve as well. After multiple attempts at relief, her upper face became subjected to the same frequent pain. The entire left side of her face was in constant misery.
"It's an intense, constant burning," Elliot said.
Elliot said she has endured pain throughout her life, and she laughs when physicians ask her to rate her facial pain.
"I've broken my toe, I've had my appendix removed, I've had two, natural childbirths," Elliot said. "That was nothing compared to this."
Disappointed in the return of the facial pain, Elliot searched for other answers.
She eventually had a surgery which partially severed the trigeminal nerve, numbing the pain on the left side of her face.
"The burning pain is gone," Elliot said. "I can get up every day and get dressed, fix my hair, put on make-up, clean my house. I can drive again."
Elliot said physicians expect her pain to return within two years. The next step would be to completely sever the nerve, which would, in turn cause complete loss of muscle control.
"I refuse," Elliot said.
When the nerve grows back, Elliot said she will endure through the pain and wait for a cure.
Right now, Elliot said her pain is manageable.
She said the pain was replaced with a constant tingling numbness that she is on medication to control. Elliot described the feeling as an ice cube on a toothache.
"Trigeminal neuraliga completely controls your life," Elliot said. "You have to live for each day. If it's a bad day, you hope tomorrow is better."
Elliot said she stays involved with TNNME support group to help others find answers to their questions. The number of people being diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia is increasing.
"It hurts me to see the numbers are growing," Elliot said. "The compassion and support that I see in that group is what I find so awesome."
TNNME is an organization dedicated to spreading awareness and about the disease and requesting the World Health Organization to add trigeminal neuralgia to the "Health Topic List."
By adding the disease to this list, trigeminal neuralgia will receive more attention and will gain resources from funding and research opportunities.
TNNME Founder Toni Saunders, who also suffers from trigeminal neuralgia, started the website as a place for people with trigeminal neuralgia to "share, vent, ask for help" and find answers to their many questions about the disease. When Saunders was first diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, she said she had never heard of the disease. Her physician told her there was no cure for her pain besides taking medication.
When she got home from a doctor's visit, she did an online search for the disease.
Saunders read the same information she heard at the doctors' office was coming from medical sites. She said there was nothing stating what anyone was doing to relieve pain.
"It all said the pain will progress over time and there's nothing you can do," Saunders said. "It's hurtful to know that its going to get worse and there's nothing being done."
She was confronted with what seemed like a hopeless situation. She said she never knew when the pain was going to affect her.
"When the wind blows, when you're putting on make-up, while eating — loud noise, light — you never know what will be a trigger," Saunders said. "Some people live in that fear. They're house bound."
Saunders said she used to enjoy dancing, but now she cannot even enter a crowded room.
Despite her situation, Saunders said she has always been a positive person who makes the best of any situation.
"I said, 'I need to learn how to manage this and live my life. I need to find out what I can do to help,' " Saunders said.
At the time she was diagnosed, Saunders said she believed she was the only person in Massachusetts who had trigeminal neuralgia, so she created a website to try and reach out to other victims of trigeminal neuralgia.
She said the website started out as as just a support group, a place where people with trigeminal neuralgia could tell their stories without being judged and where they could give advice to other victims.
She told herself she was going to spend one year doing everything in her power to spread awareness and make International Trigeminal Neuralgia Day known to the world.
Now, one year later, Saunders and the rest of the trigeminal neuralgia community are celebrating their accomplishments as countries around the world will light up teal, the color chosen to represent trigeminal neuralgia.
Structures lighting up on Monday include the Canton Tower in China, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Trafalgar Square in the United Kingdom, Niagara Falls in Canada, Colpatria Tower in Columbia, the Wells Fargo Duke Energy Center in North Carolina and many others.
While International Trigeminal Neuralgia Day is gaining awareness, it is still unofficial. Saunders, Elliot and many other trigeminal neuralgia advocates are dedicating their time to get the public to sign their petition for the World Health Organization to add trigeminal neuralgia to its "Health Topic" List.
"It will open doors for more funding for research," Saunders said. "That's what's needed."


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About Moths:
There are 2 kinds of clothes moths which are: The Case Bearing Clothes Moth and the Common Clothes Moth.
Both Species evolved in a bird or animal nest and only eat fibres such as wool, fur and feather and they are most likely to go for clothes and carpets within a dark place where they are undisturbed.
The clothes moth will hide in dark areas such as collars and cuffs and they also thrive on humid conditions. Sometimes the larvae of these pests can be quite active and could be seen crawling on clothes or on the floor. But besides feeding on clothes, rugs and carpets and household furniture the clothes moth will also feed on fur, stored wool and other similar articles, they also feed on pollen, hair, feathers and dead insects.
The average clothes moth has a wingspan of approximately ½ inch, however the male is a little less, and their body is about ¼ inch long with a golden yellow sheen. Their eggs are oval and an ivory colour and the larvae is a shinny creamy whitish colour with a brown head.


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30 November 2011
Lip Smacking Science - Crystals, Emulsions, Foams
Gelatin Cube Bouncing of a Table
Modernist Cuisine - High-Speed Video : Gelatin Cubes On Solid Surface 6200 FPS from Modernist Cuisine on Vimeo.Though the video may not be directly related to cocktails, there is something quite beautiful about watching Gelatin Cubes bounce of a solid surface over and over again.
The video is another gem to come out of the Modernist Cuisine camp and is shot at 6200 FPS.
How To Carbonate Cocktails
The idea of carbonating a spirit is something I can't say I have seen being used behind bars too much. Maybe the process seems overly complex or not practical for service. Maybe the idea just doesn't appeal to people. However I sent a mail to Kevin Liu over at Why Cook asking if he had any info on the matter……… his response and a few additions from myself are below.
Giles asked me a few weeks ago what I thought about carbonating hard liquor. I'd heard of the technique previously via the Cooking Issues Radio Show, but I hadn't played with it and didn't really understand why anyone would want to try it. After messing around for a few hours this past weekend, I can definitively pronounce: carbonating liquor is easy and definitely worth doing.
Some Science
First, it's worth understanding some things about carbonation.
- It seems to get you drunk faster. Something about the carbon dioxide increases ABV more rapidly than if you drank vodka alone. This only happens in some people, however.
- When you carbonate something, you are literally dissolving the gas CO2 in a liquid. That CO2 has no reason to come out of solution unless it's disturbed or if there happens to be a nucleation site available.
