This has been a tremendous year for cocktail technique books, with The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler out in the middle of the year and the Death & Co. book recently released. 

I haven't yet seen too much chatter about another book that will likely have a massive impact on cocktails around the world: Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail by Dave Arnold.

The book is due out November 10th.

Dave Arnold was a teacher/writer for the French Culinary Institute and is the guy behind the cocktail program at Booker & Dax in New York. He was the person responsible for bringing flash infusions to the cocktail world, has progressed juice clarification techniques to new levels, and is the person responsible for many sales of centrifuges to bartenders- all from the website he only occasionally wrote for, CookingIssues.com.

Now Arnold has put together those techniques and many others into a book. Many of the techniques will be familiar to those who have followed his work for years, such as the science of chilling/dilution in shaking vs. stirring; how many people prefer slightly aged citrus juice in cocktails; and nitro muddling.

There are sections on making clear ice (but you read all those methods here first), vacuum infusion, hot pokers, and fat-washing.

Big sections of the book center on chilling/dilution/temperature, bulk production/bottled cocktails, carbonation, and clarification. These techniques are explained and options are given for super high-tech and more easily doable versions. I expect to see these techniques used in global bartending contests for years to come. 

What's great about the book is that Arnold covers both the theoretical (why things are happening), and the practical (how to make them work best). So for people who aren't bartenders but are drink geeks, there is plenty of high-level nerditry to enjoy as well. And for people looking for an excuse to buy a vacuum sealer/centrifuge/rotovap, this will give the perfect excuse to commit. I know I did. 

The book is written in Arnold's distinct voice, with sections titled things like "Interesting Cocktail Physics that you can Ignore if you Don't Care" and other jokes throughout. The levity is important as there are very deep topics like a 17-page section on the Gin & Tonic, which doesn't include the sections from other chapters on lime juice clarification or the hand-built carbonation rig needed to make the "perfect" version. 

I don't often review books here on Alcademics as I can barely keep up with reading them all, but this was one I was really looking forward to and to a geek like me it didn't disappoint. 

Buy it here on Amazon.

The announcement of David Lynch returning to Twin Peaks inspired a lot of wild speculation, but in me it inspired a single emotion: terror. This is not because I fear for its quality, although I do wonder how the fractured, aggressively ugly aesthetic Lynch has explored in his most recent works will translate to prestige TV. No, I responded with fear because of something much more specific: my long-simmering suspicion that I, like Leland Palmer, am possessed by an immortal demon named Killer Bob.

Bob, for the uninitiated, is the name of the grand malevolent force that carried the plot of Twin Peaks. He was an ancient demon from another dimension that possessed Laura Palmer’s father, leading him to murder her, along with a couple of other young women. How and when these plotlines were executed and ultimately resolved has been fodder for a quarter-century of debates, and, likely ...

There's an oil ring the size of Rhode Island at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and researchers say it belongs to oil company BP. According to a study published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, about 10 million gallons of coagulated oil now coats the sea floor, following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that resulted in 172 million gallons of oil being spilled into the Gulf in 2010. The rest of the oil, however, is still largely unaccounted for.

10 million gallons of coagulated oil coats the sea floor

"Based on the evidence, our findings suggest that these deposits are from Macondo oil that was first suspended in the deep ocean, then settled to the sea floor without ever reaching the ocean surface," David Valentine, one of the study's authors and a biogeochemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the National Science Foundation.

In the study, Valentine and his colleagues gathered 3,000 samples of water from 534 locations in the Gulf of Mexico. This helped them locate the half inch-thick oil ring, and determine that the oil levels inside the ring are as much as 10,000 times higher than those found outside the ring, reports the Associated Press.

BP doesn't agree with the findings, however. The company told the Associated Press that the researchers were unable to determine the source of the oil — an aspect of the study that lead "them to grossly overstate the amount of residual Macondo oil on the sea floor and the geographic area in which it is found."

In response, Valentine explained that determining the oil ring's source with a chemical analysis is impossible, but that the characteristics of the ring, including its depth and its distance from the well, is enough to link it directly to BP. Unfortunately, the study wasn't designed to look at the environmental impact of the oil ring, so it's still unclear just how much damage it may have caused so far, or how much it continues to cause today.

