It’s a miracle

Synsepalum dulcificum is apparently the latest thing in the salons of the chic.

CARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.”

Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”

Could there be a new export market for the “miracle berry” with its extraordinary ability to change the way things taste?

Speaking of which, I was at a nursery the other day and noticed that they offered plants of Stevia rebaudiana. that’s another of those well-known miracle plants, which is itself sweet, rather than making other things taste weird. I was interested because last I heard, Stevia was not permitted in Europe. Admittedly I haven’t kept up; maybe it is now. Anyway, I niblled on a bit of leaf, and it was remarkably sweet.

Biofuel dreams will all go up in smoke

You can get away with stealing from the land, mining its minerals, for a while. You may see some drop off in volume or quality, you may be able to compensate for a while, you may be able to take the productivity hit and still make out. But eventually you will be caught and punished. There’s no free lunch, though payment is made on the honor system. You can cheat for a while, until lunch is no longer provided.

It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that.

Why is biodiversity important?

People from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Albaeco interviewed researchers to get usable answers to important questions. They asked Professor Gretchen Daily, of Stanford University, to tackle “Why is biodiversity important?”. Watch her reply here. She gets going at about 1’15”. Could you do better?

Breakfast Nibbles: Blueberries, Tomatoes, Coffee, Assorted seeds, African potato, Branding, Mobiles, Food, Myanmar