- On that note, although people tend to describe a "tingly" sensation related to carbonated beverages, in fact it's more likely we are able to taste the CO2 even if it stays in solution. Scientists think we are somehow detecting the carbonic acid that CO2 forms when it's dissolved in water, probably with the same taste buds that are responsible for sourness.
- Don't believe me? It turns out you can taste carbon dioxide even in a pressure chamber, when the bumbles can't come out.
- When CO2 does come out of solution, it seems to physically irritate our taste buds, so spicy things may taste spicier. At least one study I dug up, however, seems to indicate that
- Well, maybe not that weird. Another study showed that capsaicin and carbonated water both create sensations of burning, stinging, and tingling, though capsaicin was much stronger than carbonated water. So what was probably going on in the first study was that the capsaicin was so strong, carbonated water seemed weak in comparison. Mmm, weaksauce.
What does all this mean? We've written before about how alcohol may trigger nerves that are also set off by capsaicin. It seems like we must enjoy some facet of the irritation we get from each of these ingredients or some combination of all of them. I'd love to know the why's and how's of all this, but in the meantime, it's time to do some observational experiments…
How to Carbonate Vodka
Carbonating hard alcohol is very easy. The basic rules, as dictated by Dave Arnold are:
- get the alcohol cold
- clarify as much as possible
- remove air
- as many rounds of carbonation as possible.
You see, ethanol doesn't dissolve CO2 as effectively as water does, so the colder the product, the better. Clarification removes potential nucleation sites. With nicely distilled vodka, which is what I used, clarification isn't an issue. Removing air helps to prevent foaming and can be done either by letting the product sit or by sucking a vacuum on it.
The two easiest ways to carbonate at home are either using an ISI cream whipper with CO2 canisters or a modified SodaStream home carbonation system. This is pretty simple, so here are the pictures showing you how to do it.
Here are a few lessons learned:
- Toss the vodka in the freezer for a while. I got mine down to 20F.
- It will take a lot longer to carbonate such a small amount of liquid than with a full bottle. Be prepared to use a lot of gas.
- A weird cloud develops above the vodka. It's cool.
- Use immediately if possible; the gas doesn't stay dissolved very well.
What Should we Use it For?
The vodka tasted sweeter and less alcoholic than I remembered a shot tasting, though one test probably wasn't enough to draw any conclusions from. The texture was definitely fun, more of a velvety sensation than traditional bubbles like would be found in soda. The potential of this is two-fold. You can either simply add a flavoured liqeur to the spirit and you instantly have a fizzy shot that doesn't actually require a dilution like soda or lemonade, but also you could simply take a pre flavoured vodka and charge it, creating a whole new dimension to the drink.
The most obvious application I can think of for this technique would be traditional highballs served up, without the seltzer water component. Imagine a gin and tonic that used only gin, lime, and quinine. What a kick in the pants that would be. This would also be a convenient way to present service. For example, if you wanted to premix and prechill a drink, then carbonate a whole bottle of it and pour straight from the bottle. The possibilities are endless, all you'd need is empy bottles with a screw cap and ideas on what to fill them with. The idea of being able to create your own fizzy soft drinks, or long fizzy cocktails may indeed take a bit of prep but the results are bespoke and individual to your own tastes/bar
For instance - still water, sugar, and lemon to create Vodka lemonade, or a long sparkling drink that used charged white wine instead of champagne.
On the topic of which……..how useful would it be to get that fizz back in a bottle of flat champagne or prosecco. Potentially not the best practice but useful for maybe staff drinks or parties at home…..!
What would you do with this technique?
More Good News For Drinkers...Kind Of
Flavour of the Week - Raisin
23 November 2011
High Speed Video:Water Balloon Popped 6200 FPS
The Cooking Lab is part of only a few "elite" kitchens that can boast to be alot more than just a kitchen. During the making of the book Modernist Cuisine there was up to 30 people working at any one time, ranging from chefs to video editors.
Artisan Distilling Revolutions - The Basics
Written by and in collaboration with Jamie Baxter. Jamie was a master distiller at Chase Distillery where he was responsible for designing, installing, commissioning, running and then developing products. He now works as a consultant, working around the UK and South America aiding in start up small scale artisan distilleries.
We are in the middle of a particularly English revolution. It's very small, and rather quiet, but believe me, it is happening. Companies like Chase, English Whisky Co and Sipsmith led the way. Others such as Sacred, Adnams, Charles Martell and Ludlow have followed and there are others coming over the hill. I am talking about a wave of smaller-scale, artisan distilleries all pushing to see what has happened in America also happen over here. It's almost the reverse of what happened with beer where the American craft brewers followed the rise of British micro-breweries.
I have been fortunate enough to be involved with several new distillery projects to a greater or lesser degree. Although there is huge variety in the products proposed, all these projects have a traditional pot still at the heart of them. The design involves a little thought:
It is best to buy the biggest pot that can be afforded and that will fit in the space available. Oddly a 450 litre still does not cost much more than a 300 litre one, and the extra capacity will always be useful. That said, all the other ancillary equipment will need to be scaled up accordingly. Similarly, it is important to consider the work patterns. With a small still, many runs can be made in one day, but a lot of time is spent waiting for the still to warm up each time and energy costs are higher. A bigger pot means that fewer runs are required. However, there comes a point where the entire run cannot be done in a single shift.
Traditionally copper was used because it has good heat transfer properties, but we now know that it also acts as a catalyst to certain reactions so removing sulphates and giving a smoother spirit. Stainless steel is cheaper and easier to maintain, and there are wooden ones still knocking around (El Dorado anyone?). Even glass is used, particularly for gin where neutral alcohol is usually bought in. But for the artisan distiller the only way is copper.
You will have seen the wonderful whisky stills with their tall, conical tops, and maybe an Armagnac still with an olive shaped contraption mounted on the pot. Others of you will have seen a column with several bubble plates. These are all different methods for increasing the amount of condensation of the alcohol vapour and is called reflux. Put simply, the more reflux, the purer, stronger and smoother the spirit becomes. A huge amount of reflux is needed to get the spirit to 96% ABV (the EU required purity for vodka production) and less is needed for spirits such as whisky, rum, brandies etc which will subsequently be barrel-aged to smooth the spirit out. Designing the amount of reflux is very much about getting a balance between purity and flavour.
This is dictated by the location. Mains gas is cheapest, but if you're not on the mains then oil or LPG is a good alternative. Charles Martell uses a wood-fired boiler for his Stinking Bishop cheese plant, so it was a natural choice to design a wood-fired still as he has all the equipment needed to handle 20 tonne deliveries of logs. Electrically heating a still is perhaps easiest in a small space, but is expensive to run.
