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The Pacific Ocean Is Polluted With Coffee
An anonymous reader writes in with this excerpt from Inhabitat:"People aren't the only ones getting a jolt from caffeine these days; in a new study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, scientists found elevated concentrations of caffeine in the Pacific Ocean in areas off the coast of Oregon. With all those coffee drinkers in the Pacific Northwest, it should be no surprise that human waste containing caffeine would ultimately make its way through municipal water systems and out to sea – but how will the presence of caffeine in our oceans affect human health and natural ecosystems?"
if you check closelyy enough,most other waterways are,too
Geek Hillbilly
The fishies will be swimming stupidly faster with more energy!
More like "engergized"?
What do you think we caffeine drinkers should call ourselves?
Caffeinated sushi. *drool*
Neither the summary nor the linked article said the amounts, but they are listed in the original paper. In the ocean, they found 44.7 ng/L. "Caffeine concentrations in rivers and estuaries draining to the coast measured up to 152.2 ng/L." For those who like their numbers in ppm, I believe that's .0447 ppm and .1522 ppm, respectively. Sometimes I fail at math, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
that human coffe/tea consumption and pee will have an effect on the world's oceans.
Other human activities, yes, definitely. But not this.
While this is not surprising and questionably news, I am a little more worried about the years and years of synthetic, biologically active drugs in the water. Birth control hormones don't exactly just disappear after you swallow them, and I know that they and other classes of petroleum based drugs have shown hormonal activity not only in mammals, but amphibians, fish, and birds. Though a world with huge breasted marine mammals would be cool, I am more concerned about the chemicals other than coffee that are following the same pathways and reaching the entire world. Miles deep into the ocean, thousands of miles through the atmosphere, there is really no where on the planet that has not been affected in at least a minor way by the expansion of human industry.
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
Wiki says
Caffeine is metabolized in the liver by the cytochrome P450 oxidase enzyme system (to be specific, the 1A2 isozyme) into three metabolic dimethylxanthines. Further, In healthy adults, caffeine's half-life has been measured with a range of results. Some measures get 4.9 hours, and others are at around 6 hours.
Therefore, it seems unlikely that the source of caffeine in the ocean is from human waste, since the time spent in the gut exceeds the half-life of caffeine, and when metabolized, its no longer caffeine. There is of course still some small remaining un-metabolized caffeine in urine. A liter of espresso may contain as much as 2254 milligrams of caffeine. But when filtered through a human gut 5 to 10 milligrams/liter in urine is unusual, and 15mg/l gets you bounced from most sports programs as a sign of abuse.
It seems far more likely that the coffee poured out by restaurants, offices, and households, and the disposed of grounds being used for compost and gardening are a larger source than what comes out in the urine stream. Also the water Decaffeination processes is the source of the excess caffeine in city sewage, even though caffeine thus recovered can be marketed into the soft drink business, not all small operations bother with that.
Quoting the first linked source:
Caffeine occurrence and concentrations in seawater did not correspond with pollution threats from population density and point and non-point sources, but did correspond with storm event occurrence.
So it seems to me that the caffeine is just as likely entirely natural, perhaps produced in very low quantities by some naturally occurring plants in the predominantly coniferous temperate rain forests of the area, rather than by any human activity or byproduct. Such a low production would leach out into streams and rivers during storms, but not from municipal sewers, and hence would not correspond to population density.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You know, I thought things were going too far when I began seeing Starbucks on every street corner, and now I hear they're in the Pacific Ocean too! Fucking progress! Maybe some of the plastic islands and BP oil-globs will absorb the coffee and save the whales from the jitters. I must confess though, I'd like to see a porpoise after a few dozen shots of espresso.
~ Comment copy & pasted from original "anonymous" submission
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
*TWITCH!*TWITCH*
I'd like to swim upstream and spawn, but the last time I tried it, I wound up in Lake Erie! Eww! And MAN is the wind cold at supersonic speeds!
It took me almost a week to swim home! It would have happened faster, but I ran out of caffeine two-days from home. Hawaii was nice though.
Now where was I?
Oh yeah.
WE'RE VERY AWAKE DOWN HERE GUYS!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I could only read it and helplessly chuckle to myself thinking "Why, of course it is!".
