http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/18/coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record/

Coffee: Is there anything it can’t do?

In addition to providing a morning energy boost for millions of undercaffeinated people and reportedly helping lower stroke risks, it can also be used to fuel a Guinness World Record–breaking car, as a British conservationist discovered.

Martin Bacon, 42, converted a Ford pickup truck into Coffee Car Mark 2 — the world’s fastest coffee-powered vehicle. Bacon installed a charcoal stove on the car, which breaks down coffee-bean chaff (a by-product of the roasting process) into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gas is cooled and filtered, and the hydrogen is fed to power the regular gasoline engine. The coffee car hit a top speed of 65 m.p.h. in the presence of a Guinness adjudicator at Woodford Airfield in Manchester, England, on Feb. 19.

video http://youtu.be/V_RFvZnbpHk

(MORE: The Ultimate To-Go Cup: New Car Has Espresso Maker Built In)

According to this video on the coffee-car website, starting the machine is no easy task. Instead of simply turning the ignition key, Bacon has to load the coffee pellets to the boiler and wait for enough pressure to build up. After two test runs on that chilly morning and some tinkering with the machine that generates fluffs of white smoke when started, he successfully broke a world record.

Bacon has long been fascinated with coffee-powered vehicles. According to BBC, he converted an old Volkswagen Scirocco into Coffee Car Mark 1 and drove it 210 miles from London to Manchester in 2010. The Car-puccino, which reportedly reached 60 m.p.h., claimed the Guinness World Record of the longest journey by a coffee-powered car.

Now, Bacon and his team are driving the Mark 2 on a tour across the U.K. to promote Co-operative Food, a British fair-trade brand.

Bacon’s coffee car is not the first vehicle powered by food. In 2009, scientists from Warwick University built a Formula 3 racing car boasting a biodiesel engine that can run on chocolate extract, reported the Telegraph. Unfortunately, the car, which reportedly can hit speeds of up to 145 m.p.h., was banned from the championship because its rather unusual fuel failed to meet regulations.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/18/coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record/#ixzz2O0IKZzdq

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/18/coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record/

Coffee: Is there anything it can’t do?

In addition to providing a morning energy boost for millions of undercaffeinated people and reportedly helping lower stroke risks, it can also be used to fuel a Guinness World Record–breaking car, as a British conservationist discovered.

Martin Bacon, 42, converted a Ford pickup truck into Coffee Car Mark 2 — the world’s fastest coffee-powered vehicle. Bacon installed a charcoal stove on the car, which breaks down coffee-bean chaff (a by-product of the roasting process) into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gas is cooled and filtered, and the hydrogen is fed to power the regular gasoline engine. The coffee car hit a top speed of 65 m.p.h. in the presence of a Guinness adjudicator at Woodford Airfield in Manchester, England, on Feb. 19.

video http://youtu.be/V_RFvZnbpHk

(MORE: The Ultimate To-Go Cup: New Car Has Espresso Maker Built In)

According to this video on the coffee-car website, starting the machine is no easy task. Instead of simply turning the ignition key, Bacon has to load the coffee pellets to the boiler and wait for enough pressure to build up. After two test runs on that chilly morning and some tinkering with the machine that generates fluffs of white smoke when started, he successfully broke a world record.

Bacon has long been fascinated with coffee-powered vehicles. According to BBC, he converted an old Volkswagen Scirocco into Coffee Car Mark 1 and drove it 210 miles from London to Manchester in 2010. The Car-puccino, which reportedly reached 60 m.p.h., claimed the Guinness World Record of the longest journey by a coffee-powered car.

Now, Bacon and his team are driving the Mark 2 on a tour across the U.K. to promote Co-operative Food, a British fair-trade brand.

Bacon’s coffee car is not the first vehicle powered by food. In 2009, scientists from Warwick University built a Formula 3 racing car boasting a biodiesel engine that can run on chocolate extract, reported the Telegraph. Unfortunately, the car, which reportedly can hit speeds of up to 145 m.p.h., was banned from the championship because its rather unusual fuel failed to meet regulations.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/18/coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record/#ixzz2O0IKZzdq

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/18/coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record/

Coffee: Is there anything it can’t do?

