Beware of your “extra virgin” olive oil

July 14, 2016 • 8:15 am

I use a fair amount of “extra virgin” olive oil, and have always gone by the label. As many people know now, that’s simply not safe. Time Magazine estimated that 69% of of olive oil sold in the U.S. is adulterated. Forbes published an estimate that 80% of the olive oil imported from Italy isn’t what it’s supposed to be (“extra virgin” oil, which is all I use, is made simply by crushing whole olives and filtering the juice; it is otherwise unrefined and untreated. It’s a nice dark green, and should taste a bit bitter and very olive-y). Sadly, it looks as if most extra virgin olive oil you buy in stores isn’t that at all, even if it’s labeled as such. As Forbes notes,

You want the worst news? Traditional, well-known brands haven’t escaped the evil: Many adulterated olive oils are sold under quality brand names.

Yet, supermarkets are full of them.

Oh, my mistake – that wasn’t the worst. Here it is: Even the labels bearing the coveted “Protected Designation of Origin” or PDO stamp indicating the precise geographical origin of a particular extra virgin olive oil to ensure the quality of that region’s agricultural products, and which are subjected to more strict controls, have not escaped the illegal trend.

Yet, governments continue to permit the entry and commercialization of those products.

For years, David Neuman, an olive oil expert and taster who is CEO of the Greek food companyGaea North America, has been warning about adulterated and mislabeled oils and finds it particularly frustrating that consumers, retailers and governments are turning a blind eye to the widespread fraud.

“There is good olive oil and bad olive oil everywhere, and there are many Italian producers who stand by their product,” he told me. “But the extended nature of the Italian problem is affecting all the rest of Europe.”

For him, the most serious issue is the fraud committed against the consumer: “The olive oil sold in supermarkets should meet the established standards. And that is not being upheld.”

Even in Italian supermarkets, the rate of fake olive oil on the shelves is estimated at 50%.

In a well known test, the National Consumer’s League (see also here) tested 11 widely-sold olive oils from grocery stores and food stores, and found that six brands weren’t “extra virgin”: they had been adulterated with other oils or simply weren’t “extra virgin”. But these five were deemed okay (do note that Colavita failed another test at UC Davis):

California Olive Ranch “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” – Classified as extra virgin.
Colavita “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” – Classified as extra virgin.
Trader Joe’s “ Extra Virgin California Estate Olive Oil” – Classified as extra virgin.
Trader Joe’s “100% Italian Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil” – Classified as extra virgin.
Lucini “Premium Select Extra Virgin Olive Oil” – Classified as extra virgin.

Unfortunately, the League didn’t name those brands that failed the test. They said that the failing companies raised a stink, noting (which is true) that only a single bottle of each product was examined. They really should have looked at more.

The University of California at Davis also did two tests of many more brands, and, as lifehacker.com notes, did list the ones that failed to meet the extra-virgin criterion. One of them, Colavita, which I long used, failed to meet the Davis criteria:

The brands that failed to meet the extra virgin olive oil standards, according to this study: Bertolli, Carapelli, Colavita, Star, Pompeian. Eat Grown Local also reports: Filippo Berio, Mazzola, Mezzetta, Newman’s Own, Safeway, and Whole Foods in this list; the data may be from the earlier 2010 study when more brands were evaluated.

The real deal: California Olive Ranch, Cobram Estate, Lucini. Kirkland Organic, Lucero (Ascolano), McEvoy Ranch Organic are also noted by Eat Grown Local.

Ergo, in both tests Californa Olive Ranch and Lucini brands were okay. And the former isn’t expensive: $8.50-$10/bottle:

So if you’re not fancy-schmancy, into searching for rare varieties, you can stick with the brands given in bold. I was a bit distressed to hear about Colavita, as I used to use that as my go-to oil, so now I’ll use the Trader Joe’s stuff. Olive oil from California is generally safer, for the state has have stricter labeling laws.

And here’s a tip from Professor Ceiling Cat: Instead of using butter on your popcorn—or, God forbid, that microwave stuff, which is full of foul-tasting and artery-clogging butter substitutes—drizzle it with extra virgin olive oil and a little salt. (I sometimes use Chinese sesame oil.) I highly recommend eschewing the microwaved stuff and using a hot-air popper, which is cheap: it’s basically an inverted hair dryer with a spout (Presto is a popular brand). These are dead easy to use: you just turn them on for about two minutes, dump in the corn, and then put a big bowl under the spout. Voilà: a big bowl of good stuff.

Over the long run, that will save you lots of dosh and make better popcorn, for you can buy lovely gourmet popcorn, as kernels in bags (remember that?) for only a song. And you can top it with whatever you want.