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I think there's a better chance of you being modded "What the fuck are you talking about?"
I know it has a few health benefits, but it's just too bitter.
One benefit is making you think "bitter" is tasty. The second, and more important one, is the prevention of lack-of-coffee headaches.
Translation:
I know I'll probably get modded troll for this but good luck separating [people I'm the opposite of, and hold distain for] in [state below the states being written about] from [place I heard is attached to the object in the issue].
Personally I've never [insert way of using the object in question]. I know it has [something obvious about nearly everything], but [insert something only vaguely related to the object in question].
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
It won't. Poison is all about the dosage. There's a LOT of water, and not much caffeine compared to that much water. Also, caffeine only works because it interfaces with specific receptors in our brains. It probably affects other mammals, but is not going to affect random fish or other aquatic life.
Not buying it.
An 8 oz cup of coffee is 236.5 ml and has 49mg of caffeine. Assume the entire thing was thrown away undrunk at all. The population of portland is about 600k. If we assume that everyone in portland throws away one full cup of coffee every day for 100 years and that every drop ends up in the ocean, that's 21.9b cups of coffee or approx 1 billion grams of caffeine.
100 years is plenty of time to diffuse. Its also plenty of times for caffeine to break down but less assume this were magic caffeine and so lasted the 100 years perfectly intact. Since they say the pacific ocean lets say none of it leaves the pacific for the other oceans. The pacific ocean is 7.721473366 × 10^21 liters. So cross multiplying (7.721473366 × 10^21× ) x (.049 g) / (.2365 l) us that that we are 1.6x10^20 grams so your billion grams falls 1.6x10^11 short. OK well lets assume that in addition to not breaking down it also doesn't diffuse. The Pacific is 361.1m kilometers in area. So lets assume that all the coffee hangs out for the entire century in the 2 kilometers nearest Portland, we still are short by 3 full orders of magnitude.
There is no way a bunch of 600k humans use enough coffee for the ocean to notice.
If I had mod points, I would mod you +1 Thank You for modding somebody "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
Let's hope nobody dumps a bunch of frickin' lasers in the ocean too.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Ill-Tempered Sea Bass!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
It's more likely that Starbucks set up a Spy-Who-Loved-Me-esque secret under-sea base that serves as a combination processing plant where Jaws grinds beans for less than minimum wage and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos resides in a luxury suite off-shore tax haven.
TFA goes on to note that high levels of caffeine have been detected in Boston Harbor, but they're not suggesting any link between the levels and the tea party.The whole article is dubious, given that it consists of four whopping paragraphs and two stock photos (one of some plastic bags underwater someplace that sure doesn't look like the Oregon coast to me, and the other a closeup of someone's coffee) that take up more of the page than the actual body of the "article," which has no journalistic merit whatsoever. The actual paper that this all comes from is behind a paywall that wants $40. Nothing to see here... move along...
all the Caffeinated Fish!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
There are chemicals that can kill fish at 3 parts per billion. There are other things like salt that don't bother them as much, but it's really variable.
However, as other people have pointed out, there are lots of other chemicals getting dumped into the water system, including things like cocaine and prozac that have been processed through humans first. With caffeine, humans metabolize it so you wouldn't get much left, but there's all the caffeine in coffee grounds and waste coffee and soda.
And it is Portland.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This explains Dory from Finding Nemo.
This got me curious.
Apparently, according to different sources 50-100 plants produce caffeine in varying amounts, which makes sense as caffeine is an effective herbicide if you aren't trying to ward off primates with an inflated sense of self-importance.
Narrowing to California, the first species I found that California clearly has was the leaves and flowers of orange trees, though the only exact number I could find was "caffeine is found at concentration levels of 11-17. 5 milligrams per liter, mostly in citrus flowers.” California is a big orange-growing state though.
The other option I found was holly. Southeastern US varieties of holly are quite potent caffeine producers. Indeed, apparently ancient people's used to drink them like we drink coffee. I've seen these caffeine-rich recommended to Californians to use as hedges on some sites and while the zone map for the plant includes California I couldn't find out any info on how widespread the plant is in that region.
I wonder what other plants are rich in caffeine and also if normal plant leaf decomposition could get that caffeine into the water supply?