Most stills nowadays are heated indirectly using steam raised using one of the fuels above. The simplest and cheapest method of transferring this heat into the still is to run the steam through a coil in the belly of the pot. An alternative method is to run the steam into a jacket surrounding the bottom part of the pot. Although this is more expensive to make, it has the advantage that because it has a bigger surface area, and because it gives a smoother interior to the pot, particulate material can be put in the still without the risk of burning eg cider brandy (when the pot is filled with cider) can be heated easily with a steam coil, but if apple brandy is to be distilled (where the whole fermented mash including the apple bits go in the pot) then a jacket is better because lower steam pressure (and therefore temperature) can be used so reducing the risk of particulate material burning, and it is easier to clean without a coil getting in the way.
Direct heat, whereby naked flames heat the bottom of the pot, is still used by Glenfiddich and Glenfarclas in Scotland. Nolet, home of Ketel One, do the same as do many grappa, rum and cognac distillers. I must admit that naked flames in an area where highly flammable vapour might be around gives me the heebie-geebies.
This is the term for what the still is filled with initially. It might be thin and with few particles like cider, wine or beer, or it might be thick and gloopy or full of chunks of fermented fruit and vegetables. The former is easy to handle, the latter needs a bit of care. Perhaps a stirrer or rummager might need to be built in. Certainly a larger outlet will be required to empty it. Flavoured spirits might require easy access into the pot to put in and remove sprigs of wormwood (mmm… absinthe), orange peel, and other larger flavouring material.
One of the biggest problems faced by many distilleries is what to do with the stillage. This is what is left in the still after the alcohol has been distilled off. Depending on the spirit being produced, this might be fed to animals or sprayed on fields as irrigation where there is not much nutritional content left. Whichever way the distiller gets rid of waste, he needs to ensure that that it is done with all the appropriate licences and permissions, and that it is done at no cost.
I find all stills fascinating, and most of them beautiful. The artisan distiller should remember that tourism offers a good additional revenue stream. Over 1.3 million people visited Scottish distilleries last year spending nearly £18 each. Tap into that market. Even if you cannot receive visitors, make the distillery look nice and it will give you a nice warm feeling every morning.
Every business plan shows that the distillery will be a success, otherwise the project will not get off the ground, so plan for success and make sure that you can expand. Similarly, every business plan is wrong. Things happen and so it is wise to build in as much flexibility as possible. The artisan distiller may set out to make vodka from parsnips, but find a big demand for cherry brandy after a glut in the orchard.
Of-course the list above is not exhaustive, and there is far more to consider than just the still. The growing of the ingredients is becoming more common with distilling often being considered as a farm diversification. Mashing, fermentation, blending, storage, ageing, bottling and distribution all need equally careful thought, and in particular the choice of site is critical, but it's really, really good fun
Flavour of the Week - Thyme/Lemon Thyme
Beefeater 24 Masterclass
Masterclass time once again, and just in time for Christmas. Tony Conigliaro is hosting the class at The Drink Factory Lab to explore the secrets of Beefeater 24 Gin. Guests will be guided through the art of mixing the perfect martini, as well making party classics and finding out out all about the current trend for tea based cocktails.
The event takes place on 3rd December between 3 – 5pm at 35 Britannia Rown, (The Lab). Best of all its FREE!
RSVP – firstname.lastname@example.com
16 November 2011
Harold Mcgee - The Chemistry of Thanksgiving - Free Webinar
Layered or Un-layered?
This is probably the best example of layering and viscosity we have ever seen. Viscosity is a measure of a liquids resistance. In simpler terms it is basically a measure of how thick a fluid is. For instance water is thin and has a low viscosity, while syrup or honey is thick and has a high viscosity.
In bartender terms it basically means, and is the reason for why we can layer some fluids atop others. Often for our purposes this is also dependant on the sugar content of the fluid.
Would you like you drink layered or patchy madam?
Too Few Layers of Clothing? - Drink!
Why Do Some People Hate Drinking?
Tom (his real name isn't Tom) cannot stand the taste of alcohol. At all. And I know it's not his fault. He's always a good sport, tasting every single drink I've made for him. Each time, he smiles, as if confident this time, this drink, he'll find something he'll genuinely enjoy and know exactly what to order at bars forever. For me, it's like watching a car wreck in slow motion. I carefully study his face, looking for a sign, the slightest hint of a smile that indicates he's pleased, satisfied, or at least indifferent. But, every time, this venture ends the same. Tom's face tightens with disgust, his eyes squint, his tongue hangs limp from his defeated mouth.
Tom drinks Bud Lime and Coronas. I drink Tom's cocktail leftovers. Once in a while, I'll mix up something exceptionally light and he'll happily accept a glass, knowing he'll never be able to bring himself to ask for an amaretto sour or a dark and stormy (hold the stormy) in a bar. Poor Tom.
I decided to start doing some research. I had to understand why Tom didn't enjoy the same drinks I found so delicious.
Does Alcohol Actually Taste Good? (or are we all just addicts?)
Humans have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years. The earliest evidence we have dates back to the production of alcohol in China around 8000 B.C. And for as long as we've made it, we've treasured it. Pottery fragments left by Neolithic settlements living in modern-day Georgia around 6000 B.C. reveal images of celebration associated with alcoholic beverages.
Of course, early fermented wines and beers were relatively low alcohol. Some societies may have used alcohol production more as a means of preservation than for alcohol's inhibition-reducing effects. In fact, we didn't know how to distill alcohol to stronger strengths until 1200 A.D.
For more on the history of booze, see Drink: a Cultural History
A few thousand years is far too little time to evolve any sort of biological preference for alcohol, but we humans are very good at passing along our taste aversions and preferences through cultural and other unconscious cues. So what if the only reason I think alcohol tastes good is because people enjoy getting drunk and somehow that drug reliance has translated into a taste preference for ethanol? Would cocktails taste better if they were all virgin?
Some of the most telling research I found on the taste of alcohol came from the Department of Otolaryngology (the study of the ear, nose, and throat) at Warsaw Medical University in Poland. In 2000, Dr. Anna Scinska and five of her colleagues performed an experiment that, so far as I can tell, is the most definitive exploration of how people experience the flavor of alcohol available.