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 14, 2016 • 7:30 am

We have special treat today: some lovely photos and videos of peregrine falcons taken by reader Bruce Lyon. His notes are indented:

Jerry previously posted some of my peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) photos. This new batch illustrates the photographic fruits from a lucky discovery last year—the peregrines almost always take their prey back to one of two favorite plucking/eating sites near their nest. Finding the plucking sites allowed me to see what species they eat as well as how they eat their prey. I also initially imagined unlimited wonderful photography opportunities, but it turns out the birds are shy when they have prey and would not let me approach them while eating. J. A. Baker also noted in his book The Peregrine that his peregrines became shyer when they had food. Maybe it is general peregrine thing—perhaps a carcass is a valuable commodity worth stealing so the birds become warier. To get photos I initially I had to resort to a camouflaged camera connected by long cable to my laptop; this setup allowed me to hide from sight and take photos remotely. I also set up small video cameras to run continuously and record whatever prey items the birds bring in, and below I include a couple of segments from these videos. The birds continue to get tamer over time and, finally, this year they will now let me watch them while they dine.

Below: The female on the pairs’ current favorite plucking station, a tiny pinnacle jutting up from the cliff very close to the nest. The feathers build up over time, like a fossil record of the victims—looks like the result of a macabre pillow fight.

Below: I had hoped to get photos of the falcons with a nice variety of prey species but the falcons had other ideas. They are dove specialists and, in particular, they really love introduced Eurasian Collared-Doves [Streptopelia decaocto]. As a result, the menu at the plucking station has been disappointingly boring—doves, doves and more doves. Here is the female with a freshly killed collared-dove.

Below: The female flies by the cliffs with a collared-dove in her talons.

Below: The male with a collared dove. I include this blurry photo for a couple of reasons. First, it is a nice still life of predator and prey (literally still life for the dove). Second, about half of the days my camera will not simply not focus on the bird on the plucking stack. It is not a problem with the camera’s auto focus mechanism because manual focus will not work. On these days is almost a mirage-like quality to the air. I have wondered if the problem is the salty air or a swirling mixture of warm and cold air? If any readers know what might be going on I would love to hear some ideas. Whatever the explanation it is bloody frustrating to have an amazing opportunity to photograph the falcons and their prey and then not be able to get a single remotely sharp image on a given day.

Below: Finally, something other than a dove! The male with an embarrassment of riches: a male Black-headed Grosbeak and what I believe is a Tennessee Warbler (but possibly an Orange-crowned Warbler since Tennessee warblers are not very common here).

Below: The male’s beak has ‘tomial’ notches. Falcons generally use these notches to sever the spinal chord of their victims. The upper beak has a projecting “tooth”, and the lower beak has a corresponding notch, and these fit together to make a devastating cutting implement. According the online Birds of North America species description for peregrines, this biting the prey neck action is instinctive—captive raised young birds do it when presented with their first intact bird carcass. The tomial notches are also used to cut bones; I assume this is how they snip away at the breastbone, which my birds always eat. In fact, the birds eat everything and at the end of the meal all that remains are the plucked feathers.

Below: The video [JAC: videos also taken by Bruce] shows the female biting the neck of a collared-dove as soon as she arrives at the plucking spot. I watched her chase this dove and comparing her departure time with the time stamp on the video camera for her arrival revealed that the entire chase and return to the plucking site took 2 minutes! Note that the female starts by eating the head—they always do this.

The birds always pluck the all of the flight feathers on the wings and tail at some point during the meal, and they typically pluck many of the body feathers too. They pluck body feathers by yanking beakfuls of feathers and then spitting them out, as this photo shows for the female:

Below: The wing feathers are so aerodynamic that after the falcons spit them out they sometimes spin upwards in the wind currents like a wind dispersed seed (e.g. maple keys), sometimes spinning for several minutes. The video below, taken a couple of days ago, shows the male plucking wing feathers from a dove and some of the primary feathers twirl away in the wind:

The pair sometimes share a prey item (the first bird to eat leaves some of the prey for the other bird). In the two photos below, the female has just eaten her share of a dove while the male sat impatiently on the nearby cliff, whining frequently about wanting his share. Once the female was done and no longer holding the dove down to eat, the wind blew the half eaten dove to the edge of the stack where it threatened to topple over and disappear into the ocean below. The female watched teetering carcass inch towards the precipice but did nothing. At this point, the male couldn’t stand it any more and had to come in an rescue his meal:

Below: The birds really do eat everything. Often the prey’s feet are the last thing to go down the hatch. Kind of fitting—head first, feet last. Here a fledgling savors a dove foot.