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
sharks with frickin' lasers...after a quad-shot of espresso
Surely the elevated levels of caffeine in the ocean .... must be a wake-up call!
How many libraries of congress is that, exactly?
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
Next thing you know mermaids will be serving coffee on every street corner.
First, you're off by a factor of thousand, so it'd really be sixty thousand tons, not sixty million tons.
Second -- this was the higherst concentration they found, in one small area of the ocean -- they are *not* saying the entire ocean has that much coffeine in it, indeed they sampled other places and found nothing (i.e. the concentration was below their limit of detection)
WE'RE VERY AWAKE DOWN HERE GUYS!
Just watch out for the sharks with frickin' lasers ON FRICKIN' CAFFEINE!!!
Lemon curry???
Ms. Slashdot, add a custom mod option where we enter what we wont.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Poor trolling or advanced irony ... I'm not sure ???
Seattle has a good reputation for coffee - right up there with cities like Rome, Vienna, Buenos Aires and my home town of Melbourne.
We closed 16 of our Starbucks that couldn't turn a profit and you'd have to be insane to drink coffee from McDonalds, DD or 7-11 given the other choices. I'd assume the same in Seattle and Pacific NW in general.
So trolling Starbucks or being ironic about the others ... not sure !
I am wont to correct your grammar!
If it's too bitter, then you really haven't had decent coffee yet. You can make strong, flavorful coffee without it having to be bitter. If the coffee you're drinking is bitter, there's a good chance that the preparation methods are at fault, since the bitter flavors tend to get extracted from the grounds as a result of over-extraction (the good flavors are extracted first, with the bitter ones coming later).
For instance, if it's being made in a percolator or a standard drip coffee maker, you need to find something else. Both of those cause some of the grounds to be over-extracted of their flavors, resulting in excessive bitterness. Proper coffee preparation involves water being evenly distributed among the grounds, enabling them to be uniformly extracted of their flavors in exactly the proper amount, then not a moment more. That's why you see a lot of the good coffee preparation methods involving either pressure (so as to force the water through the grounds) or stirring the grounds into the water (so as to uniformly disperse the grounds), sometimes in combination with one another.
Some basic tips:
1) Avoid coffee from a percolator or typical drip coffee maker.
2) Avoid coffee that's been on a burner for awhile.
3) Avoid coffee that was made with boiling water.
4) Avoid coffee made from grounds that came ground already.
In the end though, find whatever works for you, and if it's not coffee, that's fine. Just give it a fair chance by finding some actual decent stuff. There are plenty of other tips out there, but this will at least get you started. And I'm sure some actual coffee aficionado can point out 10 things I said that were incorrect or that I could have said better.
Nah just dangle a few stale pastries, a couple mac books/ipads/iphones and a wifi access point over the side, and the fish will be leaping into your boat.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
...because now they can't get anyone to sleep with the fishes.
So now we have caffeine hopped sharks that never sleep. They won't need lasers on their heads.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
When they aren't sleeping, they're feeding.
Man, I forgot Starbucks was still in business over in the US. You poor bastards.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
You can afford coffee but you can't afford food?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I don't know, passing the bong around congress would probably improve things dramatically.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They say tea contains caffeine and yet I can drink one before bed and not feel any effects of insomnia. The reverse is true if i drink coffee. Are there different types of caffeine or is there a lower concentration in tea?
So that's why fish don't blink!
Tea contains tanin, which blocks the absorption of caffeine. This typically means that you get an immediate caffeine kick from coffee, which then wears off, while tea gives you a slower release of a smaller amount over a period of a few hours. Add to that, after regular consumption you build up a tolerance for caffeine and so won't experience any effects (other than withdrawal if you stop having any), but if you regularly drink tea then you won't be used to the sudden jump in caffeine levels. Oh, and much of the effect of caffeine is psychological. A study a few years ago found that people who unknowingly drink decaf also exhibit the symptoms that they expect from coffee, right up until the point that withdrawal kicks in (and, in some people, the withdrawal is so mild that they don't notice).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Actually, none of this would matter if scientists weren't funded by the state, and needed to keep 'finding out things' to justify their funding. In the days of amateur scientists people had a much better understanding of balancing the importance of discoveries.