Dr. Scinska recruited 20 volunteers to taste small squirts of various concentrations of ethanol, sugar sucrose syrup, citric acid, saline, and quinine, a bittering agent. Perception of ethanol's taste was in question. The other solutions were meant to represent the tastes of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter - the four basic tastes the tongue can experience (MSG is a fifth, but is less explored). The results were intriguing. Every single test subject said that ethanol is bitter, even when it was present only as a 0.3% solution. The second most common taste descriptor, however, was that ethanol tasted sweet.
In the second part of Dr. Scinska's experiment, the test subjects were invited back to compare ethanol to tastes, but this time they were asked to rate the taste similarity of ethanol to a combination of both quinine and sucrose. The results confirmed what had been observed during the first test. When subjects tasted a 10% ethanol solution, they found it tasted most similar to a 3% sucrose solution with just a little quinine (0.005%) mixed in.
From this research, it seemed clear that people find alcohol both bitter and sweet. Everyone appears to find alcohol bitter, but apparently not extremely bitter, regardless of concentration. People also thought alcohol was sweet, but once again, only slightly, regardless of concentration.
These revelations were fortifying for me. The research showed that alcohol delivers a complex mix of bitter and sweet. Even at cocktail concentrations, the flavors were described as "pleasant". In fact, as I did more reading on the subject, I found that other animals (rats, elephants, birds included) seem to seek out naturally occurring alcohol for its sweet taste.
So why did Tom still hate cocktails? Going off the Scinska research, I thought maybe it might have something to do with the way he perceives bitterness. More research was needed.
It's Not Tom's Fault
In 2004, Sarah Lanier, a graduate of the dietetics program at the University of Connecticut, recruited 49 undergraduate students from the UConn population for an experiment. Lanier was working with Dr. Valerie B. Duffy, a professor at UConn who earlier that year had published a paper linking ethanol (the stuff that makes alcohol alcoholic) to a compound called 6-n-propylthiouracil, commonly known as PROP.
Here's how Lanier's experiment played out. Each of the 49 recruits sampled four different drinks: pilsner beer, blended scotch whiskey, instant espresso, and unsweetened grapefruit juice. They rated how bitter or sweet each drink tasted on two scales - intensity and whether they liked the taste. And that was it. The session must have been pretty easy for the college kids. They got free booze, a little coffee, and a few dollars for an hour of work.
But Lanier found some interesting results with this simple experiment. She collected two more important pieces of data about the students: (1) how much alcohol they consumed and (2) whether they were sensitive to PROP bitterness. People who are sensitive to PROP are known as "supertasters" because they find certain foods unbearably bitter. Most people are middle tasters, while some are "nontasters" - people who barely experience PROP bitterness at all. Lanier discovered that nontasters not only found bitter foods to taste less bitter, they also experienced sweet foods as sweeter. On the other end of the spectrum, supertasters found all bitter drinks to taste more bitter.
When Lanier linked people's perception of sweet and bitter to their consumption of alcohol, she discovered something really unexpected. People who thought scotch tasted sweeter and less bitter drank more alcohol on average. In addition, this effect appeared regardless of whether people said they actually liked scotch or not. How the students experienced beer, however, did not seem to have any predictive value on total alcohol consumption. Instead, Lanier found simply that more men tended to say they "liked beer" and those that showed this preference tended to drink more.
The UConn experiment seems to show two things. First, some people experience hard alcohol as extremely bitter and they drink less alcohol of any type as a result, even if they say they like the taste of hard alcohol. Second, although people experience beer very differently as well, they seem much more able to overcome their taste aversion, probably as a result of social pressure.
Aha! Now I understood why Tom could stomach some light beers, but struggled with sweet cocktails. He had probably overcome the bitterness of beer through social pressure and acquired tolerance to aversion, but the whole point of a craft cocktail is to use different strong liquors in harmony. You want to taste the alcohol. But that taste was torture for Tom.
But What About the Burning Taste of Alcohol?
There was one more thing I had to look into before closing the book on the "why do some people hate the taste of alcohol" case. Many of the participants in Dr. Scinska's 2000 study ascribed a sour taste to ethanol, but upon interview, described more of a "burning sensation". The characteristic burn of alcohol is well-documented, but, I wondered, what impact did it have on taste perception?
I posed the question to the question and answer site Quora and after a few months got a well-researched, thorough response from a medical student named Jae Won Joh:
The answer is not simple, unfortunately, and it's actually a bit difficult to pinpoint. Let's go through some of the research I've been able to dig up. Skip the bulletpoints and just go for the intermittent summaries if you're impatient.
· In 1965, Hellekant discovered that cat gustatory fibers respond to ethanol by increasing their firing pattern[1]. These fibers were also responsive to water, acetic acid, quinine, and salt. In cat non-gustatory fibers, ethanol caused a direct increase in firing up to a certain concentration before causing paralysis[2]. This was one of the first studies looking into how ethanol affected taste nerves.
· In 1999, Sako and Yamamoto showed in rats that you could induce aversion to alcohols, suggesting a possible burning/unpleasant sensation[3].
· In 2002, Danilova and Hellekant duplicated Hellekant's 1965 work in rhesus monkeys, showing that ethanol induces increases in firing in about half of lingual non-gustatory receptors. The taste fibers which respond to ethanol are also sensitive light touch and cooling. This suggested some sort of neuronal manipulation by ethanol, possibly with mechanoreceptors.
· In 2002, Trevisani published a brilliant paper showing that ethanol actually potentiates TRPV-1, a heat-gated ion channel that is responsible for the burning sensation elicited by capsaicin. Ethanol potentiated the response of TRPV-1 to capsaicin, protons, and heat; lowering the threshold for heat activation from 42°C to 34°C. This provides a likely mechanistic explanation for the ethanol-induced sensory responses that occur at body temperature.
Layman's summary up till 2002: we thought ethanol was just messing with nerves, but apparently there's this special receptor that it wreaks hell on, and it just so happens to be the receptor for capsaicin, which causes the burning associated with spicy food. Innnnnteresting. Veeeeery interesting...
· In 2004, it was found that ethanol actually activates a neural pathway reactive to sucrose[5]. That's right: ethanol is, at least to a rat brain, not all that far off from sugar. Which, in an evolutionary sense, is not all too surprising, given that they're both energy sources.
· In 2004 and 2005, Lyall showed in a nice series of papers that TRPV-1 is in taste receptors[5], proving that they were definitely in the right location for stimulation. This is basically further confirmation of Trevisani's work, I think.
· In 2005, Simon and Araujo published a nice review of the data thus far[7]. Just thought I'd recognize their paper, it's good.