In addition to providing a morning energy boost for millions of undercaffeinated people and reportedly helping lower stroke risks, it can also be used to fuel a Guinness World Record–breaking car, as a British conservationist discovered.

Martin Bacon, 42, converted a Ford pickup truck into Coffee Car Mark 2 — the world’s fastest coffee-powered vehicle. Bacon installed a charcoal stove on the car, which breaks down coffee-bean chaff (a by-product of the roasting process) into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gas is cooled and filtered, and the hydrogen is fed to power the regular gasoline engine. The coffee car hit a top speed of 65 m.p.h. in the presence of a Guinness adjudicator at Woodford Airfield in Manchester, England, on Feb. 19.

video http://youtu.be/V_RFvZnbpHk

(MORE: The Ultimate To-Go Cup: New Car Has Espresso Maker Built In)

According to this video on the coffee-car website, starting the machine is no easy task. Instead of simply turning the ignition key, Bacon has to load the coffee pellets to the boiler and wait for enough pressure to build up. After two test runs on that chilly morning and some tinkering with the machine that generates fluffs of white smoke when started, he successfully broke a world record.

Bacon has long been fascinated with coffee-powered vehicles. According to BBC, he converted an old Volkswagen Scirocco into Coffee Car Mark 1 and drove it 210 miles from London to Manchester in 2010. The Car-puccino, which reportedly reached 60 m.p.h., claimed the Guinness World Record of the longest journey by a coffee-powered car.

Now, Bacon and his team are driving the Mark 2 on a tour across the U.K. to promote Co-operative Food, a British fair-trade brand.

Bacon’s coffee car is not the first vehicle powered by food. In 2009, scientists from Warwick University built a Formula 3 racing car boasting a biodiesel engine that can run on chocolate extract, reported the Telegraph. Unfortunately, the car, which reportedly can hit speeds of up to 145 m.p.h., was banned from the championship because its rather unusual fuel failed to meet regulations.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/18/coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record/#ixzz2O0IKZzdq

Hey java drinkers, that coffee buzz you love so much may also help prevent heart failure, according to a new study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation Heart Failure.

While many believe coffee drinking may be dangerous to the heart, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston said moderate consumption of your daily jo could be beneficial.

The scientists analyzed five prospective studies, which included more than 140,000 men and women, that related to coffee consumption and heart risk. Four of the studies were based in Sweden, and one was conducted in Finland. They found that those who drank a moderate amount of coffee daily, defined as the equivalent of two 8-ounce American cups per day, may experience protective benefits against heart failure by as much as 11 percent.

The scientists didn’t account for the strength of the coffee, but the drink tends to be made weaker in the U.S. than in Europe. They also didn’t account for caffeinated versus decaffeinated coffee, though most people in Northern Europe consume a caffeinated form of the beverage.

Low levels of coffee consumption were not associated with a positive or negative effect on heart failure risk, but more than four to five cups of regular coffee consumption were associated with a higher risk.

More than half of American adults drink some form of coffee each day, according to the National Coffee Association, and caffeine is the most frequently consumed stimulant in the world.

Several studies have found that coffee reduces the risk of several medical conditions, including stroke, depression, dementia and several cancers, but Dr. Murray Mittleman, senior study author and director of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said less is known about the impact of coffee on heart failure, which affects nearly 5.8 million Americans.

Mittleman said coffee has received a bad reputation in the past for its influence on the heart because animal studies have shown that drinking caffeinated coffee is associated with acutely raised blood pressure.

"Since high blood pressure is a risk factor for many types of cardiovascular disease, researchers assumed that coffee would be harmful, but several studies have shown that although there is an increase in blood pressure shortly after consumption, there are health benefits over the long-term," said Mittleman.

"Coffee contains many active compounds, including antioxidants that may explain how coffee lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes, and in turn, may lower the risk of developing heart failure," he continued.

The American Heart Association currently recommends that heart failure patients drink no more than one to two cups of coffee or other caffeinated beverages per day.

This study seems to find through association that moderate consumption is "relatively harmless," said Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiologist at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. "People who are at risk for heart failure who are moderate coffee drinkers should not be told to abstain."

Dr. Clyde W. Yancy, chief of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that, once again, medicine finds that moderation is key.

"Coffee is not the enemy," he said, and "heart failure is not a mystery."