Yes let's go back to the Eighteenth century model of Gentlemen Amateurs doing all the science, sport and arts. It's all wasted on the plebs anyway.
Personally, I blame the French Revolution. All that liberty, fraternity, equality nonsense has just ruined things for Us Toffs.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
With all the drinks out there loaded with caffeine why is it coffee get's put under the spot light?
Because coffee has become an emblem of ridiculous, preening consumer capitalist conspicuous consumption?
Three quid for a cup of coffee with some fucking squirty cream in?
You're having a giraffe.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Green tea has less caffeine than black tea, but arguably is much healthier (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/coffee-vs-tea/). Green tea is less processed than black tea, but white tea which is even less processed has less caffeine and may have the most health promoting properties. I've swapped out my daily pot of joe with a daily pot of green/white mix and do feel a lot better! Even with a few chocolate espresso beans now and then, no insomnia :)
Cocaine, Spices, Hormones Found in Drinking Water:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/08/07/011220/the-pacific-ocean-is-polluted-with-coffee
This is a very good thing! After all, a very definition of programmer is the bio-organic mechanism tasked with converting coffee to code. We will become the world of programmers!
While tea does contain tanin so does coffee. A more common reason as to why you can do this is either you're drinking a fruit /mint tea that has little to no caffeine, or more likely, your body is conditioned for coffee so that when you smell coffee and taste it your brain behaves as though it's just waking up even if there's not a lot of caffine in the cup. An example of this was a study (in england around 2011 if my memory serves) that had people drink regular coffee and decaf and then tested focus and reaction time. The people drinking decaf who were told they were drinking caffeine actually did better than the caffeinated people on (I think just on) reaction time.
The brain is an annoyingly inconvenient trickster sometimes.
Nah just dangle a few stale pastries, a couple mac books/ipads/iphones and a wifi access point over the side, and the fish will be leaping into your boat.
Put a decal on the bottom that says $10,000 boat, and they will give themselves up for sure.
--
Someone claimed that tuna can do 100 miles/hour. Was that with caffeine?
Depends on the tea, but most of them have less caffeine than coffee. Drink mate, on the other hand, and you won't sleep for two days. Except if you're used to it.
Nerdy news for your nerdy needs? http://www.soylentnews.org Soylent News is people!
http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/The_Deep_South
I have a feeling that is a lie. Most cups don't get reused. I don't believe many would fill a Starbucks cup at McD.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Hmm, isn't Chtulu sleeping at the bottom of the ocean?
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
We should dump cream AND sugar as well so they have choices!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
My morning coffee:
Heat water in a tea kettle.
Use Columbian beans, 1 heaping teaspoon per breakfast cup of water.
Grind the beans into a fine powder (I like a little mud in the cup)
in an electric grinder.
Dump the coffee grounds into a French press.
Pour in the water when it is just off the boil.
The process of pouring the water will stir the grounds, there is no need to use a spoon.
Let the French press sit for 1 minute, and then put the lid on and slowly press the plunger.
Pour my cup almost full and then top it off with milk.
It beats the hell out of pre-ground coffee and paper filters, mostly because it doesn't taste like you are drinking newspaper.
For many people withdrawal from caffeine means a migraine headache. I've told several coworkers who complained of severe headaches on Mondays that they need to drink the same amount on weekends as they do in the office.
Caffeine is a diuretic, so it makes fish pee more. Fish urine makes coffee taste terrible, so Oregonians will drink less coffee. It's a perfect example of a negative feedback cycle... that's the beauty of Mother Nature. Take note, Global Warming believers.
>We closed 16 of our Starbucks that couldn't turn a profit and you'd have to be insane to drink coffee from McDonalds, DD or 7-11 given the other choices.
Insane? Or maybe just not care about having a "premium coffee experience". A lot of people are happy with the coffee at say McDonalds... it's fast, hot, and quite a bit cheaper than coffee from a coffee house. Is it gourmet? No... Is it good? To them it is.
It's just like how many people like Coors Light... they sell a ton of it! Now I personally prefer one of the many fine microbrews in the Pacific Northwest. However my best friend really prefers Coors Light and given the choice between that something locally crafted, she orders a Coors Light (and she's tried a lot of others). I don't like it much myself, but who am I to tell her that she's wrong or insane to like it? Isn't it enough that she likes what she likes and I like something different?