OPEN SESAME

iFixit

There’s new Apple hardware out, and the people at iFixit are once again doing what they do best: disassembling the living crap out of it and posting pictures. This time, they’ve carefully torn down a new Retina iMac into its component pieces, and the images are illuminating.

The Retina iMac’s construction is essentially identical to the previous non-Retina iMac. There are no screws here: the thin aluminum body is glued to the display with a long strip of custom-cut adhesive. Prying that away gives you access to the machine’s internals, but then you’re left with the conundrum of how to get the machine back together when you’re done—the factory adhesive strip isn’t very reusable once it’s been removed.

Once inside, there are plenty of user-replaceable parts—the iMac’s CPU isn’t soldered and can be swapped out if desired, as can the hard disk drive, PCIe SSD, and RAM (the RAM is actually designed to be replaced through a small external port, so you don’t have to tear the computer apart to add more memory). The Radeon R9-class GPU is attached directly to the logic board, so upgrading that after the fact is out of the question.

Comcast last week applied for a trademark on the phrase "True Gig" to describe extremely fast Internet service.

The trademark application filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (and reported yesterday by The Donohue Report) says that True Gig describes "Internet service provider services; providing high speed access to the Internet, mobile networks, and other electronic communications networks; wireless broadband communication services; provision of telecommunication access to video and audio content via cable, fiber optics, the Internet, mobile networks, and other electronic communications networks."

Comcast is also using True Gig to describe online video streaming, specifically "provision of non-downloadable films, movies, and television programs via an online video-on-demand service; providing entertainment information via television, cable, telephone, wireless broadband, fiber broadband, and via the Internet."

Study: Bike Deaths Up 16 Percent In Just Two Years

A "Ghost Bike", which are used to signify a fatality involving a bicycle, is viewed along a busy street on May 30 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

More bicyclists are dying in collisions with cars. And a lot of those bikers are male, drunk and not wearing a helmet.

Those are the findings of a report released today by the Governors Highway Safety Association. The study tracked bike deaths between 2010 and 2012. (2012 is the last year the data is available right now.) There are a few key findings:

- The number of bicyclists killed in motor vehicle crashes between 2010 and 2012 was up 16 percent, from 621 deaths to 722.

- Adult males are almost 3/4 of those bicyclists killed. (The study's author says he does not know what percentage of the total bicyclist population is adult male.)

- Children used to be most likely to die in bicyclist fatalities. Now adults are.

- More than 2/3 of bicyclists fatally injured in 2012 weren't wearing helmets.

- And more than 1/4 of adult bicyclists who were killed in 2012 were alcohol impaired. The study says, "Lack of helmet use and alcohol impairment have been and continue to be major contributing factors in bicyclist deaths."

NPR spoke with Dr. Allan Williams, who authored the study for the Governors Highway Safety Association. Williams says this uptick in bike deaths stands out.

"[Car deaths] were stable during that period," he said. "So this is a bit of an anomaly." Williams did point out that bike deaths are still a very small number, only 2 percent of total motor-vehicle-involved deaths, according to his research.

Williams says the main reason for the increase is that more people are biking. But he said there's no hard data yet on whether things like the rise in popularity of bike-sharing services have contributed to more deaths.

Williams offers advice for bikers and drivers. For bikers, he says, follow traffic laws, wear a helmet and be conspicuous to motorists. And for drivers, Williams says, be courteous to bicyclists and "give 'em some space." He also thinks that municipalities can make biking safer for everyone by making more roads that physically separate bikes from cars, lighting roads better, and designing them in a way that makes bikers more visible.

And of course, one of the biggest takeaways from the study is that, just as you shouldn't drink and drive, you should avoid drinking and biking. "The alcohol always surprises me a little bit, even though I know it's there," says Williams. "Who are these people? You don't think people are going to be biking after they've drunk a considerable amount of alcohol. These are people who are at .08 [blood alcohol level]. That's a considerable amount of drinks."

Rob Rhinehart, the masochist behind homogenous food paste Soylent, is a quotable character. That's not much of a surprise; the man replaced a majority of his food intake with a brown liquid, after all.

Now that he's hacked food, he's turned his attention to "hacking water." Billions of people globally live without reliable access to clean water; the American West is in the throes of a historically devastating draught, too, which makes it a more directly relatable problem for Silicon Valley types with money and a penchant for disrupting things.

