KNOWLEDGE AVENUE: June 2020

Tuesday 30 June 2020

Popula food in Indonesia

Here in Indonesia we have many dishes that could evoke nightmares for those who are not particularly adventurous.

Since the country is very vast and very diverse, the term “popular" would probably associated more with regional or island wide popularity rather than a country wide thing.

Here are some of them.

Paniki.

Paniki means Bat, in this case Fruit Bat. Everything that uses this flying fox can be called Paniki. It's very popular on the island of Sulawesi but especially in the north where the craze has helped the region’s tourism industry.

The mammal can either be grilled

or stewed.

Lawar.

This spicy red dish from the island of Bali is actually a simple combination of coconut shreds and shredded pork. What makes it “unique” is the use of half cooked pigs blood as a coloring agent.

The use of blood also has a spiritual meaning behind it.

Grilled Rat.

The name explains everything. Its rat on a stick basically. As far as i know it can be found in East Nusa Tenggara province (east of Bali) and the island of Sulawesi.

Bear in minds that the rat used for this dish is either wild forest rat or the plump paddy rat and not the disease ladden house rat.

Sate Biawak (Monitor Lizard Sate).

Many people still believes in traditional medicine and this dish is the result of that. Lizards meat are consumed by those who want to increase their sexual drive, kinda like a Viagra. You can find it many of Indonesia's big cities.

Turtle Eggs.

To be honest turtle eggs is probably one of the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Maybe I’m guilty for consuming it. But it's very creamy, very rich and it doesn't smell funky. The texture reminds me of a liquid cheese.

Turtle is an endangered species world wide and we should be mindful of that sad fact before thinking of consuming it.

Sago Worm.

It's a type of tree larvae native to Indonesia. It can be found inside a sick Sago palm. Forest people consume this larvae as an alternative to bush meat and it's actually very healthy. Low in fat, high in mineral content and rich in protein.

Grilling it is the best way to prepare the worm.

Rujak Cingur (Cows Nose/Snout Salad).

This dish originated in the city of Surabaya. It's just like another regular Indonesian salad or Rujak, but what makes it different is the use of cows snout or nose as a substitute for chicken or red meat. The meat has a gelatinous texture.

Jengkol (Dog Fruit).

Jengkol is the fruit a local pea plant native to Southeast Asia. It's has a dark husk and a very unforgiving smell. It's also mildly poisonous. The taste and texture of the fruit depends on how we prepare it. Because consuming it raw is not encourage many household in Indonesia prepared the fruit in a spicy stew.

Sambal Petai (Stinky Beans Sambal).

This is another popular “stinky” plant in the country. Petai is part of the pea family that looks pretty similar to an unripe tamarind. It can be consumed raw but most household made a delicious sambal from it. Beware though, just like Jengkol consuming excessive amount of Petai can lead to mild poisoning and kidney problems. Not to mention your urine will smell like a concentrated Ammonia.

Indonesia is a heaven for culinary adventure and each region has something to offer for those who dare to try.Dian Ardiansyah

Sunday 28 June 2020

Helium is a non-renewable resource.

Many people do not realize that helium is a non-renewable resource. It is made on earth via nuclear decay of uranium, and it is recovered from mines. Once it is released into the atmosphere it becomes uneconomical to recapture it, and eventually atmospheric helium will escape Earth altogether because it is so light.

On the question of whether we are running out, the existing answers are absolutely correct (YES !!), but I want to add another voice. This is an issue that many people outside the industries that use helium are unaware of, but one that will eventually affect them nonetheless.

The first linked article nicely summarizes why this has become a pressing concern in recent years.

In response to the element's scarcity, the United States has been stockpiling helium since the 1960s in a National Helium Reserve called the Bush Dome, a deep underground reservoir outside of Amarillo, Texas. By the mid 1970s 1.2 billion cubic meters of the gas was stored there. The current reserve is approximately 0.6 billion cubic meters, or roughly 4 times the current world market.
But, Chan notes, in 1996 the Helium Privatization Act mandated that the Department of the Interior sell off all the stockpiled helium by 2015. "As a consequence," he says, "the United States government is selling the equivalent of 40 percent of the world market of helium at a below-market price."
"This action discourages the active exploration of helium," Chan explains

Source: Probing Question: Are we running out of helium?. A few months after this article appeared, congress passed a bill to maintain the reserves.