It does for me. Apparently there's a bell curve, with some outliers experiencing symptoms not far off heroin withdrawal (thankfully I'm not that bad) and others experiencing nothing. Most people just experience mild lethargy for a bit.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Headache/bad headache != migraine headache. I wish people would really stop saying they get migraine headaches all the time. A migraine head ache is one that is at least 3 days long. Unless your headache was at least that long, it was not a migraine. Also usually migraine sufferers have other issues like not seeing too well, super sensitivity to light, sound, or smell. Could be taste but I never met anyone who had that. They also can vomit or have diarrhea or both at the same time from a migraine. I watched a family member have migraines for years. The many trips to the hospital, and that little pill that messed her up as much as the migraine. When you have a headache where the world is vibrating due to your eye sight being affected from the headache for 3-4 weeks, we'll talk. The one day migraine is BS. That is a headache, not a migraine headache.
Caffeine increases the blood flow. Increase blood flow helps with regular headaches. Not migraines. The doctors had me pumped full of caffeine during one test. I was talking 2-3 times as fast. That tape was funny. Did nothing for the headache I had at the time. For other headaches, caffeine works well. Why do you think Excedrin works well for regular headaches.
Another observation: If you actually do get migraines often, see if something near the head or neck is out of alignment or pinched. Most of the heavy migraine sufferers I know had a pinched nerve, out of alignment neck or jaw. Getting those fixed helped slow the frequency of migraines dramatically. Mine issue was my jaw. A tooth came in that hit my lower jaw. That made my jaw not line up correctly. It was off by just a little. Had the tooth taken out. Now I have a few headaches a year instead of a few weeks of no headaches a year.
Fair points ...
Seems like $2 coffee is strange when quality coffee is $3.50 and premium is $4-$4.20 (in my part of the world and I'd assume similar elsewhere) .... but your beer analogy is a very good one
Maybe he lives in Victoria.
No brain, no pain.
I have the same problem, not from lack of coffee (which I drink a half-pot of every morning, and have since I was 14), but from lack of soda. I've tried to ween myself off of goddamned Diet Coke many times over the last couple years and I just can't, because by day three I always have a pounding headache. As someone that quit smoking cold turkey, after smoking a pack a day (Newport, no less, no piddly shit Marlboro Lights) the fact that I can't break myself of my Diet Coke habit drives me mad.
One would think I would be getting my caffeine fix from the java, but I'm definitely having withdrawal symptoms from something in the soda that is not present in the coffee. If not caffeine, what else can it be? The cola itself? Perhaps. All I know is within a couple days without my head feels like it's in a vice. I've gone similar amounts of time without coffee and suffered no ill effects, outside of being a fucking zombie for half the morning, of course. That's the other weird thing I've noticed: the caffeine in soda doesn't seem to have the kick for waking me up like coffee does. I lived down in Georgia for a time and the people down there drink Coke with their breakfast, but that was never sufficient for me to jump start my day for whatever reason.
It probably is all psychosomatic (well, not the headaches from the caffeine withdrawal, but the need for it to function like a normal human being before 10 AM) but regardless, the headaches are miserable so I'm stuck on the Diet Coke until I find a more healthy substitute.
If they are like my coworkers their Monday headaches are caused by drinking too much on the weekend.
21st Century Renaissance Man
They say tea contains caffeine and yet I can drink one before bed and not feel any effects of insomnia. The reverse is true if i drink coffee. Are there different types of caffeine or is there a lower concentration in tea?
Depends on the tea. Some can have higher concentrations, some lower - in the same way that concentration in coffee will vary based on the bean, how it's ground, etc.
Personally - after chugging far too many 2 liter bottles of 'dew in my youth - I find that none of the above particularly effects me. I can drink tea/coffee/jolt/whatever and go to sleep afterwards.
Maybe I should switch to cocaine.
So, most organic compounds break down over time in the environment. Won't caffeine also break down? At what sort of rate does it break down?
The only way I'd really be worried about caffeine in the water is if it's going to keep accumulating forever, or at such a high rate that it reaches meaningful concentrations.
