Tag: melbourne

It’s only the coolest thing to do now

Dine and dash? Bah, that’s so boring. It’s hardly even appropriate to do if you’re at one of the premiere skyscraper eateries? Why, only invent what’s sure to be THE most trendy act of the season: drink and drop.

Four men, all clad in suits, met up for a drink at the bar at the Rialto Towers. The bar happens to be located on the 55th floor of the building, which has 56 floors. After pounding their drinks, rather than pay for them or order more, the lads promptly vamoosed to the bathroom, where they then jumped off the balcony in base jumping gear. Because it was the only rational thing to do.

Allegedly, Christian Duguay has locked up the story for what’s sure to be his next extreme movie blockbuster.

‘I see fat people’

Australian scientists claim they’ve stumbled upon a sixth sense – but not the kind where you become Haley Joel Osment and end up having a movie career that goes nowhere. No, researchers down under have found a new flavor sense: fat.

It’s more or less a well known fact that fat is an excellent vehicle for food flavors and has a highly appealing mouth-feel. A new study, however, suggests that along with sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami (essentially, the ability to detect protein), we can also actually taste fat itself.

Dr. Russell Keast, an exercise and nutrition sciences professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, conducted a study. In the Deakin study, Dr. Keast and his team gave a group of 33 people fatty acids found in common foods, mixed in with nonfat milk to disguise the telltale fat texture. All 33 could detect the fatty acids to at least a small degree.

Here’s where it gets exciting: While all participants could detect some fat, some were better at it than others. With this in mind, the researchers then explored whether sharper fat-tasting abilities corresponded to fat consumption. They did: The higher a person’s fat-tasting sensitivity, the fewer fatty foods that person ate, and the lower that person’s body mass index was.

”I may be very sensitive to sweet tastes, while somebody else may be insensitive. This is common throughout the tastes, and it’s exactly what we’re finding with fat,” Dr. Keast told the Sydney Morning Herald. “People who are very sensitive to fat can taste very low concentrations of it. It appears [those] people have a mechanism that is telling them to stop eating it.”

Findings could lead to an entirely new approach to obesity. Dr. Keast’s team is on the case. Meanwhile, pass the butter and weapons grade lard.

Who needs a dryer?

There are some days when you wake up and think to yourself, “I wonder what the world record is for people ironing clothes underwater?” This blog knows, the thought has often kept The Guys up many a night.

Well rest easy tonight! The world record was recently smashed as not 70, not 71, but 72 divers dove off a pier in Melbourne. They each brought with them ironing boards and some rather wrinkly laundry. The divers are part of a movement called Extreme Ironing, which yours truly has been following for more than five years.

Essentially, extreme ironing takes the rush from extreme sports to a whole new level. It takes extreme sports, any of them, and adds in the thrill of pressing one’s clothes.