Hoodia gordonii as an example of scientific research

In my job, I've learned a lot about hoodia gordonii, its characteristics, and the story of how it came to market. A brief overview of the history of hoodia and how it found its way from the Kalahari desert to drugstore shelves and infomercials here in the USA.

I offer this article as an example of how difficult it can be for scientists to 1) isolate, and 2) understand the chemicals copiously present in so many plants. (The coffee and cirrhosis story got me thinking about this.)

Coffee helps reduce risk of cirrhosis in alcoholics

This news explains why certain members of my family are still alive...

According to research doctors, alcoholics who consume large quantities of coffee are significantly - significantly - less likely to get the scarring on the liver known as cirrhosis. Coffee doesn't seem to prevent cirrhosis from other sources.

Read more on coffee and cirrhosis.

You say tomato, I say... caffeine!

Not at all surprised to learn that caffiene and caffeine are nearly equally popular spellings of the same wonderful psychoactive compound...

Even though I prefer the former spelling, the latter is correct. The misspelling is so common that Wikipedia has a permanent redirect set up: caffiene

Normally, I'm incredibly uptight about spelling -- not sentence structure, so much, as I love a run-on as much as Faulkner -- but basic grammar and spelling are very important to me. Still, there is this handful of words I nearly always misspell: caffiene, mountian, policosanol...

Anyone else out there perpetually misspelling the same words?

Caffiene and Arabica Beans

New page about arabica coffee beans and caffiene.

Key points:
1. arabica beans have less caffiene than robusta beans
2. darker roasts have less caffiene
3. caffiene levels depend on the brew (drip vs. espresso vs. French press etc.)