From teh article: "it remains unclear whether caffeine is a ubiquitous contaminant of marine systems and if there is any trend in the distribution of caffeine relative to anthropogenic sources of caffeine contamination." There could be natural sources of caffeine washed into bays and coastal waters. Making the leap from caffeine to coffee contamination is, according to the authors, not justified.
That was probably me. Sorry, everyone...
Headache/bad headache != migraine headache. I wish people would really stop saying they get migraine headaches all the time. A migraine head ache is one that is at least 3 days long. Unless your headache was at least that long, it was not a migraine.
Umm... wrong. Anything from 4 to 72 hours. See http://cep.sagepub.com/content/24/1_suppl/23
A latent existence
I've seen news of reports on studies lately that show coffee is good for you. Is the green tea thing simply Asian folklore, or have there been scientific studies? The video you linked is suspect; it's a VIDEO. Do you have a link for those of us who can actually read, preferably from an .edu domain rather than a .org?
Free Martian Whores!
The brain was created by Loki?
I drank what? -- Socrates
It was going so well, until you decided to kill it with milk.
The fish will now have the opportunity to turn the caffeine into theorems.
(With apologies to Alfred Renyi.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfr%C3%A9d_R%C3%A9nyi
There are various migraines. I for example used to get a ton of "Complicated" migraine headaches where the symptoms were very difficult to distinguish from that of a stroke. Slurred speech, no coordination, tunnel vision, numbness on one side...etc. First time I had one, I was taken by Ambulance from the local hospital to UPMC where they then determined (after 6 hours and 3 neurologists later) that I only had a horrible migraine.
Decaf isn't - it still has some caffeine, just not as much, but still more than a cuppa lipton does.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Well it's hard to be considered opposite when I support many things that some people consider "left" such as complete legalization of drugs, and I also believe that what people do in the bedroom is their own business. Because of that, the right says I am a liberal. At the same time, I believe in lower taxes, less government spending, less regulation of businesses, and the right to bear arms. Because of that, the left says I am a conservative.
The right vs left game you put faith in is just stupid. The only reason I brought up the word "liberals" is because that's what starbucks (the company) identify themselves as.
(And before somebody calls me a libertarian, I don't really fit that definition either. Most libertarians are anti-war. I on the other hand am rather hawkish; I believe that if there is one thing Obama is doing right, that is the war on terror. I think Bush did a good job there too.)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Coffee should ONLY be brewed in clean, ceramic crucibles.
Anything else will dissolve in the face of properly brewed coffee.
That's where you get all the bitter stuff, bits of spoon, filter, carafe....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Thirst Mutilator!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
From the article: 44.7 nanograms of caffeine per liter of seawater.
That's the equivalent of one Red Bull in 1.7 million liters of water.
I've started making my coffee in a single serving cone filter. It tastes pretty good, and takes less effort than a french press. Stick in a filter, dump in some coffee grounds (I grind about once a week) and add hot water from my teapot. Sure, it doesn't compare to the flavor of a perfect cup, but it's pretty good for the amount of effort it takes me.
I'm not a bird, I'm a super-advanced flying stealth dinosaur!
Without chemicals, life would not be possible.
Priorities, man. Priorities.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Better yet, a tray of 'organic' brownies.
C-Span for the win!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I can't count how many times I've wanted something like Aeroshot to inhale my caffeine so it could go straight to my blood stream, and here these fish are getting it for free! I wonder if they are breaking any patents? Sue the fish!
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Caffeine! It's what fish crave!
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
Dilution is the solution.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
Type of Size* Caffeine**
Black tea 8 oz. (240 mL) 14-61 mg
Black tea, decaffeinated 8 oz. (240 mL) 0-12 mg
Green tea 8 oz. (240 mL) 24-40 mg
AriZona Iced Tea, lemon-flavored 8 oz. (240 mL) 11 mg
Generic brewed Coffee 8 oz. (240 mL) 95-200 mg
Espresso, restaurant-style 1 oz. (30 mL) 40-75 mg
Monster 8 oz. (240 mL) 80 mg
5-Hour Energy 2 oz. (60 mL) 207 mg
Caffeine content for coffee, tea, soda and more
Caffeine is a delicate organic compound, the more you heat the tea or coffee the more you destroy the caffine, such as the green tea having 1.5 - 2 times as much caffeine as the more heavily process green tea; an Espresso has almost the same to half a regular coffee, despite being made from the near same amount of coffee grounds.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
...but the first products won't be water, they'll be "energy drinks"....
mark "Ocean Bull has a real kick!"