· In 2009, Blednov and Harris demonstrated that if you knocked out the TRPV-1 receptor in mice, they would show significantly greater consumption of ethanol than their normal counterparts. However, you could still induce aversion in both groups, and withdrawal symptoms weren't different between the two[8].
Layman's summary up till 2009: we know now about alcohol and capsaicin, but it's apparent that alcohol has other taste pathways as well, possibly involving sweetness. It may even involve something else as well, given that you can still get a mouse to hate alcohol even if it doesn't have the capsaicin receptor.
Basically, what Joh summarized was that ethanol seems to trigger a pathway that is also responsible for the burning sensation you get from eating spicy foods and, importantly, that ethanol reduces the temperature at which the pain gets triggered.
I knew from previous research that there is only one way to build up a tolerance to spicy food: eat more spicy food. Perhaps sensitivity to alcohol works in a similar fashion?
How to Deal with Different Types of Drinkers
Everyone knows that flavor preferences vary greatly between people, but I had no idea ethanol could deliver such a complex range of pleasurable and unpleasurable flavors to different tasters. How one experiences alcohol depends on their genetics, social/cultural influences, and tolerance built up over time. Rather than go into all the takeaways, I've organized some advice for dealing with different types of drinkers.
For the beginning drinker
You have to be careful with the beginning drinkers because you have no idea whether they are a supertaster or not. Beginning drinkers are also the most prone to developing preferences for or aversions toward alcohol, so you want to make sure they don't drink too much or have a negative experience - it could deal irreparable damage.
Test the waters - mix something they're familiar with, like lemonade, and add half the alcohol you might add to a full drink. See if they appreciate how the alcohol adds complexity to the drink, or if they immediately pull away, cringing. Then you might have some idea what type of drinker they are and proceed from there.
For the Supertasting Social Drinker
For those individuals who are sensitive to PROP, the only way to make sure they enjoy their drink is to keep the abv relatively low. Highballs, swizzles, shrubs, and the like are classy and can be just as strong as an up drink, but are more diluted. Steps should also be taken to reduce the perceived bitterness of the drink. Avoid bitters and quinine if possible. Instead, emphasize sour and sweet flavors. Consider adding some salt, as salt can reduce the perception of bitterness (see here for an example). Experiment with complex flavors that are not alcohol-based, such as herbs and infused syrups.
For the Connoisseur
For a guest who's a fan of fine scotches or whiskys, you're probably safe to assume either they're not a supertaster or they have acquired a powerful enough preference for alcohol that the bitterness doesn't bother them anymore. Mixing drinks for people like this can be especially difficult because it can be hard to gauge how much tolerance they've developed in their TPRV-1 receptors. If ethanol works anything like capsaicin, what one person sees as a spicy, pleasant sip might appear to another as bland and pale. If at all possible, it might help to have the guest taste a simple blended scotch and describe it. If they find it bland and are looking for a complex drink, it may help to add bitters, quinine, or aperitifs to up the complexity.
For Nontasters
I somewhat suspect I am a nontaster. I love spicy, bitter cocktails and eat kale on a weekly basis (supertasters find many bitter vegetables overwhelming). It's not a bad life, though sometimes I wonder whether I've missed out on taste experiences others with more sensitive taste receptors enjoy. This may be one reason I enjoy smoky cocktails (have you seen our DIY cold smoker?), carbonation, and cocktails with capsaicin mixed or infused in. Nontasters are easy to please, but tough to impress. I've found that simply using higher proof spirits doesn't cut it; the harmony of other ingredients is thrown off. Challenge nontasters with new flavors. I remember once taking a shot of angostura bitters with John Gertsen of Drink. It was one of the strangest things I could imagine doing, but it was delicious. A shot of fernet, anyone?
Cool Hunting - Lab Video
Thanks to Cool Hunting for this brilliantly shot "behing the scenes" video of the lab at 69 Colebrooke Row.
Although alot of the equipment and technology has been moved up the road to the new, and more spacious, lab, the video provides insights into the methods of thinking and ideas behind many of the cocktails at 69.
Flavour of the Week - Cranberry
09 November 2011
Caffeine Inhaler by Aeroshot
We all hit that point in the day, 4 or 5 coffee's in. Still feeling as though you need that extra hit to get you through the final hours before it is socially acceptable to start drinking. Now there is an alternative. Delivered by Aeroshot, who had previously developed an "inhaler" of chocolate.....just without an calories and no actual masticating involved.
Each container consists of 3 puffs of powdered caffeine that is absorbed directly onto the tongue. The total value works out to around 100mg of caffeine which works out to about the same at a large cup of coffee.
Created by Harvard biomedical engineering professor David Edwards, Aeroshot also contains your daily recommended does of vitamin B6, B12 and Niacin.
"Frequently, the first time people do it, they laugh" Says Edwards. "There's something funny about the act, how it happens in your mouth."
Pressure Cooking in Cocktails
Inspired by Dave Arnolds splurry of knowledge on the post below we thought it was time to take the time to look at the pressure cooker as a whole and talk about how we can use that behind or above the bar.
Firstly, what is pressure cooking? Basically the pressure cooker allows you to preset and control the pressure inside the cooker and does not allow any air or liquid to escape below that pressure. This allows you to increase the boiling point of liquid inside the cooker so that the food can be heated to a higher temperature before the liquids start to boil.
The build up of pressure is created before cooking starting with the use of water and steam. The steam is trapped inside the cooker. Put simply "the higher the pressure the shorter the cooking time". Generally speaking you only need around 1/3 of the normal cooking time.
It is only recently that experiments with pressure cooking have begun to show us how much more they can do, than act as an expedient alternative to normal cooking.
For instance if you have watched the video below you will now that pressure cookers react in a interesting way with foods high in sulphur. To demonstrate onions were cooked at 15psi and if cooked in just the right way you can take away the pungency normally associated with onion flavour. The same happened with horse radish, and garlic. After cooking you can eat as much as you like without suffering the usual burning or after dinner garlic breath you would normally expect.
Dave Arnold also goes on to mention how the most prominent flavour left in the onion is it's sweetness. Leaving the options open of making ice cream or even a sweet syrup we could use in cocktail. For, maybe, more practical bar purposes we also find that you can "press" the juice out of fruits.
Berries you can do whole and harder fruits simply need to be roughly sliced into smaller pieces. You can also make syrups and extract flavour from herbs and flower. Just be very careful the flowers are edible, not covered in chemicals and can also be used in steam distillation! To do this you will need a heat proof container, a trivet and a steamer basket. All of which you can buy from the same supplier as your pressure cooker if they did not come with it already .
