cell phones, searching for okra, and a lot of tapioca pudding

If cell phones that transmit aromas using a combination of 96 chemicals catch on, I'm going to have a freaking huge conniption fit. I'd have one now, but I used up all my emotional energy yesterday not getting to ride on the track because of chemicals, even if I did have fun later.

In other news, I found this really neat article about pesticide doses and cumulative effects. It debunks some unscientific pesticide hysteria but calmly explains how pesticides will do you in anyway. Here's an excerpt:

The concentration of a pesticide in the immediate vicinity of an enzyme determines the likelihood that any reaction with the enzyme will occur. Different enzymes, whether detoxification enzymes or cholinesterase, have different affinities for the pesticide. For example, the residues of some compounds are so low that reactions with the cholinesterase enzyme are nil. Yet these same concentrations could be high enough for reaction with the detoxification enzymes, which have different affinities. Because the rate of every pesticide-enzyme interaction is unique, the relationships among different pesticides are not simply additive, which is presumed when the toxicity of all OP [organophosphate] insecticides are made proportional to a reference OP. When concentrations are so low that the likelihood of reaction with the enzyme is also very low, then adding together residues of different kinds of pesticides is not going to alter the original probability of reaction with the enzyme.

In related news, here's a list of 46 conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables ordered most to least contaminated.

Why all the pesticide information? It turns out that okra is really good in what are essentially garbanzo flour pancakes, and I don't know if I'll be able to get organic okra anywhere in Tucson, so I need to know how contaminated conventional okra is. I still don't know.

And in case you ever need to know, you can make tapioca pudding in the hold of a ship, not that that was done on purpose.