Greater gains can be made in reducing the risk of heart failure through medical intervention and adapting a healthy lifestyle, including adequate blood pressure detection and treatment, control of obesity and early introduction of evidence-based therapy for those with any evidence of ventricular dysfunction, Yancy said.

Still, a better understanding of the most-consumed beverage in the world may contribute to heart health.

"We know the risk factors involved and we know how best to treat the disease," said Yancy. "If we keep things simple, perhaps we can make progress."

http://jezebel.com/5911049/that-coffee-youre-chugging-is-whats-keeping-you-alive-actually

That Coffee You’re Chugging Is What’s Keeping You Alive, Actually

We are so often told about the various substances that are slowly killing us or otherwise ruining our bodies, so to receive even a tiny piece of good news about coffee practically seems like a gift from God himself. Here you go: A new study has found that drinking coffee is linked with living longer. Rejoice! He might take away our donuts, our cocktails, our steaks, and our cigarettes, but at least He’s leaving us with our beloved wake-up juice. Be sure to savor the invigorating scent of the morning’s first cup of joe—because you know it’s the smell of being alive.

This study, which was done by the AARP and the National Institutes of Health, is the largest of its kind that’s ever been done. It analyzed data from 400,000 people, and the results clearly shows there’s a small benefit to drinking coffee. What’s not at all clear is why this is the case. In fact, as health obsessives may recall, previous studies have found that coffee can have negative effects—raising cholesterol and blood sugar and increasing the risk of heart attack, for instance. But the new study found, first of all, that many coffee drinker tended to smoke, drink alcohol, or engage in other behavior that might shorten one’s life. Once those factors were controlled for, they discovered that for every cup of coffee you consume in a day, your chances of living longer go up just a tiny bit.

As for how much your chances are raised, drinking just one cup per day reduces the risk of dying by 6 percent in men and 5 percent in women. The men who drank two or three cups a day were 10 percent less likely to die, and the women were 13 percent less likely. But really pushing it to the limit brought the biggest reward. For women who drank four or five cups a day, there was a 16 percent lower chance of passing away. Waitress, can I get a refill over here?

This study, sadly, can only prove that there’s an association between guzzling java and living to a ripe old age, not that coffee is the definitive cause of living longer. As for how coffee might be extending our lives, it’s difficult to say. The study did find that coffee drinkers died less often from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. They also were less likely to be killed by injuries, accidents, or infections. However, their risk of dying from cancer was the same as non-coffee drinkers. Previous research showed that coffee was linked with lower levels of inflammation and insulin resistance, so that might explain the lower rates of heart disease and diabetes. However, you’d think jacking yourself up on coffee might make you more likely to die from accidents—if you were all jittery and whatnot. Yet it doesn’t.

There are a gazillion things in coffee that might be the answer for its connection to increased longevity, but one thing they know for sure isn’t responsible is caffeine. About two-thirds of people in the study drank regular coffee, and the rest took theirs decaf. They found it didn’t make a difference which one people were drinking, the effect was the same. That is a relief, because downing six cups of caffeinated coffee might be a bit too stimulating for some of us—even if it means living longer. This way we can have a few cups of regular to get our brains started and make life seem worth living (which is important if we’re going to be sticking around for a while). Then we can switch to decaf for the afternoon so that we might have some chance in hell of falling asleep at night, because an eternity spent tossing and turning from caffeine-induced insomnia is hardly it.

Study Finds Coffee Drinkers Live Longer [Time]

It looks like there’s also a caffeine tracker for Android, slightly different but same general premise.   – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.cafapppro&hl=en

http://betanews.com/2012/02/14/coffee-addicts-need-an-app-too-caffeine-zone-2/

I shocked a group of total strangers this weekend when I admitted that I drink something on the order of twenty-five cups of caffeinated beverages per day, with the poison of choice being black coffee with just a hint of sugar.

I explained that my consumption is always hitting peaks and valleys depending upon my scheduling obligations, and at the moment, I happened to be at one of the peaks. Some random event will occur that requires me to wake up extra early, and I’ll fuel tank the coffee like a camel at an oasis. Then to prevent headaches and crashes, I have to ramp up my consumption.

If there was some way for me to gauge the appropriate amount of caffeine to keep me awake, I’d be fine, I said.

