Free Republic

200 years ago today, one of history's most bizarre disasters befell London when a 15-foot wave of beer flooded an entire neighborhood and left eight people dead.The Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road in London boasted a massive 22-foot-tall vat that held some 160,000 gallons of dark porter. On October 17, 1814, one of the metal hoops meant to secure it snapped, and the wooden vat succumbed to the immense pressure of all that fermenting brew. The gushing beer smashed open the brewery's other vats, resulting in a raging sea of beer that burst forth from the building.Over one...

Ebola transmission and source Of all animals, bats and rats are generally considered to carry around numerous pathogens that can infect humans. Rats tend to live close to humans and are still associated with the bubonic plague that swept through Europe in the 14th century, killing almost 25 million people. But why do bats have such a bad reputation? Well this prejudice against bats is actually not very surprising. Bats can carry a number of pathogens (rabies, Hendra, Marburg, Nipah and indeed also Ebola). These are all viruses that can cause serious disease in humans. Particularly the Ebola virus can...

Sen. Rand Paul took a playful jab at Michelle Obama and her healthy eating initiatives that condemn all types of junk food, tweeting to her handle to let her know the location of his first New Hampshire stop — Dunkin’ Donuts. He wrote, to his nearly half a million followers: “Just arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. First stop: @DunkinDonuts cc: @MichelleObama,” The Hill reported. He didn’t specify his menu choices — but the jab was obviously at Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” anti-obesity campaign. The first lady has fielded considerable fire from schools, parents and hungry students who say her cafeteria...

A student has provoked complaints by parents after taking a photo of her paltry school meal of lunch meat, a couple crackers, a slice of cheese and two pieces of cauliflower. Kaytlin Shelton, 17, who is eight months pregnant, took a photo of the $3 meal at a Chickasha school on Monday and showed it to her father who said it was not satisfactory. Her father Vince Holton said: 'I can go pay a dollar for a lunchabe and get more food in it. Schools are responsible for children while they're at school.'

ALBANY, N.Y.,- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill designating yogurt as the state's official snack five months after a contentious debate in the legislature. Cuomo signed the bill Wednesday, five months after the state's legislature debated the suggestion from a fourth-grade class at Byron-Bergen Elementary School in Genesee County. "This designation is a fitting recognition of the importance of this state's yogurt industry, which has experienced tremendous growth over the past few years, making New York the top yogurt producer in the nation," Cuomo said in a statement. "We will continue to work with New York producers...

It’s all about priorities, people. Sure, a quarantine means cutting off all contact with the outside world. But what if you just don’t feel like it anymore? What if you’re on TV? What if you’ve really got the munchies? Jason Molinet, NYDN: The New Jersey Health Department turned into soup Nazis when it learned NBC News reporter Dr. Nancy Snyderman violated a voluntary quarantine placed on her and her crew after one member contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. Snyderman, 62, NBC’s chief medical editor, was spotted sitting in her car outside of The Peasant Grill in Hopewell, N.J., Thursday...

His Hollywood family is worth nearly $500 million but the troubled homeless stepson of Barbra Streisand whiles away his days sitting on benches and rummaging through public trash cans. Jess Brolin, son of actor James Brolin and brother to Josh, was recently photographed picking through garbage where he lives in Ojai, California. After losing his $800 per month apartment in 2011, the 41-year-old now lives on the streets and sleeps in vacant lots not 80 miles from his millionaire showbiz family's home.

Inventing a GMO Apple That Won’t Brown Arctic Apple, a Genetically Modified Breed, Seeks U.S. Approval By TENNILLE TRACY Two sliced apples sit on either side of a clock as a time-lapse video compresses 24 hours into 30 seconds. By the end, the apple on the left has turned brown but the one on the right has stayed fresh and white.

