Christopher Hendon, Doran Pennington, and a rotating guest.
A review of a recent scientific article published about or adjacent to coffee. Each episode features a guest professional who will help discuss the paper. Somet...
Ep22. Chlorogenic acid and end-of-year awards with Dr. Alex Murray and Prof. Carl Brozek
Chris is joined by Dr. Alex Murray to discuss chlorogenic acid. We talk about how plants make it, what it does, what it tastes like, and how we might make it. We discuss a variety of papers, book chapter, and so forth. Check the library link on instagram for some of them.
Then, Alex and Chris spend some time on the year-end awards.
End of year awards: 23:52
Libation prize. 28:57
Spurlock award. 32:35
MTG tool of the year. 36:10
Fruit of the year. 39:49
Beast of the year. 45:03
Then, we shift to discussing movies of 2024 with Prof. Carl Brozek. Did anything released this year compete with Prof. Brozek or Chris' top three movies of all time?
About Dr. Alex Murray: He is from Hull, UK, and received his PhD from Bath. After a brief postdoc at MIT, followed by a professorship at Kent, he joined a startup Boston-based startup, Daqus. They specialize in creating novel battery materials. Chris and Alex lived together during their PhDs. and have been doing annual awards for a long time, but its the first time we put it on record.
About Prof. Carl Brozek: Prof. Brozek leads a materials chemistry research group at the University of Oregon. He is from Chicago, with a PhD at MIT and postdoc at Washington. Chris and Carl collaborate a lot.
Introduction preamble: Airplane 2.
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1:22:08
Ep21. The value of latte art with Emilee Bryant
Chris and Doran are joined by Emilee Bryant to discuss a pair of papers that probe whether latte art a) is perceived as more valuable and b) affects the perceived flavor of the drink.
Ordering a cappuccino is delightful. But is it more delightful with a rosetta? Would you be somehow compelled to pay more for it if it had one? Does it taste sweeter?
The papers are:
J. Sens. Stud., 2015, 30, 305
https://doi.org/10.1111/joss.12159
Br. Food J., 2021, 123, 1931
https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-07-2020-0612
About Emilee: Originally from Houston, Emilee moved to live in a hippie tree house before finding her way to Brooklyn where she lives now. She is a latte art champion, YouTube content creator, and film maker. Check her out on instagram (emstagrim), and YouTube (EmileeBryant).
Introduction preamble: Lorelai Gilmore and Luke Danes
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41:57
Ep20. Do light or dark roasts have more caffeine?
In this episode Chris and Doran discuss the age-old question of whether dark or light roast brewed coffees have more caffeine. The discussion was inspired by a paper published recently in Scientific Reports titled, "Caffeine content in filter coffee brews as a function of degree of roast and extraction yield".
So, do light and dark roast coffee extracts have different caffeine concentrations?
The paper is open access and available from the publisher:
Sci. Rep., 2024, 14, 29126
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-80385-3
Introduction preamble: Captain Janeway.
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27:07
Ep19. Microplastics in coffee with Alex Dainis
Chris and Doran are joined by Dr. Alex Dainis, a professional science communicator. We first met Alex through her work on "Chemistry Shorts", videos about sub-disciplines of chemistry supported by the Dreyfus foundation.
Today's paper is about microplastics. These are microscopic pieces of polymer that show up everywhere. In the case in single-serve coffee preparations. Alex is the perfect guest to discuss this because its a topic that is becoming increasingly studied, but to date we simply don't know all that much about whether they are bad for you. We get into that and much, much more. I hope you enjoy!
The paper:
Pouring hot water through drip bags releases thousands of microplastics into coffee
Food Chem., 2023, 415, 135717
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.135717
The article can be found in coffee literature library: https://pages.uoregon.edu/chendon/coffee_literature/coffee_lit_rev/
About Dr. Dainis: Blimp lover. She has a PhD in genetics from Stanford but is also trained in film and television. After she finished her PhD she founded Helicase media while also being a professional science communicator.
Introduction preamble: Pulp Fiction.
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48:03
Ep18. Coffee affects your microbiome with Prof. Nicola Segata
Chris and Doran are joined by Prof. Nicola Segata from University of Trento. Prof. Segata is a world famous professor of computational metagenomics, and is the senior author on a recently published study that strongly suggests that consuming coffee directly affects the population of some gut bacteria.
Metagenomics is far removed from our expertise. Instead of us fumbling around the paper, we decided to have the true world expert come talk to us about it.
Production note: The paper came out over the holiday period so we recorded remotely. The sound quality is not what we usually strive for, but the content quality is exceptionally high. We hope you enjoy.
The paper:
Nat. Microbio., 2024, 9, 3120
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01858-9
The article can be found in coffee literature library: https://pages.uoregon.edu/chendon/coffee_literature/coffee_lit_rev/
About Nicola Segata: Prof. Segata is from Trento, matriculated through Trento, spent a brief period as a postdoc at Harvard, and returned to Trento where he holds a position as Professor of Computational Metagenomics. He is one of the most highly cited scientists in all fields and has a staggering career of papers that merge computational biology with amazing experimental datasets. You can find his other works here.
Introduction preamble: Friends.
A review of a recent scientific article published about or adjacent to coffee. Each episode features a guest professional who will help discuss the paper. Sometimes there will be other guests to discuss news, current events, and topical items.
Podcast by Christopher H. Hendon. Produced by Doran Pennington.
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