Specific recipes we will go into another time however make sure you start testing out the best ways of juicing or extracting at different pressures. This potentially leaves a very quick and controlled method of creating our own juices, syrups,and concentrated flavours that we can use every day on the bar.
Historical Context and Demos Illustrating the Relationship of Food and Science
Fireballs That Don't Burn
So firstly a reminder that fire is DANGEROUS! and do not try this at home.......
However imagine how much fun it could be if a trained professional were using this, under stirct safety conditions, behind a bar to zest an orange or toast a garnish infront of a customer.....
Flavour of the Week - Lemon Verbena
02 November 2011
Drinkers are Smarter.........?
This study itself is a couple of years old however, today feels like any justifications for drinking are welcomed, it has been one of those weeks already! Plus we haven't reported on this before so here it is!
The findings come from two seperate studies, one based in the US and one in the UK. They followed two groups of children, measuring intelligence before the ages of 16 and subsequently volume of alcohol intake later in life.
Intelligence levels were categorized as "very dull", "dull", "normal", "bright" and "very bright". At the age of 23 the group from the US was revisited however the group from the UK were followed throughout their 20's, 30's and 40's.
Re-assuringly for many of us, it was found that the more intelligent a child the greater their volume of alcohol intake later in life. So binge britain is in fact a rabble of geniuses who've lost their way from a white board of equations to a gleaming back bar full of shiny spirits and temptingly named cocktails. *Phew*
Now, we have all had the experience of meeting someone who could be described as "very dull" and observed their high level of alcohol intake. These very dull people often suddenly became more interesting as a result. However I'd bet we have all also met someone "very bright" or someone wildly creative who drinks just as much if not more. Musicians and artists are a good example of the latter. Often in this case we find that the only way they can bare to look out onto this cruel and unjust world without shedding a tear for its occupants is to turn to a bottle and just get through it "day by day".
Many talk about how they are inclined to drink more in order to numb themselves and relate more easily to those around them, though often finding this may in-fact is not be the case in the morning. A good opportunity for the "very bright" to think fast and formulate a non-akward exit strategy. Others will swear blindly that it helps their creative process (it doesn't, alcohol doesn't add anything at all, bar verbal lubrication). Whatever the reason for every "dull drunk" we can find a "very bright" one and often they will get on just fine.
Theories range from Satasho Kanazawaat of Psychology Today siting evolutionary causes...… "
"Drinking alcohol was "unintentional, accidental, and haphazard until about 10,000 years ago. Smart people are generally early adopters and, in the context of human history, the substance [alcohol] and the method of consumption are both evolutionarily novel." - Ummmmm so alcoholics are more evolved then…….okay, moving on.
To people who theorise more intelligent people may have higher profile jobs that require socialising, and thus drinking. The classic "everyone else was having one" reason, nice!
Others argue (rather loosely) intelligent children were suppressed during their youth and studied hard meaning they missed out on the rebellious and often more "fun" side of growing up. Now that there are not any drinking taboos in adult life they are making up for lost time and getting the booze in. I wonder if this might show more about their personality that the study at hand…….
Personally I'm not entirely sure, we do however know that some of the worlds greatest men and women were booze addled drunks for instance Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac and Johnny Cash all enjoyed a tipple every other 10 minutes or so.
Whatever the reason at least the next time we worry we might be delving slightly too deep into the cocktail pot for a Tuesday night, we can safely assume that it is infact because we are actually geniuses and we feel oppressed by a world that can never understand our intellect………Yep that's what I'm sticking with.
Alternative theories are welcome! Comment or send them in.
Three Coloured Liquid
Imagine a drink that changes colour, or texture, or even flavour as you drink it!? The flavour one has already been done and unfortunately the reaction above, as amazing as it looks, is also quite poisonous although very easy to do. It will be a while still before we have drinks that change colour as we drink them.
The affect is called Briggs-Rauscher reaction and is a combination of 3 different solutions
1. Potassium Iodate, Sulfuric Acid, and Water
2. 30% Hydrogen peroxide solution
3. Malonic Acid, Manganese sulfate monohydrate, starch and water
Exploring Thickeners to Manipulate Mouthfeel
We know that thickening a liquid makes you think it is sweeter, even if that liquid is water, we also now that by adding what feels like pulp to a juice we think it is fresh and therefor healthier.
The lecture itself is very very long so come prepared with pen paper and a couple of hours spare.
The cooking and demonstrations start around the 36 minute mark.
Flavour of the Week - Aloe Vera
Fresh Strawberry Daiquiris are Healthy?
So in theory this could mean that any fresh strawberry pummelled into a cocktail is actually counter-acting the potentially bad effects of the alcohol in the drink.......
Good news for all drinkers!!


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http://www.martinwilsonfuneralhome.com/ ... !/ObituaryObituary for Peter Roger Dewitt
Peter Dewitt, age 72, of Jacksboro departed this life on Monday, July 1, 2015 at LaFollette Medical Center. He was a devoted Ham Operator, retired Senior Chief Petty Officer in the Navy after 21 years of service and volunteered for the Coast Guard Auxiliary for 20 years. He was a very loving husband of 35 years that enjoyed getting everybody together and cooking for them for the Holidays.
He was preceded in death by his parents Morris & Eleanor (Murdock) Dewitt.
He is survived by his wife Judy Dewitt of Jacksboro, son Jamie Dewitt of Windsor, VA, Lorie Jarvis of LaFollette, sister Grace Martino Strid of Norfolk, VA, 2 grandchildren and a host of loving family & friends.
The family will receive friends from 6:00 – 8:00 pm on Monday, July 6, 2015 at Martin Wilson Funeral Home with the funeral service to follow with Rev. Kenny Allen officiating. Interment will be at 11:30 am on Tuesday, July 7, 2015 at the Veteran's Cemetery in Knoxville.
Martin Wilson Funeral Home of LaFollette is in charge of these arrangements.
Mr. Dewitt's guestbook may be viewed at http://www.martinwilsonfuneralhome.com
Peter Roger Dewitt
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BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The American flavor company Virginia Dare has established a broad partnership with one of Madagascar's most experienced vanilla exporters, SOARARY. In an agreement finalized in March 2013, the SOARARY partnership will provide Virginia Dare with a fully integrated supply chain for securing, curing and exporting vanilla beans from Madagascar.