I realize this isn't reddit, but, AMA.
I wasn't involved much in the study design in terms of the sampling methods themselves, but I did the site selection for the portion of our study that ended up published. It's been a few years but I still know it like the back of my hand.
I did all of the sampling itself and a large portion of processing the samples including the GC-MS portion. I was not involved much in the analysis except as a sounding board.
To address some of the concerns brought up thus far:
1) There are no known natural sources of caffeine in Oregon. There exists some coral in the indian ocean that secretes caffeine but nothing here locally, off-shore or terrestrial. Caffeine is not the best example, but, the idea is that it is a marker of human impact. We focused on waste water here because it's the most likely source.
2) Yes, you can accurately measure levels of ng/L. Yes, it's a pain. We actually did about a year of sampling, modifying our procedures, and tests before we were able to confidently prevent and rule out source of contamination. This even included not consuming caffeine in proximity to samples or before doing work with them.
3) I've not yet read the final paper (no uni access any more) but the other portion of the study we did was dosing pacific mussels with caffeine in a controlled environment. We looked at stress proteins, which are formed in response to environmental stressors, most notably heat. We did not observe an effect at the levels we measured in nature.
4) Excretion rate from humans is about 5%. Depending on the wastewater treatment regimen, primarily based on tertiary treatment like carbon filtering (very rare) and residence time, anywhere from 0% to 100% of caffeine can be removed. Further study here is necessary.
5) The half-life of caffeine in the environment is primarily heat related. Based on other studies we referenced, it's much longer in seawater. Off the top of my head the magnitude was on the order of 200 days in seawater vs 60-90 in fresh water. You should read the paper/references for exact numbers. This is far longer than the transit time from excretion to the ocean for most wastewater treatment. It does not bio-accumulate.
Beta is bad enough to make me go edit settings like this sig that haven't been touched since I joined
When I was on vacation last winter, the people we were staying with didn't tell me they only drank decaf. I normally drink 2-4 cups a day, often starting with 20oz of Starbucks. About two days into it, I got so sick I stayed in bed. I thought I was coming down with the flu. When we put it together the it could be the caffeine withdrawal, we made a trip to the pharmacy to get some instant coffee and I was better in no time.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
The effect is still there with black tea. Given the same amount of caffeine, blood levels will spike higher then fall faster if you get it from coffee.
Remember, Caffeine doesn't only come from Coffee, tea - oh yes, TEA has caffeine, as well as Jolt Cola
Now we know it: It's the tea party's fault! :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Translation:
I know I'll probably get modded troll for this but good luck separating [people I'm the opposite of, and hold distain for] in [state below the states being written about] from [place I heard is attached to the object in the issue].
Personally I've never [insert way of using the object in question]. I know it has [something obvious about nearly everything], but [insert something only vaguely related to the object in question].
I know I'll probably get modded troll for this, but good luck separating people who know more than me in Slashdot* from the commenting system*.
Personally I've never used generic templates for writing Slashdot comments. I know it sometimes has its place, but they rarely seem to always be applicable in every circumstance always.
*I think we need to broaden the template instructions.
Comprehensive solutions via a competition of ideas like no other.
No. Tea is an agricultural product used to make a beverage. White, green, oolong, black, etc., tea is made of leaves from Camellia sinensis. Tea is tea.
Plant variety, cultivation, growing season, etc., determines caffeine content. Green tea and white tea is "less processed" than black only in that the leaves are "fired" or "steamed" after little or no oxidation. "White tea" is just another plant variety.
Milk is a reasonable component of a tasty coffee drink.
The fats in the milk bind with the bitter acids, changing the nature and taste of both. People that add regular milk or cream often prefer a stronger and therefore more bitter brew because the bitterness is mellowed while the tastes they prefer remain strong.
