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Sorbet Selection

For several years our local grocery story carried a brand of coconut sorbet, Ciao Bella, which we had for dessert several times a week. It was $5 per pint-pretty expensive-but worth much more than every penny. In the last month it hasn’t been on the store’s shelves. The manager informs me that they will not be stocking it…



Doping in the Tour de France

Why does Levitt find Landis’s allegations so compelling? He describes in great specificity and detail scenarios involving refrigerators hidden in closets, and the precise temperature at which the blood stored in those refrigerators had to be kept; and faked bus breakdowns during which Lance received blood transfusions while lying on the floor of the bus, etc. To make up stories of this kind, with that sort of detail, strikes Levitt as a difficult task.



Vegetables: A Salty Menace?

The three major dietary sources of sodium are grains; meat, poultry, fish, mixtures; and vegetables. Surprised? So was Dubner. The explanation lies in the daily sodium density metric.



Who Owns the Korean Taco?

Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman on copyright in the food industry. The story of Mark Manguera’s Kogi “Korean taco” truck.




More Unintended Trash Consequences

A family in Sharon Township, Ohio (where residents are charged for their trash), left behind a big mess when they moved out of their home.



The Bloom Is So Off the Sumo Rose

Sumo wrestling controversy continues. NPR reports that 15 wrestlers and 14 stable masters are accused of gambling on baseball games, which is seen as “not in keeping with stringent ethical standards sumo wrestlers are expected to observe.”



Quotes Uncovered: On Cigars

Each week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research. Here is the latest round.



Harnessing Google to Solve Parkinson's

In Wired, Thomas Goetz profiles Sergey Brin’s search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease: “Brin proposes a different approach, one driven by computational muscle and staggeringly large data sets. It’s a method that draws on his algorithmic sensibility-and Google’s storied faith in computing power-with the aim of accelerating the pace and increasing the potential of scientific research.”