A globally recognized leader in vanilla extracts and flavors, Virginia Dare places tremendous importance on vanilla bean supply chain management. With so much of the world's vanilla production coming from a single country, local operations in Madagascar will strengthen Virginia Dare's ability to ensure the availability, quality and consistency of its vanilla extracts and flavors during periods of market instability and supply shortages. Virginia Dare President Howard Smith says, "Markets never stop evolving and the vanilla market is no exception. Recent changes in the Malagasy vanilla supply chain make the decision to become more locally active there the right one for our company and our customers."
Its decision to establish a presence in the largest producing country in the world is both market driven and pragmatic according to company management. "Madagascar represents roughly 80% of world vanilla production today and is the international reference in terms of quality and market trends," says Rick Brownell, Virginia Dare's Vice President of Vanilla Products. "Adopting a more vertically integrated approach to vanilla sourcing there allows us to respond to growing consumer demand for traceability and sustainability of foods and food ingredients."
About Virginia Dare
Virginia Dare is a family owned flavor and extracts company founded in 1923. With operations in the U.S., France, China and Madagascar, the company creates and supplies flavors to the food, beverage, nutritional and pharmaceuticals markets. The company has long been a recognized leader in the manufacture of the highest quality vanilla products along with tea and coffee concentrates. Its uniquely varied line of compounded flavors is found in a broad spectrum of food and beverage applications in over 100 countries.
About Soarary
Soarary is a family owned company based in the town of Antalaha which lies in Madagascar's vanilla growing region. Founded in 2001, the company is led by owner Georges Randriamiharisoa who has more than 30 years of experience in vanilla purchasing, curing, and exporting. He was the long standing president of the GNEV (Groupement National des Exportateurs de Vanille), Madagascar's professional organization for vanilla specialists.


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Brief Encounter
Visit the station that provided the backdrop for David Lean's ever-popular romantic film, which was accompanied by Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto
This Valentine's Day forget the overpriced restaurant option. Instead, relive one of the most enduringly popular romantic films of all time.
As 'Milford Junction', Carnforth Station is where Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) meet up in Brief Encounter for their series of liaisons, all accompanied by the lush harmonies of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto (plus, briefly, Moszkowski's Spanish Dance No. 5).
Though the passing of the steam age means that sooty-eye inspections by dashing doctors are no longer likely here, you can still watch the film, as it is shown daily. Better still, the station is a mere ten minutes' journey from Lancaster, where the University Great Hall is home to an excellent concert series.
Where: Carnforth Station is just over an hour's train journey north from Manchester Piccadily
Visitor centre: Open 10am to 4pm, Tue to Sun
Entrance fee: Admission is free, but donations are welcome
Website: www.carnforthstation.co.uk
Audio clip: Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 – First Movement
Leif Ove Andsnes (piano); Berlin Philharmonic/Antonio Pappano
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As 2005 winds down to a close, scientists and editors are putting together their lists of the year's top science stories, and it's clear that one major theme is the intersection — or downright car crash — between science and sociopolitical stands.
After all, this was the year when a top scientist was celebrated for cloning a dog and creating tailor-made embryonic stem cells — and then wound up hospitalized for exhaustion, amid a raging debate over bioethics. This was the year in which there was not just one, but two sets of hearings that merited comparison to the "monkey trial" of 1925. This was the year in which members of Congress took positions on brain death and when every month seemed to bring some new worry over severe weather or a global pandemic.
The developments of the past year show that the "accepted wisdom" on science isn't as quickly or as widely accepted as perhaps it once was — partly because of a skeptical political climate, and partly because the Internet provides wider access for dissenting views. Those societal challenges are sparking the rise of a new breed of scientists: media-savvy folk who aren't afraid to join the fray themselves.
One of those folk is Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies as well as a co-founder of the RealClimate Web log. In its year-end roundup, Seed magazine selected Schmidt as one of 15 "icons" who has shaped the global conversation about science over the past year.
Schmidt told MSNBC.com that the RealClimate blog "seemed like such a perfect fit with the kinds of things that I was having to talk about with journalists and friends and other people who aren't necessarily scientists."
Schmidt and his co-bloggers get into the nitty-gritty of climate research, interacting earnestly with fans as well as foes in long strings of reference-rich commentary. It's not an approach meant to attract a mass audience or stir a political movement — and Schmidt doesn't mean it to be.
"What I think is more doable and more achievable is getting to the point where the media and maybe politicians would have a more direct line to what the scientific consensus on an issue is, or whether there's a consensus at all. Sometimes there is no consensus," he said. "But where there is a consensus, I think it's important that the media be able to deal with that in a way that takes you out of the 'on the one side ... on the other side' style of journalism, because I think that confuses the public to a large degree."
21st-century scientists
That interplay between science and society is what Seed was going after in its year-end review, said Adam Bly, the magazine's founder and editor-in-chief. Among the other honorees are Jonathan Farley, a mathematician and counterterrorism consultant; Alex Deghan, a biologist who worked as an adviser in post-Saddam Iraq; and science-minded creative types like novelist Carrie Tiffany and artist Justine Cooper.
"The people we selected as the revolutionary minds of 2005 are not just scientists in a 20th-century sense," Bly told MSNBC.com. "They're connecting their ideas and their research with the broader public more so than might be the case with a 20th-century definition."
The social implications of science also played a big part in the selection of the Scientific American 50 — a year-end roundup of notables assembled by the 160-year-old magazine.
"We're trying to recognize the people and the organizations that we think are showing real leadership in advancing technology in constructive ways," said John Rennie, Scientific American's editor-in-chief, John Rennie.
Business, policy and research
The selections span the worlds in business, policy and research. In two of those three categories, the top leaders are being recognized for their contributions to the infrastructure of innovation, rather than scientific breakthroughs in the traditional sense:
- Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin were recognized as business leaders of the year for revolutionizing information technology — and profiting richly in the process.
- Norwegian engineer/entrepreneur Fred Kavli was named policy leader of the year for starting up the Kavli Foundation, which funds basic research as well as a trio of $1 million science prizes.
The other top honoree could well serve as the poster child for this year's clash between science and society: South Korean stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang. When you consider the top science-related controversies of 2005, the ups and downs surrounding Hwang, Scientific American's research leader of the year, would have to rank at the top.
Until a couple of months ago, Woo Suk Hwang was riding a wave of adulation — and at times scientific envy — over his lab's achievements in the field of stem cells and cloning. Trained as a veterinarian, Hwang led the research team behind the first cloned dog , an Afghan hound named Snuppy.
But his work with human embryonic stem cells created even more buzz: Back in 2004, Hwang's team announced that they had successfully brought a cloned human embryo far enough along to extract stem cells — the type of cell that has the most capacity to regenerate worn-out or damaged body tissues.
