Archive for October, 2015

Protein Bar Review #24: Amazing Grass Green Superfood Chocolate Peanut Butter

Posted: October 30, 2015 in Bike Culture, Cooking, Science
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Post 24 - Amazing Grass Chcolate Peanut Butter

Brand: Amazing Grass (Still no website to link to.)

Product: Green Superfood Chocolate Peanut Butter

Weight: 2.2oz / 63g

Cost: $2.49/per, online (not from manufacturer)

Stats

Calories: 270

Total Fat: 14g, Sat. Fat 4g

Cholesterol: 15mg

Sodium: 190mg

Potassium: 250mg

Total Carb: 28g

Fiber: 3g

Sugars: 19g

Protein: 12g

Protein per ounce: 5.45g

Protein, Cost per gram: $0.21

Carb to Protein Ratio: 2.3-1

Vit A: 35% DV

Vit B12: 6% DV

Vit C: 15% DV

Vit K: 15% DV

Calcium: 10% DV

Iron: 8% DV

Organic, gluten free, and fair trade.

Not made in a gluten-free facility.

Flavor:

The taste of this Amazing Grass bar was the best that brand has had to offer, which isn’t saying much since flavor-wise this has been consistently one of the most disappointing brands. This one had real peanuts, peanut butter, and was covered in delicious chocolate. It wasn’t as good as any of the other chocolate peanut butter bars I’ve tried, but I have pretty high standards (one might say snobby). It was better than a Power Bar, and better than the NuGo bars I have reviewed, but that really isn’t saying much, at least not enough in my book. This is the first bar I have reviewed that has any cholesterol, which isn’t inherently a bad thing as it could be good cholesterol (the label doesn’t specify). This bar also uses whey protein, which I am not the biggest fan of since it tends to be a cheap filler protein compared to other, better sources like almonds and hemp. At the same time, I am not vegan and love dairy so whey is not a problem for me but could be if you are vegan or whey intolerant. The Amazing Grass Chocolate Peanut Butter bar is also pretty nutrient dense with a good balance of nutrients, including lots of potassium.

Biggest Camera Ever

Posted: October 5, 2015 in Photography, Science
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Construction of the largest and most powerful camera in the world just secured the funding needed to be completed on schedule, thanks to a grant they received from the National Science Foundation. On schedule is still very relative, as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is not scheduled to be completed until sometime in 2022. The LSST is one of the current project being worked on by the Department of Energy’s Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) laboratory. This isn’t SLAC’s first record-setting camera, they previously have built one of the world’s fastest shooting cameras as well. While SLAC is building the LSST, it will not be at Stanford, it will be located on top of Cerro Pachon, in Chile.

You might be wondering, just how big is it LSST? First off, the LSST is the whole telescope, which is an 8.4 meter ground-based telescope. The camera at the heart of it will be about the size of a VW Beetle and will weigh about 2,800 kilograms; which, for reference, is the weight of four VW Beetles. The camera is equipped with an innovative triple-lens design, a 64cm diameter array of 16 megapixel silicon detectors will comprise the 3,200 megapixel (3.2 gigapixel) sensor which is what takes all the shots. This gives the LSST to have an extraordinarily wide field of view, which, paired with its double 15-second exposures, will give the LSST unprecedented abilities in its decade-long survey of the Southern sky. The LSST will generate roughly 200,000 extremely detailed images every night (about 20 terabytes of data).

Diagram of the LSST’s camera.

 

For comparison, the camera with the most megapixels in the world is a Canon, which boasts 120 megapixels and it is not available on the consumer market. For the curious, the most powerful smartphone camera is a Nokia, rocking a boosted up 41 megapixels. The LSST is equivalent to the power of 26 of those Canons combined, or 78 of those Nokia phones. It would take the combined megapixels from every camera phone and i-Pad blocking my view at the last concert I went to in order to get anywhere near the LSST.

For those technically in the know, megapixels aren’t all that matters and more megapixels will not always make for better photos. The quality of the camera’s sensor is essential to taking good shots, and currently for consumer cameras, CMOS is winning out against CCD sensors. From the sound of it, the LSST uses something totally different, which is very exciting. I can’t wait for the consumer market to be able to use these new technologies for faster shooting, more powerful cameras, with obscene amounts of storage space.