Thursday: Hili dialogue

July 14, 2016 • 6:30 am

It’s Thursday, July 14, and you know what that means: it’s Bastille Day! I was living in Paris on its 200th anniversary, in 1989, and I tell you—that was a celebration!

It’s still hot in Chicago—the high will be 32° C (89° F) today, but it will cool off considerably tomorrow. On this day in history, aside from the French storming the Bastille, Billy the Kid was shot by Pat Garrett (1881), the first Nazi eugenics law, allowing for the sterilization of the “genetically defective”, took effect in 1933, and, in 1976, capital punishment was abolished in Canada. Now if only they’d abolish their hate speech laws. . .

Notables born on this day include Gustav Klimt (1862), Woody Guthrie (1912), Ingmar Bergman (1918), Harry Dean Stanton (1926; he turns 90 today), and Jerry Rubin (1938). Those who died on July 14 include Adlai Stevenson II (1965). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili reports on some gustatory activity:

Hili: I’ve met a church mouse.

A: And?

Hili: I ate it. It disagreed with me.

In Polish:

Hili: Spotkałam mysz kościelną.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Zjadłam, nie była dobra.

The big news from Winnipeg is that Gus has a new box, replacing the Ikea box that he chewed to bits. This one resembles a cat boat, and we’ll see if he noms it. His staff Taskin reports:

I had an idea that this might be Gus’s new box as soon as I got it at the market garden. I put it down under the harpsichord where the remnants of the Ikea box are. Lo and behold, while I was practicing today this bliss happened! I wish you could hear him purring.

Also, this is what I feel like today, with the lion being a metaphor for life:

https://twitter.com/AwardsDarwin/status/753354795881226240

Theresa May assumes the Prime Ministership; Larry the Official Mouser is unimpressed

July 13, 2016 • 2:30 pm

I think I’ve announced twice that Larry, the Official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, would keep his job after Theresa May becomes Prime Minister (today). I was greatly relieved. PMs come and go, but Larry has only one Forever Home (he was adopted from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Shelter), and there he should stay. He hasn’t been a particularly effective mouser, but neither was David Cameron a particularly effective Prime Minister. We shall see about The Honourable Theresa May.

In the meantime, reader Chris directed me to a German website with pictures of May taking up her residence, and Larry watching, seemingly unimpressed. The site is for the magazine Tagesschau, and the article’s title is “Der Kater Larry bleibt in Downing Street Nr. 10” (“The tomcat Larry will stay at 10 Downing Street.”) Here’s both Theresa May and the Honourable Chief Mouser:

The picture below, showing May with her trademark fancy footwear, has the caption:

Leo-Print – ob das einer getigerten Katze gefällt? Theresa May hatte offenbar besonders auf die Wahl ihrer Schuhe geachtet, als sie in der Downing Street vorbeischaute. Medienstar Larry hatte bereits vorher getwittert (@Number10Cat): “Kennt jemand einen guten Katzenfriseur, der ab morgen verfügbar wäre? Ich muss am Mittwoch auf jemanden einen guten Eindruck machen.” | Bildquelle: AP.

Larry apparently issued that tw**t yesterday, and I translate the caption as “Leo Print: will it please a tiger cat? Theresa May has obviously paid particular attention to her choice of shoes as she drops by Downing Street. The media star Larry has already tweeted, “Does anyone know a good cat groomer who is available tomorrow? I must make a good impression on someone on Wednesday.”

And here’s Larry getting fusses. If they had been from May rather than a bobby I would have been much more impressed!

I didn’t see the tw**t described above, but Larry is documenting the goings-on on his Twi**er feed:

Templeton entangles itself with the National Academy of Sciences and University of Chicago Press

July 13, 2016 • 1:05 pm

Well, I’m resigned to the fact that one lone voice of a superannuated biologist cannot overcome the millions of dollars dispensed annually by the John Templeton Foundation, all in the cause of blurring the boundary between science and religion. The Foundation simply pours too much feed into the Science Trough, and hungry researchers can’t help but sidle up for their ration of slop. And so event after event, science society after science society, holds out their hands for those free-flowing dollars, which Templeton dispenses without too much scrutiny.

The other day I was invited to a conference in Washington D.C. called “Evolutionary Theory: A Hierarchical Perspective”. Here’s the announcement on the Internet; click on this screenshot (and others) to go to the website:

As you’ll see in a second, the meeting is in conjunction with the launch of a new multi-authored book about hierarchies in evolution.