This effect is well known with wine. Red wines heavy on tannic acid are paired with fatty foods, especially fatty meat and cheese. But the "in" thing in the coffee world is to have a very strong brew with nothing added.
Don't assume that your biases or tastes are correct, or will even remain the same. My wife used to complain about how I was ruining the coffee by adding milk. After she became pregnant her taste changed to prefer milk and eventually cream in her coffee.
I'm not saying one coffee is 'better' than another. Individual tastes and whatnot. But side by side blind taste testing shows that most Americans prefer one of the brands I mentioned not named 'Starbucks'. It's like various studies showing that Bud or Coors or whatever tastes better than some microbrew. I'd never think that, but most consumers disagree.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Come to my workplace. It happens.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Or poor reading comprehension on your part.
Bavaria has a good reputation for beer. (Ironically, so does Seattle). Doesn't keep American mass brewed junk from being the most popular beer in those locales.
Interesting that even though I'm the troll according to the mods, you are the one making value judgements and slandering people based on their preferred beverage.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Isn't it enough that she likes what she likes and I like something different?
Not on slashdot. If you don't believe me, wait until and Android or iOS article next shows up. Your value as a human being is determined largely based on arbitrary personal preferences.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Doesn't keep American mass brewed junk from being the most popular beer in those locales.
Interesting that even though I'm the troll according to the mods, you are the one making value judgements and slandering people based on their preferred beverage.
Love you work ... that is classic
My fingers always tremble when I have had too much caffeine!
Doesn't keep American mass brewed junk from being the most popular beer in those locales.
Interesting that even though I'm the troll according to the mods, you are the one making value judgements and slandering people based on their preferred beverage.
Love you work ... that is classic
Thank you. I've had a lot of practice.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I think you mean fermented not processed.
All tea is from the same plant, everything else are "infusions" eg. "Mint tea is not Tea"
I think it goes like this:
Oolong, semi-fermented
White having the least caffine and black having the most
Josh Gellers writes: "The study showing abnormal levels of caffeine in the waters off the Oregon coast also suggested that the contaminants were predominantly coming from small-scale waste treatment systems such as household septic tanks, as opposed to large-scale wastewater treatment plants, which are regulated with much greater scrutiny. Such massive facilities are well-equipped to process the waste originating from cities in Oregon, which are comparatively smaller than major metropolitan hubs that have much more waste to contend with. For example, in Massachusetts, high levels of caffeine have been detected in Boston Harbor, likely the result of significantly greater quantities of wastewater that require treatment than those present in Oregon." Gee, I wonder why there is tea detected in Boston Harbor?!?! As to the coffee off Oregon's coast, well, we have crabs and they are very mellow, now. Yet another example of bad reporting. What the study actually said was: Caffeine was detected in Oregon coastal ocean waters measuring up to 44.7 ng/L. Caffeine occurrence and concentrations in seawater did not correspond with pollution threats from population density and point and non-point sources, but did correspond with storm event occurrence. Caffeine concentrations in rivers and estuaries draining to the coast ranged from below the reporting limit to 152.2 ng/L. So, figure out where those rivers dumping in to the Pacific were getting all that caffeine from should be what people are doing.
Agrisea Tsunami - Epyc Servers... https://agrisea.net/products
Maybe all this caffeine in the water column will cause fish to be more alert and harder to catch. And if you do eat one, the caffeine jolt is already built in, making for an even healthier meal.
Maybe I should switch to cocaine.
You will reach the point where you will still go to sleep afterwards eventually
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
to describe (Chinese) green tea as "processed" is... well the process for (as an example) LongJingCha is to heat a large (1 meter diameter) cast iron wok to a medium temperature (say about 200F, just below boiling in other words) and dump a pile of leaves in the wok. Then take your hands and spread them around the wok, using your hands you keep them moving until the are all dry and you dump them out into a bag to cool and repeat with a new pile. That's the process.
some other, fancier, green teas involve warming the leaves and rolling them into little balls with flowers inside (called a "flower tea", surprisingly) or without. Sometimes the tea is processed just by spreading it on a cloth in the sun
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Surely it was obvious that I was making a subjective claim about a preference and not a universal claim about anything?
More obviously my tastes are correct, they are my tastes after all. That they might change doesn't make them less correct.