Free Republic

This is what Obama thinks of the military. This is what he thinks of children. This is what he thinks of us. As J.E. Dyer reports, Obama will be naming a Naval vessel after Harvey Milk... The U.S. Naval Institute reports that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will be naming a Military Sealift Command support ship after slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, a 1970s crusader for gay issues. The ship class is the John Lewis class “fleet oiler,” and USNS Harvey Milk will be T-AO-206, the second unit of the class. In company with Milk and John...

The United States Navy will be naming one of their ships after gay rights icon and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, according to a report by the U.S. Naval Institute, which cites a Congressional notice obtained by USNI News. The July 14 notice, which was signed by Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, indicates that he plans to name a planned Military Sealift Command fleet oiler, USNS Harvey Milk, according to USNI. The ship is reportedly being built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, California. A Department of the Navy spokesman did not have a comment on the report....

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A rapid heating and cooling of milk significantly reduces the amount of harmful bacteria present, extending by several weeks the shelf life of one of the most common refrigerator staples in the world, according to a Purdue University study. Bruce Applegate, Purdue associate professor in the Department of Food Science, and collaborators from Purdue and the University of Tennessee published their findings in the journal SpringerPlus, where they show that increasing the temperature of milk by 10 degrees for less than a second eliminates more than 99 percent of the bacteria left behind after pasteurization. “It’s...

Northeast dairy farmers who have been strapped for months by low milk prices say a voluntary insurance program that was supposed to be a safety net isn’t helping. The margin protection program provides financial assistance to enrolled farmers when the gap between the price of milk and national average feed costs falls below the coverage levels picked by individual farmers. […] Farmers say the margin protection program is not based on Northeast farmers’ feed costs but on the national average feed cost, which is less. The chairman of the National Milk Producers Federation testified in Washington last month that the...

For years you've been telling your friends, family, co-workers and anyone who will listen that you're addicted to cheese. It's a part of every meal or snack, and you think about it constantly. According to a new study from the University of Michigan, cheese crack is a real thing. And so is your addiction. The study, published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, examines why certain foods are more addictive than others. Researchers identified addictive foods from about 500 students who completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale, designed to measure if someone has a food addiction. Pizza, unsurprisingly, came...

If you look up "whole milk" in the government's official Dietary Guidelines, it states pretty definitively that people should only drink skim or 1% milk. "If you currently drink whole milk," it says, "gradually switch to lower fat versions." This is the same advice the government has been issuing for many years. And it's wrong

Robots have taken up residence at some small- and medium-sized dairy farms across the country, providing reliable and more efficient labor and helping the businesses remain viable. Plus, farmers say, the milking technology makes for happier, more productive cows. Dairy operations here and abroad have used robotic milkers for more than a decade. But with more manufacturers and dealerships emerging the U.S., the number of smaller farms in Iowa with the technology has doubled over the last two years, from roughly 20 to more than 40, and family farms in the Northeast also are plugging in. The cost of not...

The trendy nutritional advice that's more likely to make you ill than healthy The supermarket aisle has become a confusing place. It used to be full of recognisable items like cheese and butter; now you find yourself bamboozled by all manner of odd alternatives such as ‘raw’ hummus, wheat-free bread and murky juices. You have to stay pretty alert to make sure you pick up a pint of proper milk, rather than a soy-based alternative or one free from lactose. Supermarkets have become shrines to ‘clean eating’, a faith that promises happiness, healthiness and energy. Food is to be worshipped...

Talk about crying over spilled milk. Authorities said an overturned tractor trailer spilled up to 6,000 gallons of milk onto a highway in Mt. Airy, Md., causing hours of delays on Wednesday morning. The incident happened about 6 a.m. on the eastbound side of Interstate 70. Milk spilled and at one point blocked all four lanes on the eastbound side. As of mid-morning, some of the lanes were getting by but traffic was reported to be heavy in the area. No one suffered major injuries.

Recently, scientists from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have jointly demonstrated cream separation from natural whole milk at liter-scales for the first time using ultrasonic standing waves—a novel, fast and nondestructive separation technique typically used only in small-scale settings. At the 169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), being held May 18-22 2015 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the researchers will report the key design and effective operating parameters for milk fat separation in batch and continuous systems. The project, co-funded by the Geoffrey-Gardiner Dairy Foundation and the Australian Research...

