"christian science monitor" news and stories

Leave it to The Simpsons to accurately predict the future. Remember the episode where Homer and Bart suck the grease from Springfield Elementary's cafeteria to try and turn a profit, but the vacuum explodes and the kids wind up playing "snowball fight" with grease balls?

Well, that scene is now a reality. Okay, not the part about the grease fight - but pretty much everything else.

As the demand for biofuel rises, thieves making to look a quick buck are stealing the "yellow grease" leftover from restaurants that cook their food in veggie fat. Like Homer Simpson, they suck up the substance with vacuums, and can get a few thousand dollars from about 5,000 gallons (grease has shot up to 32 cents a pound).

It's not a job for the dainty thieves: Christian Science Monitor writer Ben Arnoldy describes the smell of a grease rendering plant as "like a combination between a fast food restaurant and a butcher shop, where maybe the meat's gone bad."

Source

Although it's a few years old, a Christian Science Monitor story about Peru's diverse yet dwindling variety of tubers is still fascinating. In a scenario not uncommon to "heirloom" produce, the thousands of varieties of potatoes developed by Andean farmers over the last 8,000 years are falling out of favor due to newer varieties that are cheaper and easier to grow. The CSM cites a few varieties whose names translate to things like "flat like a cow's tongue," "like a woman with the colors of a condor's neck," and "makes the daughter-in-law weep." The latter apparently refers to a very bumpy potato used to test a prospective wife's peeling skills. The International Potato Center, based in Peru, is one of the main forces trying to conserve the region's tubers. Their Potato Park is one example. According to the CSM, the Center also maintains a gene bank with over 8,000 different potato specimens, half of which come from the Andes.