Looking at the program for the meeting, which takes place at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., I noticed that right after a ten-minute introduction by one of the book’s editors, there is to be an “introductory address by a representative of John Templeton Foundation.” That set off alarm bells, so I wrote back to the organizer, telling him that I don’t attend Templeton-sponsored events and asking what the Foundation’s involvement was in this project. I was told then that the Foundation has supported the conference’s work in a helpful and liberal way “in each step, without any kind of interference.” I was also reproved for having “a radical prejudice against attending a free scientific debate”. (I didn’t, however, notice any critics of the hierarchical view, like David Queller or Stuart West, among the invitees.) But of course the Templeton agenda isn’t usually achieved through interference, but through selectively funding those projects that meet its aims.

It turns out there’s an entire Hierarchy Group site, which announces that the John Templeton Foundation is their “major sponsor.” Now I’m not sure what Templeton’s after here, but my suspicion is that a). they want to show that modern evolutionary theory is woefully incomplete without the notion of hierarchy, as in group selection, and b). that a reductionist approach to evolution is unproductive. (Templeton hates reductionism.) This is in line with Templeton’s historical pattern of funding, for example the large amount of money they give to David Sloan Wilson’s group to study multilevel selection as well as the evolution of religion.

This time the project, which was funded in 2013, got a small amount by Templeton standards: a mere $178,000. Here’s the website:

And that $178K has yielded a book: Evolutionary Theory, a Hierarchical Perspective which, to my immense sadness, is being published by the University of Chicago Press on September 28. If your own pocketbook is deep enough, you can pick it up for about $100. Looking at the contents, I’m not enthused.

My questions are, of course, why is the National Academy of Sciences hosting this event given the connection with a science-and-theology institute (the Templeton Prize was, as I recall, also awarded there a few years ago), and why is the University of Chicago Press issuing a book that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the theological bent of John Templeton?

I’m sure both institutions could and will give good reasons for their decisions, but once again we see the insinuation of Templeton, and its agenda, into the nature of evolutionary biology. Unlike the National Science Foundation, which funds evolutionary biology after grants are peer reviewed by a panel of expert scientists, ensuring a rigorous vetting and support of all areas of the field, the Templeton Foundation dispenses cash without an overly rigorous review—and the projects must have an aim that comports with Templeton’s goals.

What this does, of course, is turn the course of science in a direction closer to what Templeton wants. I abhor that, even though many of my colleagues are lined up behind the trough, licking their lips.

Here’s the dragonfly!

July 13, 2016 • 12:00 pm

I’m guessing that not many people found the green dragonfly from this morning, but maybe I’m wrong. I’ll put the original photo below, and you can then click on the arrow at bottom that says “Read more” to see the elusive odonate.

Ready? Go ahead and click.

Continue reading “Here’s the dragonfly!” →

Natural selection reduces years of schooling among Americans

July 13, 2016 • 9:30 am

As I’ve often said, the question I’m always asked after my public lectures on evolution is this: “Are humans still evolving?” And my answer is always the same: “Yes, but the evidence we have for evolution occurring right now involves traits that aren’t that interesting.” When people ask that question, what they really want to know is whether humans are getting better looking, more athletic, smarter—whether we’re turning into a race of superheroes. And all I can tell them is that, over the last 10,000 years, our species has evolved in some places to be more lactose-tolerant, in other places to be more resistant to malaria, and in still other places to adapt to the low-oxygen conditions of living at high altitude. But that’s still in the past (see a summary here).

As for evolution in the present day, we have “real time”, “horizontal” observations for things like selection in women for earlier age of first birth, later age of last birth and (also in women) increases in height in some places and decreases in others. Studies in the U.S., which haven’t been conducted elsewhere, show a recent evolution of reduced cholesterol levels and lower blood pressure, and an increased age of menopause (see here and here). But those results don’t excite people much. In general, though, as long as there is variation in some genes that causes variation in reproductive success, humans will continue to evolve. That hard part is documenting which genes and which traits are associated with reproductive success, and that means laborious studies correlating people’s genes and traits with their reproductive output.

One such study, by Jonathan Beauchamp, was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (free download, link and title below). It used genetic, phenotypic (“trait”), and reproductive-success data from about 12,000 U.S. males and females of European ancestry, born between 1931 and 1953, all examined in a Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using people of that age ensured that most of them had completed their reproduction, so the number of children they had (child mortality wasn’t counted) served as an index of their reproductive success (RS). And, of course, traits conferring a greater RS are those that selection will favor in populations. The currency of natural selection is reproductive output!