Rhinehart took on the 4 Liter Challenge issued by clean water nonprofit Digdeep, which just asks people to try to keep their water usage under four liters per day. And Rhinehart, being Rhinehart, took it to the extreme.

He decided to stop pooping, for instance.

Let's take a look at some of the most ridiculous quotes from his blog post:

7. "To avoid [foods that require a lot of water to produce] I consumed nothing but Soylent throughout the challenge."

Of course you did. I would expect no less from the creator of Soylent.

6. "If there's anything as amazing as water it's petroleum."

Tesla might disagree.

5. "I massacred my gut bacteria the day before by consuming a DIY Soylent version with no fiber and taking 500mg of Rifaximin, an antibiotic with poor bioavailability, meaning it stays in your gut and kills bacteria."

What kind of street dealer do you need to see to get your Rifaximin fix?

4. "Throughout the challenge I did not defecate."

Presented without comment.

3. "Nitrosomonas eutropha taking over my skin now metabolizes ammonia into odorless nitrite and nitric oxide. Success!"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. "I found a Nomex flight suit on Alibaba and added a 'Soylent' patch."

Now we know why Alibaba's worth nearly a quarter trillion dollars: Nomex flight suits.

1. "This means we could manufacture water out of sunlight, CO2 and flatulence. What if we scaled this up?"

What if?

The Apple SIM — a programmable SIM card that lets you choose carriers after you purchase an iPad — was hailed by many as the beginning of the end for the SIM card. But some US carriers are throwing a wrench into the new system, and none other than outspoken T-Mobile CEO John Legere has taken to a lengthy "tweetstorm" to try and clarify the matter.

The first and second largest carriers in the US, Verizon and AT&T, aren't playing ball with the Apple SIM. Verizon has opted to exclude itself from the system entirely, while customers who select AT&T as their carrier of choice will have to buy another SIM card if they wish to switch carriers again.

That's not the only way the Apple SIM isn't working as planned: there's also a bit of confusion when buying an iPad from a carrier store. As Legere explains, those iPads, depending on which carrier you shop at, will either have that carrier's SIM already installed, or it will have an Apple SIM pre-programmed to that carrier.

In all, it's certainly not quite the future promised by the Apple SIM, but the concept is still in its infancy — hopefully carriers will get on board sooner rather than later.

"There are very good, solid, scientific reasons for being really quite frightened just now."

For this season of Doctor Who, Ross Miller and Kwame Opam will be sounding off on each episode in a series of emails we'll be publishing on the site. This week it's "In the Forest of the Night" (warning: spoilers ahead). Check out our previous recaps: "Deep Breath," "Into the Dalek," "Robots of Sherwood," "Time Heist," "The Caretaker," "Kill the Moon," "Mummy on the Orient Express," and "Flatline."

Ross: I'd love to know who got to watch an entire forest pop up out of nowhere — if not in London overnight then maybe the United States in the middle of the afternoon. But sure enough, that's what happened in this episode, and no one is sure why except maybe for a girl who's been taking medication to get rid of the voices in her head.

That's the episode in a nutshell, and it's a fun idea. The Doctor doesn't know what's going on because the sonic screwdriver can't read wood. Are the trees getting ready to take over the world... or is something less sinister and cynical? In the end, it's a "shield" (c.f. the scene where flamethrowers prove futile) and the best course of action is nothing at all — just let nature run its course and be happy humanity gets to be saved in the process.

I'm gonna limit my nitpicks to two broad points. Narratively, there's a lot of fluff in this episode, from a recurring concern about nut allergies to a mother that is presented as if she knows more about what's going on (but is really just a concerned mother... probably like everyone else's parents that we didn't see) and the dead sister that either gives the little girl psychic powers or... I don't know what, that was very bizarre. That's nitpick one.

Two, there's too much false drama here. Is the Doctor really going to abandon earth? Is Clara and the human race really going to die, negating all future inalterable "fixed points in time" that necessitate the human race live on? The reason I nitpick is because we had a pretty strong concept that's been weighted down by all this excess, as if no one was confident enough to let the plot stand on its own.