Today, not two days after making that statement, Caffeine Zone 2 rolled across my desk, a mobile application that provides a real-time (non-medical) readout of the user’s current caffeine levels, and charts the ideal times to consume caffeine for maximum alertness when needed, and the times when it is maximally detrimental to sleep.

The app was developed by Dr. Frank Ritter and Dr. Kuo-Chuan Yeh in Penn State University’s Applied Cognitive Science Lab, and it lets users enter their caffeine doses so it may generate a line chart of predicted caffeine level for the next 24 hours.

It maps out the "cognitive active zone," which is basically uptime, and the "sleep zone," which is when caffeine levels drop to the point where users could fall asleep. All the values and zones are adjustable to user parameters.

Sort of like a workout training app for athletes, Caffeine Zone 2 keeps track of the user’s history of caffeine consumption so conditions can be re-applied on different occasions, and an overall assessment of the user can be made.

Caffeine Zone 2 is available in the iTunes App Store in a free ad-supported version and a paid version without ads.

This isn’t really news to most of us who already know that a cup of coffee helps keep us going.  In fact, it helps with the toughest part of the workout, which is getting out of bed in the first place.  But, we’re happy with yet another reason to enjoy another cup of our favorite beverage anyway. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/how-coffee-can-galvanize-your-workout/

How Coffee Can Galvanize Your Workout

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Can a cup of coffee motivate you to relish your trips to the gym this winter? That question is at the heart of a notable study of caffeine and exercise, one of several new experiments suggesting that, whatever your sport, caffeine may allow you to perform better and enjoy yourself more.

Scientists and many athletes have known for years, of course, that a cup of coffee before a workout jolts athletic performance, especially in endurance sports like distance running and cycling. Caffeine has been proven to increase the number of fatty acids circulating in the bloodstream, which enables people to run or pedal longer (since their muscles can absorb and burn that fat for fuel and save the body’s limited stores of carbohydrates until later in the workout). As a result, caffeine, which is legal under International Olympic Committee rules, is the most popular drug in sports. More than two-thirds of about 20,680 Olympic athletes studied for a recent report had caffeine in their urine, with use highest among triathletes, cyclists and rowers.

But whether and how caffeine affects other, less-aerobic activities, like weight training or playing a stop-and-go team sport like soccer or basketball, has been less clear.

So researchers at Coventry University in England recently recruited 13 fit young men and asked them to repeat a standard weight-training gym regimen on several occasions. An hour before one workout, the men consumed a sugar-free energy drink containing caffeine. An hour before another, they drank the same beverage, minus the caffeine. Then the men lifted, pressed and squatted, performing each exercise until they were exhausted.

Exhaustion arrived much later for those who’d had caffeine first. After swallowing the caffeinated beverage, the men completed significantly more repetitions of the exercises than after the placebo. They also reported feeling subjectively less tired during the entire bout and, in perhaps the most interesting finding, said that they were eager to repeat the whole workout again soon.

“Essentially, we found that with the caffeinated drink, the person felt more able to invest effort,” says Michael Duncan, a senior lecturer in sports science at the University of Exeter in England and lead author of the study. “They would put more work into the training session, and when the session was finished, in the presence of the caffeinated drink, they were more psychologically ready to go again.”

How caffeine influences the physiology and psychology of weight trainers isn’t fully understood, Dr. Duncan says. In contrast to endurance sports, an increase in fats in the blood wouldn’t provide much benefit in this kind of exercise.

Instead, Dr. Duncan says, he believes that caffeine “antagonizes adenosine,” a substance in muscles that builds up during exercise and blunts the force of contractions. The more adenosine in a muscle, the less force it generates. Caffeine reduces adenosine levels, “which then enables more forceful muscular contractions and delays fatigue,” Dr. Duncan says. “That’s the theory, anyway,” he adds.

Additional mechanisms may also be at work, other research suggests. For an experiment published last month in The Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers asked a group of volunteers who regularly play team sports to complete a grueling workout designed to simulate the physical exertion of a soccer or basketball game. Such sports commonly involve repeated bouts of intense sprinting, but little prolonged slower running. Most of the effort is anaerobic.