The authors did two types of analyses of the data.

a. Trait analysis. The authors used data on body mass index (BMI), educational attainment (EA), fasting glucose concentration (GLU), height (HGT), schizophrenia (SCZ), plasma concentration of total cholesterol (TC), and age at menarche (AAM), the last trait studied, of course, only in women. They then correlated the values of each trait with the reproductive success of their bearers:

The results? As the table below shows (asterisks denote statistical significance at the p < 0.01 level), there was evidence of phenotypic “selection” for stouter males and females, selection again educational attainment in both males and females, and selection for shorter women (but not men).

Taken at face value, these data show that Americans in that year class are experiencing selection to get chubbier, to stay in school fewer years, and, in women, to get shorter. But of course there are problems, because they are looking at a correlation between a trait and the number of children produced by people with different trait values—and there’s no genetics here. Perhaps there are cultural or other reasons, for instance, for the correlation between staying in school for less time and having more children. One example would be if people leave school to have children, or put off having children while they’re in school. You’d get the appearance of selection on the trait, but there might not be any genes involved, so there would be no evolution. Because of these issues, the author did a study explicitly incorporating genes.

b. Genetic analysis. This involved looking at the DNA of every person at many sites (between 80,000 and 400,000 DNA positions, depending on the trait), and finding those combinations of gene positions best correlated with the values of the trait (I’m simplifying matters here, but it’s not important). These combinations of DNA positions were then considered to be the genetic sites that could be influenced by selection on that trait. Having done that, Beauchamp could then see if those combinations of genes were themselves correlated with reproductive success, and thus could be under selection. After having done the appropriate statistical corrections for multiple tests, Beauchamp found the following results:

So the negative correlation between genes associated with staying in school and the reproductive success of their carriers was still observed. In other words, both men and women were undergoing natural selection for fewer years of schooling. There was still a marginally significant (p < 0.1) association between age of menarche and reproductive success, in line with previous studies showing that American women are evolving to reach menopause later. There was no significant association between genetic constitution and reproductive output on the other traits.

Three questions remain:

How strong is selection against educational attainment? Answer: not very strong. The estimate given by Beauchamp is that we’re staying in school about one week to six weeks less per generation. If you take 25 years per generation, it would take about 35 generations, or 875 years, for selection to reduce our education by about a year.

So are we getting dumber? Answer: nope, because phenotypically we’re staying in school longer. That is, the cultural trends on Americans show that between 1876 and 1951 (75 years), Americans’ EA increased by 6.2 years—an increase of about two years of education per generation. That far outstrips the genetic change, so, even if the selection data are correct, we’re still going to keep increasing our educational attainment. What we’re seeing is the reproductive advantage of leaving school a bit earlier is being overcome by the cultural trend to stay in school longer.

What other problems are there? Beauchamp does a good job in pointing out the caveats of his study. I won’t recount them in detail, but they include the possibility that having more children doesn’t mean that you’re going to have better children—that is, that those extra kids may not themselves reproduce as well as kids from smaller families. That could weaken or even reverse the direction of selection. And, of course, this correlation was seen in only people from one or two generations, and there’s no guarantee that it will continue over the long term—or even that we’d see the same kind of selection in other countries.

In the end, we have a suggestive result, but one that needs a lot more work before it’s accepted as definitive. That work would somehow have to look at the reproductive output of the children themselves sired by the measured individuals, and nobody is going to do that. Further, the genetic result is being overcome by cultural trends, so we don’t really have to worry that we’re breeding a generation of dropouts!

_________

Beauchamp, J. P. 2016. Genetic evidence for natural selection in humans in the contemporary United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113:7774-7779.

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Rectitude

July 13, 2016 • 8:30 am

The new Jesus and Mo strip is called ‘which’, and the emailed note says, “It’s the persistence of the problem of human fallibility again!”

No comment is needed here. I’ll just add date from the 2013 Pew Survey in which Muslims in most Muslim-majority countries were asked a number of questions. Here are the data on those Muslims claiming that only Islam can take you to Heaven:

(Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen weren’t surveyed.) Note that a majority of Muslims think that only Muslims can attain Paradise, with the majority being overwhelming in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

The only comparable data I could easily find is from a 2008 Pew Survey of American beliefs, in which 2905 people of various faiths were asked which members of other faiths could go to Heaven. The data:

I was surprised to see that 42% of all Americans said that atheism (which of course isn’t a religion) can lead to eternal life; won’t we heathens be surprised to find ourselves up there after death, with an eternal supply of kittens, rib tips, and 1961 Petrus!? 69% of Americans thought that even Jews can attain eternal life, and 52% thought the same of Muslims. But of course Catholicism and Protestantism were the religions deemed most likely to land you in Heaven.

The two sets of data aren’t comparable, of course, because the Pew Survey of Muslims wasn’t taken in America. But it’s still interesting to look at these figures.

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