People Kept Complaining This Restaurant Sucked, Look What They Found Out…

A virus that killed millions of baby pigs in the last year and led to higher pork prices has waned thanks to warmer weather and farmers’ efforts to sterilize their operations. And as pigs’ numbers increase, sticker shock on things like bacon should ease. Already, hog supplies are on the rise, with 5.46 million baby pigs born between June and August in Iowa, the nation’s leading producer—the highest quarterly total in 20 years and a record 10.7 surviving pigs per litter, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. It’s a significant turnaround from a year ago when the porcine...

The obesity epidemic in men could be fueled by the female sex hormone estrogen, scientists claim. Experts believe the hormone could also be causing the well-documented drop in sperm count among Western men. They said men in affluent countries are becoming “feminized” as they come into contact with products containing the female sex hormone. Compounds found in some plastic items, including drain pipes, and soy food products can mimic the effects of estrogen, scientists said. Secreted by the ovaries in premenstrual women, estrogen is known to cause weight gain, inhibiting the thyroid gland and affecting other areas of the brain....

LEON, Spain – A 25-year-old Spanish woman drowned after becoming intoxicated by fermentation gases and falling into a wine barrel, Metro reported. Nerea Perez, a vineyard worker in northern Spain, reportedly had been stirring wine while it was fermenting— a lengthy process that allows the wine to come in extra contact with dead yeast grape bits.

Canada may be known for producing the very best poutine on earth (and for arguing vehemently against anyone who says otherwise!), but it would appear as though we're no match for our neighbours to the south when it comes to eating the stuff. This was proven amidst a cacophony of curds, gravy and fresh-cut fries on Saturday afternoon during the fifth annual World Poutine Eating Championship in Toronto. Considered to be the largest eating competition in Canada, the annual Smoke's Poutinerie-sponsored gorge-a-thon drew approximately 1,000 spectators to Toronto's Yonge-Dundas square this weekend — many of them eager to join in...

COLOMBIA (WITI) — “My mom told me that if I didn’t want to get pregnant, I should put a potato up there, and I believed her,” the woman said. And that’s just what the woman did! According to Colombia Reports, the 22-year-old woman sought medical attention after experiencing abdominal pains, and medical staff discovered a potato growing inside the young woman. The woman apparently had the potato inside her body for about two weeks before she began to experience abdominal pains. The potato had germinated, and grew roots inside her body. Initially, the nurse who examined the woman thought the...

Agriculture business giant Monsanto Co. reported a wider-than-expected loss Wednesday for its fourth quarter on higher expenses, including a one-time legal settlement. The company’s earnings forecast for 2015 also fell short of analysts’ expectations as Monsanto said it expects “continued industry headwinds.” […] The loss came despite higher sales of the company’s two key business units, genetically-engineered seeds and herbicide. …

(Reuters) - Texas groceries had likely removed by Sunday morning all ground beef from store shelves that was subject to a recall due to possible contamination from tiny pieces of metal, an executive at the company which recalled the product said. Sam Kane Beef Processors, based in Corpus Christi, Texas, recalled nearly 91,000 pounds of ground beef shipped between Sept. 9 and Sept. 18 to Texas retail outlets, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a news release on Saturday. Consumers in four separate incidents reported finding pieces of metal about 3 mm in size in beef products, and one...

... The lobster season opened Sept. 27, and over the next six days at least five divers died in the ocean off Southern California. Four of the five died while hunting lobster, and the deaths served as a stark reminder of the dangers associated with a sport sometimes known as “bug hunting.” ...

Another vital aspect of an effective rotation system is knowing the shelf life of the foods you are storing. A few items, when stored properly, have such a long shelf life that they may be considered relatively exempt from the best practice of rotation (although it’s still a good idea), or at least their shelf life is measured in decades rather than years; among them, you will find such things as water (depending on the container), honey, salt, wheat berries, rice, sugar, maple syrup, corn starch, distilled white vinegar, pure vanilla extract, liquor, and wine. Here’s a list of eight...

After taking comments from parents, “Someone in the audience made a good point.” She added, “Michelle Obama put these things into play, but her children go to private school and they don’t have to follow these standards.”

It takes at least three grey squirrels to make a basic quarter-pounder