The question details focus on the negative impact that bad policy has on scientific users of helium, but I want to emphasize that there are many other uses of helium in industry and medicine, and a few are listed below:

Helium is used as a cryogen to cool down superconducting magnets for MRI machines. This is the largest use of cryogenic helium. This is one application where another cryogen can eventually be substituted because there are several new superconductors that can produce the required magnetic field when they are cooled with higher-temperature cryogens like liquid hydrogen, oxygen, or neon. However, I doubt that hospitals and MRI machine manufacturers will make this move anytime soon.

Helium is used as an inert gas for welding. In these applications, I think they could substitute another noble gas if we were to run out of helium.

Helium is used in the semiconductor industry as an inert gas for growing semiconductor crystals, to quickly cool components, and to control heat transfer.
Helium is used for leak detection to test containers which will be subjected to high pressure or low vacuum for cracks. This is an application which another gas cannot be substituted, at least for extremely high and extremely low pressure, because helium can flow through the smallest cracks.

The scientific community is perhaps most vocal about this shortage because:

Many scientific experiments require liquid helium because it allows scientists to reach the lowest temperatures of any cryogen. Low temperature is often required to observe quantum mechanical phenomena cleanly (see: Zhun-Yong Ong's answer to Why do scientists crave to reach the absolute zero?). There is no substitute for this application.
Research institutions are often lower priority when there are shortages. I have had many experiments delayed because we could not get liquid helium for weeks, and this is a fairly normal experience.

What we can do:

Implement sensible helium exploration/storage policy such that mining companies are compelled to extract this resource and users are not subjected to erratic cost/supply. In 2013, the US congress approved a bill to maintain the reserves and not sell helium at below market rate (Wyden, Murkowski Applaud Final Passage of Helium Legislation). This makes for a steadier supply, but does not change the fact that this resource is not renewable.
Limit wasteful use of helium, and recycle that which we do use. For cryogenic applications, this means installing a closed re-circulation system to re-compress helium which comes out of the exhaust of a cryogenic system. For large-scale users such as the LHC, this has always been the operating procedure. However, with the recent cost hikes and supply disruptions, individual research labs are beginning to implement such systems as well (including the lab where I work). The startup costs are huge (over $100K), but the cost savings emerge in just a few years, and the convenience becomes apparent immediately. In the future, I think (and hope) that such systems will not be optional for research and medical users of liquid helium.

What we can't do:
We cannot produce more helium once it is all extracted from the earth. All methods to produce more helium are so ridiculously costly that they are not worth discussing: 1) hydrogen fusion 2) bombarding other atoms (such as lithium or boron) with energetic protons in a particle accelerator 3) mining it on the moon is a ridiculous proposition in terms of the volumes that are needed to be transported back to earth (mining Helium-3 on the moon is probably economically viable however) . In that sense, the problem of running out of helium is different from the problem of running out of petroleum. For the latter, people can and do synthesize alternatives such as ethanol fuel, not to mention the myriad non-carbon-emitting energy options out there.

However, for many applications where helium is used, there is no alternative to helium.

Edit: In 2008, 78% of the world's helium was extracted in the US and the US has historically supplied most of the world's helium, which is why I presented such a US-centric answer to a question about a global problem. A substantial fraction (25%) of the remaining un-mined helium is in the Arabian gulf.

Inna Vishik

Thursday 25 June 2020

Turkish Kebab Encyclopedia

Kebab etymological means : meat that is cooked like westerner use different terms barbecue

Döner kebab (Shoarma): is a type of kebab, made of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie

orjinal Döner always served with rice,

or with Döner bread

there are tons of Döner kebabs like vegetarian Döner , chicken Döner , fish Döner , even melon Döner etc :D

sorry for bad Photoshop .. but here are doner styles left chicken right meat.

there are many sorts of Döner kebab and new tasted added.. such can be seen European Turkish

Netherlands

for examples Dutch Turks introduction of kapsalon doner with french fries and cheese

Germany

mustafas

pamfilyas doner with multiple barbecue meat

England doner kebab

Zulfi doner kebab

so we Turks created endless possibility of Doner kebab to conquer world :D but wait .. you only seen 1 kebab type there are approximately 150 +- kebab cuisine available in Turkish kitchen

1855–1900 doner kebab shop istanbul

Turkish cuisine is very big approximately ottoman era 15.000+ goes up to 20.000 cuisine is known. Sad many were also lost.. imagine cuisine can make 253 different aubergine cuisine. because of the large area ruling and long reign made nomadic , Ottoman and Turkish cuisine very rich and versatile.

here are some Turkish kebabs cuisine Beware it’s just small list and only around 86 diffrent kebabs…