In the test, the volunteers performed about 16 percent better if they had ingested a caffeine capsule 70 minutes beforehand. They also, as it turned out, had far less potassium in the fluid between their muscles afterward. “We believe that potassium buildup is involved” in the kind of fatigue that occurs during anaerobic activities, like team sports and weight training, says one of the study’s authors, Magni Mohr, an exercise physiologist affiliated with both the University of Exeter and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

At the same time, caffeine, while affecting muscles, seems also to have a striking effect on the central nervous system and on those parts of the brain involved in mood, alertness and fine motor coordination during exercise. In a study published last month in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, soccer players dribbled, headed and kicked the ball more accurately if they’d had caffeine than if they hadn’t.

All of which would seem to indicate that a grande Americano is the ideal sports beverage. But, Dr. Mohr cautions, many questions remain. “We don’t know the best dose” of caffeine to provide performance benefits without undesirable side effects, he says, like heightened blood pressure or the jitters. In his study, volunteers consumed the equivalent of more than five large cups of brewed coffee before their workout.

Similarly, it’s not known whether people who swill cappuccinos and green tea all day get the same benefits from dosing themselves just before a workout as people who only occasionally drink caffeine, or whether the hour before a workout is the ideal moment to imbibe. Dr. Mohr suspects “it’s likely that you get more effect” if you’re not habituated to the drug, but he and others are currently studying those and similar issues and expect results soon.

In the meantime, “probably everyone can get some” fatigue-delaying and mood-enhancing benefits from caffeine, Dr. Mohr says — meaning that your gym gear should probably include a travel mug.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20093112-247/worried-about-skin-cancer-try-coffee/

Worried about skin cancer? Try coffee

By: Elizabeth Armstrong Moore AUGUST 16, 2011 1:40 PM PDT

• Full disclosure: I just finished a cup of black coffee, and it was damn fine. (And yes, I make Twin Peaks references wherever possible.)

So it is with vigorous jumping up-and-down motions, aided surely by the caffeine, that I write about a University of Toronto team’s findings that caffeine can help lower one’s chances of UV-associated skin cancer by inhibiting a DNA repair pathway, essentially helping cells die after exposure to sunlight.

Like sex on the beach? New research suggests trying coffee on the beach instead.

The team reports on this "protective effect of caffeinated beverage intake" in the August 15 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Studies have already shown a reduced risk of skin cancer in those who drink caffeinated beverages. In 2007, for instance, almost 94,000 women participated in a study that found that those who drank caffeinated coffee daily had a 10 percent lower risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer, while those who drank six or more cups daily had an almost 40 percent reduction in risk.

Studies in mice have found the same link, using either ingested or topically applied caffeine, prompting researchers to wonder if adding caffeine to sun block might help improve the efficacy of that topical treatment.

In this study, the team was able to uncover the mechanism by which caffeine helps lower one’s risk of skin cancer. The caffeine molecule itself is already known to behave as a natural sunscreen, but the stimulant also has an effect on DNA.

Caffeine, it turns out, inhibits the activity of a protein kinase–think of this as a family of enzymes–called ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (more commonly referred to as ATR for obvious reasons). ATR is sensitive to incomplete DNA replication, so when it senses damaged DNA, it sends signals to the damaged cells to stop dividing. This interruption of normal cellular mitosis helps these damaged cells become cancerous.

By inhibiting this ATR activity, caffeine essentially helps cells die from the damage caused by UV exposure. Sounds bad, but as it turns out this preemptive measure is far better than letting those damaged cells become cancerous.

While this particular study was performed on mice, and while the researchers have yet to actually test topical application of caffeine, it is a major step forward in understanding precisely how caffeine is reducing skin cancer rates in mice and humans.

And as biophysicist Douglas Brash of Yale University’s School of Medicine tells The Scientist, understanding the mechanism opens the door for developing other treatments that don’t even need to use caffeine: "Caffeine was an interesting historical way of discovering this mechanism, but now that we know the mechanism…maybe we hunt for some other drug that’s more specific."

Researchers are already testing drugs that target the ATR pathway to treat solid cancers; skin cancer could now be added to the list.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20093112-247/worried-about-skin-cancer-try-coffee/#ixzz1VETTc12M

Great video relating coffee to life.  Drink up!

http://www.flickspire.com/m/IAAW/LifeIsLikeCoffee