As much as I wished for Danny to be a future companion, it seems clear that's not where this is heading. I admire the steadfast characterization and the need to provide Clara a foil, but I have a hard time personally believing Danny (and in fact all those schoolchildren) have virtually no interest in traveling through time and space. He was a soldier who's seen the worst of humanity, and that's soured him from exploring the universe?

Random thought: if trees can recreate themselves en masse, why does anyone care about deforestation in this reality? Is it now just a concern of not pissing off the Lorax? Is M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening a documentary?!

Kwame: I liked this episode enough, though as you mention there are some weird problems. That's probably this season's cardinal sin, trying to tell big stories that feel a little all over the place. What's most important, though, is that this was a companion to "Kill the Moon." We have a similarly bizarre problem that seemingly threatens Earth's future in all possible timelines. We have a similar resolution, wherein the best course of action is to do nothing, despite humanity's resolution to basically kill it with fire Hank Scorpio-style.

The big differences here are 1) the plot is Earthbound, making the stakes feel that much more intimate, and 2) Clara's decision to absolve the Doctor of his protector status by saying it's ok for him to save himself. On its face, I thought the moment made a lot of sense for Clara's character and her arc, especially since this season is so clearly a character study of our two leads. After stepping so confidently into the Doctor's shoes last week, she outright rejects his way of life by saying she doesn't want to be the last of her kind. She's willing to accept humanity's fate, however cruel it is. She's her own person. I can respect that. That moment was only accentuated by the Doctor parroting her words: "I walk your Earth. I breathe your air." By asserting herself, she (knowingly or not) puts the Doctor in full on Doctor mode. She's doing what she's done so well all season, which is to make the Doctor do some heroic good. Or at least want to, since it didn't matter in the end.

And then I just thought to myself, Jesus, Clara, way to just give up there. For someone who brings out the good in the Doctor, that's kind of a crappy tack to take. I wanted her to figure it out. I wanted her to come humanity's defense, as opposed to the Doctor lamenting our abuse of our planet's trees (which really came across as ham-fisted and message-y). I wanted her to get it right in a way she failed to do in "Kill the Moon."

With that in mind, it's amazing how much energy the episode expended on painting her in a pretty poor light, especially compared to our white knight Danny Pink. She's kind of a neglectful, unsupportive teacher, whereas he's diligent in his duties to his kids. She lies a lot, especially to those she cares about. Danny may be a little hapless, but he'll at least be there for you with a flashlight and a well-timed front-flip when you need him, and you can count on him to be straight with you. At the end of the day, both the Doctor and Clara are dark characters, even if Clara is a little bit more human. All this makes me wonder what Big Bad Missy has in store for her, because it can't be good.

Two more things. First, yeah I have no idea about Maebh and her sister. I'm not sure if she died, but that last scene made no sense to me. Which feels like a shame, since we're made to want a lot from the character and the narrative never really lets her deliver. Second, in an episode with so many random kids, where the hell was Courtney?

Ross: Courtney has transferred schools to get away from all ththe monster madness of this one.

I don't really have much else to say. So let's talk about next week: Clara the Impossible Girl — the girl we first met far into the future as a failed Dalek conversion — is once again apparently impossible (in that she never existed or is fake or is acting or is a moon egg monster baby hatchling or...?).

I'm excited for the two parter. Finally! Answers! Well, I'm hopeful at least. I have a lot to say about Doctor Who finales but I'll save that for next time.

Kwame: Yes! I kind of figured there would be more to the multiple histories of Clara, but who knows? Anytime things can supremely timey-wimey, I get a little worried. Did last season's events change her more than anticipated? We'll just have to wait and see.

abc7.com

A Los Angeles International Airport flight bound for London was cancelled Sunday when a passenger's phone picked up the Wi-Fi signal "al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork" (sic) that was emanating from a fellow flier's hotspot minutes before the United Airlines flight was set to liftoff.

After a concerned passenger notified a flight attendant of the network at about 9:30pm, the plane taxied to a remote section of the Los Angeles airport and was held there for three hours. The plane was searched as passengers of Flight 136 were ordered to power off electronic devices, local media said.

"After an hour, (the captain) said there was a security threat and that we didn't have clearance to take off," passenger Elliot Del Pra told ABC7.com. The person responsible for the hotspot was not discovered, LaWeekly said.