A Great and Enduring Mystery Solved

a reply to: Phage
Thank you so much.
The search is finally over.
Now I know why the world is like it is:
Because the biggest nut jobs always rise to the top!

Perhaps the bigger question is "Why do I always pick out all the cashews and eat them.... knowing that everyone's going to be mad at me?"

originally posted by: Fowlerstoad
a reply to: FamCore

Hey now FC

Brazil nuts have about one daily allowance of selenium each, and as such, are a great immune system booster!

Didn't do much to help the nuts.

Next up: buttered toast.

originally posted by: schuyler
Just get a can of cashews. That way you don't have these horrible choices to make.

Exactly..cut to the chase!

originally posted by: Fowlerstoad
a reply to: FamCore

Hey now FC

Brazil nuts have about one daily allowance of selenium each, and as such, are a great immune system booster!

Good to know..I guess still not really liking them, but good to add one more "good for you" item to my list of things I tragically don't like

originally posted by: MissSmartypants
Perhaps the bigger question is "Why do I always pick out all the cashews and eat them.... knowing that everyone's going to be mad at me?"

Schuyler has this..we just buy cashews! I think it's a solid plan!! no nut mingling..so to speak

a reply to: Phage

Too bad those study resources weren't put to better use.
Studies to better help the homeless, feeding the poor or to even improve the lives of animals would be something to consider.

Reminds me of the useless glut of tax-funded studies here in the U.S.
And even if the Brazil nut "mystery" was funded privately, it couldn't be further down the list of valuable studies.

originally posted by: Destal
a reply to: Phage

Too bad those study resources weren't put to better use.
Studies to better help the homeless, feeding the poor or to even improve the lives of animals would be something to consider.

Reminds me of the useless glut of tax-funded studies here in the U.S.
And even if the Brazil nut "mystery" was funded privately, it couldn't be further down the list of valuable studies.

If all you read is the headline, then I can see why you might say that as if a can of mixed nuts was the only thing affected by this research. But if you read the article which says this, that's a pretty narrow minded point of view:

Why are brazil nuts always at the top of the can?

“Our study highlights the important role of particle shape and orientation in segregation. Further, this ability to track the motion in 3D will pave the way for new experimental studies of segregating mixtures and will open the door to even more realistic simulations and powerful predictive models. This will allow us to better design industrial equipment to minimise size segregation thus leading to more uniform mixtures. This is critical to many industries, for instance ensuring an even distribution of active ingredients in medicinal tablets, but also in food processing, mining and construction.”

I have experience with particle segregation problems in industry, and the better we can understand how the segregation works, the better we can mitigate it. There are many industrial machines that carefully meter out different mixtures of different particles to get a precise blend, but then the blended mixture can tend to segregate due to vibration from the machines etc. The problem is not as simple as some comments in this thread seem to suggest, and in some respects the segregation effects can be counter-intuitive.

The broader problem is called granular convection which goes far beyond Brazil nuts. I'm not as familiar with the earthquake aspects as I am with the industrial applications, but granular convection is also related to understanding things like soil liquefaction which can happen during earthquakes.