A Santa Cruz man filed a civil lawsuit against a raw milk company after the man drank tainted raw milk that left him in the hospital with severe stomach issues.

Would you like some Campylobacter or E. Coli today? Raw milk in 26 U.S. states is now the best place to get it, since most readers of Science 2.0 are not going to have the opportunity to buy chicken from a street vendor in China. That raw milk is risky and has no benefit is not news. In 2012 the CDC showed it again but clamoring for raw milk got even louder. It is in the news again, as part of the naturalistic fallacy that infects mostly the anti-science hippie left and a minority of people on the libertarian 'government...

Ninety percent of the fats found in Neolithic cooking pots from Ireland came from dairy products, according to a new study conducted at the University of Bristol. "We know from previous research that dairying was an important part of many early farming economies, but what was a big surprise was the prevalence of dairy residues in Irish pots. It looks to have been a very important food source," said Jessica Smyth of the School of Chemistry. The remaining ten percent of the residues came from beef or mutton fat, or a mixture of milk and meat. "People can obviously cook...

Milk is often touted as an elixir for bone strength, but new research suggests that those superpowers may be true only to a certain extent. A study published in the Oct. 28 issue of The British Medical Journal suggests that consuming three glasses of milk per day may double women’s risk of dying in 20 years, compared to drinking less than one glass daily, Medical News Today reported. Researchers in Sweden found that the sugar D-galactose—which comprises half of lactose—increases oxidative stress and inflammation of the body. Experimental evidence in various animal species shows that chronic exposure to galactose can...

Next time you pour a nice cold glass of milk, you could have a robot to thank. That's because automated milking machines are showing up at more and more dairy farms in Vermont and New Hampshire. The technology is cutting down on labor costs, increasing yield and teaching farmers more about the health and productivity of their herds. Just ask Nate Tullar, of Orford, New Hampshire. Cows have been giving milk at his family’s farm, Tullando, since 1956. That’s when his grandparents started the dairy business, and they have often been open to innovation over the years. There are now...

If cow’s milk is the Gen X of dairy, and soy milk the Gen Y, then camel milk may very well be Gen Z. As of this January, U.S. shoppers can buy the country’s first retail camel milk at market. The brand, Desert Farms, is now sold in Whole Foods Market stores in California, as well as through the company’s website. One of the first things shoppers might notice about camel milk is the price. At approximately $18/pint, camel milk is far from cheap. But, according to founder Walid Abdul-Wahab, camel milk’s benefits may be well worth the cost—especially to...

To some, banning chocolate milk from elementary schools seemed like a good idea, but new Cornell University research shows that removing chocolate milk from school menus has negative consequences. “When schools ban chocolate milk, we found it usually backfires. On average, milk sales drop by 10 percent, 29 percent of white milk gets thrown out, and participation in the school lunch program may also decrease,” reports Andrew Hanks, lead author and research associate Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. “This is probably not what parents wanted to see.” The Cornell study, which included professors David Just and Brian...

Move over, organic milk. Health-conscious consumers are increasingly choosing a new bovine beverage: Grass-fed milk. Derived from cows fed mostly grass—not corn or soy—the pricey beverage is capturing a growing market share among consumers, The Wall Street Journal reports. […] Branded “Grassmilk,” it has cream on top and is lightly pasteurized with heat. A half-gallon sells for close to $6, more than a dollar more than the average price of organic milk and more than double the price of traditional milk. …

A young Saudi has established a company selling camel's milk in the United States, despite the animals reportedly being the source of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus. According to a report in a Los Angeles newspaper, Walid Abdulwahab, 23, set up the company as part of his class project at the University of Southern California. The lighthearted slogan of his company, Desert Farms, is "Make every day a humpday." Supplied by seven small camel farms, most of them owned by Amish, the Santa Monica-based company recently sold camel milk of $100,000, as it spreads its claims of nutritional...

These days you can order your coffee with anything from cow's milk to almond milk, but even in an experimental town like San Francisco, a camel's milk latte has yet to sound like anything but a joke. Southern California-based company Desert Farms is looking to change that. With its tongue-in-cheek slogan, "make every day a hump day," and its packaging emphasizing the health benefits of its product, the company is trying to turn camel's milk into the next big thing in dairy. Camel's milk isn't anything new to the Bedouins of the Middle East and Northern Africa, of course, who...