In May of this year, Hwang announced that he was able to go even further by customizing stem cells with the genetic coding from donors who suffered from spinal-cord injury or other maladies. The cloning achievement heightened the debate over U.S. competitiveness in stem cell research, as well as ethical questions raised by the prospect of human cloning.
Even then, there was yet another ethical issue hanging in the background: allegations that some of Hwang's female subordinates had contributed their own eggs to the research effort. That practice would be frowned upon by most scientists, because of fears about subtle coercion to go through a procedure that carries some medical risk.
Finally, in November, Hwang's chief American collaborator broke with him over what he saw as an ethical breach. South Korean journalists confirmed that junior researchers had indeed donated eggs, though apparently without Hwang's knowledge. It also came out that some women had been paid for their donated eggs — a practice that wasn't illegal at the time but has since been banned in Korea.
Hwang was devastated by the disclosures. After a round of apologies and resignations, he checked himself into a Seoul hospital this week to be treated for exhaustion .
Two fronts in the culture war
The turnabout sparked "we-told-you-so" comments from the opposing side in the culture war over human embryonic stem cell research. Meanwhile, many South Koreans saw the criticism of Hwang as an attack on their own culture. Hundreds attended pro-Hwang rallies outside Korean news outlets, and more than 1,000 women signed up to donate their own eggs in a sign of solidarity.
This week, Scientific American's John Rennie sounded a bit regretful about the fact that the controversy over Hwang broke just as the magazine naming him research leader of the year was going to press. "There's exactly the kind of problem you didn't want to have happen," he told MSNBC.com.
For good or ill, the controversy seems likely to spark a new round of scrutiny over stem cell research, Rennie said.
"What's interesting is that there's a real division of opinion about what all this means," he said. "It shows that we probably need much more international agreement on what the standards for conducting this research are going to be."
The debates surrounding stem cells and cloning weren't the only ones where science ran up against society and politics, of course. The list could extend from A to Z — say, from AIDS to zero population growth. But if we're talking about 2005, these four issues could well round out the year's top five science-related social controversies:
- Darwin vs. design: A federal trial in Pennsylvania serves as a forum for the debate over whether public-school science classes should carve out a place for intelligent design, or ID — the idea that some aspects of biology are so complex that they are best explained as the handiwork of a designer. Mainstream scientists make a good showing , and pro-ID school board members are voted out (sparking some doomsaying from televangelist Pat Robertson). Meanwhile, mainstream scientists decide to stay away from the Kansas Board of Education's hearings on teaching evolution — and the board gives a statewide nod to ID .
- Wondering about wild weather: As hurricanes pummel the American Southeast, some scientists claim a linkage between global warming and storm intensity , while others scoff. Also during 2005, the Kyoto accord on greenhouse-gas emissions takes effect , while the United States goes its own way. By the end of the year, even some of those who signed the Kyoto pact are having second thoughts about following through on the process.
- How far will bird flu fly? A deadly strain of influenza makes the jump from birds to humans, killing scores of people in Asia and setting off alarm bells around the world. Public health officials say the United States is unprepared for a pandemic , but they are also concerned about unjustified panic . Will the crisis sizzle or fizzle? Stay tuned in 2006.
- The soul of the brain: The plight of long-comatose patient Terri Schiavo sparks a national debate over end-of-life issues. Scientists use brain-scanning technology to link abstract thought to measurable brain chemistry and blood flow. Some researchers are even implanting human neurons in mouse brains . All these advances potentially raise questions about what it means to be "brain-dead," and what it means to be a thinking human.
The original version of this story mischaracterized the genesis of RealClimate.org. Founding contributors to the Web site include Gavin Schmidt as well as Michael Mann, Stefan Rahmstorf, Rasmus Benestad, Caspar Ammann, Ray Bradley, William Connolley, Eric Steig and Amy Clement.
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints


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George IV, in full George Augustus Frederick, German Georg August Friedrich, (born August 12, 1762, London, England—died June 26, 1830, Windsor, Berkshire), king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and king of Hanover from January 29, 1820, previously the sovereign de facto from February 5, 1811, when he became regent for his father, George III, who had become insane.
The eldest son of George III and Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, he had become by age 17, as he said, "rather too fond of women and wine." His way of life and his close friendship with Charles James Fox and other loose-living Whig politicians caused his father to regard him with contempt. In 1784 the prince met the only woman whom he ever deeply loved, Maria Fitzherbert, whom he married secretly on December 15, 1785. The marriage, however, was invalid: members of the royal family under the age of 25 were forbidden to marry without the king's consent.
On April 8, 1795, in order to induce Parliament to pay his debts, the prince contracted a loveless marriage with his cousin Caroline, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick and of George III's sister Augusta. A few weeks after the birth of their only child, Princess Charlotte (1796–1817), the couple separated. A few months after George IV's accession in 1820, Caroline, who had been living in Italy since 1814, returned to claim her rights as queen consort. A bill to deprive her of those rights and to dissolve the marriage on the ground of her adultery was introduced into the House of Lords but was never put to a vote in the Commons. The problem was solved by Caroline's death on August 7, 1821.
In November 1810 George III became permanently insane, and shortly afterward the prince became regent under the terms of the Regency Act (1811). In February 1812, when the restrictions of that statute expired, George decided to retain his father's ministers rather than appoint survivors from among his old Whig friends (Fox had died in 1806). His decision benefited the nation, because the 2nd Earl Grey and other leading Whigs were prepared to abandon the war with France and leave Napoleon the master of the European continent. As it was, Great Britain and its allies finally triumphed over Napoleon in 1815. George IV's accession on the death of his father did not add to the powers that he had possessed as regent.
He insulted and intrigued against the 2nd Earl of Liverpool, prime minister from 1820 to 1827. George Canning, who became foreign secretary in 1822 and prime minister in 1827, won George's approval, partly by cultivating the friendship of Sir William Knighton, the king's physician and keeper of the privy purse, on whose advice George relied excessively. But after 1827 he ceased to have any personal weight with either of the two great parties.
George IV's character was in part redeemed by his linguistic and other intellectual abilities and especially by his astute judgment in the arts; he patronized the architect John Nash, who developed Regent Street (1811–c. 1825) and Regent's Park, London; and he sponsored Sir Jeffry Wyatville's restoration of Windsor Castle. George's most famous effort was the exotic Royal Pavilion at Brighton with its Mughal Indian and Chinese decorations, designed by Nash.